May 20th - The Long Night of Museums in Romania and a protest

The recent but very popular European event called The Long Night of Museums continues in 2017 in Romania as well, planned for the 20th of May. This year's edition is held under the slogan "People change museums, museums change people", but museum workers are also planning a non-disruptive protest. Inspired by the recent anti-corruption protests in Romania, best known through the hashtag #Rezist, museographers shall wear T-shirts inscribed "I work in a museum, I exist, I no longer resist". Marking the profession's attempt at creating a syndicate, this protest draws attention to the very low salaries of museum workers, among the lowest in the salary grid of culture employees in the country, and to the bad legislation in their field of work.

2017 poster of the Romanian Long Night of Museums event

2017 protest of museum workers in Romania

Night of Museums follow-up

As every year, the Night of Museums drew thousands of people to our small museum, the History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj-Napoca. The event has been marked in the city by a trove of overlapping concerts, festivals, parties, and fireworks which also contributed to boosting the attendance. As a side effect, it also brought to the museum people who would not have been otherwise interested in museums alone. I thank all 3000 visitors for dropping by and hope that some of the "non-museum people" were at least left with a sparkle of interest (though this was not visible at the time :) ).

As a first, this year we benefited from the aid of five brave students as volunteers who did a great job and provided useful suggestions. Looking forward to extending our collaboration!

 

Night of museums 2016

This already established yearly event, held internationally by numerous museums, is to be held in 2016 on May 21st. Our museum shall join in, as usual, and I will be in charge at the History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj-Napoca from seven PM till midnight!

The museum can be visited free of charge - including the temporary exhibition "Harry Potter and the real history of pharmacy" and the exhibit of the month which is ZIBETHUM.
If you plan to visit, be prepared to rub elbows with hundreds of other visitors, wait in a queue and skip the lab which is on display in the basement (access to this area will be blocked due to the narrow stairway). In order to see everything at ease, you can consider visiting the collection during regular hours, as the entry fee is just 6 lei (half price for students) and explanations available in English as well.

Read more about the event in Romanian HERE or join the dedicated Facebook event HERE.