Thomas P. Campbell to me

Some time ago, I watched a presentation by young social media expert Jasper Visser entitled The future of museums is about attitude, not technology.  Even before watching it, the title stroke a chord with me. Indeed, what impact can technology alone have if one doesn´t know how to use it, if one doesn´t understand or is not interested in exploring the possibilities it offers and use them with vision and imagination? This requires attitude, indeed; or rather, it requires the ‘right’ attitude.

A couple of weeks go I received an email from Thomas P. Campbell, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He wished to inform me about a new project, called 82nd and 5th, a series of new videos, where a Met curator talks about a specific work of art in the museum collection which has inspired him/her or changed his/her life or way of thinking. Thomas P. Campbell informed me that I could subscribe in order to receive all new videos by email and suggested I informed my friends about it.

It´s not the videos I wish to talk about (the quality and interest of which you can easily verify on the museum website), it´s the details in communicating this new initiative. As you can imagine, the email I received was not from Thomas P. Campbell himself and I received it because I´ve subscribed the museum´s mailing list. The Met could have easily done what most museums do: send an email to all those on the mailing list from its general email address. Instead of this impersonal way of communicating, they created a specific email address, the museum director being identified as the sender. He´s the one addressing us and presenting this new intiative, asking us to use it, embrace it and help the museum promote it. And this small detail makes a whole lot of a difference. It shows attitude.

Indhu Rubasingham, Tricycle Theatre artistic director (Photo: Alastair Muir for The Guardian)

I had another special encounter with a cultural organization´s director a few months before. When I called the Tricycle Thearte in London in order to reserve tickets for a play, the phone rang, but before getting through to the box office, I listened to an automatic answer. It was a message from the theatre´s artistic director, Indhu Rubasingham, who thanked me for getting in touch in order to buy tickets and asked me to consider paying an extra pound per ticket in order to support the theatre in its work. It was a simple, direct, friendly message, that made it impossible to resist. I supported a theatre I had never been before, which is something I haven´t done for those theatres I´ve been attending for some time now. Maybe because nobody ever asked. Indhu Rubasingham and the Tricycle Theatre have got attitude.

None of the examples given above required a huge investement. Actually, they didn´t require any investment at all. Lack of money or fancy means cannot be an excuse for lack of attitude. Furthermore, a lack of attitude when having the means, but not using them to their full potential, also indicates a lack of vision.

One of the most common concerns of culture professionals when I give training in cultural communication around the country is the inability to use the technology and the means available autonomously in order to promote their venues, work and activities. I especifically refer to organizations belonging to local authorities or private foundations which are not allowed to have their own websites (they´re usually an item on a sub-sub-menu) or manage their own facebook pages. Information is managed centrally and not by those who have the best knowledge on the subject matter and are more interested than anyone else in promoting it. And who would do it better than anyone, if they had proper training.

Let´s be the client for a moment. Are you interested in finding out if the Electricity Museum in Lisbon organizes birthday parties? Well, you start by searching for the museum on Google, like I did. The first links refers you to EDP (Portugal Electricity) Foundation website, where the museum is an item in the menu. Reaching that page, it seems like you´ve arrived on a portal presenting boxed news. Each box is a link to pages with a desciption of the current exhibition; the permanent exhibition; the latest statistics or other news. The museum itself has got no menu. 

(URL: www.fundacaoedp.pt/museu-da-electricidade)

 

Do you wish to visit the Museum of Ceramics in Sacavém? A search on Google will refer you to (by order of appearance): a reference regarding the museum building on the website of the now extinct Institute of Museums and Conservation; the Greater Lisbon Tourism; Wikipedia; Lifecooler; a number of other websites... If, by intuition, we decide to search for Municipality of Loures, we will find a link leading us to a page with a general description of the museum under Municipality of Loures / Getting to know / Tourism, Culture, Leisure / Museums. 

(URL: http://www.cm-loures.pt/Ligacao.aspx?DisplayId=2#topo)

I chose the examples of two museums I like. Because this makes me think of how much different and better, given the tools available, my online and at a distance relationship could be (not to mention their relationship with those who don´t really know them and might be interested).  There are may more examples of this sort. How can a museum or a cultural venue ever establish a relationship with current and potential visitors/users when it´s so well hidden (starting from their URLs)? Or when the information it can actually give is so static (and boring and incomplete)? When there´s no open, direct, constant, informal dialogue?

A communications professional like me totally understands the need for coherence and I believe this is the main concern of local authorities or foundations which manage a number of venues and projects. Nevertheless, the solution is not to control them to the point of struggling them. People develop relationships with the organizations they visit, with the projects they love, not with the entities that manage them. No central communications office in a municipality will ever chat with people on Facebook on the day-to day life of a municipal museum, the items in its collections, the activities it has to offer the way a person who works in that museum would. There is, undoubtedly, a need for guidelines, for training, for orientation. But people are eager to receive them and be able to put them to good use in order to better promote what they´re doing and get to the people they wish to communicate with. It´s not a good idea to leave this to those who know less, who are – inevitably – less passionate, who have no real involvement in it – as is the case with Wikipedia, the tourism office or Lifecooler. This shows lack of vision which eventually condemns to a lack of attitude. And there´s no future there.

Every time I think of all those frustrated professionals whose only wish is to communicate (and I think of them a lot), I´ve got Sting´s song at the back of my head:

When you love somebody

Set them free…

Free… free….

Set them free…

Guest post: "Nepal challenging itself and the world", by Sangeeta Thapa (Nepal)

Sangeeta Thapa is my colleague at the Kennedy Center Fellowship. In the summer of 2011 I had the chance to have a long talk with her about the first Kathmandu International Art Festival, Sangeeta being the driving force behind it. I saw the catalogue, I learned about some of the artists, one story was always bringing another. At the time, Sangeeta was already talking about the next edition of the Festival, that would be dedicated to environmental issues. It took place last November and the photos shared on Facebook were absolutely stunning. Sangeeta shares with us this amazing experience which brought together artists from 31 countries and which involved the whole country.This post was written together with Sharareh Bajracharya (Festival Coordinator)and Nischal Oli (KIAF Media Coordinator). mv 

"We may end up in the same boat", by Michelle Spalding (Photo: KIAF)

The Kathmandu International Art Festival (KIAF) is a non commercial contemporary arts festival which is organized every three years with the aim to “to firmly place Nepal on the global map as a venue for the contemporary arts, allow for artistic collaboration and exchange among international and local artists, and use art as a platform for critical reflection and the sensitization of society”. Each edition of the Festival focuses on a specific theme, which is of critical concern both locally and globally. 

In November 2012 the Siddhartha Arts Foundation hosted the 2nd edition of KIAF, which was centered on the theme of the environment, ecology, climate change and the human relationship to nature. Even though Nepal is not a global polluter, we are a vulnerable nation. Climate change is a topic of great importance to us, as the Himalayan ranges house the greatest water towers in the world. Global warming would result in a vertical tsunami that could inundate 33 nations. 

The management of the Festival involved a coming together of many different institutions and individuals in the arts community, and the Festival was seen as a platform to support a strong and emerging generation of contemporary artists in the country. One of the Festival's pervasive motives has been to promote contemporary arts of Nepal, so it was able to bring together an assortment of individual and collective energies, which attracted an even bigger audience to create a larger impact. KIAF fostered a platform for inter-disciplinary exchange on issues raised by the Festival's theme and goals. This exchange, through all the dimensions of the Festival, was created between institutions, artists, media, traditional communities, and educational institutions. There is a general agreement that the Festival was a collaborative effort and that people went outside the line of duty to make it happen. In this way, there is a collective sense of ownership.

Driven by our mission to make contemporary arts accessible to and in conversation with a wide public, the KIAF team placed the artworks in multiple venues across the city. The artworks were brought to people’s doorsteps. This meant that a larger audience visited the exhibitions and allowed us to take the discussions about global warming out of the realm of academia into the world of creative arts and to the public. The wide representation and variety of art forms allowed for the works to appeal to diverse audiences and left an impressive monumental impression. 

People from all over the country were witness to a contemporary arts exhibition and experienced an interpretive artwork about the mythical serpent, the ‘Naga’, stories around which most people in Nepal are deeply familiar. There is no guarantee that people fully understood the intention of the artist in creating the recycled plastic work from Cambodia, but it made every individual who entered the space, stop, look, wonder, and question. In general, in each of the exhibits, people read the labels and wanted to know more. Artists were able to go to each new venue, see new possibilities in terms of spaces to exhibit, ways to exhibit, and seeing a reason to do their work. 

"Naag", by Leang Seckon, at the Central Zoo (Photo: KIAF)

Guided tours were held for different age groups. The outreach work around guided tours has created a confidence and realization in the arts community of the necessity to involve schools, school children, families, in addition to a wider range of development institutions in their works. Horlicks (Glaxo Smith and Kline) sponsored and organized three art competitions in three cities, encouraging children to collect materials around them to create three dimensional installations, collages, or mixed media/paintings. Their paintings were displayed in the British Council atrium as an integral part of KIAF. 

Over 400,000 people visited or saw parts of the KIAF 2012 exhibitions, events, performances, outreach activities. Out of this figure, 100,000 visitors were recorded in the exhibition spaces. People felt a sense of excitement, joy, and wonder at the diverse forms of artworks, the places where people were coming from, and the issues that the artists were bringing up. Deep connections were made to Nepal by the visitors. The community responses from Patan were strong. A group of elder people got on to the Nevitrade bus because they were excited about the ride. They ended up seeing all the venues and appreciated the tour. One of the old men, when reaching Metropark, walked in wonder and stated: “It is because of you people I am getting to see this side of the city and being able to see artworks I have never seen or thought of before!”. 

The Nevitrade bus (battery-run bus) received great publicity and many calls for events after KIAF 2012. (Photo: Sangeeta Thapa)

The Festival attempted to reduce its carbon footprints as much as possible within its resources. One of the major ways we did so was by encouraging clean energy activities - the staff using bicycles and public transportation, and working alongside the cycling community. In collaboration with Nevitrade, we were able to operate a clean energy vehicle-bus that allowed people to reach the various venues. The Festival also looked into reducing carbon emissions by accommodating artists near their workspaces. Recycled flex bags were created from flex banners used by various organizations around the city. After the Festival, our banners were collected and made into bags and folders. 

In what concerns funding and fundraising, working with the government has been the largest anticipated challenge. The Secretary of Culture changed six times and each time their commitment needed to be reviewed. In terms of government budgets, only government workers’ salaries and basic requirements to run the institutions were released. Any amount they had promised could not be actualized. There was a similar problem with the Nepal Tourism Board. With the generous contribution of the Prince Claus Fund, the Brazillian Embassy, WWF, Hariyo Ban, USAID and others, the scale of the festival has expanded exponentially, resulting in the need to mobilize local business houses, banks, embassies, individuals and art foundations with affiliations to Nepal. It has been a challenge, to say the least. It has been extremely difficult to keep some of the funders accountable to their commitments. Embassies paid their sponsorship amount after the festival was over, and most of the money that was locally pledged still needs to come in. We will most likely be able to clear our outstanding payments only in the first week of March.

KIAF 2012 has created a path for the Siddhartha Arts Foundation to do more works that bring different organizations and institutions together to promote the contemporary arts in Nepal and to create an international platform for its growth. Regarding KIAF 2015, we will need to think it through carefully to ensure the scale and quality of the works continues. While preparing, the Foundation plans to continue to bring international artists to exhibit in Kathmandu, create community art projects to encourage public participation, work with local museums and create structures where children and the general public are provided opportunities to interact and reflect on the artworks. 

Sangeeta Thapa is the Founder Director of the Siddhartha Art Gallery which was established in 1987 in Kathmandu. She has organized 400 exhibitions over the last 25 years and has conducted several community art projects which brought together artists, poets, writers, musicians, theatre artists, dancers and people from disparate social groups. She has also conducted two International Art Festivals, the last one in 2012, in which artists from 31 countries were represented. In 2010 she co-founded with Celia Washington the Kathmandu Contemporary Art Centre (KCAC), located in Patan Museum, which hosts The Washington Library and serves as a residency space, where international and national artists share studios. In 2011 she registered the Siddhartha Arts Foundation which hosted the second edition of the Kathmandu International Art Festival. Sangeeta remains deeply committed to mentoring artists and arts managers who will be involved in promoting the contemporary arts movement locally. She is on the board of Patan Museum Development Committee and is the author the book “In the Eye of the Storm – The Drawings of Manuj Babu Mishra”. She works closely with the Australian Himalayan Foundation Art Awards program, which endows two Nepalese artists each year with a bursary, and in a similar vein with KCAC.

Discussing values, from Brazil to Lebanon

Image taken from www.cultura.gov.br

In June 2011 I was writing about a law proposal of the brazilian government that would create the Vale Cultura, a culture stipend that would allow for a subsidy of R$50 (approximately €22) for workers earning up to five times the minimum salary, in order to facilitate access to products and services in the areas of visual arts, performing arts, audiovisual, litetrature, music and cultural heritage.

I had been very critical at the time. Not because I didn´t believe that thousands of people would benefit, but, mainly, because of the objectives it was announced it was going to achieve. In its proposal, the government presented this initiative as a way “to allow for access and fruition of cultural products and services; to stimulate the visitation of establishments that provide the integration of science, education and culture; and to encourage access to cultural and artistic events and performances”. On the other hand, Roberto Baungartner, in his article Democratização do Acesso à Cultura (Democratizing access to culture), seemed convinced, that, apart from benefiting culture itself, the stipend would create more jobs and income, it would reduce violence, it would increment, on the side of the demand, the production chains involved and it would make brazilian companies more competitive at an international level.

Today, Vale Cultura is a reality. From the US (here and here) to Lebanon (here), it has been received as a great source of inspiration. And it´s a good thing it has, because there is no other such initiative (at least, I don´t know of any) and thus, it is important to follow and evaluate it based on the objectives it aims to reach. Nevertheless, the reports and opinions I ´ve read so far only consider the logistics: who pays what, how, etc. Thus, my 2011 doubts and criticism remain.

What would it mean to a Brazilian (or Portuguese or Greek or Lebanese) to receive a stipend to spend on ‘culture’ when where he/she lives, or in the proximities, there´s no cinema, no theatre, no museum, no bookshop? What are they supposed to do with it? And, on the other hand, which was the study that revealed that, in places where these venues exist, the majority of people that didn´t go to them didn´t have the money to do it?

I don´t mean to say that there are no people who enjoy or have a pre-disposition to participate in cultural activities, but who are not able to have access to them due to financial limitations. Especially now. Nevertheless, I consider the existing mental and psychological barriers between people and cultural institutions and certain forms of art, in any part of the world, to be bigger and more determinating than the financial barrier, especially in the case of all those who haven´t got the habit of participating. Who among us is willing to invest – not only money, time even – on something that doesn´t seem interesting or relevant or comprehensible in the first place? Or on something that seems distant or or something that doesn’t even exist?

It is worth listening to and analyzing the details of the interviews with some brazilian workers on a TV programme, where the Secretary of Cultural Policies of the Ministry of Culture, Sérgio Mamberti, was also interviewed: a lady says that she had never even had the courage to get close to the Municipal Theatre and ask how much it was, considering that, being so beautiful and big, it would also be very expensive; a gentleman says that he doesn´t have the habit of attending, but that he would like to have an incentive to do so; and another gentleman states: “As we are a country with great miscegenation, we´ve got lots to give to the world. I believe that we take little advantage of this, because people haven´t got access not only to enjoy culture but also to the person that makes culture. So, I believe that this incentive, apart from incentivating people to go to the theatre, to go to the cinema, it will incentivate them to study theatre, to study cinema. They´ll get to know things they didn´t know and many people will get interested in these subjects and will become part of the other side, not only the side of the spectator”. [sic]

The interviews with the workers reveal, in my opinion, the prejudices, the misunderstandings, the mutual lack of understanding between the two sides, the lack of habits, in other words, the lack of access related, first of all, to intellectual and psychological barriers. Thus, I believe that those who study, develop and implement cultural policies should first look at these barriers, while at the same time trying to facilitate access on a financial point of view. To start backwards, insisting in considering money to be the principal factor of inhibition in this relationship, is to insist hiding one´s head in the sand or taking the easy way forward.

In the meantime, while news about Vale Cultura are spreading around the world, another piece of news, also coming from Brazil, has had a more discreet circulation, at least for someone living away from that country. According to those news (read here), in the municipality of Santo André, in the brazilian state of São Paulo, a cultural movement – that brings together the so-called Points of Culture (local associations promoting cultural activities), students, teachers, writers, social movements and other members of the local population – demanded and was successful in booking a hearing with the state´s Secretary of Culture. They wanted to know what were the plans of the Secretariat of Culture and demanded public participation in the management. They didn´t make things easy for the Secretary, they didn´t take generalities and promises for an answer, they insisted with questions and criticism, they got irritated, they lost their patience, they weren´t touched by the Secretary´s demonsatration of humility – when he stated that he had lots to learn from them – and protested about his lack of preparation for the job. How did this happen in Santo André? What does it take for this to happen? How does this feeling of belonging, of a sense of what constitutes a civic right and an obligation  towards the affairs of culture, come about? This is news, yes, probably greated news than the creation of Vale Cultura and thus, it is worth paying greater attention to it and following the situation closely. Santo André should be a case study.

Also on this blog
The difference between 'more' and 'diverse'

More readings

Ian David Moss (2009), Free tickets? How about income-sensitive tickets?
McCarthy, K.F. and Jinnett, K. (2007). A new framework for building participation in the arts.

Ostrower, F (2005). Motivations matter: findings and practical implications of a national survey of cultural participation.

Walker, C., Scott-Melnyk, S. and Sherwood, K. (2002) From Reggae to Rachmaninoff, How and why people participate in arts and culture.

Wallace Foundation, The (2009). Engaging audiences.

Guest post: "A small step for a man, a giant leap for a museum", by Ania Danilewicz (Poland)

I met Ania Danilewicz last October. She was in Portugal for a few months and she wanted to know more about museums and in particular about GAM – Group for Access to Museums. Two more meetings followed after that, long conversations, and in both of them Ania striked me with her energy, her eagerness to learn, her critical spirit, her wish to intervene and to do more. In this post she shares, with great sense of humour, her thoughts and feelings about going back to her country, full of ideas that would seem to be of no use in an environment quite resistant to change, only to realize that good things do happen everywhere, even at her own museum, even if at a smaller scale. It´s not impossible, but it´s one step at a time. The lucky ones meet three old ladies in the way... mv

Adam Malysz, Polish olympic champion in ski jumping (Photo: Associated Press/East News)

Some time ago, three really old ladies were visiting our exhibition. This is a quite modern presentation (interactive too), but they preferred the old-fashioned style of touring: just looking, not touching, going around in silence, keeping a distance from all exhibits. However, they were satisfied, because the exhibition was showing the town at the time of their youth. Close to the exit one of the guides approached them:

“-Have you already tried our new listening station?”

“-For God’s sake, no! It’s not for us… let’s give space to the youngsters…”

“-But you can find original songs there, from the time of your youth!”, insisted the guide. “You see, this is an original phone from the 30s. If you choose the odd numbers, you can listen to all these hits!”

And the three old ladies did it. They picked up the phone, which is a listening station, and they all moved closer to the handset. Closer, but still carefully. Some time later they started... to sing softly, giggling like little girls. They tried also even numbers, which contain the same songs, but in a contemporary remix. And they enjoyed it so much!

Why am I writing about this story? Because it saved me from the post-Portuguese slump! Here are some of the symptomes of my recent sickness (if you recognise any of them, look for three old ladies as soon as possible!).

I returned recently from a longer visit to Portugal, where one of my permanent occupations was visiting museums and meeting with people from the sector. During my stay, I discovered, with pleasure and amazement, great museum attractions, such as a special touring route in the Tile Museum (Museu do Azulejo) composed of the replicas of azulejos panels  especially made for the blind – to be touched and to recognize a structure, shape, surface and colours -, but received with interest by other visitors too. I was enormously delighted with my visit to the Batalha Community Museum (Museu da Communidade Concelha da Batalha), admiring all amenities that make this small institution so special for the local community and so important for the  worldwide network of museum professionals. And I’ve appreciated a lot all my conversations with Maria Vlachou in the context of accessibility and the GAM - Group for Access to Museums (Grupo para a Accessibilidade nos Museos).

I have also realized, of course, that marvellous examples are the exceptions that confirm the rule. And the rule is the same like everywhere – that the majority of museums are not so modern, open and ready for new trends. But anyway, I found enough good examples to feel inspired and motivated for new projects in my museum.

I work for The Army Museum in Bialystok, a mid-sized institution, without any special distinction. It’s modern enough (the entire permanent exhibition was changed in the last three years, the first time in… 38 years) to offer visitors nice tours and programmes. But it’s also quite underfunded and old-fashioned, in need of further development. So my return meant two things: the confrontation of the inspiring ideas I was bringing with me with the museum reality; and the obligation to write this post for Maria about the museum sector in my city and country.

And this was the genesis of my sickness. I was searching like crazy for something good and impressive enough to be worth showing on this international blog. “What can possibly stand next to the Louvre or National Museums in Liverpool!?”, I though to myself.  A friend of mine asked the simplest question: “Why not your museum?”. At first, I burst out laughing, but soon after I met the three ladies I mentioned and that experience convinced me, in fact, of how easy and simple the use and implementation of ideas like accessibility, openness, participation could be, even if results are not so spectacular as in some other cases (Liverpool, Portugal, Louvre).

The three ladies showed me that creating an accessible and friendly environment could simply mean giving appropriate information and being ready to adapt existing conditions to the needs of different visitors. If we had proposed the ladies to listen to modern remixes of old sings, they would have refused for sure, like they did when I proposed to them to try the ‘listening station’. ‘Remix’ and ‘listening station’ are not words from their world. But an invitation to answer the phone, that plays the role of the listening station, seams to be a good way to convince them to interact with the display, as well as introduce them to modern music. Ipso facto, they jumped from the level of “individual consumes content” to “individual interaction” (presented by Nina Simon in her blog, one of diagrams about social participation) without any special action or programme from us. If it is so easy, why don’t we try that more often? Creating that display, we had also planned an audio description for blind people and an audio guide for all visitors. Not having enough money to buy two sets of mobile devices, we decided to record one narration, attractive to any visitor, regardless of disabilities or abilities. And just then we realized that this is an example of universal thinking and designing, which is one of the most important challenges for museums now. Wow, we can do that too!

I could also mention another example from my first days in the museum. It was March 2011 and the best Polish ski jumper, a national hero for all Poles, Adam Małysz was ending his professional career. Many people took part in the spontaneous action “The whole of Poland wears a moustache” (Adam Małysz has a very characteristic moustache...), where everyone put on a fake moustache (some even grew it especially for the occasion!). And we did it too! At a time when the museum was mostly seen as an old-style, conservative place, we glued colourful paper moustaches to all our soldiers in the exhibition. And that was it! That simple action changed our image radically, showing us and other people that we could take a step back and look at ourselves with a sense of humour and, despite the so serious historical plots in our displays, we could also be funny, people-oriented. It was just one day, but it gave the team an incredible power to start thinking about actions from a totally different perspective, overcoming set templates.

Photo: The Army Museum in Bialystok

Maybe these examples are not big, significant or impressive enough to be presented between notes about National Museums Liverpool ot the Louvre. But they do show that big change often begins with small steps. It is easy to say that we cannot change anything, due to lack of money or people. It is much more challenging and important to start with the question: what can I change or improve in my surrounding right now? These small steps may sometimes have a wider influence than a big action. They prepare us to transform and adapt because of a need, not just due to special, sporadic occasions.

I am almost recovering from my post-Portugal depression. Almost, because deep inside I still have that strong need to implement and develop all possible new elements in our programme. But now I know how to do that – step by step.

Anna Danilewicz is a cultural animator and manager, Head of the Department of Education and Organization of Exhibitions in the Army Museum in Bialystok. She previously worked for the Drama Theatre in Białystok and was a juornalist for the biggest newspaper in Podlasie region, Gazeta Wspolczesna. She has cooperated with many associations and some independent projects, such as Street Culture Enthusiasts Association ENGRAM, Borderland Summer School, Foundation of the University of Białystok, Marcel Hicter Foundation in Brussels. She got the European Diploma for Cultural Projects Management in 2012 and attended the International Seminar for Cultural Operators, organized by the National Centre for Culture and the Foundation Marcel Hicter. She graduated from Bialystok University in 2005.

Don´t shush me!

Photo taken from Culture 24 (© Courtesy Wallace Collection)

Back in 2003, the Royal Academy hosted an exhibition on the Aztecs. River, a two-year-old child, exclaimed “Monster! Monster!” when he saw the statue of the Eagle Man. The guard immediately asked the family to leave, considering that the child was misbehaving.  The mother, Dea Birkett, was a journalist and a few days later she was writing in the Guardian an article entitled Travelling with kids, questioning: “If we curtail their unfiltered attraction to art as a toddler, how can we demand they appreciate it aged 20? I hope my children don't misbehave. But shrieking with joy at a statue doesn't seem, to me, something to frown upon. I would have been much more disturbed if he'd shown no response at all. But perhaps you were at the Aztecs, too, and glad when that loud child left. Perhaps I've spent too long surrounded by shouting kids to appreciate how irritating they can be? What do you think? Should River stay or should he go...?”. The incident was widely discussed at the time and Dea Birkett founded Kids in Museums, a charity dedicated to making museums more child and family frienldy. Kids in Museums has just celebrated its 10^th anniversary at... the Royal Academy! The museum´s Head of Learning, Beth Schneider, siezed the opportunity and wrote a long article for the Guardian describing all the steps taken in the last ten years to make the museum more welcoming for families and especially for younger visitors.

Tate Modern came under fire for not putting an end to the BP sponsorship after the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 (read here and here). Initiatives like Liberate Tate, Art not Oil and Platform have not let the matter die out, not only in relation to the Tate, but to all british cultural institutions accepting sponsorship from the oil company, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Opera House and the British Museum. Last year, these institutions renewed their sponsorship agreements, considering that the support of BP to culture and the arts has been consistent and substantial and there´s no reason to renounce it because of one major incident. Nevertheless, the British Museum demonstrated total openess to criticism and gave it space on its own premises. Last November a theatre flashmob, organized by the Reclaim Shakespeare Company, took place in the museum´s Great Court, protesting against BP sponsorship of the Shakespeare exhibition, showing at the museum. A museum press officer reaffirmed the institution´s gratitude for BP´s continuous commitment and, at the same time, recognized Reclaim Shakespeare Company´s right to protest, claiming that there were no ill feelings (read here).

When Woolly Mammoth theatre announced an encore run of Mike Daisey´s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, it was heavily criticised by many. The monologue dealt with and denounced the corporate practices of Apple and Foxconn, Apple's supplier in China, but some time after it premiered, Mike Daisey was accused of fabricating some facts. He admitted it, publicly apologised and removed all contested material. Woolly Mammoth Theater remained firm in its decision for a take 2 of the performance and its long-standing collaboration with Mike Daisey. Instead of avoiding the controversy, it actually used it to promote the show, announcing it as “the most notorious and controversial play of the decade”. It promoted a very healthy dialogue with both supporters and critics on its facebook page, and actually posted negative reviews, feeding the conversation. On the last day of the show, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniac, who hadn´t escaped Mike Daisey´s criticism in the play, was at the theathe for an after-show talk with the playwright and the audience.

Mike Daisey in The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs (Photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)

What´s the common thread in these three stories? That the cultural institutions involved didn´t bury their heads in the ground, didn´t pretend they didn´t notice, didn´t ignore people´s voices. People were heard. Not in the sense “the client is always right”. Actually, in two of the three cases here presented there was no change in the decision. But there was an understanding that there is another side, people with convictions, expectations and needs. They are not there to unconditionally adore us – ‘us’, cultural institutions. They´re there to question, to criticise, to demand, and also to guide us. Because they care. And because we care too, we don´t hide away. We engage in the dialogue, we promote it, we feed it. We invite them to get involved in what we are doing. We become part of their lives. And we get their support.

Suggested reading:

Kids in Museums 10th anniversary manifesto

Magic places

Workshop by Ricardo Lopes (Photo: Vasco Célio / Stills)

Blockbuster exhibitions attract big audiences and a lot of attention. They are perceived as “once in a lifetime” events. In the last twelve months, three of the big highlights were: Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Milan Court at the National Gallery in London; the Damien Hirst retrospective at the Tate Modern (it ran from April to September and by the time it closed it was the most popular solo show in the museum´s history); and there was also The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso and the parisian Avant-Garde at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (although, in the this case, the big issue was that the fashion exhibition Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations, also at the Metropolitan, had outdrown the art blockbuster in terms of attendance - read here).

On the occasion of the Leonardo exhibition, the Guardian launched the debate “Are blockbuster art shows worth queueing for?” and Observer writer Miranda Sawyer and Royal Academy CEO Charles Saumarez Smith  - defending the ‘no’ and the ‘yes’ respectively – discussed if and how can one appreciate art in crowded exhibition rooms. At the time, James Page added a more interesting aspect to this debate, by reminding in his blog that “the discussion was revealing in a number of ways, not just in terms of the views of the two protagonists, but also as a natural tendency within the cultural sector to ask itself how its audiences think, feel or act rather than go direct to the audiences in question”.

Blockbuster exhibitions also raise the issue of scale. And this seems to be a great concern for a lot of people, since both as citizens in general, and as professionals in particular, they tend to feel small - and by ‘small’ they mean powerless, unable to create an impact.

The issue of scale has been in my mind as well. My thoughts recently have mostly concentrated on ideas and actions that are probably of a small or medium scale, but which still have an impact and can still make a difference in other people´s lives - apart from our own, of course. They are the ideas and actions that are within our reach, but which can still contribute towards a bigger whole.

Workshop by Maria Alcobia (Photo: Vasco Célio / Stills)

The project “Magic places” is an initiative of the Regional Cultural Authority of the Algarve. It brings together historic sites and contemporary artistic creation; it becomes the ‘magic place’ of an encounter between artists and young people under the care of social services. In concrete terms, this means that artists Maria Alcobia, Vasco Célio, Ricardo Lopes and Miguel Cheta (from the fields of dance, photography, ceramics and design respectively), coordinated by Tânia Borges Nunes (Atelier Educativo), worked together with young people and, inspired by the local heritage, taught them the technics of their art and produced some beautiful pieces together.

After the first edition, in 2010, there was a publication with texts written by all those involved. The second edition, in 2012, resulted in a one-day meeting last month, which brought together those involved and gave us the opportunity to get to know the project in more detail. Right in the start, a rare accomplishment took place in front of our eyes: representatives of the culture, education, and social fields sat around the same table and praised a project which they believe has accomplished a goal common to them all (isn´t this what it´s all about, how it should always be?). The day then went on and through films, photos and debates, we got to understand the huge vision behind this rather small-scale project.

There is no doubt that this has had a significant impact in the lives of all those involved. Listening to them, one realizes that it has been a process of discovery and inspiration and, in some cases, a mind-changing experience regarding ‘normality’ and ‘inclusion’. In that aspect, it seems that the objectives set by Regional Director Dália Paulo – “to allow for different perspectives, dialogues and experiences among the target audience, in a full exercise of citizenship” and “culture [as] an engine for social change” – have been met. I just felt it was a pity we didn´t get to hear the voice of the young people themselves, we didn´t get to hear the story of their participation and what it meant to them in their own words (an indication that the ‘natural tendency’ of the british cultural sector that James Page was talking about, also affects the portuguese cultural sector). Filomena Rosa, president of one of the social institutions involved, did bring some feedback, quoting in her presentation a few of the young people involved: “Photos in the town! I didn´t use to pay attention before, they were just old stones, but through the photos I learned”; or “I learned that a photo has got a lot to say, like a landscape that says something to us, with feelings”.

Workshop by Vasco Célio (Photo: Vasco Célio / Stills)  

In my final comment that day, I recalled the brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues - who didn´t set up her studio at a Rio de Janeiro slum wishing to resolve the problem of poverty or violence - and Daniel Barenboim – who didn´t create the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra hoping to bring peace in the Middle East (more in my post Places of encounter). The contribution of Culture, in the first place, is not related to issues like poverty, violence, crime, mental health, illiteracy, etc. Artists and culture professionals in general do not aim to take the role of social workers, teachers, politicians, policemen, priests or doctors. Culture, in the first place, is about critical thinking, self-expression (verbal and non-verbal), creativity, sensitivity; it´s about getting to know the ‘other’. So in that sense, when everything (culture, education, social action) comes together – in a ‘place of encounter’ or in a ‘magic place’ - I believe we have more chances of building a more democratic, more tolerant, more inclusive society; a society where we don´t live in compartments and we don´t define the ‘other’ based on their differences, but simply see them as human beings (not ´special´ or ‘disabled’ or ‘different’ or even ‘problematic’). “Magic Places” is the kind of project that brings together the necessary ingredients that can make this happen.

One final note: I was twice in Algarve recently in meetings with culture professionals. I felt there is a clear sense of purpose among them, there is a lot of motivation and dedication to the ‘cause’, there is satisfaction for what has been accomplished and a wish for more. And everything and everyone point towards the Regional Director, our colleague Dália Paulo. There is no doubt for me that it´s her vision, her professionalism, her knowledge and capacities that drive and inspire the whole team. Dália Paulo and the rest of the colleagues I met there are doing things at their own scale, making a ‘blockbuster’ difference in the lives of those living in the region. They are Wangari Maathai´s hummingbirds.

Says who?

Giselle Ciulla, 'curator' of Giselle´s Remix. (Photo taken from the website of Clark Art Institute)

uCurate is an initiative by Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, USA. It is a digital application that allows people to design imaginary exhibitions made up with objects from the museum collection. Proposals enter a competition and the winner gets to set up a real exhibition with the museum´s help. In this first edition, and after evaluating almost 1000 proposals, the winner was an 11-yaer-old girl, Giselle Ciulla, who´s inviting us now to visit Giselle´s Remix (more here).

It´s so good to see Giselle´s happy face and we can almost feel how proud she is of her exhibition. This is also the role of museums in society, a role that allows for involvement, active participation, which recognizes that there are more than one versions of the ‘truth’ and creates a place for them to be shared, even if this is about 11-year-old children. The objects´ labels were written by Giselle herself. They convey simplicity and freshness, they demonstrate sensitivity. A few years ago I had seen lables written by visitors at the Tate Britain and I had also liked them a lot. For me, they were, for me, as interesting as the others, the ‘official’ ones. At the time (it was in 2004) Maev Kennedy of the Guardian had found the initiative dubious. On the otehr hand, Tate Britain´s director at the time, Stephen Deuchar, was saying that he would be particularly interested in the contributions of visitors who might know much more on a painting than the museum experts or the artists themselves (read here).

On 12^th to 14^th of November I was at the conference In the name of the arts or in the name of the audiences, organized by Culturgest in collaboration with the programme Descobrir of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. One of the main concerns of those present seemed to be the issue of ‘authority’ regarding the interpretation of a work of art. When I did my master´s, we were ‘warned’ that people acknowledged authority in museums, they considered the information they found in them as a ‘validated truth’. But even at that time, and it´s been almost 20 years, we were questioning ourselves regarding the possibility (and the obligation) to create the space for more than one story to be told.

Well, there is still a concern and lots of thinking about it. The concept of participatory museum (so well substantiated in theory and in practice by Nina Simon) is being widely accepted. An interesting case, among others, at the above mentioned conference was that of the dTOURS at the contemporary art exhibition dOCUMENTA. These were (paid) guided tours given by people of various ages and backgrounds, the majority residing in Kassel, the city that hosts the exhibition. The dTOURS had taken place for the first time in the previous edition, dOCUMENTA 12, and they had resulted in a number of complaints from the audience. Although the organizers had informed that the tours would be given by non-specialists, participants still felt ‘cheated’, their expectations had been different. Nevertheless, and despite the not so positive evaluation, dOCUMENTA 13 repeted the tours.

A number of issues are raised here: Why repeat an initiative, in exactly the same way, if it was not positively evaluated? Are we ignoring – in the name of experimentation, of exploration, of a wish to do more and better – people´s basic needs, such as listen to what a specialist has to say on a specific subject, such as in a ‘normal’ guided tour, such as in a ‘normal’ label? Are we walking towards an opposite extreme, where “visitors know best” (even “more than the artists themselves”, to quote again the Tate Britain´s former director)?

Clay Shirky´s book Cognitive Surplus: How Technology Makes Consumers into Collaborators  tells us about the pro-am (professional – amateur) movement and how new technologies allow us today to use people´s enormous cognitive surplus. People are eager to contribute with their knowledge (without being paid for it, just because it makes them feel good, useful, involved) towards all sorts of projects, social causes, etc. Wikipedia is such an example. Ian David Moss argued in his blog Createquity that the model of Wikipedia may be applied to culture, in programming or in distributing funds (read here).

People continue looking for information in museums. In an article by Stephen Weil entitled “The Museum and the Public” (included in the book Museums and their communities, edited by Sheila Watson), I read that, after the era of ‘celebratory’ and assertive museums, there was a new trend, that of admitting that what´s being said is not a closed issue, it could be open to different interpretations or the subject of ongoing research. It´s worth mentioning that it was a natural history museum (the American Museum of Natural History) one of the first to present labels which said “what we know so far”, “but we might be wrong, it´s happened before, there is an ongoing reserach”, etc. Maybe because scientists are more at ease than other specialists with testing and error and with admitting that they had been wrong. 

Specialists don´t know everything, but they know a lot, more than we do in their specific areas. We may find them in and out of museums, they may be professionals or amateurs, and together they may contribute in the development of our knowledge. I, as a visitor, still look for their opinion, for their ‘version', not because I wish to accept it as if it was the Bible, but because with it I can build my own opinion, my own knowledge. At the same time, going beyond information, and considering that a museum visit is also feelings, surprises, emotions, sharing, previous knowledge and experiences, memories, the specialist – when also a good mediator or facilitator (or...) – will know how to create that space where everyone can contribute with their ideas, their experiences, their interpretations, their reactions. That space where there are no specialists and non-specialists, right or wrong. Thus, the participatory museum for me is not the museum  which, in the name of cultural democracy, passes the responsibility for one of its main functions over to the visitor. The participatory museum is that which gives ‘Giselle’ (each one of us) the tools to build and admit without fear her tastes, opinions, sensitivities and which creates the space for them to be hosted and shared with everyone.


This text is based on my short intervention during the closing of the conference In the name of the arts or in the name of the audiences, on November 14.

More readings
Museu2.0: a arte de ouvir o público, in the newspaper O Globo (27.11.2012)
Selling a product vs building a movement, by Nina Simon
When painting labels do their job, by Hrag Vartanian in Hyperallergic
Stories from the field: The Walters Art Museum, by Dallas Shelby
"GO", a group show at the Brooklyn Museum, by Martha Schwendener 
The power of non-experts, by Desi Gonzalez

Still on this blog
We are for people. Or… are we?
La crise oblige? (ii) Programming challenges
Building a family: lessons from the social sector
Free to visit an art museum
Museums: new churches?