Casa Museo José Carlos Mariátegui

Casa Museo José Carlos Mariátegui

One of the functions of the General Directorate of Museums of the Ministry of Culture is to ensure the dissemination, conservation, and preservation of heritage to exhibit cultural property belonging to museum collections in their different modalities and ensure that Peruvians not only know their heritage but also Participate in her and her story.

In this sense, the Directorate encourages the creation and implementation of the museums that are in charge and promotes cultural activities, in this way, strengthens our identity in the different regions of the country, ensures knowledge, research, creation of academic, scientific, or other programs that have to do with cultural and heritage activities.

For these reasons, the José Carlos Mariátegui House Museum, administered by the Ministry of Culture, recognized the need to implement new museology for its permanent exhibition, which considers precisely the museum functions and the fundamental pillars that support the museums, pillars that can be synthesized in “territory, collective heritage and participatory community”.

Tour through the museum

Space was the “House” where José Carlos Mariátegui lived the last five years of his life, from 1925 until his early death in 1930, it was the place he shared with his wife Anna Chiappe and their four children and where he published his most important works: The Contemporary Scene (1925); the Magazine Amauta (1926) and the most transcendental: 7 Essays of Interpretation of the Peruvian Reality in 1928. A place that, without a doubt, conveys the true essence of the life and work of one of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century.

From the beginning, the new management of the direction of the House Museum recognized the actions that the Peruvian State had in preserving the memory of José Carlos; the interest in declaring the House as National Historical Patrimony in the Government of Velasco Alvarado, and the efforts made in the Government of Fernando Belaunde Terry to evict seven families who squatted it.

The State intervened the house for its conservation and enhancement during the Government of Alberto Fujimori, opening as José Carlos Mariátegui Museum in 1994, commemorating the centenary of the birth of Amauta. From then until the present time, no remodeling work or museum intervention was carried out.

Thus, we consider a project of analysis and research that determines and defines what you want to express and how to tell the story. We knew that projects are expensive and the process is normally complex and lengthy; that a series of resources would be used that would be in charge of specialists such as researchers, curators, designers, museographers, curators, among others. The remodeling and intervention of the permanent rooms were fundamental. Its modernization was born through a series of questions that came to mind:

How to turn this scenario into a useable, sensitive, and creative place? How to bring the public to José Carlos Mariátegui and convey his essence and his fascinating thought and personality? How to expand your relationships with society and its environment? How to care, spread and preserve your collection ?, What is the citizen participation towards the House Museum? These and other questions were emerging as we reflected on their functions, their trajectory, and sustainability over time.

Exhibits

Undoubtedly, the script was developed based on some guidelines indicated by the specialist Rossana Pavoni, those in which the spaces are transformed considering that: “The priority of museum houses is not only in the faithful reconstruction of a certain environment but rather in the transformation of spaces created to be inhabited in public places for educational and didactic purposes ”. The new museology proposes to revive and modernize the spaces of La Casa from its history so that it intimately narrates the life and work of the Amauta.

As a tool for communicative and educational dialogue towards society, the narrative discourse was developed around who José Carlos Mariátegui was, what his family life was like, what it meant to be a Peruvian, what was the vision of the land, and sensitivity towards the world.

The life and work of the Amauta were marking the step of the museography; through the Red Corner, the Minerva Publishing House, its personal correspondence, its great love for the struggle, and social justice. Workers, intellectuals, artists, and a large number of people had the immense luck of accompanying his life as the fate of this Directorate in giving light and color to the spaces he traveled.

The House can transmit to the public, “aspects of society at that time, of an era, of an artistic or social period. The house can act as a bridge between an individual and the vast and complex network of political, cultural, artistic, product knowledge and offer the visitor the result of this combination ”.

This Mariategui house was filled with details translated into thoughts, memories, photos to reach the heart of its visitors appealing to that nostalgia of the time that transmits what the Museum Houses are.