Youth Matters
Art of the Athlete: Museums as Centers of Engagement and Exploration of Identities through the Arts
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lisa Abia-Smith, Michael Scott
How can an art museum serve as a center of engagement for university and high school student-athletes and give them a venue to address misconceptions of identity and race? For six years, Art of the Athlete has served as a comprehensive museum education program and annual exhibition that not only introduces students, the majority who are students of color, to museums as agents of change and active dialogue, but also cultivates first-time visitors to become comfortable with visiting museums. It recently served as an intervention for gang-affiliated high school athletes and provide a forum to process their journeys. This museum program was designed to build new audiences for the museum and provide creative learning opportunities for students who may be unfamiliar with the meaningful opportunities museums can provide. It intersects with the museums access programs and forges connections between student-athletes and children with disabilities through accessible museum studio programs. This program integrates service, study-abroad, self-reflection, and positions the museum as a catalyst. Participants, many who have had little or no exposure to art, learn how museums are vibrant places to discover how exhibitions and works of art are starting points for dialogues and conversations. The authors will illustrate the program components, evaluation methods, challenges, and disseminate how a program such as AofA makes an impact on the development of university student athletes though museum visual arts experiences.
The First Contemporary Art Exhibition at the Palazzo del Quirinale, Rome: Involvement of Visitors Thanks to University Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Antonella Muzi
In October 2017 the first contemporary art exhibition was opened in Rome at the Palazzo del Quirinale (October-December 2017). The exhibition, organized by the Italian Ministry of Culture, has brought into the historical halls of the institution (a symbol of the "Italian people") over forty artworks made by contemporary artists, both Italian and international, on the theme of urban suburbs. It was decided to create a project for the inclusion of visitors, to make them feel like a living part of this extraordinary exhibition. So an agreement was made between the Italian Ministry of Culture and the Sapienza University of Rome with the students of the "Museum Education" course, who followed a long training course to become "museum mediators." The students welcomed the visitors in the rooms, approaching them with discretion, talking with them, and sharing the interpretations and meanings of the artworks. Between mediators and visitors an open, participated dialogue was created, without prejudices, which allowed the realization of a real form of inclusion, through art, in the building of a major institutional importance in Italy. The evaluation of the visitors' experiences made it possible to understand that over 85% of visitors said they "felt an integral part of the building and the all project," "understood contemporary art," and "want to visit a museum of art in the future" thanks to the presence of students who have played the role of museum mediators. The evaluation carried out on the students also gave a positive result. The students felt included, involved, and participated because the project had a high institutional value.
An Approach to Museum Education in University Contexts: Organizing the Office of Education at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Porto
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Sofia Ponte
This paper discusses some of the approaches used at Office of Education (Gabeduca) of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Porto (FBAUP) to communicate and disseminate the school's art collection, current exhibition program and heritage. Since its creation, in February 2017, Gabeduca has served its community in diverse ways: it has responded to requests of junior high schoolteachers to take their classes visiting the premises of the faculty and learn in depth about its art degrees; it then accommodated the school board desire to promote more strategically the school's artistic and material heritage, through the development of educational programs that enable their audience to engage with the complexity of the field of art; and it is currently accompanying this activity with the development of museum education research in university contexts. Considering the present challenges universities face, resulting from the difficulties higher education experience to secure universities as places of culture, what are the challenges this Office of Education encounters? How can it provide a high level of support for art research and simultaneously contribute to the public service and outreach mission of the university? Committed to the development of teaching-learning strategies embedded in Museum Education advanced practices, Gabeduca is framing its action in the debates of the XXI century society and in dialogue with the emergent research digital era.
