topothek Graz
Together with you, we show and tell a piece of the city’s history: With the topotheque Graz, we collect your view of the city and show what everyday life in Graz feels like or which places play a special role. Everyday photos/snapshots, videos, audio recordings or other documents show Graz as it was or as it currently is. Old and new commemorative objects tell about the city, its places and the people who live there, are out and about and do something.
The core tasks of a city museum are collecting, preserving, displaying and communicating. But what would you like to keep and pass on for posterity? What is your part of a shared city history? What do you want people to remember in the future?
Through the participation of as many different private individuals and groups as possible, your digital collection about Graz and its history is created in the topothek Graz.
The originals and the rights always remain with the owners or authors!
What is the topotheque Graz?
The topotheque is a jointly created and edited online collection of remembrance culture as well as a regional historical reference work. The owners work together with the topothecists to develop the knowledge and history(s) of the “objects”. All holdings and information about these objects are linked together on the user interface via keywords, dating, subject areas and location on the current city map and can therefore be optimally searched and filtered by users.
The Graz topothek has been operated and looked after by the Graz Museum since 2019. It offers space for scattered “historical” and new material and makes it visible to everyone: It collects your memorabilia as well as your information and stories about these objects. They are digitized and digitally secured for collective memory and shared remembering. This creates a growing and collaborative digital online collection.
Motives can be: protests, demonstrations, strikes, citizens’ initiatives, banners, printed slogans, rallies, flyers, stickers, videos, buttons and much more:
- Vanished and existing gastronomy and coffee house culture in Graz (e.g. Nordstern, …)
- Graz night life (z.B. Parkhouse, De Gustibus, Niesenberger, Kulturhauskeller, …)
- Vanished and existing establishments/stores in Graz (z.B. Kienreich, Koch, …)
- „Graz celebrates“ – Public events within the city of Graz (z.B. carnival, christmas, …)
- „Upheavals“ (z.B. construction sites, demonstrations, strikes, citizens’ initiative, …)
- Typical (temporary) places (z.B. Schlossberg, Weikhard Uhr, Oskar in der Herrengasse, …)
- Sport in Graz (z.B. marathon, skating, football, …)
- Childhodd memories aof Graz (z.B. feeding Hansi, Hilmteich, tobogganing on Augartenhügel, …)
- Excursion destinations or „view of Graz from outside or above“ (z.B. Plabutsch, Gösting ruine, Schwarzl Seen, …)
- Extraordinary events (e.g. „century winter 1986“, total solar eclipse 1999, …)
Network and cooperations
A growing network and solid collaborations are crucial for the topothek Graz, its expansion and its support. Because topotheken not only live from personal memorabilia and information, but also from participation and interaction: with you we will create a multi-voiced and multi-perspective portrait of Graz! In addition to the many private lenders who make their personal memorabilia available as digital loans, district and neighborhood centers or offices as well as neighborhood initiatives are also an essential part of the network and contact points. These start directly where there are many people who are interested in their immediate surroundings and their history and want to research, work and remember them together. There we work together with people outside the museum. How life was and is in Graz, what one would like to remember in Graz, or what people want to say about Graz is central to the selection of photographs and other documents. It’s about remembering and collecting this experiential knowledge together, about personal stories and biographies. Special relationships to certain places in Graz, different ways of using the city and perspectives on Unser Graz are also a focus. We regularly select contributions from the growing collection to be shown at media stations in the museum or in our online presence (e.g. website).
Contact
Antonia Nussmüller, MA MA
+43 316 872-7604