Z\u00e9lie Blampain, Master\u2019s student in Museology at the University of Li\u00e8ge (Belgium), did an internship at the M\u00e9rtola Museum – Cl\u00e1udio Torres from 12 October to 15 December 2023, and describes this period in the text below, which she calls ‘Internship in M\u00e9rtola – an elusive spirit’.:
\n\u2018I arrived in M\u00e9rtola under a sun that felt very summery, even though it was the middle of October, and left soon afterwards under still clear skies. In two months I got used to the sun, but not the landscape. As someone from Belgium, also called the ‘flat land’, M\u00e9rtola’s reliefs never fail to take my breath away – in every sense of the word.
\nI was lucky enough to be welcomed by the M\u00e9rtola Museum as part of a museology internship that I’m undertaking at the University of Li\u00e8ge. I got to know the Museum thanks to my teacher, Manuelina Duarte C\u00e2ndido, and my friend Floriane Paquay, who was an intern here last year. Passionate about the issue of development through culture, the M\u00e9rtola Vila Museu project caught my interest straight away. In fact, I immediately realised that the museum occupies a unique position on the Portuguese cultural scene. M\u00e9rtola is a town that is home to around 1,000 inhabitants in Alentejo, Portugal’s largest but also least populated region. No narration predicted this rural community to experience significant cultural growth. However, Serr\u00e3o Martins and Cl\u00e1udio Torres understood it had cultural richness. The latter interest was decisive for the development of this richness and, ultimately, for the creation of the museum.
\nThe M\u00e9rtola Museum is made up of fourteen centres, distributed not only across the town but also across the municipality. There are therefore many things to discover: I spent the first few days of my internship visiting these centres, following guided tours, to try to understand the museum’s relationship with the territory: an integrated approach to cultural development. Here, the museum is not a closed building, but a network that covers the whole town. Strolling through its streets, observing its architecture and archaeological remains, discovering its intangible heritage. In short, feeling the ‘spirit of the place’, is already part of visiting the museum. In fact, how could we imagine bringing together within four walls a heritage so diverse and so deeply linked to the development of the town? M\u00e9rtola has travelled through time, from ancient times to the present day, seeing religions and cultures come and go. The traces of these occupations are still visible today in the urban fabric itself. Why not promote the town as a Museum display par excellence?
\nWhat’s more, the name ‘M\u00e9rtola Vila Museu project’ emphasises the endless discovery: there are always more remains to excavate, more ideas to implement, more centres to build. This set of possibilities is the museum’s strength, but it is also its curse – how can we manage to do everything at the same time? Taking the best care of all the remains, welcoming visitors to every centre… With this internship, I was able to observe the many challenges that are faced by cultural professionals, but above all the passion they show in responding to them.
\nThis made my internship particularly rewarding, and also because I was encouraged to demonstrate critical thinking in relation to the museum by writing a report that had to cover all its departments. Because the museum offered me a great deal of freedom during the rest of the internship, letting me fit into the departments that seemed most adequate for my training.
\nSo I immediately felt the trust of the museum staff, as well as their amity and will to make my work more than a list of tasks to fulfil, but rather a period of discovery and exchange. In this respect, I must thank Rute Fortuna, Fernando Martins, N\u00e9lia Romba, and especially L\u00edgia Rafael, my internship supervisor. I thank them for their patient explanations, given my sometimes insufficient knowledge of Portuguese, their warm welcome and their unfailing availability.
\nIf it’s time to leave again, I can already imagine my next visit to M\u00e9rtola. Whether as a volunteer in archaeological excavations or as a simple tourist, I know I won’t be able to resist
\nseeing again the course of the Guadiana lost in the morning mist, the range of hills where the sheep graze, and the silhouette of the castle abruptly appearing against the midday sun. Everyone is united by an elusive spirit, which provokes longing that call us back.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Z\u00e9lie Blampain, Master\u2019s student in Museology at the University of Li\u00e8ge (Belgium), did an internship at the M\u00e9rtola Museum – Cl\u00e1udio Torres from 12 October to 15 December 2023, and describes this period in the text below, which she calls ‘Internship in M\u00e9rtola – an elusive spirit’.: \u2018I arrived in M\u00e9rtola under a sun that… Ler mais Z\u00e9lie Blampain, Master\u2019s student in Museology at the University of Li\u00e8ge (Belgium)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[135,131],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19077"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19082,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19077\/revisions\/19082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.museudemertola.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}