Thirteenth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

This paper explores the outcomes of ongoing inclusive curating- based participatory action research, which focuses on ZUMU, a museum “on the way” that travels throughout Israel’s geosocial periphery to a new city every few months and works closely with local authorities to establish city specific museum of contemporary art in a previously abandoned building or neglected public space. After three host cities, the fourth iteration will be established in Kiryat Yam, a city located on the Mediterranean coast in Haifa Bay. So far today, its population has been constantly transformed by waves of Jewish migration from Yemen, North Africa, the former Soviet Union, Ethiopia, Latin America and more. At this iteration, Students and Researchers of the Art Education Institute - Oranim College, joined to ZUMU. Through the research two main issues arose: How ZUMU can neutralize the patronizing path, so usual in transitory art-based community projects and to continue the ongoing relationship with the community through a long-term commitment. Can an inclusive construction of the city heritage consciousness as a multicultural one through the arts contribute to it? The second deals with another potential transformative-reflective dimension and deals with influence of the participatory action research on the students as future artists and educators. In which extent this inclusive and team-based action research influences on their pre-conceptions about the role of arts/art’s museums relating to geo-social peripheries? How this training experience prepares them to the challenges of inclusive curating in peripheral cities characterized by immigrant waves of populations from diverse cultures?