The following text is published as a foreword in the book Home of the Mentally Defective Trate issued by the Museum of Madness in 2024. Since the book is so far available only in Slovenian, we invite the non-Slovenian speaking readers to read the foreword, which was originally written in English.
The "Museum of Madness" in Slovenia is a non-governmental organization based in a medieval Castle that is protected as a historic monument. It is located in the village of Trate, in north-east Slovenia, in a rural area on the Slovenian-Austrian border. It is a pilot example of the application of the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society known as the Faro convention.
Slovenia ratified the Faro Convention in September 2008. The Faro Convention recognizes that “rights relating to cultural heritage are inherent in the right to participate in cultural life, as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. The Faro Convention recognizes “the role of cultural heritage in the construction of a peaceful and democratic society, and in the processes of sustainable development and the promotion of cultural diversity”.
Until now, no Slovenian initiative is a member of the Faro Convention Network which collaborates with the Council of Europe on the application and interpretation of the Faro Convention.
The Council of Europe has organized an evaluation visit on June 2023 to understand the context and to assess the initiative carried out by the NGO in relation to the Faro Convention principles. The conclusion of the assessment visit is that the NGO has been applying the principles of the Faro Convention in Slovenia for a long time in an exemplary manner.
Since 2013, the local residents have got together to bring the Castle back to life. They have created an NGO "Museum of Madness" with an aim to use the Castle's heritage to explore the way in which the institutions treat people with mental health problems. The residents have invested thousands of volunteer service hours to bring the monument back to life, they have found potential investors and they have created full-time jobs through their involvement in international projects.
They conceived the site as a 'living museum', a meeting place for the local community, for people who used to live in this psychiatric institution in the village and elsewhere in Slovenia, and for the general public and tourists.
In terms of the heritage process, the NGO encourages the collection and sharing of stories about a dissonant heritage whose issues go far beyond the local and national frameworks. The villagers, whose families often worked in the asylum, have many personal memories and stories associated both to the Castle and the psychiatric institution. The members of the NGO have been collecting, documenting and sharing these stories since 2013.
The Castle has become a site of memory accessible to the general public about the life and work in the asylum and more generally about the relationship between institutions and society with the people with mental health problems. The NGO collaborates on these subjects with renowned experts from various disciplines.
The Castle seems like a «curiosities cabinet», mixing exhibition rooms on the stories of the Castle, the psychiatric hospital, the river fishes, the punk movement, the Roman era, the Renaissance painting, the World War II, the discrimination against women, … all stories are associated with the castle and its surrounding.
The process is original in several respects in terms of the value of cultural heritage for society: the action is carried out by a cross-border team in a rural area, on the initiative of civil society, and it provides a place where people learn about and discuss their rights and the European values of heritage as a resource for society.
Beyond the NGO, the local 'heritage community’ attributes special value to the Cmurek Castle, still owned by the Republic of Slovenia, which they wish, within the framework of public action, to preserve and pass down to future generations. They want it to be better protected while remaining accessible and maintained so that it can serve as an infrastructure for civil society and promote human rights, job creation, social inclusion and green tourism in rural areas.
The initiative is in line with the principles of the Faro Convention and contributes with its experience and feed into the work of the Faro European Convention Network. It could become an exemplary pilot project for the implementation of the Faro Convention in Slovenia.
Prosper Wanner. Sociologist, member of the residents’ cooperative Hôtel du Nord in Marseilles (France) and of the European Faro Convention Network.
