Encouraging Engagement (Asynchronous - Online Only)
Becoming Civic Museums: Creating and Cultivating Participative Audiences View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Almudena Caso
This research project seeks to understand how the Departments of Education and Public Programs in three art museums across Spain and the U.S are changing to promote equitable dialogue, collaboration, and programming that is relevant to citizen and community organizations. The aims of this project are to identify the differences and commonalities of the emerging practices in each institution, to engage in a cross-cultural dialogue about the strategic lines, and to disseminate the outcomes of this research to academic and professional communities globally. This project has been guided by the following research questions: What is, in the eyes of museum professionals, the emerging role of the art museum of the 21st century? What strategies are three Departments of Education and Public Programs across Spain and the US developing to foster civic engagement? What determines successful participation in each context and what conflicts have manifested? I have also paid attention to the following categories: Strategies, Work Culture, and Nature of Collaborations. In Strategies I look at the methods developed in order to promote and sustain partnership and collaboration. In Work Culture, I focus on the shifts that are taking place in the mission and internal organization.Lastly, I pay attention to the ways in which museum staff and community members experience collaboration and what they identify as successes and challenges. Data has been collected in Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia (Spain), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (U.S), and Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (U.S).
“The Museum Who Cares”: Tapping into the Art of Relevance for Diversifying Young People Audiences View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amalia Sabiescu
Young people, particularly if coming from disadvantaged or economically deprived communities, are an audience notoriously difficult to reach out to by museums. Drawing on Nina Simon’s concept of “relevance”, this paper explores how museums can change young people’s perceptions and build relationships by filling a genuine need in their lives. The focus in this paper is on young people who are grappling with difficulties in getting a start on creative careers, and how museums can play a supportive role to fill this gap. The paper presents findings from a research study on two editions of a five-day photography course offered as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Young People’s Programme in 2018 and 2020. The courses addressed young people not in education, employment or training and have been run by the V&A in collaboration with two local charities. Workshop sessions were held alternatively at the V&A in South Kensington and in East London locations. Based on a rich qualitative dataset that gathered the views of 27 young people via focus groups, surveys, observation and analysis of creative outputs, the paper analyses young people’s needs and expectations when joining the workshop, modes of engagement and outcomes, and interprets them through the theoretical lens of ‘relevance’. Findings show how the V&A experience filled a genuine need in young people’s creative career orientation, and in turns how this contributed to changing young people’s perceptions about the V&A, museums and their relevance to their lives and professional pathways.
Grading the Level of Inclusiveness in Museum Buindings: İstanbul Modern Museum View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Asena Kumsal şen Bayram, Filiz Irem Memisoglu, Yekta Özgüven, Dogan Zafer Erturk
Contemporary museums serve education, research, and enjoyment purposes in addition to their main objectives as collection, documentation, and exhibition of cultural heritage. Thus, recent museum buildings have become “new” spaces of modern urban life through the new functions and activities rather than focusing on only isolated exhibition spaces. They define inclusive complexes with educational, research, social and public areas, and establish a more effective interaction with the society. These activities can be performed in a qualified manner, depending on multi-functional spatial configuration appropriately to provide urban experiences with participation and inclusiveness. In this context, this paper aims to study the level of inclusiveness of the first contemporary art museum of İstanbul -İstanbul Modern-, through detailed examinations on the architectural configuration with a grading criteria based on spatial relations in terms of various facilities of the museum. The story of İstanbul Modern started by re-functioning of the old Bosphorus dock’s warehouses in 2004. After the demolition of these buildings in 2018, the museum temporarily moved to another historical building, where it has also experienced the new conditions of COVID-19 pandemic. İstanbul Modern will move back to its former location during 2021, into a new building designed as a museum by RPBW Architects. Considering each three phases, inclusivity and participatory of buildings will be cross-examined on a developed rating-scale technique based on included socio-cultural activities in accordance with their spatial sizes and relations through quantitative analysis. This kind of methodology would provide preliminary knowledge for future research on museum architectonics.
Radical (Urban) Pedagogy : Connecting Art Museum Education to Urban Activism View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amy Melia
In this paper, I examine an emergent trend within contemporary art institutionality’s approach to creating and distributing knowledge—what could be called ‘radical urban pedagogy’. This can be defined as art museum pedagogy in which artists, curators and cultural agents take on a double role, acting as facilitators of urban social activism as well as educators in the arts. Within this formulation, learning takes place from within the context of immediate urban social urgencies (i.e. gentrification, urban diaspora and ‘revanchist urbanism’). Arguably, what occurs in ‘radical urban pedagogy’ is a decolonisation of knowledge transfer as a hegemonic process, both within the context of the art institution and the broader, neo-colonial landscape of contemporary urbanism. Paulo Freire’s ideas around ‘radical pedagogy’ arguably supplement this idea, and were likely a key inspiration for the urban-institutional pedagogy examined in this paper. Brazilian educational theorist, Freire, believed that pedagogy could never truly empower citizens if it treated them paternalistically (as had been the case in times of imperialism and colonialism). Freire instead demanded a pedagogy that would be forged with not for the oppressed—a critical pedagogy cooperatively produced with students, which also supported them in overcoming their social struggles. Inspired by Freire’s progressive Marxist and anti-colonial approaches to education, the ‘radical urban pedagogy’ of contemporary art institutions is not colonising, coming into urban communities to show and tell—or even worse, to civilise or elevate. Rather, it perceivably aims to think and act with communities within the immediate context of their distinctive urban social needs.
Featured A ‘Story to Journey to Smart Map’ Approach to Enhance Museum Accessibility View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Xi Wang
Storytelling is widely used for enhancing learning, generating emotional engagement, and inspiring imagination; it is also a way to connect to one’s personal and collective experiences. Stories are powerful tools for social inclusion and enhanced visitor experience, especially in the contexts of museums and heritage sites. This paper presents a ‘story to journey to smart map’ (SJSM) approach to enhance museum accessibility and emotional engagement for blind and partially sighted (BPS) visitors. The SJSM approach is to present the ‘story’ of museum resources and knowledge as a journey, and then represent this journey physically as a smart map. This SJSM approach is applied through the creation of a smart map for BPS visitors. Made in partnership with Titanic Belfast, a world-leading tourist attraction, and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), the interactive map tells the story of Titanic’s maiden voyage. The smart map uses low-cost technologies such as laser-cut map features and software-controlled multi-function buttons for the audio description (AD). The AD is enhanced with background effects, dramatized personal stories and the ship’s last messages. To further evaluate this approach, a reception study was held with a group of BPS participants. A tactile self-assessment manikin was used for BPS participants to self-report their emotional responses at each location during their exploration of the map; and a questionnaire was completed afterwards. To conclude, the SJSM approach enhances museum accessibility and emotional engagement for BPS visitors and has its potential for universal access.
