In 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 museum¹1. My use of the term fan‐run museum draws from Amanda Brandellero et al.’s definition of similar projects on popular music heritage. They define “amateur and fan‐run archives and museums as a set of practices around the collection and preservation of popular music histories and material culture set up by people with no formal training or background in archiving or museology …. While individuals may lack formal training in heritage practices, all initiatives share a strong curatorial imprint, driven by one or a few individuals acting selectively as gatekeepers, with clearly stated aims and objectives” (35).
Stars of the Galaxy in Mönchengladbach, 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.

Taking SOTG as a case study, this article argues that do‐it‐yourself heritage institutions (Baker and Huber; Baker) like SOTG are central sites for understanding the cultural and potentially economic value fans generate with their curatorial labor. Like other fan productions, SOTG subsists “in multiple economies [and] value systems simultaneously” that add value to certain objects and contexts “without receiving equivalent monetary value in return” (Stanfill 168, 131). First, SOTG preserves and exhibits objects that are often sidelined by state‐ and industry‐run film and media heritage institutions and exhibition projects, which are primarily interested in original production materials while paying less attention to mass‐produced merchandise and personal fan memories. Second, the opening of a museum in a provincial German city without any evident connection to the franchise is not only free promotion for Lucasfilm and Disney, but it also inscribes the global franchise specifically into local contexts that are usually neglected in their exhibitions. Third, Mönchengladbach benefits from the media attention SOTG creates, the visitors it attracts, and the special events it organizes throughout the year for its inhabitants. Considering the value SOTG establishes for these agents, it is important to point to the potential imbalance of power in these constellations, even if the curatorial work performed by Manglitz and his peers increases their fan cultural and fan social capital (Hills, Fan Cultures).

Fans’ curatorial labor oscillates between fans’ gift economy and commodity culture in its implementation of a “self‐authorised” (Roberts and Cohen) idea of “fan heritage.” SOTG demonstrates how from within local community networks certain topics, objects, and personal stories important for fan culture are prevented from being forgotten or excluded from the history of pop cultural texts like Star Wars. As such, a project like SOTG also signals the importance of studying labor beyond digital contexts (Terranova). Scholarship on fan labor and issues such as the gift economy, compensation, content creation, and exploitation has predominantly focused on online practices (Stanfill and Condis; Stanfill; Busse, “In Focus”; De Kosnik). The following analysis of SOTG, however, redirects such questions to offline spaces and practices by examining “on‐ground fan labor” (Peaslee et al.) and its impact on the cultural life of their local communities. This focus on on‐ground labor is therefore following the example of scholarship on local fan‐organized popular music heritage activities (Baker; Baker and Huber; Moore and Pell; Roberts and Cohen) in highlighting the public impact and breadth of curating as fan practice beyond private collection practices (Tankel and Murphy) or forms of mentorship (Kompare). Indeed, although many fan curators may not have a comparable “formal training or background in archiving or museology” to professionals employed in established heritage institutions (Brandellero et al. 35), their activities nevertheless “have come to fill an institutional void of preservation and remembrance, becoming more institutionalised and professional in the process” (Brandellero and Janssen 237).

The impact of fan labor is assessed through a qualitative analysis and not quantitative assessment of numbers regarding costs, income, and revenues. As will be discussed in more detail, Manglitz is hesitant in interviews to provide information about SOTG’s finances or even visitor numbers, which makes a quantitative evaluation difficult. Besides, although it is difficult to measure the value of fans' work, there is no doubt that fans do indeed create value through their endorsement of heritage, the city, and the franchise. Hence, this article focuses on media coverage of SOTG and the information Manglitz is willing to offer in his interviews and the different initiatives and collaborations that are publicly advertised, as well as fan accounts of its program. The value created by these activities will be analyzed through the lens of three different forms of fan labor that Stanfill describes as promotion, content creation, and “lovebor”: the act of visibly loving a fan object (165‐66).

The first section discusses curating as fan practice and argues that SOTG creates a specific “fan heritage”: the autonomous collection, preservation, and exhibition of tangible objects related to their fandom, as well as the intangible, and often personal, stories behind them. The second section analyzes how this specific notion of “fan heritage” creates value for different agents within and beyond fan communities, specifically focusing on how fan curators, the heritage sector and the media industries benefit from SOTG. Finally, the third section outlines the impact of fans’ on‐ground curatorial work on the local cultural and tourism sector, which establishes associations between Mönchengladbach and Star Wars even though the city has no direct evident connection to the franchise besides the fan‐run museum.

2019年12月，德国新闻频道N-TV在JJ艾布拉姆斯（JJ Abrams）的《星球大战： 天行者的崛起》全球首映中播放了一个特别节目。该报告中的受访者中，球迷博物馆^1的联合创始人托马斯·曼格里茨（Thomas Manglitz）1.我所用的“风扇博物馆”一词取自阿曼达·布兰德勒罗（Amanda Brandellero）等人对流行音乐遗产类似项目的定义。他们将“业余爱好者和爱好者经营的档案馆和博物馆定义为一套收集和保存流行音乐历史和物质文化的实践，这种历史是由未经正式培训或没有存档或博物馆学背景的人建立的……”。尽管个人可能没有接受过有关文化遗产实践的正式培训，但所有倡议在一个或几个有选择地充当看门人的个人的推动下都有着强烈的策展烙印，并有明确的目的和目标”（35）。
德国门兴格拉德巴赫的银河之星（以下简称SOTG）。SOTG坐落在该市已撤离的一个室内室内游泳池中，陈列着来自各种科幻作品的生产材料和商品。但是，业余博物馆的绝大多数陈列品都是专门为《星球大战》系列制作的，从动作人物到乐高套装，复制品和可收藏的小雕像。由于专注于这一点，SOTG已成为当地和地区新闻界以及粉丝们的热门目的地，以采访Manglitz有关《星球大战》的内容。包括电影的历史，特许商品的成功，粉丝社区以及博物馆本身背后的故事。尽管Manglitz本人在此类报道中将该项目视为一项没有任何经济议程的业余爱好，但SOTG背后的粉丝的策展工作不应被视为仅仅是休闲。相反，在梅尔·斯坦菲尔（Mel Stanfill）呼吁通过劳动框架研究粉丝的做法和项目并“询问谁从这些活动中受益”之后（131），粉丝的策划应被视为一种为不同代理商创造文化和经济价值的工作形式。

本文以SOTG为例，认为SOTG之类的自己动手的遗产机构（贝克和胡伯；贝克）是了解爱好者通过其策展工作所产生的文化和潜在经济价值的中心场所。像其他风扇产品一样，SOTG“同时存在于多个经济体和（和）价值体系中”，从而“在没有获得等价的货币价值回报的情况下”为某些对象和环境增加了价值（Stanfill168，131）。首先，SOTG保存并展示了经常被国家和行业经营的电影和媒体遗产机构以及展览项目所掩盖的物品，这些机构主要对原始制作材料感兴趣，而对批量生产的商品和个人粉丝的记忆却较少关注。其次，在德国省级城市开设博物馆而与特许经营没有任何明显的联系，这不仅是卢卡斯影业和迪士尼的免费促销，而且还将全球特许经营专门铭刻在通常在展览中被忽略的当地环境中。第三，门兴格拉德巴赫（Mönchengladbach）受益于SOTG所创造的媒体关注度，吸引的访客以及全年为居民组织的特别活动。考虑到SOTG为这些代理建立的价值，山，樊文化）。

球迷的策展工作在球迷的礼物经济和商品文化之间摇摆，其实现是一种“自我授权”（罗伯茨和科恩）的“球迷遗产”观念。SOTG展示了如何从本地社区网络中防止对粉丝文化重要的某些主题，对象和个人故事被遗忘或排除在《星球大战》等流行文化文字的历史中。因此，像SOTG这样的项目也标志着研究数字环境之外的劳动力的重要性（Terranova）。有关粉丝劳动和礼物经济，薪酬，内容创作和剥削等问题的奖学金主要集中于在线实践（Stanfill和Condis；Stanfill；Busse，“聚焦”；De Kosnik）。然而，下面对SOTG的分析通过检查“地上的风扇劳动”（Peaslee等人）及其对当地社区文化生活的影响，将此类问题重新定向到离线空间和实践中。因此，这种对地上劳动的关注遵循了以当地粉丝组织的流行音乐遗产活动（贝克，贝克和胡伯，摩尔和佩尔，罗伯茨和科恩）的奖学金为例，着重强调了策展作为粉丝实践的公众影响和广度超出私人收藏行为（Tankel和Murphy）或指导形式（Kompare））。确实，尽管许多粉丝策展人可能没有像在传统遗产机构中受雇的专业人员那样具有类似的“存档或博物馆学方面的正式培训或背景”（Brandellero等人35），但他们的活动“却填补了机构在保存和保存方面的空白。纪念，在此过程中变得更加制度化和专业化”（Brandellero和Janssen 237）。

风扇劳动的影响是通过定性分析而不是数量，成本，收入和收入的定量评估来评估的。正如将要详细讨论的那样，Manglitz在面试中不愿提供有关SOTG财务甚至访客人数的信息，这使得定量评估变得困难。此外，尽管很难衡量粉丝作品的价值，但毫无疑问，粉丝确实通过对遗产，城市和特许经营的认可确实创造了价值。因此，本文重点关注SOTG的媒体报道以及Manglitz愿意在其采访中提供的信息以及公开广告的各种举措和合作，以及该计划的支持者帐户。

第一部分讨论策展作为粉丝的实践，并争论说SOTG创造了特定的“粉丝遗产”：与粉丝的狂热相关的有形物体以及背后的无形（通常是个人）故事的自主收集，保存和展示。第二部分分析了“粉丝遗产”这一特定概念如何为粉丝社区内外的不同主体创造价值，重点关注粉丝策展人，遗产部门和媒体行业如何从SOTG中受益。最后，第三部分概述了歌迷的现场策展工作对当地文化和旅游业的影响，尽管该城市除了歌迷博物馆之外与特许经营没有直接的直接联系，但它在门兴格拉德巴赫和《星球大战》之间建立了联系。