"Exhibiting encounters - a cooperation project between the museums in Aš and Mylau"

At the beginning of the new millennium, Europe is increasingly perceived as an economic and political union with a high level of bureaucratisation and susceptibility to crises, rather than as a cultural area that transcends borders. The borders that exist today within the European Union are the result of a shared history and have been arbitrarily changed time and again.

Against this backdrop, growing together and working together across current national borders deserves special attention and offers the opportunity to find a European identity directly on the ground.

The Reformation plays an extraordinary role as a historical event with an impact on the whole of Europe and, in subsequent centuries, beyond. From the beginning of reformatory efforts within the Catholic Church, to the formation of the two great creeds and the confessionalisation of all areas of society and the consolidation of these as a result of the Thirty Years' War, the Reformation transcended borders and formed an identity beyond all statehood.

As part of a project funded by the European Union, the two museums in Asch (Czech Republic) and Mylau (Germany) have set themselves the task of making these common roots under today's German-Czech border visible and tangible, also with regard to the Reformation and its impact to this day.

For both institutions, three main project contents are to be implemented: the creation of structural conditions, the professionalisation of their own museum work, the presentation of the results in the form of permanent and temporary exhibitions and specific public relations work. All three pillars of the project are planned to be sustainable and serve to perpetuate the knowledge of similarities and differences and communication between the citizens of two European countries, but also between the different generations.

Due to their specific history, embedded in the regional development since the middle of the 19th century, special attention must be paid to the professionalisation of basic museum work - collecting, preserving, researching and presenting - in both museum institutions. This project area is indispensable for the high-profile success of the EU project. Only well-prepared, well-researched museum material will be able to form the basis for content-rich, communication-intensive permanent and temporary exhibitions in both museums. Another necessary preliminary work in both institutions is the creation of the structural framework for the new exhibition areas.

Only the "tip of the iceberg", but the most publicly effective area of the project is the area of permanent and temporary exhibitions and public relations. The permanent exhibition at the Mylau Museum is being redesigned and realised as part of the project. In this context, it will also be possible for the first time in this museum to respond to relevant topics of public interest at short notice within the framework of temporary exhibitions. A new exhibition section will also be created for the Asch Museum in a historical building in the town, in which parts of the extensive collection currently in storage will be presented. Intensified co-operation between the two museums should generate support and synergy effects.

In addition to the rather static exhibitions, an important part of the public relations work is the coming together of the most diverse groups of people within the two countries, but above all across borders and generations. Particular attention is paid to contact and exchange between school groups from both cities and regions. The link between the Mylau Museum and the Futurum School in the same town already provides a good, expandable basis for this.

We will inform you shortly about the realisation of the individual project phases in the project development section.