Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

While art has a global presence, it nonetheless simultaneously hosts a multiplicity of expressions at the local and individual level. This discussion explores this elastic quality of art, which makes it particularly interesting to observe though the lens of globalization. Globalization’s characteristic shift of focus from a Eurocentric discourse to a global one is an opportunity to rethink global and local power structures. To take advantage of this opportunity we need to establish strategies. The strategies this research presents have been extracted from a case study: El Programa de Pensamiento Visual. In 1997, Fundación Cisneros became interested in the educational program called Visual Thinking Curriculum created at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Patricia Phelps de Cisneros requested information from Patterson Sims (Deputy Director for Educational Research Support at MoMA in New York) and explored the possibility of its implementation in Venezuela. The Visual Thinking Curriculum (VTC) program, was created by the Department of Education at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and assessed by Harvard University’s “Project Zero”. The curricular systematization of the VTC in Venezuela was called Programa de Pensameinto Visual (PPV) and its objectives were designed on the basis of a deep, thorough assessment performed by the Universidad Central de Venezuela. The process of adaptation, transformation and expansion to other Latin american countries of the PPV presents the features necessary to observe and take advantage of the opportunities that globalization provides for museum education.