Palhas que transformam vidas: a criação do Museu-Oficina da Ilha das Canárias, no Maranhão, Brasil

Abstract

This article presents the experience of collaborative creation of a community museum in an island of the Parnaíba River delta, in Brazil. Based on the principles of Social Museology, the wishes and needs of the island community and a process of participatory inventory, we created a new museological typology: the Museum-Workshop. We thereby combine museology and revitalization of ancestral knowledge in the island to the generation of income for the people involved in the process. Under the name Canary Island Museum-workshop, the initiative was co-produced by the community, the academia and various associations and local institutions, and it is nowadays managed by the local community. Collective maps, customized heritage education and an extraordinary diversity of cultures and knowledge – otherwise doomed to disappear in the silence of an exuberant nature –, prompted the hike.

Keywords

• ancestral communities
• Museum-workshop
• Parnaíba River delta
• participatory inventory
• social museology