Innovation Showcases
Paths and Places in between Museum and School: Arts Education in a Social Purpose
Innovation Showcase Andreia Dias
What new education places and approaches may arts education propose today by investing in the encounter between Museum and School? What new poetics and worlds are built in the deepening of this relationship? How do we turn it into a common ground? What paradigm shifts operate? In this paper, we share some recent participatory and arts education projects with schools, from the education department of the Modern Art Centre, of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, that create a new relationship between the museum and the school by bringing an arts approach to the classroom to discuss human rights, citizenship and democratic practice. They propose new educational approaches and transformations in the daily and regular educational space - asking, listening, proposing and adapting according to the characteristics and needs of schools, classes, teachers and students - presenting curricular alternatives without intending to be prescriptive, based on different strategies, based on artistic practices and centered on art as a unifying experience from which knowledge can be generated on any topic. Working on values such as empathy, inclusion, equity, democracy and social justice, in a shared ground between museum and school with art as a thinking language trying and exploring new possible ways - paths and places, for arts education in the contemporary world.
Archival Asterisks*: Contextualising Heritage Objects in a Changing Society
Innovation Showcase Anna Naumova, Lois Hutubessy
Collecting Otherwise, a long-term research project at Nieuwe Instituut (Rotterdam), is currently in the process of developing a methodological tool; The Asterisk* that addresses and responds to the need for a more thorough, critical, and contextualised way of describing archival objects through New Key Words, Collection Metadata, and Stories. The tool can be utilized on a wide range of sensitive items, taking into account cultural sensitivity regarding provenance, various modes of acquisition, cultural or societal representations, and non-dominant voices. At its current stage, the Asterisk* project intends to rethink and reinterpret Nieuwe Instituut’s existing collection, increase transparency about what was collected, experiment with new approaches to the collection, tell various stories about and across its contents, and create a methodology that can contribute to a more contextualized heritage practice in an ever-changing society. Methodological and process development and testing on the collection platform began in 2023, and the project will be officially launched in November 2024, alongside the Nieuwe Instituut’s new collection platform. Asterisk* Project Manager Anya (Anna) Naumova will offer ways for turning such a project into a process and fostering more critical archiving in institutions and with its archival communities. Lois Hutubessy, Collection System Manager, will give an insight in the team's technical journey to develop polyvocal inclusion in the Nieuwe Instituut collection using LOD (Link Open Data) and CMS (Content Management System). Collecting Otherwise draws on the Nieuwe Instituut's architecture collection to study alternative architectural, heritage, and archival practises that reflect a changing society.
Achieving Emotional Connections through Lighting
Innovation Showcase Madeleine Granland, Myrto Skreta Krikou
Our memory of a space is linked to the emotions it evokes. Lighting is often perceived as the medium that enables us to see the world around us. However, lighting has a bigger impact on human’s physiological and psychological response. We rethink lighting design as a journey of discovery and surprise and explore ways that lighting can provoke emotional response and enhance visitors’ emotional engagement in museums. Lighting shapes our experience and all our senses (light, sound, smells, textures and even taste) can all enhance the bond between a display or installation and its visitors. Museums are not only containers of exhibits. They have become social gatherings/places and inclusive environments where visitors interact with the building and the exhibits. The connection of light to colour and texture changes the way we experience objects in a space, allowing us to rediscover art and museum collections in a new way each time we visit. We must consider these emotional and sensory experiences for all visitors, both 'actual' and 'potential'. By understanding who is currently excluded (i.e. neurodivergent populations who have different sensory thresholds), we can expand the diversity of visitors and improve upon their emotional engagement through considered lighting design.
