Alternative Venues for Programming

Programme

• The challenge of exhibiting stereotypes

  Increasingly, museums pay attention to problematic parts of their collections in their exhibitions. Eye Filmmuseum continuously addresses issues such as racism and sexism in their film collection in seminars, conferences and screenings. The film related collections (posters, photos, paper archives, etc.) received less attention in this respect.
  
  Until recently. In 2023, Eye decided it wanted to organise a new, small permanent exhibition where a collection of around 700 dolls, used for puppet animation in the 1950s and 1960s, was going to be exhibited. Although the craftsmanship of the dolls is astonishing and their appearance is funny, cute and attractive, it also contains many hurtful stereotypes. From the start Eye also wanted to address the issue of stereotypes by including some of these problematic dolls in the exhibition. This ambition turned out to be quite challenging.
  
  Curator Animation Film Leenke Ripmeester and the Coordinator of Museum Collection Presentations Susan van Hengstum talk about their collaboration and the bumpy road of developing this exhibition where many questions were raised, decisions were changed, uncertainty kept popping up, different arguments and perspectives passed along which eventually led to a final result which still leaves many issues unresolved and a feeling of dissatisfaction remains.

• Streaming films from 100 years ago

  Silent films were not made to be watched on digital monitors. Yet there seems to be a growing worldwide demand to access silent cinema anywhere, anytime and on any device. Eye’s streaming platform Eye Film Player negotiates the century-long gap between hand-cranked silent shorts and the expectations of home streaming audiences, paving the way for a paradigm shift in the presentation of Eye’s silent film collection. Despite its lack of historical dimension, the digital platform allows for a multitude of new alternative viewing options and further links that can potentially enrich the audience’s appreciation.
  
  This presentation by Curator of Silent Film Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi and Project Manager Eye Film Player Remco Vlaanderen highlights and shares some of the considerations and new insights based on concrete examples of already published items, and a peek into new programs that are still in development.