The Multimedia Museum of Working Culture
A museum of stories, journeys, and memories.
The Multimedia Museum of Working Culture was established by repurposing some exhibition spaces in the former Masseria Quartararo Tobacco facility to host a collection of audiovisual narratives, about the working culture, ranging from traditional crafts to modern innovations. These short documentaries are a portrait of the community, the voices of hard working men and women and their personal stories, guide us in a journey through landscapes, memories and visions of the future of their homeland.
WORK STORIES
The collection of narrations - which was produced during a Workshop on communications by Big Sur through the gaze of director Paolo Pisanelli - is configured as a manifesto of the cultural interpretation process that the Museum intends to pursue by producing further narratives and acquiring new archival materials destined to enrich the Museum’s collections, long term. Among the cross-cutting themes that underlie the narrations we find intergenerational relationships, the complexities of the labour supply chain, emigration, the arrival of new Salentines, immigrants who have integrated seamlessly in the Apulian socio-labour context, the tales about ancient crafts, the testimonies of the social significance of work in the past and today. The device used to convey the multimedia narrations is a single, continuous, large panoramic ledwall in the Museum’s upper floor. Four horizontal screens span throughout the rooms of the former Masseria Quartararo Tobacco facility like a “great talking wall”, transporting the visitor on an immersive journey though landscapes, sounds and working culture stories.
EVENTS
In addition to the collection of multimedia pieces, the Museum hosts contemporary artist’s Maurizio Buttazzo ‘assemblages’ and a temporary photographic exhibition by the same artist, which will in time leave the space for photographic exhibitions by other artists, making this a dynamic and open exhibition space for new perspectives on the territory.
The Museum’s inner courtyard - subject to an architectural operation to build a transparent roof - was designed as a space for events, exhibitions, film festivals on themes tangent to working culture, memories and the territory.
accessibility
Access to the main rooms of the former Tobacco facility, located on the first floor of the building, is limited by the presence of a staircase. However, to allow people with mobility limitations to enjoy the multimedia content exhibited, a large panoramic screen has been installed in the Fireplace Room on the ground floor, allowing the same content to be streamed across the whole Museum. The textual content is made accessible through viewing functions for the visually impaired and text reading from the website, Alternative texts (alt text), for images and through translation into Italian Sign Language (LIS). All the audiovisual content visible in the Museum is subtitled.
