Museumpeil, a journal for museum employees in Flanders and the Netherlands, featured a splendid article on our very own volunteer Maria Sermeus.

Maria Sermeus has been working as a volunteer in MoMu for one day a week since 2003. After finding her grandmother’s gorgeous black lace dress, she decided to contact MoMu and present the garment as a gift to our museum. Much to her surprise, the collection manager of MoMu was not interested in the dress but showed enthusiasm for other items that did not caught Maria’s initial attention. With this first contact, Maria started to work behind the scenes and helped our costume department and library team.

Her tasks include sewing inventory numbers, arranging accessories and objects, wrapping up historical books and many more. Maria does not find her volunteer work in the museum spectacular and humbly says: “It is only the small things”. By working with the specialists, she has learned tons about preserving museum objects and its materials, techniques and methods.

When asked for how long she still wants to work as a volunteer in MoMu, Maria answers that she might be here for another ten years. She feels that she is a part of the museum and enjoys the teamwork and the company of her colleagues. Her job might seems to contain of small and simple tasks. Nevertheless, they are invaluably important and many generations will still find tracks of her work in the collection.

Based on “Kleine dingskes. Over de onvervangbare inzet van de vrijwilliger” by Griet Kockelkoren Faro, Museumpeil, Nr 33, 2010.