The Next Generation
Project "Nós por todos" (We for All): A New Approach to Disability Access in the Museum
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paulo Cuiça
This paper shares the experience of the project "Nós, por Todos" (We for all) that promotes the inclusion of mentally impaired people or developed by the Educational Service of the Lisbon Museum in partnership with the theater group "Nós" da APPACDM - Lisbon (association for people we disabilities). The project was created for the different organized groups that visit with mainly school children groups. How did we come to this idea? What were our objectives? How was it realized? We answer these and other questions telling the story of this initiative which will not be immediately meet with enthusiasm by all. Different sensitivities were manifested and some voices were more apprehensive and less favorable, while others were just cautious. Now however we have a project that received an honorable mention in the field of intellectual weakness from the Acesso Cultura Association. Also the project has been developed to other fields of action with other stakeholders and more inclusion.
Education and Children's Rights in an Art Museum: Exploring and Expressing Modern Art
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Janice Lally
This study reports on a Western Australian (WA) collaborative partnership between a university art museum and a local primary school in the metropolitan capital city Perth. The study reports a novel approach with primary school student’s experiential integrated learning about modern art. The project was framed to accord with their school’s adherence to WA Government School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCASA) requirements for Visual Arts and English for years four, five, and six and to occur within the authentic context of a nationally recognised art museum. Moreover, the project advances Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC). The convention gives expression to the rights of children to have agency in the design and delivery of the project and to have their opinions expressed and be given due and equitable weight in the arts in a public context. The project facilitated and provided for development of skills and confidence and opportunities for diverse expression by the students. The UNCRC policy was publicly endorsed in a culminating event scheduled as part of the formal public program of the art museum within the university’s annual Research Week. Some students’ personal responses in the form of poetry or prose to selected artworks were displayed as extended authentically produced wall labels, with others providing brief descriptive oral presentations or displaying their own folio drawings of the artworks to an audience. These presentations, in content and form, also complied with the outcomes sought in the SCASA requirements.
