The Labor of Curating: Fandom, Museums, and the Value of Fan Heritage

Abstract

N DECEMBER 2019, GERMAN NEWS CHANNEL N-TV BROADCASTED A special program on the world premiere of J. J. Abrams's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Among the interviewees featured in the report was Thomas Manglitz, co-founder of the fan-run museum 1 Stars of the Galaxy in M€ onchengladbach, Germany (hereafter SOTG). Housed in a former indoor swimming pool vacated by the city, SOTG displays production materials and merchandise from a variety of science fiction productions. However, the vast majority of the amateur museum's displays are dedicated to the Star Wars franchise, ranging from action figures to LEGO sets, replicas, and collectible figurines. Because of this focus, SOTG has become a popular destination for local and regional press, as well as fellow fans, to interview Manglitz about Star Wars, including the history of the films, the success of the franchise's merchandise, its fan community, and the story behind the museum itself. Although Manglitz himself frames the project as a hobby without any economic agenda in such reports, the curatorial work of the fans behind SOTG should not be considered as mere leisure. Rather, following Mel Stanfill's plea to study fan practices and projects through a labor framework and "ask who benefits from these activities" (131), fan curating should be acknowledged as a form of work that creates cultural and economic value for different agents.