Valentin Gorbachev

Gorbachev specialises in technologies to visualise the past and unconventional methods of museum display such as replication and 3D modelling.

Valentin Gorbachev is a Russian student in the Museum and Heritage PhD programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. He has a professional background specialising in technologies to visualise the past, and unconventional methods of museum display such as replication and 3D modelling. He is researching historical reenactment as a means of creating alternative representations of communities excluded from museum displays and collections in Russia.

Valentin Gorbachev is exploring methodological and technological possibilities for historical reenactment and material culture replication which may provide tools of engagement for communities not represented or misrepresented in the museum environment.

Since 2002 he has been interested in archaeology, but he feels that the finds excavated and restored are always just a bleak shadow of their former selves. In his quest to find a way to demonstrate the material culture of past generations in its full visual form and functionality Valentin started to investigate historical reenactment and replication technologies. From 2004-2009 Valentin was trained as a teacher of History, and in 2013 was awarded a doctorate in Russian History for his research on 17th century musketeers in Ryazan. Subsequently he reenacted their lives and started to give first person tours. Through this work he established a heritage tourism centre “Faces of the Past”, where he designs and develops projects for representations of the past using alternative and unconventional museological techniques.

He is currently working with two communities who are experiencing difficulties with their representation in local museums—the Kasimov Tatars and the citizens of the small settlement of Nikulichi. Through his thesis fieldwork, Valentin is developing an event of historical celebration for Nikulichi and a historical reenactment exposition for the Kasimov Tatars. This work will become the basis for his practice-based PhD research at the University. With this thesis Valentin hopes to enable a form of museum vocalisation for communities who have previously been without a voice.