Socializing Art Museums: Rethinking the Publics' Experience 9783110662085, 9783110646320

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Socializing Art Museums

EDITED BY ALEJANDRA ALONSO TAK AND ÁNGEL PAZOS-LÓPEZ

SOCIALIZING ART MUSEUMS Rethinking the Publics’ Experience

CONTENT

  9

Alejandra Alonso Tak and Ángel Pazos-López To Open up Art Museums to a More Social Approach



An Introduction

MUSEUMS AND AUDIENCES IN THE 21ST CENTURY  19

Hans-Martin Hinz Museums in a Globalized World



Still in the Service of Society?

 29

Eloísa Pérez Santos Best Practices in Visitors Studies The Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences



Íñigo Ayala, Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Jaime Cuenca

 46

Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception

 65

Álvaro Notario Sánchez From the Public Museum to the Virtual Museum



Communication in the Museum in Digital Environments. The Spanish Situation

 82

Luis Walias Rivera Seducing Audiences



Empathy Marketing Signs in the Centro Botín

EDUCATION STRATEGIES IN MUSEUMS

Alice Semedo

107

Border Pedagogy and Empowerment Education in Museums

143

Nicole Gesché-Koning Accessible Museums: Vision or Reality?



The Impact of Belgian Museum Education on Society

CONTENT

155

Stéphanie Masuy Museum at Home



Engaging New Audiences through the Sphere of Domesticity

MUSEUMS AS FORUMS FOR CITIZENSHIP 177

Martyna Ewa Majewska New York City’s Art Museums and Activism



From Early-Twentieth-Century Antifascism to the Post-Occupy Condition

193

Marián López Fernández Cao The Museum as a Potential Space



An Approach to Trauma and Emotional Memory in the Museum

214

Carolina Peral Jiménez Museums and Violence Against Women



Raising Awareness of Symbolic Violence

228

Tamara Bueno Doral, Irene González Hernando and Rosaura Navajas Seco The Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups in University Museums The Case of the Complutense University of Madrid

ACCESSIBILITY IN MUSEUMS 243

Ángel Pazos-López and Alejandra Alonso Tak Research Strategies in Inclusive Museology with the Museo del Prado Collections



Towards Universal Accessibility, Sensoriality, and Social Integration

270

Marta Pucciarelli, Luca Morici and Jean-Pierre Candeloro Close Your Eyes and Open Your Mind A Practice-Based Experiment of Cultural Mediation for Visually Impaired People

288

María Victoria Martín Cilleros and Miguel Elías Sánchez Sánchez The Museum as a Space for Individual and Collective Expression An Intervention Involving Individuals with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism

6

Content

RETHINKING SPACES IN MUSEUMS 303

Alexandra Irimia Museums of the Void The Exhibition Space as Empty Signifier

317

David Gallardo López, Silbia Idoate Pérez and Patricia Navarro Cantón The 3.0 Showcase The Smart Glass as an Interactive Support

336

Juan Carlos Rico Nieto Final Reflections on the Laboratory for Museographical Research and Experimentation Museums: In Search of a New Typology



357 AUTHORS 364

IMAGE CREDITS

367 PLATES

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ALEJANDRA ALONSO TAK AND ÁNGEL PAZOS-LÓPEZ

TO OPEN UP ART MUSEUMS TO A MORE SOCIAL APPROACH An Introduction

The concept of art museums and galleries, as we understand it nowadays, is between two and three centuries old. Art institutions have been major witnesses of History and have adapted to political, economic and social changes. Having as fundamental missions to preserve, do research on and share their collections, they have remained places for the encounter between art and people. More recently, as we will see in the following chapters, museums have participated in the forging of contemporary society after the two World Wars. They engaged with values such as nationalism, which later on were abandoned for a more globalized inclusive vision. Today, a more social model is being requested by museums’ visitors. Museums professionals -curators, educators, as well as security or services staff- are raising awareness on the diversity of audiences’ profiles and are actively contributing to the opening of the museum to a more social approach. How are museums’ professionals doing this? Have we achieved to understand universal accessibility? What will come next? Should we redefine the museum’s mission? What do audiences want? To answer these and many other questions, this monography introduces five lines of inquiry to define the role of museums as vehicles of social change, agents in the educational process and even as technological innovation platforms applied to museography and communication. A corpus of original studies reflects about the increasingly active role of art museums amid the rise of social, educational, inclusive and innovative consciousness and action in cultural institutions. Hence, beginning with the museum(s)-public(s) binomial, several new forward-looking actions are presented, identifying the museum as one of the tools of the cultural sector that contributes to socio-economic stability and the development of universal accessibility. A greater understanding of the public, both as receivers and creators of knowledge, in addition to their needs as individuals and members of a community, falls in with the global social evolution of these first decades of the 21st Century. Therefore, Socializing Art Museums is meant to be a relevant and academic tool that offers different studies from a multidisciplinary perspective, looking to divulge some of the international initiatives and solutions sought in recent years. It attempts to offer a plurality of views to map the missions that the 21st century museum must assume. Hence, both renowned and emerging researchers and professionals of Museums and Arts, ranging from art historians, educators and exhibition curators to technologists, museum conservators, architects and psychologists, offer a cross-sectional analysis with theoretical proposals that will be developed through practical case studies.

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This multidisciplinary work allows us to achieve a global vision on certain museological trends that are being developed in different countries and cultures sharing the common goal of making art more accessible to people via increasingly flexible and inclusive museums. This stance has aimed for a balance between theory and practice to facilitate understanding to all national and international museum professionals, as well as researchers in the field of Art History and Arts Management. It is clearly unachievable to encompass all innovations that are taking place nowadays; therefore, these lines of inquiry must be completed with many other examples about the connection between art institutions and their social environment. A five-parts structure is presented. In each part, chapters develop issues related to the abovementioned contemporary challenges faced by museology and museography. The first section, “Museums and Audiences in the 21st Century”, addresses the frame-question of this monography: what is the museums’ role nowadays? Several chapters analyse the social shift of their mission and how museums are putting audiences in the core of their reflections, both in terms of museology and museography. Studies on audiences and museums, so necessary in these days, offer a reflection on the relationship and the link that is established between visitors and the activities organised by the institution. Therefore, the success of museums’ cultural policies lies in the better understanding of its publics, allowing them to anticipate and adapt some measures and adopt some new ones, attempting to integrate audiences’ needs and interests. Nevertheless, they are the genuine protagonist of the museological reality One of the main pillars of today’s new museology is its educational and universal access mission. Our second section, “Education Strategies in Museums”, aims at questioning the social approach of pedagogy in museums, in addition to reflecting on the viability of this cohesive role attributed to the museum, as an element of society. Thirdly, in “Museums as Forums for Citizenship”, it is tackled the question on how the museum can act as a foundation for critical thinking, taking advantage of museums’ reach across their communities. The origin of museum activism and examples of good practices in museums that show a social commitment and a consciousness shift are analysed. As a result, museums are revealed to be potential catalysts for social change through the reflection triggered by the exhibition of objects that are rich in symbolism. The ensemble of works suggests a revision of the shift in the mission of the museum, going beyond its educational role to embark on a socially engaged philosophy. How did museums engage with its societal context in the past? What are the causes that require museums’ engagement today? A very specific engagement is universal accessibility, with a particular focus on audiences with cognitive or physical diversity. The section “Accessibility in Museums” presents several actions seeking inclusion and accessibility, in the broader sense of both concepts. Art becomes a tool to encourage participation and integration of individuals within the community and the museum becomes a therapeutic tool and space for the diversity of audiences. It also becomes a platform that recognizes the rights of groups that wish to augment the echoes of their voices through culture and heritage. “Rethinking Spaces in Museums” is the section that closes our monography, offering a deep reflection on how spaces influence and have great impact on visitors’ museum experience. The

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evolution and development of some of the unique exhibitional objects that have been present in the museum since its genesis is explored, covering their practical use and experimenting with all of the sensorial potential the museum can offer to its visitors. From the architecture to the showcase, what innovations can improve the perception and rapport between the public and the artwork? As mentioned before, the monograph is composed of individual studies which offer a specific insight on the social role of museums. In the first chapter, Museums in a Globalized World, Hans-Martin Hinz, former president of the ICOM, gives an overview on the history of museums’ engagement with society and their essential role as agents in processes of reconciliation, illustrating it with examples from Japan or New Zealand. Also, he analyses the theoretical frame on which museums have based their actions. By the end of the 20th century, museums lived under the sign of the “Second Modernity” or “Reflexive Modernization”. Main characteristics were increasing individualization, receding significance of the nation-state and globalization. However, cyclic as History is, some scholars are seeing features of a “regressive modernity” that may lead to a renationalization. What is the role of museums in this succession of changes? In order to answer this question, museums need to know the people they serve. Who are its audiences and what do they demand and expect from them. In addition, in times of austerity, efficiency is particularly sought and undoubtedly needful. Audiences studies become an essential tool to get to understand from multiple perspectives the museum visitor. These studies are being carried out in different fields, such as health, sustainable development, sociology, etc. as they are proving the positive impact of peoples’ participation in cultural activities. Best Practices in Visitors Studies, by the Coordinator of the LPPM (Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos), Eloísa Pérez Santos, gives us an approach on how evaluation is being implemented in Spanish museums, encouraged by international organisms. In connection to this issue, in the following chapter Transformations in Museums from the Audience´s Perception, Iñigo Ayala, Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Jaime Cuenca, from University of Deusto, analyses what is the visitors’ perspective on the changes museums are both facing and implementing. Has the elitist perception that Bordieu attributed to museums changed? Does the frequency of visit affect the public’s vision or experience in the museum? He gives us a very interesting insight on what people think a museum is for: leisure, a place where to participate within the community or, simply, a waste of time. Undoubtedly, technology has changed the way in which we all interact with the museum. Álvaro Notario Sánchez, researcher at the University of Castilla-La Mancha, explains in his chapter From the Public Museum to the Virtual Museum how no so long ago, the appearance of the internet was seen as a threat to cultural institutions. However, websites, images databases, social media, etc. are nowadays seen as basic tools of communication for them. These digital tools make the museum accessible from anywhere in the world, any day, anytime, regardless physical barriers. The original fear of the “virtual museum” being in competition with the “social museum” has been mitigated -hopefully eradicated- thanks to the use museums professionals have made of the former. The “virtual museum” is an excellent exchange database where museums can complete their informative and educative mission, and a place where the public can participate and interact via the social media through the activities available online.

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The chapter Seducing Audiences closes this section. In it, Luis Walias Rivera, professor-tutor at UNED Cantabria, brings us the case of the Centro Botín in Santander, which has precisely developed a very strong strategy on visitors’ studies and using digital tools in order to attire the public. The information collected by these tools allowed the institution to accurately target potential audiences and foster their loyalty by tailoring the way to address to them. Is this marketing strategy an alternative to museums management? Can Mediterranean idiosyncrasy successfully implement Anglo-Saxon models? As seen before, the second section addresses education and pedagogy. Alice Semedo, assistant professor at the University of Porto, offers us in Border Pedagogy and Empowerment Education in Museums a fantastic reflection on the challenges of education praxis in museums. The educator represents the museum’s ethics and deontology. Contemporary pedagogy stands for a horizontal transmission of knowledge in which the educator must build a speech taking into account visitors’ backgrounds, experiences and profile. In order to explain this, Alice Semedo introduces the concept of “metacognition”: thinking about owns and others thinking. The complexity of this praxis lays on the numerous elements that must be integrated in the discourse from both the museum and the visitor: values, beliefs, political stands, engagements, etc. In the next chapter, Accessible Museums: Vision or Reality?, Nicole Gesché-Koning, Honorary Professor at the Royal Art Academy Brussels, dares to question us all if universal accessibility is reachable. As she exposes, this is not a new issue, as many pioneering experiences had been carried out in Belgium, rediscovering us the figure of 16th century museologist Samuel Quiccheberg. This tradition has led to very interesting actions in many Belgian museums, which have had remarkable results in terms of connecting museums with their communities, both local and international. A particular example mentioned in this chapter is developed in the following one: Museum at Home, by Stéphanie Masuy, Head of Education at the Musée d’Ixelles. It shows us how a museum can take advantage of a close-for-renovation period. A time that we could associate with less activity for pedagogic actions can be an opportunity to engage differently with the local community. They have succeeded to create a strong bond with the museum’s neighbours by giving them the opportunity to engage personally with the artworks. They become ambassadors of the museum’s collection by hosting an artwork in their own homes, allowing them to live an exceptional artistic experience. The section “Museums as Forums for Citizenship” begins with the chapter New York City’s Art Museum and Activism, by Martina Majewska (DESA Unicum Warsaw). In it, she scrutinizes how activism has interacted with museums and vice versa: the recognition of activism by the museum, the “artistifaction” of these movements, the image of the museum as personification of the state, the involvement of the citizenship in issues as dirty money… This all embodies the idea of the museum as a forum and no longer a temple. In this line, The museum as a Potential Space, by Marián López Fernández Cao, researcher at the Art education and Art Therapy Department of the Complutense University of Madrid, continues with a critic on how museums become spaces where audiences can read and experience further than the traditional art history description of the objects. The role of the museum as vehicle of a given discourse is precisely essential in this sense: they become providers of experiences and, as she says quoting Montpetit: products are tangible, services intangible and experiences, memorable.

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To Open up Art Museums to a More Social Approach

Also highlighting the relevance of the museum discourse on its collection, Carolina Peral (Complutense University of Madrid) shares her research on the different approaches driven by History of Art on art representing women and art made by women through the centuries. In Museums and Violence Against Women, she brings up some examples of uncomplete or unfair discourses on a selection of artworks. The last chapter, The Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups in University Museums, illustrates an evaluation on the accessibility of vulnerable groups (people with physical or mental handicaps, migrants, etc.). Tamara Bueno, Irene González and Rosaura Navajas, also from Complutense University of Madrid, tell us about the importance of having governmental laws and policies to guide and ensure universal accessibility. Also, the success when applying the RRI (Responsible Research and Innovation) model that proposes to plan accessibility with all stakeholders. This last idea articulates next section, in which several examples of inclusive activities are brought up. The first chapter, Research Strategies in Inclusive Museology with the Museo del Prado Collections, by Ángel Pázos-López (Complutense University of Madrid) and Alejandra Alonso Tak (Ministry of Culture of France-Department of Publics Policies), sums up the actions led by Consortium MUSACCES in terms of universal accessibility, not only in museums but also in the academic world. They have contributed to raising awareness and erasing barriers on accessibility studies in Art History Departments. Secondly, Close Your Eyes and Open Your Mind insists on the importance of integrating concerned agents in accessible activities through a very interesting experience in the Vincenzo Vela Museum (Switzerland). In it, Marta Pucciarelli, Luca Morici and Jean-Pierre Candeloro (University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland) explains us how visually impaired people worked along with undergraduate students to make “visible” some artworks through the technique of narrative writing. This section is closed by another extraordinary experience led by the Venancio Blanco Foundation (Spain): The Museum as a Space for Individual and Collective Expression, by María Victoria Martín Cilleros and Miguel Elías Sánchez Sánchez, professors at the University of Salamanca. This activity achieved that a group of people with Asperger syndrome and communication difficulties created a language through art, being able to express themselves and interact with other participants and visitors. As mentioned before, last section reflects on the museum space. Alexandra Irimia (PhD student at the University of Western Ontario) introduces us to the concept, uses and versatility of the void in art in her chapter Museums of the Void. The experience of the visitor is determined by the void he or she inhabits in the exhibition and the interaction with it. Interaction is also an essential element in the research carried out by David Gallardo López, Silbia Idoate and Patricia Navarro Cantón (LIME-Laboratory for Museographical Research and Experimentation Museums): The 3.0 Showcase. In times of austerity, their research seeks for a sustainable multi-task showcase that would enhance the artwork, allow an easier, immediate and broader access to information about it and become an interface for the visitor to where he or she would be able express about his/her experience in real time through the social media. Last chapter of both this section and the monograph describes the research project LIME, in which his head of project, Juan Carlos Rico, gives us some Final Reflections Laboratory for

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­ useographical Research and Experimentation. He very honestly describes the difficulties in muM seology and museography research nowadays and encourages every museum professional to dare to go further and to be fearless about changes, evolution and mistakes. We totally adhere to this way of thinking and working. Museums are run by and for people. Diversity is a richness on both sides of the board and even more when both sides meet. There is still much research to do and many lessons to be learnt. We hope this book inspires the people to approach museums as open, democratic and accessible spaces where they feel represented, safe and excited. The beauty of heritage resides in the eternal message it passes. Thousands of stories are woven among paintings, sculptures, books, architecture and many other objects. It is our task, as museums professionals, to listen to all the stories encapsulated in them and be capable of transmitting them to the largest audiences possible. It is our task, as museums professionals, to build new discourses with visitors and continue the ongoing mission of heritage. It is our task, as human beings, to understand that heritage belongs to us all, so we all should be able to enjoy it, participate of it and contribute to this endless storytelling for future generations. Socializing art museums is simply the logical evolution for these institutions created to serve humankind. We did not want to end this chapter without dedicating a few lines to all those who have contributed to this project: professor in History of Art, José María Salvador González, Chair of the MUSACCES Consortium. He entrusted us the task of achieving the publication of this book. We thank him for his generosity and engagement, especially with young researchers, without which this book would not have been possible. We owe very much to Full Professor in Modern History at the Complutense University of Madrid, Teresa Nava Rodríguez, whose vision and trust has encouraged us all along the way. A very special mention to the restless work of Ana María Cuesta Sánchez, Director of Cabinet of the Academic Project Manager of MUSACCES Consortium. Her dedication, efficient management, support and diligence have helped us meet the quality and financial requirements for the accomplishment of this book. To Víctor Rabasco and Tomás Ibáñez, ex-researchers of our Consortium who worked as Codirector and Secretary of the International Conference “The limits of art in the Museum”, which inspired us to edit this monography. We also want to dedicate a few words to the institutions that welcomed our work: members of the MUSACCES Management Committee, who understood the importance of universal accessibility in museums and the social role of cultural institutions. This monography has been partly defrayed thanks to the aids programme in Humanities and Social Sciences S2015/HUM-3494 of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, co-funded by the European Social Fund. To the Faculty of Geography and History of the Complutense University of Madrid, which hosted some of the activities that also contributed to the creation of this book. Without this open and democratic space for dialogue and reflection, this work would not have been possible. Our gratitude goes as well to the Publics Policies Department of the Ministry of Culture of France, who generously offered its expertise in audiences diversification in museums. A very special thanks to all the authors: Iñigo Ayala Aizpuru, Tamara Bueno Doral, Jean-Pierre Candeloro, Jaime Cuenca, Macarena Cuenca-Amigo, Marián López Fernández Cao, David Gallardo López, Nicole Gesché-Koning, Irene González Hernando, Silbia Idoate Pérez, Alexandra Irimia, Martyna Majewska, María Victoria Martín Cilleros, Hans-Martin Hinz, Stéphanie Masuy, Luca

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Morici, Rosaura Navajas Seco, Patricia Navarro Cantón, Álvaro Notario Sánchez, Carolina Peral Jiménez, Eloísa Pérez Santos, Marta Pucciarelli, Juan Carlos Rico Nieto, Miguel Elías Sánchez Sánchez, Alice Semedo and Luis Walias Rivera. They all have shown endless patient with the editorial process, peer reviews and multiple corrections, but most importantly, they gave us their trust when invited to participate to this project. It is because of this silent labour that we also wanted to do some justice by expressing our gratitude to all peer reviewers. With their ideas and evaluation, they have contributed to substantially improve this work. May our gratitude also go to Maria Cattarini, María Teresa Roca de Togores and Silvia Santillán, for their generous and valuable help when translating and proofreading texts. We must not forget those who have recently integrated our team: Sofía Gómez Robisco, who has efficiently led the Publishing and Communication Department in MUSACCES consortium; and Elvira Rodríguez Martín, who has helped us since the very first moment she joined us, few weeks ago. Together they accomplished the last proofreading of the mansucript, among other missions. Also, we want to thank the help offered by our team of assistants, grantees and interns, for being so understanding when time was scarce and the tasks, numerous. We want as well to express our affection to those who have been next to us. Without their support this book would not have been possible: Aarón, Ángeles, Buky, Claude, Eduardo, Florencia, Ignacio, José Manuel, Magdalena, Manuel, María, and Nicolás. They know very well how demanding the coordination of a book is. Finally, we must thank Anja Weisenseel and Arielle Thürmel, editorial staff at De Gruyter, who accompanied us through the editorial process. Without her patience, engagement and diligence this project would not have been successfully achieved. To open up museums to a more social approach is not an easy task, as this ambitious book wants to show. We believe that main actors in this turn are museums professionals. They are the ones who work to achieve visitors’ successful experiences and to place them in the core of museums’ reflections. This work is addressed to them. Small museums, as much as large ones, have to innovate and take advantage of their specificities to be able to build a true experience for their public. Being away from the focus of the media, small museums count on their staff’s professionalism and creativity. We hope some of the examples shown in this book will inspire them, offering new perspectives on what to do -and what not- in order to face the challenges that the 21st century is bringing. We wanted to share this book with them, alongside with professors, researchers and students who may find Socializing art museums of their interest. With this monography, we did not aim at bringing up universal solutions to the challenges abovementioned. On the contrary, we hope many questions will rise after reading it. It is in theirs and our hands to build the answers with the audiences. Alejandra Alonso Tak, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3131-1229 Ángel Pazos- López, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4551-1483

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MUSEUMS AND AUDIENCES IN THE 21 ST CENTURY

HANS-MARTIN HINZ

MUSEUMS IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD Still in the Service of Society?

Introduction In the past, cultural politics and museum development have been a tandem in the service of society1. The support of cultural politics for museum-development followed the demand of being pro-active or reacting to social needs in times of uncertainties, rapid changes in everyday life and political crises in order to help stabilizing identities among the population. From this point of view, museums can be seen as tools for realizing these overall political aims. However, museums understand themselves as institutions independently based on ethical values and academic freedom. From their point of view, they are in the position of helping the public to understand the past and the present through their exhibitions and educational programs.2 If we want to understand the current relation of politics and museum-development in our times of changes and crises, it makes sense to review earlier periods of social changes and see how good or bad the tandem worked out. A good example for this is the development of national museums. The First Wave of National Museums Be proud of belonging to your nation! This was the core educational incentive of cultural politics, supported by groups of citizens for the newly established national museums in modern countries in the second half of the 19th and of the early 20th century. Offering history and culture as a golden age in a time of massive industrialization and rapid social changes were meant, most of 1  The current ICOM museum definition of 2007 points out the Service for Society and its development as a core task of museum work: “A museum is a non-profit making permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment,” in: ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ ICOM-code‑En-web.‌pdf (accessed on October 20, 2019). The ICOM-museum definition is part of the global ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, which is compulsory not only for individual and institutional ICOM members, but has become part of state museum laws. In countries without museum-laws due to the respective constitutional situation, the ICOM Code in many cases has become an official document of parliaments and/or governments. 2  ICOM Code of Ethics, current version 2004, principles, in: https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/07/ICOM-code‑En-web.‌pdf (accessed on October 20, 2019); Geoffrey Lewis, The ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, Background and Objectives, in: Bernice Murphy, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage, London: Routledge, 2016.

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all, to stabilize identities among people and to give them a support in times of migration from the countryside to the urban centers and in times of nation building. If we look at the exhibitions of these early national museums, history was mostly conceptualised and presented as a positive one-dimensional narrative. The exhibitions did not offer clear different versions or various perspectives on history and almost nothing was told about conflicting historical situations. History and culture were positively expressed through art. At that time, this kind of exhibition-conception and style of presentation made sense since the aim was to offer a solid footing through historical, cultural and educational policy. The same applies to the buildings for the early national museums. They are rich in architecture, often located in the prestige centres of the capitals, and they were erected in order to evoke the same effect: be proud of your country. Anyway, cultural policy and national museums co‑operated productively a century ago, even though the museum ethics of the time and the political ideology was definitely not comparable with the set of ethics which binds the museums today. The Second Wave of National Museums One hundred years later, in the 1970 s and 1980 s, cultural policy, first in the so‑called post-industrial societies, reacted again to new transformation processes in order to meet the latest social challenges. At that time, several changes and crises led to a loss of confidence in democratic structures. Among them were the internationalisation of everyday life, migration because of economic and other reasons, massive and widespread political conflicts, including the Cold War and the nuclear weapons race, apartheid as well as military conflicts in many parts of the world. As one reaction to this, the 1980's saw a boom, a wave of new national museum foundations.3 Some of them had already had an individual past, i. e. in terms of collections or as already existing museums. Others started as completely new institutions. Several of them did not use the term “national” in their names any longer, they were called history museum or civilization museum. During the process of conceptualization, most of these museums were not aware of each other, but had a lot in common. What was the new museum strategy in the 1980's, and how should these new museums become frontrunners for stabilizing identities under the then current circumstances? Unlike exhibitions of the 19th century museums, these new museums present multi-perspective views of culture and history, often accompanied by international comparisons and an increased focus on political history, while in most cases still using the means most common to museums: original historical artefacts. However, the presentations do not follow traditional criteria for collections; rather, objects are juxtaposed in such a way as to make historical connections and situations visible for the visitor. People were put into the position to make up their own minds, because they learnt that history was always the sum of perspectives. Therefore, different views and opinions were presented, so that visitors were able to understand the past better than before, a precondition for 3  Hans-Martin Hinz, National History Museums – Places of the Memory of Nations? An Approach, in: Hans-­ Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, p. 16.

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an understanding of the present. To strengthen the visitors’ reflection on the presentations was and is of utmost importance of this kind of museums. Here are a few examples of the then newly established houses: in 1981, the National Museum of Japanese History was founded as an inter-university research institute and opened its doors in 1987 on the site of a castle in Sakura, a suburb of Tokyo. The aim of the museum as a national institution (semi-privatization in 2004) is to present Japanese history based on university research programs.4 The academic freedom of universities allowed especially this new national museum to include also the dark period of Japanese colonialism and imperialism of the 20th century into its program. In spite of this and compared to European exhibitions on the subject, the Japanese presentation touches these themes in a very sensitive way. Nevertheless, the exhibitions have led to intensive public discussions and criticism in Japan. However, for the first time a Japanese museum was accepted as frontrunner dealing with historical taboos in Japan. In 1982, the Canadian Government announced its intention of constructing the Canadian Museum of Civilization – later renamed as Museum of Canadian History – in the capital, Ottawa, and inaugurated an impressive building in 1989.5 The museum presents the culture and history of the First Nations and the history of the English and French population equally, a completely new conception. It presents the past in a way that all Canadian visitors were able to understand themselves as equal members of the nation and as members of an international community. In the 1980 s also New Zealand intensively discussed the establishment of a new national museum which, for the first time, was to present the country’s history on the one hand, from a Maori point of view, and on the other hand, from a white society’s perspective. In the capital, Wellington, the new bi‑cultural Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand (Place of the treasures of the country) got a modern building based on collections of the old National Museum and the National Art Gallery. A mixed staff of Maori and white New Zealanders realized the then new conception.6 The Maori collections are under complete control of the Maori community, what is of great importance for the exhibition-conceptions, as well as on the perspectives of the narratives, and the style of presentation. The museum works intensively together with local groups, but on the other hand, presents as well New Zealand’s role in the world. It finally opened in 1998 and played an important role in the country’s reconciliation process of the time. Already in 1980, the Australian Parliament established the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, which did in the first two decades mostly travelling exhibitions.7 From the very begin-

4  Rekihaku, The Future of History, National Museum of Japanese History, Sakura City, Chiba Prefecture, 2007; Tsuneo Yasuda, Japan Faces its Past. National History in the Museum, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, p. 68. 5  George MacDonald and Stephen Alsford, The Canadian Museum of Civilization, Quebec, 1990. 6  Seddon Bennington, Double Gaze. New Zealand’s Bi‑Cultural View on History, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, p. 103. 7  Dawn Casey, The national Museum of Australia: Exploring the past, illuminating the present and imagining the future, in: Darryl McIntyre and Kirstin Wehner (eds.), National Museums, Negotiating Histories, Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2001, p. 3.

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ning, the museum accompanied the process of reconciliation between Australia’s white society and the Aboriginals. It is a focal point of public and political discussions about the way to deal with the country’s diverse history and Australia’s role in the world and what national identity means to Australians today.8 In 2001, for the 100th anniversary of Australia’s independence from Britain, a permanent exhibition was launched in a brand new museum building in the heart of the capital Canberra. For Berlin’s 750th anniversary in 1987, the German government decided to establish a German Historical Museum in Berlin. The museum planning was intensively discussed in the West-German public, among political parties and in the media.9 A brand new conception included the museums’ task to present German history foremost in its international context and from a multi-perspective point of view. This approach was the reason for the success of the new institution, especially after German re‑unification (1990).10 All these then new museums were and are very much accepted by visitors and no one was surprised about the huge success of these institutions. What is behind the success? Sociologists and museological researchers alike have been analyzing this wave of new museum foundations of the 1980 s, classifying them since the mid-1990 s under the theory of the Second Modernity or Reflexive Modernization.11 According to this theory, the ongoing transformation of societies in the 1970 s and 1980 s represented a break with the structures and values that had shaped the modernity of the industrial societies of the 19th century, the first modernity, when many of the early national museums were established. In contrast to the modernity of the early industrialization, the search for sustainable strategies for the development of society a century later is determined by growth limits and ecological problems on a global scale, the receding significance of the nation-state, the dissolution of traditional bonds such as marriage or household, and the loss of tradition. This is accompanied by greater individualization in terms of lifestyle, economic independence and consumer power. The new national, historical, civilization and ethnological museums of the 1980’s, met on the one hand, met the greater demand of a better-educated and more inclusive audience by fostering mutual international understanding. On the other hand, these museums were called driving forces when it came to new and equal societal dialogues in the respective country. For example, the new and fair communication with aboriginal populations, like in Australia, New Zealand and

8  Mathew Trinca, The National Museum of Australia, Representing a Culturally Diverse Nation in the 21st Century, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, p. 98. 9  Christoph Stölzl, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Ideen-Kontroversen-Perspektiven, Frankfurt: Propyläen, 1988, pp. 17; Hans Ottomeyer, German History in its International Context, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, p. 39. 10  Hans-Jörg Czech, Two Thousand Years of German History: A Walk through the Permanent Exhibition of the German Historical Museum, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, p. 51. 11  Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens, Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernization, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.

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Canada. In the case of Germany the newly introduced multi-perspective exhibitions did a lot for the mutual understanding of life in the former East and the former West and, besides the political reunification, paved the way for a social unification in 1990 and after. What is important to know is that the new museums of the 1980’s in their international, multi-perspective work were, by far, not at all anti-national, but international, post-colonial and multicultural National museums.12 Parallel to the renewing process of national museums, ethnological museums underwent substantial changes as well when they gave up their European-centered view of the world. Some of them changed their names into, for example, Five-Continents-Museum, World-Cultures-Museum, or just World Museum in order to demonstrate the new conceptual way of thinking that that cultures all over the world are equal and should be presented as equal. Furthermore, these 1980’s conceptions, which are still valid and were, in the meantime, adopted by many more already existing and newly founded museums, have put museums in the position of being places of reconciliation in a broader sense. Reconciliation with the past in general, among parties of civil conflicts or former enemies of wars, victims and perpetrators of dictatorships, or underrepresented groups of society. These museums help to successfully overcome societal taboos, and at the same time, to avoid harmonizing the past. Modern memorial museums and Human Rights museums are the best examples for the latest museum-development. It is important to mention that the newly conceptualized museums of the 1980’s did not replace traditional national museums, mostly art museums. Not at all. It is the opposite: several types of national museums have their place in society. To foster reconciliation through new museum activities is a very important museum service for society. And it is not only an internal issue of a country, but has international challenges as well, especially after wars. There is a good and successful example from the Balkans, realized after the Yugoslavian Wars of the early 1990’s. The aim was to heal wounds of the yearlong conflict on the Balkans. After the break-down of Yugoslavia, museums of the region were not only focused to re‑write their conceptions concerning the new political situation of the respective new country, but they wanted to act internationally in order to foster a better understanding of former war enemies. Therefore and as a result of an international museum conference in Belgrade in 2008, ICOM and UNESCO brought museums of former Yugoslavia around a table in order to develop a joint travelling exhibition for the region.13 Imagining the Balkans was the title of the exhibit which toured around all the new states and beyond for more than two years. To offer new views on a culturally rich region, which has much in common, but which was still in crisis, was exactly the right tool to foster mutual understanding.14 Before visitors from the different areas of the Balkans

12  Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan, Erinnerte Geschichte- Inszenierte Geschichte: Ausstellungen und Museen in der Zweiten Moderne, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Taschenbuch, 2005, p. 71. 13  Sladjana Bojkovic and Ana Stolic (eds.), Museums as places of Reconciliation, Proceedings of the 8th Colloquium of the International Association of Museums of History, Belgrade: Historical Museum of Serbia, 2010. 14  Philippos Mazarakis-Ainian and Ana Stolić (coords. and ed.), Imagining the Balkans: Identities and memory in the long 19th century- travelling exhibition, Ljubljana: National Museum of Slovenia, 2013.

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could learn more about their new own state and the common ground of the region in terms of culture and history, museum professionals themselves had to overcome the silence, a process, in the end full of success. If we evaluate the museum boom of the 1980’s and the development afterwards, we can state that new institutions as well as cultural politics have reacted positively to the then current social needs. The new international and multi-perspective approaches of exhibition-conceptions were successful since the aim was again, like 100 years before, to offer a solid footing through historical, cultural and educational policy, but with a completely different educational approach. In many cases, museums and cultural policy worked together productively as a successful tandem.

Museums Today – Are They in the Position to Meet the Current Demands? We currently live again in a time of dramatic worldwide changes and we need to ask: do cultural politics and museum-professionals properly reflect the present challenges again and are they in the position to meet the demands by new initiatives and conceptions? Sociologists speak about the Regressive Modernity, which has followed the booming postwar Second Modernity and mirrors current social problems.15 There are rapid social changes in current societies because of the massive impact of globalization on one’s everyday life, the introduction of new technologies and their deep impact on the labor market, the fear of climate change, poverty and military conflicts in many parts of the word, including the highest number of migration ever. There are at least two social groups in western societies who are highly affected by the changes and fears: firstly, middle class people feel that education, good skills and motivation are no longer the reasons and sources for fair chances on the labor market. Secondly, the so‑called Behinders, people living in the forgotten countryside and old industrial areas, do not feel connected with the mainstream society. Especially these groups look for alternatives. As a result, there is a growing populist movement in many parts of the world, a trend towards an expected splendid isolation, including a new nationalism and a denial of the importance of international political and economic structures. What does all this mean for museums and cultural politics? What are the consequences? Should museums follow the re‑nationalization trend and give up the international approach of their work of which they were so proud of in the last decades. Should they return to the19th century educational policy of “be proud of your country”? Have they lost the contact to this growing demand and are not aware that sociologists argued already 20 years ago that re-nationalization would follow globalization?16

15  Oliver Nachtwey, Die Abstiegsgesellschaft. Über das Aufbegehren in der regressiven Moderne, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2016, pp. 71. 16  Ulrich Beck, Was ist Globalisierung?, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998, p. 16.

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We often speak about museums as frontrunners of social change, as being inclusive and working for lifelong learning and sustainable development. We think about virtual museums in order to reach the digital natives. This was and is true. It reflects the current self-understanding of museums. However, do museums reach those, who are losing trust in internationalism and democratic structures? Are museums not inclusive enough or are they this time already out of the game? In addition, what about cultural politics as the traditional supporter of museums in times of rapid changes? Is politics still a convincing tandem-partner for museums? Unfortunately, in several countries we have to recognize a political role back concerning academic freedom in cultural activities. Countries, once liberal in politics, are now under populists’ control. There, museums, theatres and other cultural institutions are forced to change their open, liberal program-work and to perform more conservative – patriotic programs, returning to one-sided views on culture and history. Museum directors get under pressure and some of them are replaced. Does re‑nationalization automatically mean that academic freedom is not at the top of priorities any longer? However, even in still liberal countries museum colleagues are often disappointed by cultural policy for being too passive in its intellectual input of protecting academic freedom and the independence of museums. The museums are afraid to become overpowered by those who give simple answers to complicated issues. Intellectual resistance against this is missing, but necessary, if museums want to be accepted by the public as places of free information, good education and true reconciliation. However, how shall we overcome? It is no surprise that a third wave of new types of museum-foundations is not around, which could give us hope like decades ago. Nevertheless, what we currently see as positive signals is a twofold development: on the one hand, there is a re‑consideration in the museum-community of what museums should be in the 21st century, and on the other hand, there are international political activities in order to support museums on a global scale. In order to reflect what museums of the 21st century should be like, the International Council of Museums, ICOM, stimulated a worldwide discussion about a new museum-definition, beginning in 2015. Already 40 workshops in 40 cities on all continents with more than 1000 professional participants have taken place until 2019. A new wording of the museum-definition is not of priority now, it is the content and the self-understanding of the museum community about what a museum is in current society, their missions and expectations. Everyone can take part in the discussion; ICOM has an online-platform which invites everyone who is interested to join and to give a personal view of the museum of the future. In September 2019, when the museum world meets at the ICOM General Conference in Kyoto, the discussions will continue on a broader scale and probably a new definition will be approved.17 The current political pressure on museums in several countries is one dangerous issue, and colleagues there need solidarity of all liberal thinking people. However, a more general problem museums are facing in many parts of the world is the still missing appropriate support by the owners of the museums. There are multiple reasons for that. The continual weak financial 17  After the Kyoto Conference an agreement on the new museum definition was not reached. Thus, the discussion is still open.

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situation in many countries for already a decade is the most important one. Therefore, museums suffer from extreme budget cuts, which fundamentally limit their engagement for the service of society in rapidly changing situations. Counter-cycle expenses would be the right answer to that, but since public expenses for culture are not compulsory in many countries in opposition to state expenses for the social sector, there is little hope for the better. On the other hand, concerning international cultural policy, there is at least a glimpse of hope. The community of States, organized under the roof of UNESCO, have worked out new strategies for a better protection and support of museums. In 2015, the General Conference of UNESCO approved an important international tool, the Recommendation on the Protection and Promotion of Museums, their Diversity and their Role in Society.18 Member-States are encouraged to take actions for a better development of museums in their respective countries. UNESCO published an interim report already in 2019, which allows everyone to evaluate the success of this new UNESCO policy for museums. The 2015 document is the first museum-related one in almost 60 years.

Conclusion If we look back into the past, we can say that the relationship between museums and cultural politics, especially in times of rapid social changes and upcoming problematic situations concerning identities were productive and successful as long as the academic freedom for museums was guaranteed. Museums were in the position to follow their core intention: helping the society by launching convincing museum-strategies. However, the current situation is not as easy and clear as it was in the past. What we see in many countries is a decreasing support for museums, financially and ideologically, but fortunately, there are international initiatives for the better, too, like the UNESCO policy. What we see as well is that museums, even under worse and critical circumstances do a lot to maintain ethical responsibility in order to meet the social challenges of society and to promote a better understanding of an interconnected human history and the heritage of humankind in a globalized world. Very recently, there is indeed a new tandem-like activity between cultural policy and museums. The current global north-south decolonization dialogue at a political and museum-community level about a new reconciliation policy concerning the colonial times and the ownership of museums-collections from the colonial past in northern museums. It can be definitely seen as a good example for an important joint initiative. Both, cultural policy and museums started working closely together in order to find good solutions for a worldwide shared heritage, ethical behavior, repatriation and museums-related co‑operation on a global scale.

18  UNESCO, Recommendation concerning the protection and promotion of museums and collections, their diversity and their role in society, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.‌php-URL_ID=​49357&URL_DO=​DO_ TOPIC&URL_SECTION=​201.‌html (accessed October 19, 2019).

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ICOM has recently initiated a series of workshops in former colonial regions in order to bring museums from the global north and south directly together. To listen to each other seems to be the best pre-condition for finding good solutions following the ethical values we all share. The current challenges differ from the ones in the past, but, museums, in their great majority still do their best and many of them, fortunately, do a very valuable work in the service of society!

REFERENCES Beck, Ulrich, Anthony Giddens und Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernization, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. Beck, Ulrich, Was ist Globalisierung?, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1998. Beier, Rosmarie, Geschichtskultur in der Zweiten Moderne, Frankfurt: Campus, 2000. Beier‑de-Haan, Rosmarie, Erinnerte Geschichte – Inszenierte Geschichte: Ausstellungen und Museen in der Zweiten Moderne, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2005. Bennington, Seddon. Double Gaze. New Zealand’s Bi‑cultural View on History, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, pp. 103–109. Bojkovic, Sladjana and Ana Stolic (eds.), Museums as places of Reconciliation, Proceedings of the 8th Colloquium of the International Association of Museums of History, Belgrade: Historical Museum of Serbia, 2010. Casey, Dawn, The national Museum of Australia: Exploring the past, illuminating the present and imagining the future, in: Darryl McIntyre and Kirstin Wehner (eds.), National Museums, Negotiating Histories, Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2001, pp. 3–11. Czech, Hans-Jörg, Two Thousand Years of German History: A Walk through the Permanent Exhibition of the German Historical Museum, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, pp. 41–59. Davision, Graeme, National museums in a global age: Observations abroad and reflexions at home, in: Darryl McIntyre and Kirstin Wehner (eds.), National Museums, Negotiating Histories, Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2001, pp. 12–28. Hinz, Hans-Martin, National History Museums – Places of the Memory of Nations? An Approach, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, pp. 16–19. International Council of Museums, ICOM museum definition, https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ICOM-code‑En-web.‌pdf (accessed on October 20, 2019). International Council of Museums, ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, https://icom.museum/wp-content/ uploads/2018/07/ICOM-code‑En-web.‌pdf (accessed on October 20, 2019). Lewis, Geoffrey, The ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums, Background and Objectives, in: Bernice Murphy, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage, London: Routledge, 2016. Macdonald, Sharon, Nationale, postnationale, transkulturelle Identitäten und das Museum, in: Beier, Rosmarie, Geschichtskultur in der Zweiten Moderne, Frankfurt: Campus, 2000, pp. 123–148. MacDonald, Georg and Stephen Alsford, The Canadian Museum of Civilization, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1990. McIntyre, Darryl and Kirstin Wehner (eds.), National Museums, Negotiating Histories, Canberra: National Museum of Australia, 2001.

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HANS-MARTIN HINZ Mairesse, Francois, The UNESCO Recommendation on the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, their Diversity and their Role in Society, in: Bernice Murphy, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage, London: Routledge, 2016, pp. 103–112. Mazarakis-Ainian, Philippos and Ana Stolić (coords. and ed.), Imagining the Balkans: Identities and memory in the long 19th century- travelling exhibition, Ljubljana: National Museum of Slovenia, 2013. Murphy, Bernice, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage, London: Routledge, 2016. Nachtwey, Oliver, Die Abstiegsgesellschaft. Über das Aufbegehren in der regressiven Moderne, Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2016. Ottomeyer, Hans, German History in its International Context, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑­deHaan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, pp. 33–39. Rekihaku, The Future of History, National Museum of Japanese History, Sakura City: Chiba Prefecture, 2007. Rössler, Mechthild and Nao Hayashi, UNESCO’s actions and international standards concerning museums, in: Bernice Murphy, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage, London: Routledge, 2016, pp. 81–94. Stölzl, Christoph, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Ideen-Kontroversen-Perspektiven, Frankfurt: Propyläen, 1988. Trinca, Mathew, The National Museum of Australia, Representing a Culturally Diverse Nation in the 21st Century, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, pp. 89–102. Vodden, Christy and Ian Dyck, Un Monde en Soi, 150 Ans D’Histoire du Musée Canadien des Civilisations, Québec: Musée canadien des civilisations, 2005. Yasuda, Tsuneo, Japan Faces its Past. National History in the Museum, in: Hans-Martin Hinz and Rosmarie Beier‑de-Haan (eds.), National Museums, The Memory of Nations, Berlin: Deutsches Historisches Museums, 2007, pp. 61–72. UNESCO, Recommendation concerning the protection and promotion of museums and collections, their diversity and their role in society, http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.‌php-URL_ID=​49357&URL_DO=​DO_ TOPIC&URL_SECTION=​201.‌html (accessed October 19, 2019). Hans-Martin Hinz, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7102-0733

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BEST PRACTICES IN VISITORS STUDIES The Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences

Introduction Visitor Studies in museums is a discipline with a history of almost a century. Therefore, it has demonstrated its ability to provide valid results for cultural institutions. Unfortunately, museums have been reluctant to launch research on their visitors as well as to apply the knowledge derived from them. This chapter reviews the causes of this type of attitudes and describes a successful experience: the Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences,1 which works to propose solutions to these problems and has led to a major change in the way of understanding audiences in Spanish museums.

Problems of Implementing Visitors Studies For almost a century, visitor studies have been configured as a discipline applied to a specific field, with very specific characteristics. The museum has developed its own methodology, based on psycho-social research, in order to withdraw the knowledge on everything related to the processes and variables involved in museums visit. The field is currently multidisciplinary, taking into account the variety of methods, the diversification of the theoretical sources and the wide spectrum of variables studied.2 Research conducted in museums around the world has succeeded to define, quite accurately, the basic profiles of museum visitors. We can get information on their sociodemographic characteristics (age, gender, educational level, previous visits, company during the visit, etc.) and psychological ones (motivation, attitudes, lifestyles, preferences, etc.). This allows us to have a good knowledge of the museum audience. Visitors Studies in museums are considered today a very important pillar to support management decisions. However, the practical application of research results and even evaluation as an integral part of the exhibition design is still a utopia in many museums, particularly in art museums. This has been pointed out by many researchers of this field in recent years.3

1  Laboratorio Permanente de Públicos de Museos (LPPM). 2  Eloísa Pérez Santos, Estudios de visitantes en museos: metodología y aplicaciones, Madrid: Trea, 2000. 3  Visitor Studies Association, Evaluator Competencies for Professional Development, Informal Science Education Program of the National Science Foundation, 2008, https://www.visitorstudies.org/evaluator-competencies (accessed June 25, 2019); Gloria Romanello, Públicos culturales: una aproximación sociológica a partir de la perspectiva de la Visitor Research, en: IX Congreso Español de Sociología “Crisis y cambios, propuestas desde la

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The possible causes of this disaffection should be sought on different places. On the one hand, although the practice of evaluation of public services is increasingly entrenched, the evaluation of culture is particularly complex and heterogeneous. This is partly because of the difficulty on defining and selecting relevant indicators that respond to real needs. On the other hand, even if there is a good will among professionals who work in museums towards audience research, sometimes, them themselves do not know the most elementary technical aspects. This leads to maintaining erroneous ideas and prejudices about them. Some other professionals are simply sceptical and ignore the benefits of using them.4 Opposite to this, it is also easy to find museums and institutions that conceive visitor studies as an end itself. They understand it as a good way of acting, using the research carried out more as an argument to justify actions or decisions already taken than as a point of departure towards the development of audiences or the implementation of services.5 However, an evaluation (like any audience research in museums) should not be considered the final stage of an intervention, but should be part of the process itself, becoming the central axis that directs the tasks to be performed in each of the phases.6 Evaluation turns out to be more useful the more it is overlapped throughout every phase in a project. Generally, any evaluation activity must meet a series of requirements so that it can be considered a best practice:7 –– It must be applied in all phases of the intervention cycle, as it seeks an integral understanding of it (results, impact, processes, etc.). –– Must follow a scientific methodology. –– Must include judgments and recommendations. –– It should serve to improve and design future actions. –– It must be democratic and participatory, because its ultimate goal is to serve society. Unfortunately, even when all of the explanations above are performed, it is unlikely that the results obtained through visitor studies are implemented. If the research does not respond to the sociología”, July 10–12 2013, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2013; Observatorio Iberoamericano de Museos, Panorama de los museos en Iberoamérica: Estado de la cuestión. Ibermuseos, 2013, http://www.ibermuseus. org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/06/14850‑1.‌pdf. (accessed July 13, 2019); Leticia Pérez Castellanos, Los estudios sobre públicos en museos: elementos en torno a la formación de profesionales en el campo para un pensa­ miento centrado en los visitants, un: Leticia Pérez Castellanos (coord.), Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Volumen II: Apuntes para pasar de la teoría a la práctica, México: Publicaciones digitales encrym-inah, 2017, pp. 122– 145, https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/digitales/issue/view/816 (accessed June 13, 2019). 4  Eloísa Pérez Santos, Buenas prácticas en la investigación del público en museos, in: Leticia Pérez Castellanos (coord.), Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Volumen III: Apuntes para pasar de la teoría a la práctica, México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2019 [2017], pp. 26–56. 5  Romanello 2013 (as fn. 3). 6  Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Proyectos educativos y culturales en museos: Guía básica de planificación. Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes, 2015. 7  AEVAL (Agencia Estatal de Evaluación de las Políticas Públicas y la Calidad de los Servicios), Fundamentos de evaluación de políticas públicas, Madrid: Ministerio de Política Territorial y Administración Pública, 2010.

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interests and objectives of the institution, in spite of the personal interest of the researchers themselves or other specific people, they are destined to be forgotten once they have been carried out, which makes the investment useless. Therefore, the use of visitor studies results depends, to a large extent, on the involvement of all museum departments in their planning, execution and application. In this sense, the more informed and involved in the evaluation processes all the professionals and workers of the museums are, the more they participate in planning and implementing them. Also, a greater and true commitment to the application of the results will be generated.8 As Reussner says,9 “it is important to make audience research an integral part of the organization’s operations and culture.” Factors to the Effectiveness of the Museums’ Audience-research Activities10 –– Research quality: the level of scientific rigour and soundness of the study, the level of qualification and experience of the researcher. –– Acceptance and support of audience research throughout the whole institution as a legitimate and valuable contribution to museum work. –– Resources available for audience research in terms of money and staff (time). –– Integration: the degree to which audience research is integrated into processes such as exhibition development and other projects. –– Communication and dissemination of audience-research findings. –– Responsibility: the formal responsibility for audience research within the organization. –– Involvement of staff during the development and conduct of audience studies. –– Visitor orientation centeredness. –– Present throughout the institution. –– Research utility: the degree to which the research is targeted and the findings are useful, actionable and easily available. –– Leadership of senior management: the degree to which audience research is supported and driven by influential individuals in the institution. –– Understanding of the role and methods of audience research among staff. –– Awareness of audience research, in general, and the studies specifically conducted for the institution. –– Readiness to learn from and apply audience research results. Audience research and evaluation are closely linked. In many occasions the research carried out in museums involves evaluation activities, which can respond to very general motivations such as supporting decision making, guiding planning, improving management, increasing transparency in public management or legitimizing an intervention. Although these motivations are legitimate, they are not explicit enough to launch a research that should seek solutions to specific problems. 8  Pérez Santos 2019 (as fn. 4). 9  Eva M. Reussner, Best Practices in Audience Research an Evaluation: Case Studies of Australian and New Zealand Museums, in: Visitor Studies Today 7 (2) (2004), pp. 15–25. 10 Ibid.

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But, what can a study or evaluation provide? Is it worth the effort? Are there enough resources to do it? What should be evaluated? These are some questions that it would be conve­ nient to always ask ourselves before addressing any audience investigation. Advantages of Carrying out Research and Evaluations in the Museums –– Improve performance. –– Reorient the meaning and application of a project to achieve the desired objectives. –– Generate new proposals for new projects. –– Innovate and not always follow the same schemas. –– Compare different interventions. –– Be able to demonstrate successes achieved. –– Show a planning and evaluation method to the staff. –– Appreciate and value, within the team, the work and the results obtained. –– Generate an internal debate. –– Show the public the interest in the results … and be able to transmit it to them. –– Offer an image of engagement and professionalism. –– Consult the project and its memory in the future, identifying the causes of successes and failures. Visitors Studies should only be carried out if it is clearly stated why it is needed to be done, what do we wants to achieve with it, what are the procedures to follow, whom it is directed to, where it will be done, when it will be done, who will carry it out and which will the available resources be. Evaluation must be inserted in a broad action research project, extended in time. This is an essential condition which allows us to provide solutions to the specific problems of management within a strategic planning. Evaluation should be designed as well to provide evidence-­ based knowledge that will lead to accurate judgments regarding an intervention design, implementation or impact. But the history of public research and evaluation applied to cultural activities shows that this has rarely been the case.

Visitor Studies in Spain Visitor Studies in Spain were born much later than in its surrounding countries. Some Spanish museums (such as the Prado Museum in Madrid or the Picasso Museum in Barcelona) were part of the famous research that Bordieu and Darbel conducted in several European museums in 1969. But it will not be until the eighties of the past century that first works on museum visitors appeared, in response to the spontaneous concerns of museum professionals. They wanted to get to know the visitor of “their museum”, despite the difficulties in their professional environment and lack of methodological training.11

11  Ángela García Blanco, El museo como centro de investigación del público, in: Política científica 34 (1992), pp. 27–32.

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In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, first scientific research projects carried out by some museums began, in collaboration with universities. Consequently, a series of publications on the results of these projects appeared.12 And, some studies on specific museums visitors and concrete exhibitions were published.13 At institutional level, the most complete work on the characteristics of museum visitors, in terms of the sample size and variables studied, was the one carried out in 1997 by the Ministry of Education and Culture on the audiences of four public museums: National Archaeological Museum, National Museum of Decorative Arts, Cerralbo Museum and National Museum of Anthropology. This study collected data on the main characteristics, visiting habits, motivation, expectations, accessibility, behaviours, visit difficulties, satisfaction, preferences and opinions of 2326 people who visited these museums in a year.14 However, in the early 2000’s, visitor studies in Spain showed three basic problems: First of all, the little field-work carried out: only seven of the seventeen state museums had carried out a profile study of the visitors. Secondly, some of these studies had been carried out with a little rigorous or simply unknown methodology. Finally, most of them were forgotten in a drawer. This means they did not have a direct impact on the museums they had been implemented in, either on the general management15 decisions. Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences (LPPM) A laboratory is a place of experimentation and study, where hypotheses are formulated and tested. This definition of the concept of laboratory served as the basis for creating the Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences (LPPM). It is a space for museum visitors studies but also for experimentation and innovation on research methodologies and audience development stra­ tegies. In 2007, the project began to take shape under the technical coordination of the Ministry of Culture of the Government of Spain. It supervises the framework of the investigations carried out and their practical application. Also, it has the technical, budgetary and administrative control in the execution of the projects. In addition to this, it included a scientific coordination that has been developed to date by two specialists in Museology and Visitors Studies16 who design the basic structure of the operations. Their essential characteristics can be found in a

12  Pérez Santos 2000 (as fn. 2). 13  Mikel Asensio, Estudios de público en España, Seminario Internacional: Museum Visitor Studies, Mérida, 1996; Reinaldo Alarcón, Sociología y estudios de público en los museos españoles, in: Museum 12 (2008), pp. 233–237; Eloísa Pérez Santos, El estado de la cuestión de los estudios de público en España, in: Revista Mus‑A 10 (2009), pp. 20–30. 14  Ángela García Blanco, Eloísa Pérez Santos and María de la O. Andonegui, Los visitantes de museos: Un estudio de público en cuatro museos, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, 1999. 15  Pérez Santos 2000 (as fn. 2). 16  Ángela García Blanco (Curator and Museologist) and Eloísa Pérez Santos (professor at Complutense University of Madrid).

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work by García Blanco,17 under an agreement in collaboration with Complutense University of Madrid for the establishment of a joint work program. This coordination has been completed throughout these years with a permanent commission and specific working groups, in addition to an administrative coordination carried out by technicians from the General Management of State Museums.18 The basic structure of LPPM was inspired by other observatories of museum audiences and visitor studies organizations around the world, known until that date. Thus, different operating models were taken into account: –– The English model involved an internal approach to systematic visitor evaluation. Different museums in Britain had conducted visitor studies since 1972 as part of a process for designing and assembling exhibitions. This model has crystallized, years later, in the inclusion of networks of visitors observatories in major museum associations, such as British Museums Association or in specific audience development programs within the Arts Council.19 –– The French model and the Observatoire Permanent des Publics (OPP)20 created in 1990 and funded by the Ministry of Culture (Direction de Musées de France), systematically maintained a survey in more than 100 museums throughout the country. Researches were carried out continuously, in such a way that it reflected the changes and evolutions that affected both the museum and the visitors who frequented it. –– The American model launched by American Alliance of Museums in 2002 through the Museum Evaluation Program (MAP) by which all American museums were urged to made a systematic evaluation, offering economic and technical assistance to carry out such work. This program offers five assessments types: Community & Audience Engagement Assessment, Education & Interpretation Assessment, Organizational Assessment, Collections Stewardship Assessment and Board Leadership Assessment. –– The Canadian model and the Observatoire des Musées de la Société des Musées Québécois:21 it is a visitor studies service aimed to provide with a strategic management system, including a training plan and dissemination of research results, to its members (more than 300 institutions in the Quebec region).

17  Ángela García Blanco, Conociendo a los visitantes. El Labotarorio permanente de Públicos de Múseos, un Proyecto integral, in: Leticia Pérez Castellanos (coord.), Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Volúmen II: Apuntes para pasar de la teoría a la práctica, México: Publicaciones Digitales encrym-inah, 2017, pp. 51–72. 18  Héctor del Barrio, Virginia Garde and Teresa Morillo, El Laboratorio permanente de Público de Museos, in: Macarena Cuenca and Jaime Cuenca, El Desarrollo de Audiencias en España: reflexiones desde la teoría y la práctica, Bilbao: Deusto Digital, 2019, pp. 101–119. 19  Arts Council of England, https://www.artscouncil.org.‌uk/ (accessed September 10, 2019). 20  Observatoire Permanent des Publics, http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Thematiques/Connaissance-des-­ patrimoines/Departement‑de-la-politique-des-publics (accessed September 10, 2019). 21  Société des Musées Québécois, https://www.musees.qc.ca/fr/professionnel/ (accessed June 12, 2019).

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The initial objective of the LPPM was specified in the following fundamental points:22 –– Make evaluation a common work tool. –– Have scientific advice to guarantee the rigour of the results. –– Evaluate according to the possibilities of each museum. –– Optimize the work done by crossing the data of the different museums. –– Define the orientation and application of the studies by the museum itself. –– Involve all departments of museums. –– Organize training courses according to needs. –– Promote the interconnection between departments and people. Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences is conceived as an instrument for the improvement of management, allowing museum professionals and state managers to have significant data on visitors. Its purpose is to provide data, tools and knowledge to guide all the actions in museums which have as their ultimate target the public. It is through the relationship public-museum that the fulfilment of its social function is optimized. To carry out this work, the LPPM is articulated around three strategic lines: a) Research: This includes planning of research, designing measurement tools and supervision and direction of investigations. Our target is to have data which results allow us to test hypotheses and reach conclusions on the behaviour of audiences. This is then used to plan and design lines of action. Therefore, visitors research serves to develop a management strategy based on a thorough knowledge of the needs of the public in what encompasses their relationship with these institutions. b) Training: it aims to provide museum staff with the preparation needed to undertake tasks related to visitors studies. The LPPM designs, directs, elaborates materials and organizes seminars and training courses in visitors research for state museum technicians responsible of public departments, as well as for others professionals interested in visitors studies. c) Communication and dissemination: This implies a communication system among museums, encouraging teamwork. It also allows the participatory design of the research to be carried out, as well as the joint application of results. The LPPM is also committed to the dissemination of these results for a better knowledge of museum visitors. This is achieved by participating in forums, events, congresses, scientific meetings, etc. Sixteen national state museums integrated the LPPM at the beginning. Currently, six more museums have joined them, signing collaboration agreements. The LPPM coordinates all the agents involved (museums, technicians and collaborating companies) and edits the results and reports.

22  Margarita de los Ángeles, Mara Canela, Ángela García Blanco and María Ángeles Polo, Los estudios de público, un instrument de trabajo. La gestación de un Proyecto, in: MUS‑A, Revista de los Museos de Andalucía 10 (2008), pp. 31–35.

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Research in Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences (LPPM) The analysis of visitors’ main characteristics is the most basic study that can be carried out in a museum. It is particularly useful to do it from the beginning and with a certain periodicity as these types of studies provide indispensable information for the development of literature focused on specific subgroups or variables of museum visitors. Following these premises, the Laboratory carried out the first phase of the research called “Knowing our visitors” between March 2008 and April 2009.23 The objective was to unveil the main sociodemographic characteristics, visiting habits, expectations, motivations, needs, use and evaluation of services of public museums’ visitors, as well as their previous knowledge on these institutions. Results were presented in a general report and individualised ones on each museum have been published gradually. Since 2010, visitors’ characteristics, visiting habits, motivations and satisfaction have been studied in the 18 state museums, both in large museums such as the Reina Sofía National Museum of Art, the National Archaeological Museum, the National Museum of Roman Art or the Museum of America (among others), to smaller but no less emblematic museums, such as the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the National Museum of Anthropology or the Sorolla Museum. All these studies have been published and the list appears in the bibliographical references of this chapter. The full text can be found on the LPPM website.24 At present, additional data is being collected in some museums, such as the National Archaeological Museum or the National Sculpture Museum, in order to perform a long-term analysis. It will allow us to see the evolution of the publics’ characteristics in these museums over the past 10 years. The initial investigations bases of the LPPM were to get an extensive sample of visitors of public museums, collected with a rigorous control. It showed that the composition of visitors in terms of socio-demographic profile (gender, age, level of studies, occupation, and residence-nationality) did not correspond to what one would expect, according to the distribution that these variables have within the national population. This difference was manifested in age and gender groups and, above all, in the educational level. Visitors with higher level of education were highly overrepresented in museums, compared to their percentage within the population. Whilst, visitors over 12 years old with primary education were under-represented. Perhaps, one of the most interesting conclusions of the study was confirming the existence of potential audiences currently excluded in museums. Among them: young people, whose demographic decline and their lack of connection is striking in museums; visitors over 65 and retired, who are usually thought to have plenty of time for this type of activities and whose absence in museums can be related to the educational deficiencies of previous generations, as well as to the fatigue and movement difficulties derived from their age; those seeking employment; foreigners resident in the country emigrating from socio-economic struggling countries and citizens with low educational level; foreign tourists with language difficulties; people with disabilities and specific needs

23  Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Conociendo a nuestros visitantes: Estudio de público en museos del Ministerio de Cultura, Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 2011. 24  Los informes del laboratorio, http://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/cultura/areas/museos/mc/laboratorio-­ museos/publicaciones/informes.‌html (accessed May 28, 2019). 

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for social integration or even, in many of the museums analysed, children under 12 years of age in a family visit. The reasons why these groups do not frequently visit the museums can be very varied, the LPPM has already detected some of them: difficulties of the visit related to the low educational level, the lack of attractive activities for these sectors of the population (adolescents, elderly people), the scarce presence of facilities for people with disabilities or with mobility problems, the lack of information in other languages or the low tourism promotion of museums in the appropriate media. The results obtained of visitors’ characteristics in Spanish museums in this first analysis were the departing point to initiate other qualitative-focused lines of research on potential museums visitors and their perception of the institution. On this line, a study was carried out, following a methodology focused on targeted groups. This allowed us to compare and contrast the image that current, potential and non-visitors have of museums and the processes involved in the decision to make a visit.25 In 2017, a study was carried out on the specific characteristics of families as a potential segment in museums.26 It produced important results on the motivations, expectations and agendas that families have when visiting a museum. LPPM also carried out evaluations focused on exhibitions and others museums activities. The evaluation of the exhibition Fascinated by the East (National Museum of Decorative Arts, December 2009–October 2010) was the first example of a complete evaluation programme within an exhibition carried out in Spain. The exhibition evaluation model stated three consecutive evaluation stages (front-end, formative and summative), integrated from the early stages of the exhibition development. Subsequently, the exhibition design and production team obtained significant data about interests, naive notions and communication effectiveness of the exhibits.27 Accessibility related studies have also been carried out on wayfinding and use of hand maps. This helped to redesign such orientation tools and test its effectiveness. These researches resulted in a series of recommendations for the design of hand plans cognitively accessible to all types of visitors in museums.28 In the last decade, research in non-formal education contexts has highlighted the importance of considering the experience resulting from the interaction as the main result of the exhibits effectiveness and not the consequences thereof. These researches indicate that, in museums, learning must be based on experience as opposed to what happens in other educa25  Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Conociendo a todos los públicos. ¿Qué imágenes se asocian a los museos?, Madrid: Secretaría General Técnica Subdirección General de Documentación y Publicaciones, 2012. 26  Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Conociendo a todos los públicos. Un análisis de la visita al museo en familia, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte, 2017. 27  Subdirección General de Promoción de las Bellas Artes, Programa de evaluación de exposiciones: Evaluación de la exposición “Fascinados por Oriente”, Madrid, 2010; Arantxa Chamorro, Fascinador por Oriente: coordinación técnica de una exposición comunicativa y su proceso de evaluación, in: Museos.‌es 7 (8) (2012), pp. 394–407. 28  Laboratorio permanente de Público de Museos, Una evaluación sobre planos de mano en museos, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 2013.

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tional contexts, where information-based learning prevails. Therefore, the main objective of the exhibition design must be to provide adequate experiences to promote learning. Absorbing, significant and memorable exhibitions are attractive to the visitor. They make the visit satisfactory and valuable, thus creating the conditions for other more complex processes such as learning. LPPP began a line of research to learn how the visitor values his or her experience in the museum in both cognitive and emotional terms, analysing variables related to comfort during the visit, learning, relaxation, fascination, fun and involvement or happiness, among others. The objective of this type of study was to know the influence that certain sensations have on the level of general satisfaction of the visitor and on the overall experience obtained during the visit (up to thirteen variables have been measured using a scale created for the study: the Scale of the Positive Museum Experience). This line of research has already resulted in some publications29 and is currently in the data analysis phase. Recently, the Laboratory has expanded its studies to science museums, such as the National Museum of Science and Technology, whose report of results will be published shortly; and the National Museum of Natural History that will begin soon an ambitious research on its audience. This type of centres has meant a rethinking of the instruments that must be adapted to the special characteristics of these museums. In them, activities, active participation, workshops and demonstrations are important aspects for the evaluation that must be integrated together with more traditional audience studies. Training and Knowledge Disclosure in Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences (LPPM) One of the initial objectives of LPPM was to implement actions to break down the attitudinal barriers that currently impede the acceptance of visitor studies, among all professionals and at all levels of cultural institutions. The introduction of visitor studies in museums offers the opportunity to change and modernize old organizational structures incompatible with new forms of social participation.30 As Romanello points out,31 the inclusion of visitor research in museums has a double level of influence: on the one hand, a first impact directly involves visitors and their experiences within the museum (pl. 1). But, on the other hand, a second impact is the transference of results to internal management and the production of significant information for policy makers. In this case, visitor research is the practical consequence of a greater orientation towards the public by managers. This directly influences the consideration of visitors’ point of view when launching policies and strategies. However, social research, in general, and visitor studies, in particular, is not simple or easily understood tasks. Also, we admit that professionals working in a museum do not have to be experts in this type of research either. But it is necessary that, at least, the staff in audience’s ser29  Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, La experiencia de la visita al museo, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes, 2013. 30  Pérez Santos 2019 (as fn. 4). 31  Romanello 2013 (as fn. 3).

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vices departments (communication, education or customer service departments, for instance) have a specific minimum training on the subject.32 Giving to museums’ staff the necessary preparation to undertake tasks related to visitor studies and audience research, through different training activities, was considered another strategic line of LPPM. In order to do so, parallel to the research, different training sessions have been scheduled, aimed for both museums professionals and other professionals interested in public studies. Since 2008, training courses and workshops have been held on different contents: methodology for data interpretation, research design to know audience profiles, social network evaluation indicators in museums, quality assessment and best practices applied to activities evaluation, as well as the design of indicators for management evaluation. The last courses have been directed towards the social value of museums, focusing on universal cognitive accessibility as a commitment of museums. The engage themselves to adapt the texts to the method of easy reading. As in 2015 monographic training sessions were dedicated to different groups that are underrepresented in museum visitors, such as families with children, teens, young people or people over 65, in collaboration with the Museums Social Plan.33 Our objective is that museums develop specific programs for these groups, evaluate them over time and thus verify the effectiveness of the actions and recommendations of the LPPM. The Laboratory is also a communication network that lets participants connect with each other, promoting teamwork. Its research design and instruments used are thus, the result of a participatory process. Taking a step further, the LPPM has developed a methodology for planning strategies and programs that emerge directly from the results of research. Objectives are designed depending on the results obtained and each of these objectives involves the implementation of specific programs. These programs should be assessed in terms of the proposed objectives in the future. This is how the research-training-action circle closes. Each of the stages described includes a specific training according to the research objectives. Also, the “work in teams” methodology allows the Laboratory to include the opinions of museums in order to reach consensus (pl. 2). In this way, research is gradually serving to train museum staff. They learn all together how to increasingly apply the findings to museums’ needs. It is obvious that this process is continuous, as one research study leads and inspires a new one. The Laboratory is in contact with professional and university fellows in order to expand learning opportunities as well as the extension of public-centred management models and practices. Therefore, agreements of collaboration with universities have been signed. Collaborations range from curricular practices to the development of degree and master’s projects. This training provides basic research strategies to students interested in visitor studies or audience development in museums. 32  Pérez Castellanos 2017 (as fn. 4); Pérez Santos 2019 (as fn. 4). 33  Ministerio de Cultura de España, Museos + Sociales, http://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/museosmassociales/presentacion.‌htm (accessed April 30, 2019).

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At the same time, LPPM promotes the dissemination of the results of the research carried out, both in national and international professional forums, in order to contribute to a better knowledge of museum visitors (pl. 3). LPPM is a reference for visitor studies in museums in Spain. Its results have been made available to society as an exercise of transparency and constant dissemination. This can be particularly seen on its website, where all publications are in open access.34 It has 25,000 visits per year on average and a percentage of 56.5 % new visits in the last year. Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences as an Instrument for Museum Management Visitor Studies in museums are not useful if the knowledge gained is not applied to the benefit or improvement of communication between cultural institutions and visitors. Research is an essential tool for museum management as it facilitates general policies decisions, based on an objective analysis of reality: analisis of current and potential audiences and the evaluation of exhibitions, general services and visitor care provide extremely important information on the current functioning of the museum and on the issues to be addressed. Visitor Studies can therefore be considered an instrument of general museum policy management and a decision-making tool in the elaboration and design of exhibitions, as well as a framework for carrying out experimental studies on the processes involved in the interaction between the visitor and the museum context. The LPPM was created as an applied research project, with a firm vocation to make practical use of the results obtained and to modify specific aspects of museum management. The LPPM research has therefore had consequences of different magnitudes. It has also diversified its shape and application, according to the needs and actions carried out. Fundamentally, these actions have been directed towards the development of under-represented audiences in museums, the increase of public knowledge about museums and the improvement of the quality of the visit (eventually generating a greater customer loyalty).35 LPPM is also a provider of data oriented to museum management.36 Since 2012, after the results generated, the LPPM has become a project of the Strategic Plan of Spanish Secretary of State for Culture 2012–2015.37 It seeks to develop collaborative information and knowledge tools. In addition, LPPM has been integrated into the audience development planning, included in Culture 2020 plan.38

34  Laboratorio de museos, http://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/cultura/areas/museos/mc/laboratorio-­ museos/publicaciones/informes.‌html (accessed April 30, 2019). 35  Del Barrio, Garde and Morillo 2019 (as fn. 17). 36  Virginia Garde, El Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos: un Proyecto de Investigación, una Herramienta de Gestión, in: Actas del I Seminario de Investigación en Museología de los Países de Habla Portuguesa y Española, Oporto, October 12–14 2009, Oporto: University of Oporto, 2010. 37  Seretaría de Estado de Cultura, Plan Estratégico General, https://www.audiovisual451.com/wp-content/ uploads/PlanEstrategicoGeneral2012-2015.‌pdf (accessed May 10, 2019) 38  Plan General de Cultura 2020, http://www.mecd.gob.es/dms/mecd/transparencia/sec/plan-cultura-­ 2020.‌pdf (accessed April 10, 2019).

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Among the results obtained, a constant increase in number of visitors has been observed in state museums belonging to the Ministry of Culture during these last 10 years (50 % more than in 2008 when the LPPM started). Although it is evident that it does not have to be exclusively due to LPPM actions, we believe they have contributed to a more thorough knowledge of visitors and to positioning public-centred management on museums agenda. As Del Barrio, Garde and Morillo state,39 “as important as knowing the public is the ability to reorient the course of institutions towards the integration of citizens through mechanisms of participation that guarantee social sustainability.” Therefore, audience research will have to include new more participatory research tools in the coming years, which will be more useful to museum management. Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences and Best Practices in Visitor Studies In nowadays museums, the visitor rights are increasingly important, as well as the ideals of equality, diversity and social justice.40 From these principles, visitor studies are a primary instrument for the museum management, facilitating decision-making, based on an objective analysis of reality (pl. 4). But for this to be the case, it is essential to follow international recommendations on best practices.41 One of the fundamental rules to follow in any social research is the recently published European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity42 that has published 4 essential principles for good research practices: –– Reliability in ensuring the quality of research, reflected in the design, methodology, analysis and use of resources. –– Honesty in developing, undertaking, reviewing, reporting and communicating research in a transparent, fair, full and unbiased way. –– Respect for colleagues, research participants, society, ecosystems, cultural heritage and the environment. –– Accountability for the research, from the sparking idea to publication, for a better management, organization, training, supervision and mentoring as well as in order to wider its impact.

39  Del Barrio, Garde and Morillo 2019 (as fn. 17). 40  Richard Sandell and Eithne Nightingale (eds.), Museums, Equality and Social Justice, Abingdon: Routledge, 2012; Helen Wilkinson, The best as the enemy of the good: utopian approaches to professional practices in UK museums, in: Museological Review. Museum utopias Conference Edition 17 (2013), pp. 48–61; Lois H. Silverman, The Social Work of Museums, London: Routledge, 2010; Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum, Santa Cruz: Museum 2.0 (self-published), http://www.participatorymuseum.org/read/ (accessed April 10, 2019). 41  British Museums Association, Code of Ethics for Museums, 2015; ALLEA (All European Academies), The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, Berlin: Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2017, https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/other/hi/h2020-ethics_code‑of-conduct_ en.‌pdf. (accessed April 10, 2019). 42  ALLEA 2017 (as fn. 41).

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These principles guide researchers in their work, as well as in their engagement with the practical, ethical and intellectual challenges inherent in research. More specifically, the American Evaluation Association43 has proposed a series of guiding principles as a guide to professional ethical conduct of evaluators. These principles must govern the behaviour of evaluators in all stages of the evaluation, from the initial discussion of focus and purpose, through design, implementation, reporting and, ultimately, the use of the evaluation. These principles are: –– Systematic Inquiry: Evaluators conduct data-based inquiries that are thorough, methodical, and contextually relevant. –– Competence: Evaluators provide skilled professional services to stakeholders. –– Integrity: Evaluators behave with honesty and transparency in order to ensure the integrity of the evaluation. –– Respect for People: Evaluators honour the dignity, well-being, and self-worth of individuals and acknowledge the influence of culture within and across groups. –– Common Good and Equity: Evaluators strive to contribute to the common good and advancement of an equitable and just society. There is not, so far, a common specific ethical code for museums visitor research. The Visitor Studies Association advises to abide by the Ethical Code of American Educational Research Association44 which suggests five principles for an ethical conduct of research in informal learning environments: Professional Competence; Integrity; Professional, Scientific, and Scholarly Responsibility; Respect for People’s Rights, Dignity and Diversity; and Social Responsibility. Only the British Museums Association includes in his Code of Ethics for museums a section dedicated to Visitor Research45 with four fundamental recommendations: encouraging unbiased research, disseminating research, providing access for researchers and conducting safe visitor and market research. LPPM is an example of best practice in public research. As some of its basic characteristics are: –– –– –– –– –– ––

Scientific advice in research. Participative process. Involvement at all levels of museum management in the cycle “research-training-action”. Integration of research training. Communication of results and transparency. Commitment to using outcomes.

43  AEA (American Evaluation Association), Guiding Principles for Evaluators, 2018, http://www.eval.org/p/ cm/ld/fid=​51 (accessed April 12, 2019). 44  American Educational Research Association (AERA), Code of Ethics, 2011, http://www.aera.net/­Portals/38/ docs/About_AERA/CodeOfEthics(1).‌pdf (accessed April 10, 2019). 45  British Museums Association 2015 (as fn. 40).

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–– Development of assessment tools and procedures adapted to the context of museums in Spain. –– Follow‑up of recommendations of main professional and scientific associations for the preservation of integrity, dignity and respect of visitors in audience research. Besides the positive outcomes, we must not forget that there are still problems to be solved and barriers to break down. Overcoming the misgivings of evaluation has been very hard and complex. It has been and it is still necessary to change the idea of research and evaluation as simple tests (pl. 5). We must have had to convince all interested parties that evaluation is a tool that a­ llows improving every aspect of the museum. This reticence is nothing else but the result of ignoring the true value of visitor studies. The only way to fight against it is education and communication. In order to change, it is essential to know; in order to know, it is compulsory to evaluate. Therefore, without evaluation, improvement in museums policies and management will not be possible.

REFERENCES Agencia Estatal de Evaluación de las Políticas Públicas y la Calidad de los Servicios, Fundamentos de evaluación de políticas públicas, Madrid: Ministerio de Política Territorial y Administración Pública, 2010. Alarcón, Reinaldo, Sociología y estudios de público en los museos españoles, in: Museum 12 (2008), pp. 233–237. ALLEA (All European Academies), The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, Berlin: Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2017, https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/ other/hi/h2020-ethics_code‑of-conduct_en.‌pdf (accessed April 10, 2019). American Alliance of Museums, The Museum Assessment Program (MAP), Washington, D. C.: American Alliance of Museums, 2002, http://www2.‌aam‑us.org/resources/assessment-programs/MAP (accessed April 10, 2019). American Educational Research Association (AERA), Code of Ethics, 2011, http://www.aera.net/Portals/38/ docs/About_AERA/CodeOfEthics(1).‌pdf (accessed April 10, 2019). American Evaluation Association, Guiding Principles for Evaluators, 2018: https://www.eval.org/p/cm/ld/fid=​ 51 (accessed April 12, 2019). Ángeles, Margarita de los, Mara Canela, Ángela García Blanca and María Ángeles Polo, Los estudios de público, un instrumento de trabajo. La gestación de un proyecto, in: MUS‑A, Revista de los Museos de Andalucía 10 (2008), pp. 31–35, http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/culturaydeporte/museos/media/docs/­ PORTAL_musa_10_ok.‌pdf (accessed April 10, 2019). Asensio, Mikel, Estudios de público en España, Seminario Internacional: Museum Visitor Studies, Mérida, 1996. Bourdieu, Pierre and Alain Darbel, L’amour de l’art. Les musées d’art européens et leur public, Paris: Les éditions de minuit, 1969. British Museums Association, Code of Ethics for Museums, 2015,https://www.museumsassociation.org/­ download?id=​1173810 (accessed April 10, 2019). Chamorro, Arantxa, Fascinados por Oriente: coordinación técnica de una exposición comunicativa y su proceso de evaluación, in: Museos.‌es 7(8) (2012), pp. 394–407. Héctor del Barrio, Virginia Garde and Teresa Morillo, El Laboratorio permanente de Público de Museos, in: Macarena Cuenca and Jaime Cuenca, El Desarrollo de Audiencias en España: reflexiones desde la teoría y la práctica, Bilbao: Deusto Digital, 2019, pp. 101–119. García Blanco, Ángela, El museo como centro de investigación del público, in: Política Científica 34 (1992), pp. 27–32.

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ELOÍSA PÉREZ SANTOS García Blanco, Ángela, Conociendo a los visitantes. El Laboratorio Permanente de Públicos de Museos, un proyecto integral, in: Leticia Pérez Castellanos (coord.), Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Volumen II: Apuntes para pasar de la teoría a la práctica, México: Publicaciones digitales encrym-inah, 2017, pp. 51–72, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By8_qzy249E8dV9EUFBoWk83Tk0/view (accessed April 10, 2019). García Blanco, Ángela, Eloísa Pérez Santos and María de la O. Andonegui, Los visitantes de museos: Un estudio de público en cuatro museos, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, 1999. Garde, Virginia, El Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos: un Proyecto de Investigación, una Herra­ mienta de Gestión, in: Actas del I Seminario de Investigación en Museología de los Países de Habla Portuguesa y Española, Oporto, Portugal, Obtober 12–14 2009, Oporto: Universidad de Oporto, 2010. Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Conociendo a nuestros visitantes: Estudio de público en museos del Ministerio de Cultura, Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 2011, https://sede.educacion.gob.es/publiventa/ ImageServlet?img=​C-14143.‌jpg (accessed April 12, 2019). Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Conociendo a todos los públicos. ¿Qué imágenes se asocian a los museos?, Madrid: Secretaría General Técnica Subdirección General de Documentación y Publicaciones, 2012, https://sede.educacion.gob.es/publiventa/ImageServlet?img=​C-14315.‌jpg (accessed April 12, 2019). Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Una evaluación sobre planos de mano en museos, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte, 2013, https://sede.educacion.gob.es/publiventa/Image Servlet?img=​C-14552.‌jpg (accessed April 12, 2019). Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, La experiencia de la visita al museo, Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, 2013, http://www.mcu.es/museos/MC/Laboratorio/index.‌html (accessed April 12, 2019). Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Proyectos educativos y culturales en museos: Guía básica de planificación, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deportes, 2015. Laboratorio Permanente de Público de Museos, Conociendo a todos los públicos. Un análisis de la visita al museo en familia, Madrid: Ministerio de Educación, Cultura, y Deporte, 2017, https://sede.educacion.gob. es/publiventa/conociendo‑a-todos-los-publicos‑un-analisis‑de-la-visita‑al-museo‑en-familia/museos/­ 20858C (accessed April 12, 2019). Observatorio Iberoamericano de Museos, Panorama de los museos en Iberoamérica: Estado de la cuestión, Ibermuseos, 2013, http://www.ibermuseus.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/06/14850‑1.‌ pdf (accessed April 12, 2019). Pérez Castellanos, Leticia, Los estudios sobre públicos en museos: elementos en torno a la formación de profesionales en el campo para un pensamiento centrado en los visitants, in: Leticia Pérez Castellanos (coord.), Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Volumen II: Apuntes para pasar de la teoría a la práctica, México: Publicaciones digitales encrym-inah, 2017, pp. 122–145, https://revistas.inah.gob.mx/index.php/­ digitales/issue/view/816 (accessed April 12, 2019). Pérez Santos, Eloísa, Buenas prácticas en la investigación del público en museos, in: Leticia Pérez Castellanos, Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Volumen III: Apuntes para pasar de la teoría a la práctica, México: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2017, https://drive.google.com/file/d/ 0By8_qzy249E8dV9EUFBoWk83Tk0/view (accessed April 12, 2019). Pérez Santos, Eloísa, Estudios de visitantes en museos: metodología y aplicaciones, Madrid: Trea, 2000. Pérez Santos, Eloísa, El estado de la cuestión de los estudios de público en España, in: Revista Mus‑A 10 (2009), pp.  20–30, http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/cultura/museos/media/docs/PORTAL_musa_10_ok.‌pdf (accessed April 12, 2019). Eloísa Pérez-Santos, Permanent visitor studies laboratory, in: LEM – Conferencia, Finland, 2011, http://ibc.regione. emilia-romagna.it/en/the-institute/european-projects‑1/lem/files/materials/PerezSantosLPPMTampere. pdf/ at_download/file/Perez-Santos%20LPPM%20Tampere.‌pdf (accessed on August 20, 2019). Reussner, Eva M., Best Practices in Audience Research and Evaluation: Case Studies of Australian and New Zealand Museums, in: Visitor Studies Today, 7 (2) (2004), pp. 17–25.

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Best Practices in VISITORS STUDIES Romanello, Gloria, Públicos culturales: una aproximación sociológica a partir de la perspectiva de la Visitor Research, in: IX Congreso Español de Sociología “Crisis y cambios, propuestas desde la sociología”, July 10–12 2013, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2013. Romanello, Gloria, What we know about our Audiences: Utopian or Cynical Behaviour?, in: Museological Review (17) (2013), pp. 62–77. Sandell, Richard and Eithne Nightingale (eds.), Museums, Equality and Social Justice, Abingdon: Routledge, 2012. Silverman, Lois H., The Social Work of Museums, London: Routledge, 2010. Simon, Nina, The Participatory Museum, Santa Cruz, Museum 2.0 (self-published), 2010, http://www.participatorymuseum.org/read/ (accessed April 10, 2019). Subdirección General de Promoción de las Bellas Artes, Programa de evaluación de exposiciones: Evaluación de la exposición “Fascinados por Oriente”, 2010, https://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/cultura/areas/­ promociondelarte/mc/exposgpba/la-evaluacion‑de-exposiciones.‌html (accessed April 10, 2019). Visitor Studies Association, Evaluator Competencies for Professional Development, Informal Science Education Program of the National Science Foundation, 2008. Visitor Studies Association, Abstracts of Annual Conference ‘Knowing Our Past, Shaping Our Future: What’s Next for Visitor Studies?’, Raleigh, 2012, https://visa.memberclicks.net/assets/docs/2018Conference/2018%20 VSA%20Conference%20Abstracts.‌pdf (accessed April 10, 2019). Wilkinson, Helen, The best as the enemy of the good: utopian approaches to professional practice in UK museums, in: Museological Review. Museum Utopias Conference Edition 17 (2013), pp. 48–61. Eloísa Pérez Santos, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3852-3328

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TRANSFORMATIONS IN MUSEUMS FROM THE AUDIENCE’S PERCEPTION

Introduction Museums are established but highly criticized cultural institutions. Visitor numbers sometimes overflow as the media shows, but, according to the Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices of the Spanish Government,1 visiting museums is not a very frequent leisure practice among the Spanish society. However, throughout the 20th century, first the Italian vanguard2 and then Postmodernity,3 focused part of their attention on these organizations. In addition to this, there are cases such as the Guggenheim Foundation or the Louvre Museum in Abu Dhabi in which the concept of the museum has evolved and has become an active part of the capitalist world.4 Besides it, most museums have a present full of challenges linked to the global transformations that have taken place. For this reason, museums have had to adapt to the changes in their environment, both socially and economically.5 As a result of the analysis of this situation in the Spanish framework, the research of Ayala, Cuenca-­Amigo, and Cuenca6 has highlighted the main challenges affecting Spanish museums nowadays and pointed out the relevance of the audience development approach to face these challenges.7 But to what extent does the audience perceive the changes that museums are generally making? Some authors have delved into this aspect.8 In the first place, it should be noted that these transformations advocating openness and participation within museums are not out of 1  General Subdirectorate of Statistics and Studies, Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices, Madrid: Technical General Secretariat Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, 2015. 2  Filippo Tommaso E. Marinetti, Manifiesto Futurista, Le Figaro, 1909. 3  Jean-François Lyotard, La condición postmoderna. Informe sobre el saber, Madrid: Cátedra, 1987. 4  Jean Clair, Malestar en los museos, Gijón: Trea, 2011. 5  Graham Black, Transforming Museums in the Twenty-first Century, New York: Routledge, 2012. 6  Íñigo Ayala, Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Jaime Cuenca, Principales retos de los museos de arte en España. Consideraciones desde la museología crítica y el desarrollo de audiencias, in: Aposta. Revista de Ciencias Sociales 80 (2019), pp. 61–81. 7  In addition, this research is also funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the Training University Lecturers (FPU) subprogram and PUBLICUM “Audiences undergoing transformation. New types of viewer experience and their interaction with museum management” (HAR2017-86103-P) ­research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. 8  Malcolm Foley and Gayle McPherson, Museums as leisure, in: International Journal of Heritage Studies 6 (2) (2000); Laurie Hanquinet and Mike Savage, ‘Educative Leisure’ and the art museum, in: Museum and Society 10 (1) (2012), pp. 161–174.

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controversy, as some argue that this change frivolises museums.9 On the contrary, those who defend this idea, claim the need to transform themselves in this direction without losing sight of the traditional functions of museums.10 The main goal of this research is to understand the audience’s perception of museum transformations. To do so, the authors have gone deeper into obtaining information about those who visit museums and their vision of the changes that have taken place, the existing barriers that prevent visitors from enjoying visiting museums, and how they conceive the participation phenomenon. In the first part of this study, the theoretical framework has been studied in‑depth, followed by the methodology used and by the analysis and discussion of the data obtained, to finish with the general conclusions of the research.

Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework of the research is focused on the audience development approach. First a review of the background of the approach has been carried out; then several definitions of the term have been collected and, finally, we have focused on the phenomenon of participation within audience development. Background of the Audience Development Approach This section reflects on some of the main perspectives that have considered previously the audi­ ence development approach. Some of these theories are the New Museology studies, the sociology, the leisure studies, and the visitor studies; all of them defend an active role of audiences within cultural organisations. Thus, all of these fields study the changes in museums as well as the audience’s perspective on them and the barriers to enjoying the experience of visiting a museum. In the first place, within museums studies it is worth highlighting the New Museology,11 also known as Social Museology,12 and Critical Museology approach.13 These theories claim the importance of including the whole diversity of society within museums, as audience development

9  Max Ross, Interpreting the new museology, in: Museum and Society 2 (2) (2004), pp. 84–103; Vera L. Zolberg, Museums face to face with the millennium: The view of a sociologist, in: Museum Management and Curatorship 13 (2) (1994), pp. 184–190. 10  Foley and McPherson 2000 (as fn 8). 11  Luis Alonso, Introducción a la nueva museología, Madrid: Alianza, 1999; Andrés Gutiérrez, Manual práctico de museos, Gijón: Trea, 2012; Francisca Hernández, Planteamientos teóricos de la museología, Gijón: Trea, 2006. 12  Óscar Navajas and Julián González, La aplicación de la Museología Social en España: desafíos para su implementación en el sureste de la Comunidad de Madrid, in: E-cadernos CES 30 (2018). 13  Jesús Pedro Lorente, Manual de Historia de la Museología, Gijón: Trea, 2012; Estrategias Museográficas Actuales Relacionadas con la Museología Crítica, in: Complutum 26 (2) (2015), pp. 111–120; Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius and Piotr Piotrowski, From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2016; Joan Santacana and Francesc Xavier Hernández, Museología crítica, Gijón: Trea, 2006; ­Anthony Shelton, Critical Museology: a Manifesto, in: Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 1 (2013), pp. 1–7.

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does. Jancovich14 argues that this transformation requires structural changes within organizations, aspect also defended by Diaz: In contrast to the dogma of conservation, the primacy of participation was proclaimed. Cultural democracy and social dynamism were defended facing authoritarian institutionalization and a lack of propensity for change. Opposing to a closed system, openness and interactivity were demanded. Opposing to self-absorbed discourse, an enriching dialogue was sought. Facing the categorisation of the public as a passive subject, the social collective was recognised as the active protagonist of the New Experience. Opposing to the physical limits of the museum, the people spoke of territory. Opposing to specialization, cross-functional was chosen.15

Secondly, sociology has also analysed what role audiences should take within culture and how this perspective has influenced the origin of audience development.16 In this line, the perspective of cultural democracy applied to cultural institutions advocates converting them into accessible organizations where the participation of society is fostered.17 From a more radical point of view, Kelly18 argues that cultural democracy was originally a revolution against the pre-esta­ blished order. This idea can, in turn, be related to the Postmodernity ideals since both approaches criticize the hegemonic tradition of unique discourses and defend the need to conceive culture as a participatory process that emerges from society.19 Another important field related to cultural democracy is the gender perspective. Feminist movements that during the 20th century fought for the equality of women and men first and later, for the equality of all collectives, also permeated sociology and culture, as in the case of Simone de Beauvoir.20 Izquierdo, López, and Prados have pointed out that “in the framework of museology and gender, we start from the definition of museums as spaces of historical values and social communication. Therefore they are a means to make women visible. ”21 Thus, cultural democracy and the rest of theories related to its postulates advocate creating a culture from the variety of existing discourses and perspectives so that it becomes participatory, open and accessible to the whole of social diversity. Thirdly, authors emphasize the leisure studies perspective, which analyses museums as ex­ periences of aesthetic leisure.22 This perspective has been incorporated into this research due to the experience of this discipline in assessing the perception of people, their interests, motiva14  Leila Jancovich, The participation myth, in: International Journal of Cultural Policy 23 (1) (2015), pp. 107–121. 15  Ignacio Díaz, ¿Qué fue de la nueva museología? El caso de Quebec, in: Artigrama 17 (2002), pp. 493–516. 16  Macarena Cuenca-Amigo, La democratización cultural como antecedente del desarrollo de audiencias culturales, in: Quaderns d’Animació i Educació Social 19 (2014), pp. 1–16. 17  Steven Hadley and Eleonara Belfiore, Cultural democracy and cultural policy, in: Cultural Trends 27 (3) (2018), pp. 218–223. 18  Owen Kelly, Community, Art and the State: Storming the Citadels, London: Comedia, 1984. 19  Lyotard 1987 (as fn. 3). 20  Simone de Beauvoir, El segundo sexo, Buenos Aires: Siglo XX, 1987. 21  Isabel Izquierdo, Clara López and Lourdes Prados, Exposición y Género: El Ejemplo De Los Museos De Arqueología, Nuevos museos, nuevas sensibilidades, in: Mikel Asensio et al. (ed.), Series Iberoamericanas de Museología, Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2012, pp. 271–285. 22  María Luisa Amigo, Ocio estético valioso, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2014; María Luisa Amigo and Macarena Cuenca-Amigo, The experience of aesthetic leisure revisited, in: María Jesús Monteagudo (ed.),

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tions, barriers, and benefits obtained from valuable leisure practices.23 These aspects are closely linked to the visitor studies mentioned below. The specialized literature on the binomial leisure-museums considers that these institutions are capable of generating educational and Serious Leisure experiences for people.24 A leisure perspective in the management of museums enhances their educational work25. Also, the research carried out by Prince points out that society does not conceive museums as elitist spaces.26 However, Hanquinet and Savage maintain that those who visit museums do not conceive them as leisure spaces either.27 This perception depends on a large extent of the frequency with which museums are visited. Those who do not visit museums frequently or not at all can maintain in their subconscious an image of museums associated with a lack of symbolic accessibility that leads to think that museums are not spaces for them due to the belief that they are boring and unfamiliar.28 On the contrary, frequent visitors conceive museums as cultural leisure practices regardless of the origin of the visitor.29 This fact contrasts with the vision of Bourdieu who argued that certain cultural practices, such as visiting museums, were directly related to the social context of people.30 Fourthly and lastly, visitor studies, in addition to analysing the socio-demographic profile of the audience, have also focused on different aspects such as interests, motivations, barriers, prior knowledge, non-audiences studies, etc.31 This research has focused on the perception of the audience, especially the barriers that prevent them from enjoying the visit. In addition, the study

Leisure experiences, opportunities and controbutions to human development, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2017, pp 53–90. 23  Manuel Cuenca, Ocio valioso, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2014. 24  Ibid.; Robert A. Stebbins, Serious Leisure, London: Transaction Publishers, 2006. 25  Gayle McPherson, Public memories and private tastes: the shifting definitions of museums and their visitors in the UK, in: Museum Management and Curatorship, 21 (1) (2006), pp. 44–57. 26  David R. Prince, The museum as dreamland, in: The International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship 4 (3) (1985), pp. 243–250. 27  Hanquinet and Savage 2012 (as fn. 8). 28  Prince 1985 (as fn. 27). 29  Hanquinet and Savage 2012 (as fn. 8). 30  Pierre Bourdieu, La Distinction, Paris: Minuit, 1979; Pierre Bourdieu, Sociología y Cultura, México D.F.: Grijalbo-­Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1984. 31  John H. Falk, Identity and the museums visitor experience, California: Lefts Coast Press, 2009; John H. Falk and Lynn D. Dierking, The Museum Experience Revisited, New York: Routledge, 2016; Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Studying visitors, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museums Studies, London: Blackwell Publising, 2006, pp. 323–376; Elyria Kemp and Sonja Martin Poole, Arts Audiences: Establishing a Gateway to Audience Development and Engagement, in: The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 46 (2) (2016), pp. 53–62; Leticia Pérez Castellanos, Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Públicos y museos ¿qué hemos aprendido?, México, D. F.: Publicaciones digitales Encrym, 2016; Eloísa Pérez Santos, Buenas prácticas en la investigación del público en museos, in: Leticia Pérez Castellanos (ed.), Estudios sobre públicos y museos, México, D. F.: Publicaciones digitales Encrym, 2018, pp. 26–36; Eloísa Pérez santos, Estudio de visitantes en museos. Metodología y aplicaciones, Gijón: Trea, 2000; María Luz Ruiz, La imagen de los museos de arte contemporáneo. Percepción del público visitante y no visitante, Madrid: ACCI, 2017; Jennifer Wiggins, Motivation, Ability and Opportunity to Participate: A Reconceptualization of the RAND Model of Audience Development, in: International Journal of Arts Management 7 (1) (2004), pp. 22–33.

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of barriers allows organisations to anticipate reactions and effects, as well as contributing to the design of better strategies and initiatives that encourage participation, attraction and loyalty,32 and deepen in the need for a change that museums have in order to continue fighting against challenges and establishing themselves as aesthetic leisure experiences that are fully-rooted in society’s cultural practices. Within the studies of barriers, researchers such as Shaw33 and Kay, Wong, and Polonsky stand out. Some of the main barriers perceived by visitors and identified by the authors are: (1) physical, (2) personal access, (3) cost, (4) time and schedule, (5) product, (6) personal interest, (7) understanding and socialization, and (8) information.34 How is Audience Development Defined and what does its Incorporation into the Management of Museums Imply? Kawashima maintains that audience development is linked to the contrast between the transcendence of the arts over social classes and divisions, defended by Liberal Humanism, and the sociological vision defended by Bourdieu, where culture perpetuates social distinctions.35 In this line of thought, both the European Commission36 and the Arts Council of England37 have made definitions of this term from a practical perspective and linked it to cultural organizations. Both definitions hold that this approach is an organisational management perspective that aims to place the audience at the centre of cultural organisations from a transversal and innovative point of view, increasing the number of visitors and fostering their experience. According to these definitions, audience development can be considered as an umbrella concept38 which covers a great variety of theories, scientific disciplines, perspectives and frameworks that have studied in depth the knowledge and scopes within organizations.39 32  Kevin F. McCarthy and Kimberly J. Jinnet, A New framework for building participation in the arts, New York: Rand, 2001. 33  Roy Shaw, Secretary-General’s Report. Patronage and Responsibility. The Arts Council of Great Britain, Thirty-­ Fourth Annual Report and Accounts (1978/9), London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979. 34  Pandora Kay, Emma Wong and Michael Polonsky, Understanding Barrieres to attendeance and non attendace at Arts and cultural institutions: A conceptural framework, Australian and New Zeland marketing Academiy Conference, Australia: Promaco Conventions, 2008, pp. 1–4. 35  Nobuko Kawashima, Beyond the Division of Attenders vs. Non-Attenders: A Study into Audience Development in Policy and Practice, Coventry: Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, 2000. 36  European Commission, European Audience: 2020 and Beyond, Luxemburg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2012, https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail?p_p_id=​portal2012documentDetail_ WAR_portal2012portlet&p_p_lifecycle=​1&p_p_state=​normal&p_p_mode=​view&p_p_col_id=​maincontentarea&p_p_col_count=​3&_portal2012documentDetail_WAR_portal2012portlet_javax.portlet.action=​ author&facet.author=​EAC&language=​en&facet.collection=​EUPub (accessed October 20, 2019). 37  Arts Council of England, Audiences development and marketing, 2018, https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ sites/default/files/download-file/Information_sheets_Audience_development_marketing_Project_ grants_170518.‌pdf (accessed October 20, 2019). 38  Anja Mølle Lindelof, Audience development and its blind spot: a quest for pleasure and play in the discussion of performing arts institutions, in: International Journal of Cultural Policy 21 (2) (2015), pp. 200–218, p. 202, p. 213. 39  Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Amaia Makua, Audience Development: a Cross-National Comparison, in: Academia Revista Latinoamericana de Administración 30 (2) (2017), pp. 156–172; Birgit R. Mandel, Can Audi-

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Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception

In the case of museums, audience development emphasizes the relationship they establish with society and the role that the audience can play within them through participation. Since the beginning, audience development is linked to the need of organisations to know their existing and potential visitors, to bring cultural activity closer to potentially relevant groups and to convert culture into something accessible for non-audiences that are not used to this type of experiences.40 In other words, audience development aims to increase participation in cultural organisations, both quantitatively and qualitatively. In the case of museums, in addition to this approach itself, there are other perspectives mentioned above that support this idea. Therefore, participation is a main point of audience development and social inclusion for all organizations that incorporate this approach in their management.41 For instance, Tepper and Gao point out that the need to link up and involve the whole of society in existing cultural practices is within the focus of audience development.42 This approach has made cultural organizations think about their linkage and commitment to the audience in a more systematic way.43 In terms of scientific production, there are more and more relevant and widely supported studies that claim the need to open cultural organisations to encourage greater participation.44 But what does participation mean? When research talks about participation, it is generally associated with the term co‑creation.45 In addition, there are three general areas in which this research is focused on: the participation of the audience in the decision making of the organizations, the participation of the institutions in their social context and in the community in which they live and the participation associated with the use of technology.46 In other words, the scientific community defends the use of participatory tools in museum management to face the challenges of today47 since it constitutes a very enriching and instructive process for all the stakeholders.48

ence Development Promote Social Diversity in German Public Arts Institutions?, in: Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 16 (1) (2018), pp. 1–15; Christian Potschka, Mathias Fuchs and Agata Królikowski, Review of European Expert Network on Culture’s audience building and the future Creative Europe programme 2012, in: Cultural Trends 22 (3) (2013), pp. 265–269. 40  Kawashima 2000 (as fn. 35). 41  Jancovich 2015 (as fn. 14); Kawashima 2000 (as fn. 35). 42  Steven J. Tepper and Yang Gao, Engaging art: what counts?, in: Steben J. Tepper and Bill Ivey (eds.), Engaging art: the next great transformation of America’s cultural life, New York: Routledge, 2008, pp. 17–48. 43  Lindelof 2015 (as fn. 38). 44  Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture, London: Routledge, 2000; Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum, Santa Cruz of California: Museum 2.0, 2010. 45  Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Zaloa Zabala-Inchaurraga, Reflexiones sobre la participación como co‑creación en el museo, in: Her&Mus 19 (2018), pp. 122–135; Ben Walmsley, Co‑creating Theatre: Authentic Engagement or Inter-legitimation?, in: Cultural Trends 22 (2) (2013), pp. 108–118. 46  Cuenca-Amigo and Zabala-Inchaurraga 2018 (as fn. 45). 47  Ayala, Cuenca-Amigo and Cuenca 2019 (as fn. 6), pp. 65–66. 48  Hooper-Greenhill 2000 (as fn. 44).

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Within the studies of participation, there are several models.49 In each of them, different categories or steps have been designed, so that, as one moves from the first steps to the next ones the level of participation and commitment evolves. The active role of the audience is increased, as they not only carry out the activities programmed beforehand by the organisations, but also become part of their design, dissemination and management. However, as Falk and Dierking point out, the highest stages of participation proposed in the previous models are still in evidence50 since assuming participation within cultural entities requires a great internal change51 and these collaboration processes are difficult and usually linked to a very specific group of the general public.52

Analysis The analysis of this research is based on its objective and theoretical framework. For this reason, it has focused firstly on the audience’s perception of the general changes carried out by museums, secondly on the barriers that prevent people from enjoying museums and, thirdly, on how the audience perceives participation within museums. Methodology Following the general objective of the research, the analysis of reality has been based on obtaining data through in‑depth interviews with museum visitors. The interviews were carried out during January and February 2019 on different days and time slots. The museums selected to carry out the interviews were: the Fine Arts Museum and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid. The sample consists of 75 people: 42 women and 33 men. During the sample selection process, individuals were randomly selected, maintaining parity as much as possible and belonging to different age groups from the age of 18 onwards (tab. 1). Table 1 | Sample segmentation Gender/Age

18–29

30–39

40–49

50–59

60–69

70–79

>80

Total

Women

 9

 7

 7

 6

 6

 6

1

42

Men

 9

 4

 5

 8

 5

 2

0

33

Total

18

11

12

14

11

8

1

75

49  Alan S. Brown, Jeniffer L. Novak-Leonard and Shelli Gilbride, Getting in on the Act: Hoy Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation, San Francisco: James Irvine Foundation, 2011; Heritage Lottery Fund, Thinking about… Community participation, 2010, http://www.heritagenetwork.dmu.ac.uk/wpcontent/ uploads/2013/03/thinking_about_community_participation.‌pdf (accessed October 20, 2019); Simon 2010 (as fn. 44). 50  Falk and Dierking 2016 (as fn. 31). 51  Jancovich 2015 (as fn. 14). 52  Hooper-Greenhill 2006 (as fn. 31).

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Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception

To be able to analyse the number of visits to museums in the last year, individual responses have been classified by frequency based on groups of three visits, i. e. from zero to three visits, from four to six, from seven to nine, etc. As shown in the table below (tab. 2): Table 2 | Annual frequency of visits Gender/Frequency Women

0 – 3

4 – 6

7 – 9

10 – 12

(+)12

12

9

5

4

12

Men

7

14

2

5

5

Total

19

23

7

9

17

The interview script has been designed by the PUBLICUM project team. This multidisciplinary team includes professionals in the areas of social psychology, leisure studies, and visitor studies. Four questions have been selected from the complete script to be analysed in this section. The analysis of each of the questions represents a subsection of this section and the gender, age, and frequency of annual visits of the people who make up the sample obtained has been taken into account in all of them. The questions selected are: –– As a museum visitor, how would you say that the experience of visiting a museum has changed the most in recent years? –– However, visiting museums is not a frequent activity among much of the population, why do you think many people do not visit museums? –– When you visit a museum, what difficulties do you encounter to make the most of your visit? –– Do you think that there are adequate channels for visitor participation or interaction with museums? Do you appreciate, for example, that the views and needs of visitors are taken into account? Results and Discussion This section has been divided into four parts: changes, barriers, participation, and discussion of results. In each of them, the perception of visitors, the gender, the age, and the different frequency of visits have been analysed. Perceived Changes This section focuses on the audience’s perception of the existence of changes in the management and day‑to-day running of museums. The exact question was phrased as follows: “as a museum visitor, how would you say that the experience of visiting a museum has changed the most in recent years?” It was an open-end question, where the interviewees could identify as many changes as they wished. During the analysis, the research team has conducted a content analysis, creating categories out of the mentioned changes. Thus, eleven different perceived changes were identified (pl. 6). Ten respondents stated that they had not perceived any changes at all. They are two women and eight men, of which six are between 18 and 29 years old, the

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other four people between 32 and 66 years old. The frequency is distributed among all the extracts although of the ten people six have an average of fewer than five museums per year and the rest ranges between five and ten, except one person who visited more than 50 museums. Each of these transformations is analysed, pointing out the possible influence of gender, age, and frequency of visits per year on the perception of the changes: –– Proximity: 28 answers given by 26 people: 15 women and 11 men. That represents 23.52 % of the perceived changes. Respondents consider that museums are now more familiar, more open and welcoming. That is 34.66 % of the responses. The frequency of museums visits by those who perceive a greater familiarity ranges from two visits in the last year to 20. –– More information: people have responded on 17 occasions, 14.29 % of the responses, that now museums provide more and better information during the visit. The answers have been given by eight women and six men, with diverse frequency of visits and with ages between 20 and 83. The group of 60–69 is the most numerous, almost 36 % of the people who have responded that there is more information. –– New museographies: 15 people pointed out the changes in the way heritage is exhibited in museums. Eight were women and seven were men. That is 12.6 % of the answers. Of the 15 people, 12 are between 40 and 69 years old, two are 38 years old and the last person, 74 years old. The frequency of visits by those who have indicated this change is spread across the spectrum, although there is a greater perception of this change among people who have an average of 15–20 visits to museums per year. –– The increase in the number of visitors: it has been pointed out on 12 occasions (10.08 % of the perceived changes) by three women and six men of all ages. The frequency of visits is also distributed among all the extracts, although 33.3 % of the responses have an average of ten or more visits per year. –– More interactive: ten responses associated changes in museums with an increase in interactivity and participation. That represents 8.4 % of the responses. In total six women and two men, half of the answers are people between 25 and 30 years old. The rest of them are between 34 and 65 years old. The frequency ranges from four museums per year on average to 20. –– Variety in the exhibitions: nine people, eight women and one man have indicated how the museums vary their exhibitions and the type of art they show. That is 7.56 %. Out of the nine answers, four people are between 50 and 59 years old and the rest are in the other age groups. The people who have indicated this change are represented in all frequencies, although there is an upturn among those who make more than 20 visits a year. –– More accessibility: eight people have indicated this change, six women and two men, 6.72 % of the answers. Half of the answers are in the 30–39 age group, and the rest in the other age groups. The frequency of visits to museums among those who perceive this change ranges from an average of three museums to 20. –– Technology: this concept has appeared in eight responses through the increase of social networks, the existence of audio guides or the use of technology in general. The three women and four men who have indicated this aspect have a frequency of visit very distributed by all the stripes. That represents 6.72 % of the perceived changes.

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Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception

–– Communication: it has appeared seven times, that is the 5.88 % of the answers, through responses such as museums appearing in more media, there is more adevertisements, dissemination and marketing strategies. This change has been perceived by five women and two men between the ages of 42 and 83. The frequency of visits by those who have pointed out this aspect is very high, out of the seven people, two have an average of three museums per year, two of ten museums and three of 20 museums. –– More activities: this change has appeared on five occasions, 4.2 % of the responses, three of which were linked to activities for children or families. People who have indicated this change are three women and two men, between 30 and 73 years old, although three of the five are in the range 30–39 years old. The average number of visits per year is between five and 15 visits. –– Other more residual changes: the need for more extended timetables have been indicated by three people and the existence of a shop by one. That represents 3.36 % of the perceived changes. In conclusion, the changes perceived are varied, although there is a general tendency to see how museums have carried out an approach and an adaptation to society. The effort they are making is perceived through the changes indicated in the responses such as proximity, providing more information, making them more interactive and accessible places, improving communication and carrying out more activities. Besides this museums have also changed their way of exhibiting heritage: there are more exhibitions and the museography is friendlier and they have also sometimes incorporated technological devices during visits. Of the three aspects analysed in the perception of each of the changes – gender, age, and frequency of annual visits to museums –, gender has had an impact on six of the 11 changes. Women have perceived more changes than men in four sections: more interactive, more variety in exhibitions, more accessibility and better communication. For their part, men are more numerous in two of the answers an increase in the number of visitors and not perceiving changes. In the other five changes, gender has not had a significant impact: closeness, increased information, change in museography, the presence of technology and increased activities. On the other hand age has influenced on eight of the 11 changes. Older people have perceived more than the rest in the following changes: the increase in information, the change in museography, the variety of exhibitions and the increase in communication. Middle-aged adults have perceived the following changes: accessibility and increased activities. Younger people have perceived that museums are now more interactive and they are also the ones that detect fewer changes, partly due to their lack of chronological perspective. Finally, there are three changes perceived as indistinctly of age: closeness, the increase in visitors and the presence of technology. Regarding frequency, this has been a determining factor in seven of the 11 cases, six of which are linked to higher frequencies, who have perceived the following changes: change in museography, increase in visitors, interactivity, variety in exhibitions, improvement in communication and increase in activities. The lack of perception of changes has been quite general but there is a small increase among those who make fewer visits. The four changes where frequency

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has not been significant have been: closeness, increased information and accessibility and the presence of technology. Perceived Barriers This section of the research corresponds to the following two interview questions: (1) “However, visiting museums is not a frequent activity among much of the population, why do you think many people do not visit museums? (2) When you visit a museum, what difficulties do you encounter to make the most of your visit?” The answers to the first question have been labelled as general barriers, whereas the answers to the second question have been classified as specific barriers. As in the section on changes, both questions were open-ended and one person was able to give more than one answer in both. A content analysis of the responses and a categorisation of them has been conducted. General Barriers. This section focuses on the general barriers perceived. The question was openend and the respondents were allowed to identify as many barriers as they wished. Afterwards, a content analysis of the answers was conducted and seven different general barriers emerged (pl. 7). One man of 53 years with an annual frequency of five museums does not perceive any barrier. The following barriers from a greater presence to a lesser presence where found among the responses of the interviewees. The barriers obtained during the analyse of the data are: –– Lack of interest: this was the category most frequently mentioned, with a total of 38 res­ ponses, that represents 31.15 % of the general barriers. Among these, two were time, four the effort required, two demotivation, one lack of attraction, one lack of taste for art and the other 29 referred directly to interest. A total of 13 women and 23 men, distributed among all age groups, especially among the youngest with 10 individuals and besides those, the age range was between 50 and 59 with ten others, while the rest of age groups have a lower representation. Concerning the frequency of annual visits, the 36 people who have indicated this change have an average rate between zero and 20 museums, with 21 concentrated in the range of two to six museums on average per year. –– Lack of knowledge and education: The second category includes a total of 24 responses linked to the lack of knowledge and education of people. That is 19.67 % of the responses. The answers were given by 12 women and 10 men. The age of the people ranged from 18 to 79 years, although 13 out of the 22, ranged from 50 to 79 years old. Regarding the frequency, there is a similar distribution by all the stripes, although 12 people have a frequency of annual visits to museums higher than seven, with four people with a frequency of 20 museums per year. –– Prejudices: it is the third most mentioned barrier with a total of 20 answers, 16.39 % of the general barriers. Among them, ten people have indicated that they are boring, five that they are elitist spaces and the other five correspond to other prejudices such as that they are not familiar spaces, neither dynamic nor interactive, old-fashioned and that there is a lack of connection and freedom. These answers have been given by 15 women and five men. The age is very distributed, although seven people are between 18 and 29 years old and four between

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Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception

––

––

––

––

30 and 39. The rest are between 40 and 79 years old. The frequency of these people's visits to museums varies between one visit a year and 30, with an average of nine people having more than ten museums a year Lack of information: This category is linked to the answers given regarding unsatisfactory communication or a lack of information on the existing offer. It includes a total of 13 answers corresponding to eight women and five men. These responses represent 10.66 %. The ages are very distributed although there are two peaks: the first, of four people out of the 13, with ages ranging between 18 and 29, and the second, of another four people between 60 and 69 years old. The rest of the people belong to different ages of the sample. The frequency is distributed by all the strata. The habit: it has been the fifth barrier with more points with 12 answers, 9.84 % of the general barriers. Among them, it has been pointed out the lack of culture, habit or habit of going to museums. The people who have pointed out this barrier are two men and nine women. The distribution of the answer by age shows that seven of the 11 answers correspond to people over 50 years old. Concerning frequency, it should be noted that seven people have a frequency of more than ten museums per year. Price: a total of nine people have indicated this barrier, seven women and two men. That represents 7.38 % of the answers. The ages range from 18 to 69 years, and the frequency is also widely distributed, although three of seven have a frequency of two museums per year, and another three of more than 15, the other three ranging from three to six annual visits. Alternative leisure offers: the six answers categorised in the seventh barrier refer to the existence of a wide range of leisure activities to choose from. That is 4.91 % of the general barriers. The answers correspond to one woman and five men, of all ages and with a high frequency since four of the six people have a frequency higher than ten museums per year.

In conclusion, in view of the above-mentioned barriers, it should be noted that the lack of interest perceived by those who have responded on the part of the rest of society and the need for greater dissemination by museums in order to favour knowledge and understanding of the exhibitions by the audience may be linked to other barriers such as the lack of information, existing prejudices and the lack of habit about museums within the cultural leisure offer as a whole. If each aspect is analysed in a specific way, gender has been a determining factor in five of the seven barriers, women perceive the following more than men: existing prejudices, lack of habit and price. For their part, men perceive the lack of existing interest and leisure offer. On the other hand, gender has not been a determining factor in the need for greater knowledge and education nor in the need to improve the quantity and quality of the information available during the visit. About age, young people perceive the following barriers more than other ages: lack of interest (although it is shared by all ages), existing prejudices and lack of information. The latter has also been perceived by older people together with the lack of knowledge and education and the habit of going to museums. On the other hand, age is not a determining factor in the perception of price and leisure offer as barriers.

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ÍÑIGO AYALA, MACARENA CUENCA-AMIGO and JAIME CUENCA

Finally, the frequency has been decisive in six of the seven barriers, those with a higher frequency have perceived the lack of knowledge, prejudices, lack of habit and the amount of supply as a barrier. The price has been perceived both by older people and among younger people. Lack of interest has been perceived especially among middle-aged adults. Specific barriers. This part of the analysis addresses the specific barriers perceived. Like the pre­ vious sections, it was an open-end question, resulting in as many barriers pointed out as interviewees wished. Thus, seven different specific barriers were identified (pl. 8) after having created the categories by the research team. Eighteen respondents stated that they had not perceived any specific barrier, 13 women and five men. The ages are very distributed and so is the frequency, although it is true that 11 people visit between two and six museums per year. The specific barriers have been: –– Price: with a total of 14 answers is the barrier that has emerged the most. These responses represent 20.29 % of the specific barriers perceived. A total of eight women and six men have indicated it. The age of the interviewees is much divided, although there are two large peaks, between 18 and 29, with a total of five people; and between 50 and 59, with a total of four. The frequency with which they go to museums is also very fragmented although it should be noted that seven of the 14 people have a frequency higher than eight museums per year. –– Overcrowding: this is the second most specific barrier with a total of 13 responses. That is 18.84 % of the answers, one of which refers to the presence of children in the museum. In total, seven women and six men mentioned this barrier. Their age ranges from 18 to 59. Being the largest group the one corresponding to the 18–29 years old with five people; then, the 30 to 39 years old with four people; and finally, the 50 to 59 years old people with three. The group of 40 to 49 has only a response from one person of 40 years old. The frequency is very distributed in the sample, oscillating between the two yearly and the 50. –– Lack of time: it is the third barrier with 11 answers given by seven women and four men. That represents 15.94 % of the responses. Their ages range from 18 to 79 years of age, with a regular distribution in all the age ranges. In terms of frequency, it should be noted that there are 6 people over ten museums per year. The rest of the answers are between three and nine museums per year. –– Accessibility: this is the fourth barrier with a total of nine responses: 13.04 % of the specific barriers, divided between the need for rest areas (4), the sense of orientation (4) and accessibility itself (1). In total there have been six women and three men, between 24 and 83 years old, although the age is distributed. In the band of people over 70 years old there are four of the nine people. The frequency of annual visits is also very fragmented, although six of the nine people visit between six and 20 museums annually. –– The need for more knowledge: it has received a total of eight responses, 11.59 % of the answers, from three women and five men of all ages, between the ages of 20 and 69, although from the age of 50 there are five of the eight people who have perceived this barrier. Regarding the frequency, there are people with an annual number of visits between two and 20

58

Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception

museums, while in the visit frequency of above six museums per year there are five people but in a fragmented way. –– Other barriers: eight answers have been included in this general category. As they have only been mentioned once or twice each time, they have not been analysed. That represents 11.59 % of the specific barriers perceived. –– Lack of information and dialogue: this is the sixth barrier pointed out with a total of six mentions linked to the need to increase the diffusion of the offer and improve the information within the museums. Among the interviewees, three women and three men, all between 33 and 65 years old. Three of the six people are in the age range between 40 and 49 years old. The frequency is widely distributed, although there is a peak of people who make four visits a year. That is the 8.7 % of the total. Thus, part of the specific barriers are linked to aspects associated with access to museums: time, price and accessibility. However, other barriers are linked to the experience within museums, such as overcrowding, information received during the visit and existing knowledge. The analysis of the specific barriers perceived by the sample in its access to museums shows how the high frequency of visits to museums continues to be a determining factor, followed by age and finally gender, since of the seven barriers only three are determining. Women perceive more the lack of accessibility and lack of barriers, while men perceive more the lack of knowledge. In terms of age, older people perceive a lack of accessibility and knowledge along with the price. The latter is also perceived by younger people along with the overcrowding of museums. The high frequency of visits to museums affects four out of the seven barriers: price, lack of time, accessibility and knowledge. However, frequency is not a determining factor in overcrowding, lack of information or lack of perception of barriers. Considering the seven general and seven specific barriers, only three items appear in both lists, which are: lack of knowledge, lack of information and price. Thus, people have responded in a relatively different way between the barriers that they believe others have and those that they encounter at the time of enjoying the visit. The barriers pointed out in the general section are linked to the general vision of museums and problems when accessing them (interest, prejudices, habit, etc.), while the section on specific barriers was designed to obtain barriers linked to the experience of the visit itself as demonstrated by part of the results (overcrowding, time, accessibility, etc.). The common barriers are the need for more knowledge and information, as well as price. It is also important to point out that part of the specific barriers related to enjoyment refer to access barriers, which determines how reticence is maintained even when museums are visited. This fact explains how aspects such as the lack of interest or the existence of prejudices about museums have been pointed out in the general barriers. Considering the general and specific barriers proposed by Kay, Wong and Polonsky: (1) physical, (2) personal access, (3) cost, (4) time and schedules, (5) product, (6) personal interest, (7) understanding and socialization, and (8) information;53 there is a correlation between 53  Kay, Wong and Polonsky 2008 (as fn. 34).

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ÍÑIGO AYALA, MACARENA CUENCA-AMIGO and JAIME CUENCA

their work and the results of this analysis maintaining the same barriers although sometimes with different names. Participation The question of whether there are adequate channels for participation has been answered affirmatively by 43 people, 57.3 % of the sample, 25 women and 18 men. The ages are very distributed in all the bands, as well as the frequency of visits per year. On the question of whether they believe that their opinion is taken into account in the management of museums, 29 % answered yes, 16 % did not, 16 % answered no, know and finally 10 % did not answer the question. Some of the examples given were: activities (12 times), social networks (five times), guided tours (4), the use of audio guides (2), the use of technology during the visit (2), working with groups (2), carrying out surveys (2), programmes of friends of the museum (2) and didactic programmes (3). In other words, the existence of audience participation within museums is perceived by slightly more than half of those surveyed but, according to the examples that some of the people in the sample have provided, participation is perceived as the engagement in activities already programmed by museums, not as the co‑creation of activities between museums and different audiences.54 Thus, of the highest stages of participation existing in the models mentioned above,55 most of the responses of those who perceive participation would be collected in the early stages, where the audience plays a much more passive role.

General Conclusions The main conclusions derived from the elaboration of the pre-test by the PUBLICUM research team in this preliminary study will be explained in the following lines. It foregrounds how changes, barriers and how people perceive the participation phenomenon, are worth highlighting, as they illustrate the great controversy that currently exists. Some of the most striking cases are: a) In response to the changes and barriers highlighted, 28 responses have highlighted the closeness of museums as a change, along with 10 that say they are more interactive and participatory. However, when analysing the results of the barriers, 20 responses have pointed out prejudices towards museums through descriptions considering them as closed spaces with a lack of freedom, no connection, etc. Also, 38 people have indicated that they do not generate interest in society, as Prince and Hanquinet and Savage have pointed out.56 b) It should be noted that within the barriers, 29 people, almost 40 % of the sample, have indicated in both sections a lack of knowledge to be able to enjoy museums and go to them. While this is partly a problem with society and the education system, museums should pro54  Cuenca-Amigo and Zabala-Inchaurraga 2018 (as fn. 45, and 46); Walmsley 2013 (as fn. 45). 55  Brown, Novak-Leonard and Gilbride 2011 (as fn. 49); Heritage Lottery Fund. 2010 (as fn. 49); Simon 2010 (as fn. 44). 56  Prince 1985 (as fn. 28); Hanquinet and Savage 2012 (as fn. 8).

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Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception

c)

d)

e)

f )

vide more knowledge in an enjoyable way, while people should be informed about existing content and exhibitions before going to museums. Linked to the above barrier, there is also the lack of information or misinformation received during visits. Among the outstanding changes, 17 people have pointed out the improvement of the information received by museums, while 19 people have pointed out the lack of information and dialogue as a barrier. Another contrast is the increase in accessibility: eight people have indicated an improvement in accessibility but also persists as a barrier to nine other people. Thus, there is also a duality in this aspect, the cause being that sometimes there is much more and of better quality information, as well as better accessibility, while on other occasions, there is not. For these reasons, in the analysis it appears as both a change and a barrier. The duality between the 12 people who have indicated the increase in visitors to museums is a positive change and the 13 who consider it a negative change is also striking. Considering the general reality of museums, only a few and specific exhibitions have been overcrowded. Most museums have poor attendance data, which is also reflected in the Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices.57 The last controversy reflected in the data analysis has been participation. This is perceived by the audience as the action of engaging in the activities already programmed by the museum or, in some cases, going to the museum to simply do the visit. The theory shows different stages in which passive participation can become co‑creative participation in their design.58 In addition, there are also many initiatives where participation has reached higher quotas within the proposed models by working with different artistic and cultural programs with specific social groups, whether they are ethnic groups, families, children or entire neighbourhoods together. In other words, the fact that people do not perceive participation as something co‑creative means that either Spanish museums are not working along these lines or they are still residual projects in some museums that have not generated enough impact for people to perceive this change.

This dichotomy between the changes carried out, the persistent barriers and the lack of understanding of communication (both by society and by the museums themselves) reflects that the thesis defended by Foley and McPherson and by Hanquinet and Savage is true: society does not always perceive the transformations carried out by museums nor do museums always take into account the opinion and needs of the audience when managing and organising exhibitions.59 Some of the causes of this problem may be a lack of attention on the part of both society and museums, a lack of constancy in this struggle on the part of museums, poor management of communication to highlight all the transformations carried out, etc. Each of these areas together 57  General Subdirectorate of Statistics and Studies 2015 (as fn. 1). 58  Brown, Novak-Leonard and Gilbride 2011 (as fn. 49); Heritage Lottery Fund 2010 (as fn. 49); Simon 2010 (as fn. 44). 59  Foley and McPherson 2000 (as fn. 8); Hanquinet and Savage 2012 (as fn. 8).

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with the research on the once known as non-public constitutes per se an independent and necessary line of research to continue to improve the commitment of museums to individuals and of society to museums. Based on the theoretical framework and the results and discussion of the data, museums need to adapt to change and face challenges with a constant, global and interdepartmental effort to survive following the audience development approach.60 Also, they must continue to work on all these transformations and barriers pointed out in the analysis to improve the experience during the visit and bring the contents of the museums closer to more audiences. It is also necessary to vindicate the role of museums as agents capable of facilitating educational leisure experiences,61 that is, to incorporate a playful vision into their exhibitions without losing the cultural and educational character of their mission.62 Finally, processes and co‑creation between museums and the audience when designing activities must be encouraged, the results being a more enriching experience for all the agents involved.63

REFERENCES Alonso, Luis, Introducción a la nueva museología, Madrid: Alianza, 1999. Amigo, María Luisa, Ocio estético valioso, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2014. Amigo, María Luisa and Macarena Cuenca-Amigo, The experience of aesthetic leisure revisited, in: María Jesús Monteagudo (ed.), Leisure experiences, opportunities and controbutions to human development, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2017, pp. 53–90. Arts Council of England, Audiences development and marketing, 2018, https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/ default/files/download-file/Information_sheets_Audience_development_marketing_Project_ grants_170518.‌pdf (accessed October 20, 2019). Ayala, Íñigo, Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Jaime Cuenca, Principales retos de los museos de arte en España. Consideraciones desde la museología crítica y el desarrollo de audiencias, in: Aposta. Revista de Ciencias Sociales 80 (2019), pp. 61–81. Beauvoir, Simone de, El segundo sexo, Buenos Aires: Siglo XX, 1987. Black, Graham, Transforming Museums in the Twenty-first Century, New York: Routledge, 2012. Bourdieu, Pierre, La Distinction, Paris: Minuit, 1979. Bourdieu, Pierre, Sociología y Cultura, México D.F.: Grijalbo-Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 1984. Brown, Alan S., Jeniffer L Novak-Leonard, and Shelli Gilbride, Getting in on the Act: Hoy Arts Groups are Creating Opportunities for Active Participation, San Francisco: James Irvine Foundation, 2011. Clair, Jean, Malestar en los museos, Gijón: Trea, 2011. Cuenca, Manuel, Ocio valioso, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, 2014. Cuenca-Amigo, Macarena and Amaia Makua, Audience Development: a Cross-National Comparison, in: Academia Revista Latinoamericana de Administración 30 (2) (2017), pp. 156–172. Cuenca-Amigo, Macarena, La democratización cultural como antecedente del desarrollo de audiencias culturales, in: Quaderns d’Animació i Educació Social 19 (2014), pp. 1–16.

60  61  62  63 

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Ayala, Cuenca-Amigo and Cuenca 2019 (as fn. 6). Hanquinet and Savage 2012 (as fn, 8). Clair 2011 (as fn. 4). Hooper-Greenhil 2006 (as fn. 31); Simon 2010 (as fn. 44­).

Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception Cuenca-Amigo, Macarena and Zaloa Zabala-Inchaurraga, Reflexiones sobre la participaciçon como co‑­ creación en el museo, in: Her&Mus 19 (2018), pp. 122–135. Díaz, Ignacio, ¿Qué fue de la nueva museología? El caso de Quebec, in: Artigrama, 17 (2002), pp. 493–516. European Commission, European Audience: 2020 and Beyond, Luxemburg: Publications Office of the European Union, 20 September  2012, https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/­ 9f59889c-c071-4e52-875a-21a007fdbf09/language‑en/format-PDF/source-101602491 (accessed July 20, 2019). Falk, John H. and Lynn D. Dierking, The Museum Experience Revisited, New York: Routledge, 2016. Falk, John H, Identity and the museums visitor experience, California: Lefts Coast Press, 2009. Foley, Malcolm and Gayle McPherson, Museums as leisure, in: International Journal of Heritage Studies 6 (2) (2000), pp. 161–174. General Subdirectorate of Statistics and Studies, Survey of Cultural Habits and Practices, Madrid: Technical General Secretariat Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, 2015. Gutiérrez, Andrés, Manual práctico de museos. Gijón: Trea, 2012. Hadley, Stevena and Eleonara Belfiore, Cultural democracy and cultural policy, in: Cultural Trends 27 (3) (2018), pp. 218–223. Hanquinet, Laurie and Mike Savage, ‘Educative Leisure’ and the art museum, in: Museum and Society 10 (1) (2012), pp. 42–59. Heritage Lottery Fund, Thinking about… Community participation, http://www.heritagenetwork.dmu.ac.uk/ wp-content/uploads/2013/03/thinking_about_community_participation.‌pdf. (accessed 08, July 2019). Hernández, Francisca, Planteamientos teóricos de la museología, Gijón: Trea, 2006. Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture, London: Routledge, 2000. Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean, Studying visitors, in: Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museums Studies, London: Blackwell Publising, 2006, pp. 323–376. Izquierdo, Isabel, Clara López, and Lourdes Prados, Exposición y Género: el ejemplo de los museos de arqueo­ logía, Nuevos museos, nuevas sensibilidades, in: Mikel Asensio et al. (ed.), Series Iberoamericanas de Museología, Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2012, pp. 271–285. Jancovich, Leila, The participation myth, in: International Journal of Cultural Policy 23 (1) (2015), pp. 107–121. Kawashima, Nobuko, Beyond the Division of Attenders vs. Non-Attenders: A Study into Audience Development in Policy and Practice, Coventry: Centre for Cultural Policy Studies, University of Warwick, 2000. Kay, Pandora, Emma Wong and Michael Polonsky, Understanding Barrieres to attendeance and non attendace at Arts and cultural institutions: A conceptural framework, Australian and New Zeland marketing Academiy Conference, Australia: Promaco Conventions, 2008. Kelly, Owen, Community, Art and the State: Storming the Citadels, London: Comedia, 1984. Kemp, Elyria and Sonja Martin Poole, Arts Audiences: Establishing a Gateway to Audience Development and Engagement, in: The Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society 46 (2) (2016), pp. 53–62. Lindelof, Anja Mølle, Audience development and its blind spot: a quest for pleasure and play in the discussion of performing arts institutions, in: International Journal of Cultural Policy 21 (2) (2015), pp. 200–218. Lorente, Jesús Pedro, Manual de Historia de la Museología, Gijón: Trea, 2012. Lorente, Jesús Pedro, Estrategias Museográficas Actuales Relacionadas con la Museología Crítica, in: Complutum 26 (2) (2015), pp. 111–120. Lyotard, Jean-François, La condición postmoderna. Informe sobre el saber, Madrid: Cátedra, 1987. Mandel, Birgit R., Can Audience Development Promote Social Diversity in German Public Arts Institutions?, in: Journal of Arts Management, Law and Society 16 (1) (2018), pp. 1–15. Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso E., Manifiesto Futurista, Le Figaro, 1909. McCarthy, Kevin F. and Kimberly J. Jinnet, A New framework for building participation in the arts, New York: Rand, 2001. McPherson, Gayle, Public memories and private tastes: the shifting definitions of museums and their visitors in the UK, in: Museum Management and Curatorship 21 (1) (2006), pp. 44–57.

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ÍÑIGO AYALA, MACARENA CUENCA-AMIGO and JAIME CUENCA Murawska-Muthesius, Katarzyna and Piotr Piotrowski, From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2016. Navajas, Óscar and Julián González, La aplicación de la Museología Social en España: desafíos para su implementación en el sureste de la Comunidad de Madrid, in: E-cadernos CES, 30 (2018). Pérez Castellanos Leticia, Estudios sobre públicos y museos. Públicos y museos ¿qué hemos aprendido?, México, D. F.: Publicaciones digitales Encrym, 2016. Pérez Santos, Eloísa, Buenas prácticas en la investigación del público en museos, in: Leticia Pérez Castellanos (ed.), Estudios sobre públicos y museos, México, D. F.: Publicaciones digitales Encrym, 2018, pp. 26–36. Pérez Santos, Eloísa, Estudio de visitantes en museos. Metodología y aplicaciones, Gijón: Trea, 2000. Potschka, Christian, Mathias Fuchs and Agata Królikowski, Review of European Expert Network on Culture’s audience building and the future Creative Europe programme 2012, in: Cultural Trends 22 (3) (2013), pp. 265–269. Prince, David R., The museum as dreamland, in: The International Journal of Museum Management and Curatorship 4 (3) (1985), pp. 243–250. Ross, Max, Interpreting the new museology, in: Museum and Society 2 (2) (2004), pp. 84–103. Ruiz, María Luz, La imagen de los museos de arte contemporáneo. Percepción del público visitante y no visitante, Madrid: ACCI, 2017. Santacana, Joan and Francesc Xavier Hernández, Museología crítica, Gijón: Trea, 2006. Shaw, Roy, Secretary-General’s Report. Patronage and Responsibility. The Arts Council of Great Britain, Thirty-Fourth Annual Report and Accounts (1978/9), London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1979. Shelton, Anthony, Critical Museology: a Manifesto, in: Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 1 (2013), pp. 1–7. Simon, Nina, The Participatory Museum, Santa Cruz of California: Museum 2.0, 2010. Stebbins, Robert A., Serious Leisure, London: Transaction Publishers, 2006. Tepper, Steven J. and Yang Gao, Engaging art: what counts?, in: Steben J. Tepper and Bill Ivey (eds.), Engaging art: the next great transformation of America’s cultural life, New York: Routledge, 2008, pp. 17–48. Walmsley, Ben, Co‑creating Theatre: Authentic Engagement or Inter-legitimation?, in: Cultural Trends 22 (2) (2013), pp. 108–118. Wiggins, Jennifer, Motivation, Ability and Opportunity to Participate: A Reconceptualization of the RAND Model of Audience Development, in: International Journal of Arts Management 7 (1) (2004), pp. 22–33. Zolberg, Vera L., Museums face to face with the millennium: The view of a sociologist, in: Museum Management and Curatorship 13 (2) (1994), pp. 184–190. Íñigo Ayala, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0038-453X Macarena Cuenca-Amigo, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8629-7364 Jaime Cuenca, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5744-4073

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FROM THE PUBLIC MUSEUM TO THE VIRTUAL MUSEUM Communication in the Museum in Digital Environments. The Spanish Situation Introduction In W.  J.  T. ​Mitchell’s work: What do pictures want?, one of the major figures in Visual Studies, he raises the importance of images in the society of our time in a world in which it is increasingly difficult to take our attention and in which Arts are looking for their place in digital media to continue spreading the Culture. The History of Art and, in particular, museums have found in digital environments their best ally to set an informal education system outside their exhibition spaces. In this way, they intend to bind with the public and attract new audiences following business marketing strategies by translating the study and the research of their collections into the language of social networks and digital platforms, in accordance with the educational objective of the museum. If we take as a starting point the latest version of ICOM museum definition in 2017, we can see how important communication is in this institution: “A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment”.1 However, the abstraction of the word communication, together with its unstoppable evolution, allows us to raise new reflections about the divulgation in the museum and its relation with education. 1  The current definition, which has only seen minor adjustments over the past few decades, does not reflect the complexities of the 21st century and the current responsibilities and commitments of museums. ICOM invited its members, committees, partners and other interested stakeholders to participate in the development of potential alternatives for the museum definition in time for the 25th ICOM General Conference, which will take place in Kyoto, 1–7 September 2019. The Executive Board selected the below as a new alternative museum definition for a vote to be included in the ICOM Statutes: “Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people. Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing”, in: ICOM International Council of Museums, Creating a new museum definition, https://icom.museum/en/activities/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/ (accessed July 30, 2019).

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Therefore, the analysis of the dissemination role in museums is an essential task to know, not only the evolution of communication processes in the 21st century, but also the development of museums in recent times. The Digital Age has probably been the biggest revolution in the museum by proposing new forms of communication with its audiences. Nowadays, we could even say that we find the possibility of separating the museum and the analog public from the public and the digital museum. The institution has to work in favor of both binomials, in terms of dissemination strategies developing, a new paradigm that tells us about a change in the way of relating. If the 19th century museum used to communicate in a unidirectional way with its visitors, and the 20th century museum allowed a bidirectional communication between the institution and the public, the Computer Age demands from the user a multichannel and multidirectional conversation, which has resulted in this new state. In 1947, André Malraux proposed in his work Le Musée imaginaire that the Museum had to be an institution open to the society and whose influence was not limited to the place where the object was exhibited, but its knowledge should surpass the physical building. In his essay, he already sensed that new museums would host all kinds of cultural and artistic expressions, which would use the new modes of communication, but he could not have imagined the limits of the information revolution.2 The evolution of the Internet and ICTs, as the basis of the current information society, allows a new way of accessing, disseminating, creating and learning information thanks to its digital format, to the extent of breaking temporary-spatial barriers. Contributions of ICTs to the media have not only led to an improvement in the efficiency of the communication process, but they also have changed that process.3 Regarding the digital format, its importance in the development of ICT has to be valued since it is the basis for the construction of the knowledge society that, along with the evolution of the internet, is creating a new way of learning, accessing information, working and producing and of dissemination. This new language favors the interdisciplinarity and it generates new perspectives to access to the digital culture.4 In this sense, it is essential to understand that the museum, as a part of the current society, has had to assimilate the new ways of communication with the population and it has been forced to enter the technological dynamics of the 21th century to achieve the audiences and not to be outdone. The museum is present in society as a leading cultural entity that works to reach all audiences through interaction with them, through the creation of online resources to support teachers, the digitization of collections for researchers, the design of mobile applications for people with functional diversity and not forgetting the immediate contact that daily work in social networks entails and that brings together all kind of users. The results are clearly positive, 2  César Carreras, Gloria Munilla and Laura Solanilla (eds.), Museos on‑line: nuevas prácticas en el mundo de la cultura, http://www.personales.ulpgc.es/emartin.dch/tutorialCD/obligatorias/Museos%20on.‌pdf (accessed July 25, 2019). 3  María Luisa Bellido, Arte, museos y nuevas tecnologías, Gijón: Trea, 2001. In her book, she analyzes the importance that the Internet has acquired as an instrument to conceive new artistic manifestations and as a means to spread the publications, collections and services of museums that have made this network a substitute for the traditional pages of its newspaper publication. 4  José Luis Cordeiro, El Combate Educativo del Siglo, Caracas: CEDICE, 1998, p. 25.

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so we can affirm that virtual communities that have been created around museums are committed to their educational work through this virtual reality, always with the aim of bringing the museum closer to the potential user and visitor.

Museology and Audiences, Origin and Transformation of Communication Having argued the importance of communication in the museum and its gradual development, we cannot begin these reflections without going back briefly to the opening to the public of museums in Europe at the end of the 18th century, where the path of education in the museum through the democratization of the rich royal collections and its opening to a select sector of the population began. Moving back to the origins of the relationship between the museum and the user and highlighting the role of New Museology, we can now understand the transformation process of the institution and the revolution in communicative terms. Defenders, detractors and even those who remain indifferent, cannot ignore that the museum is a place where not only works of art are preserved and shown, but also many other functions of this institution have reached unimaginable dimensions. The transformation has reached such a degree that we have forgotten the museum meaning of Adorno, who identified Museum with Mausoleum.5 In the USA and Canada, in the early years of the 20th century, the beginning of education in the museum was established as an extension of the classrooms. We can outline Louise Conolly or Anna Billins Galup as personalities who created a precedent in the museum education, later renamed Anglo-Saxon museology. This trend will focus its attention on the public and not so much on the conservation of works, as Mediterranean museology, based in Europe, did.6 In this shift, the museum is increasing its weight in all areas, establishing itself as an irreplaceable and consolidated entity thanks to the praise and criticism it receives. The museum has been defined as the decentralized structure at the service of the heritage of a community that Marc Maure claimed as a defender of the New Museology.7 It emerged in the 80's, looking for a new language 5  Theodor W. Adorno, Valery Proust Museum, in: Theodor W. Adorno et al, PRISMS, London: Neville Spearman, 1967, pp. 175–185: “The German word museal has negative connotations. It refers to objects with which the observer does not maintain a vital relationship and are in the process of dying. Its conservation is due more to historical respect than to the needs of the present. Museum and Mausoleum are related by more than just a phonetic proximity. Museums are the family graves of works of art”; Luis Alonso Fernández, Nueva Museología, Madrid: Alianza, 1999, p. 17. 6  Javier Gómez, Dos museologías. Las tradiciones anglosajona y mediterránea: diferencias y contactos, Gijón: Trea, 2006. In his work deals in depth with these topics that can bring us closer to the future of museums, raising methodological differences between different traditions and also focusing on the most current controversies that are guiding the future of these institutions. 7  The principles of this New Museology also developed by Desvallées were others, as they focused on bringing the museum to all audiences and extending its influence on society as a whole, as part of everyday life, thus criticizing the old museology, completely obsolete and for an elite. André Desvallées, Nouvelle muséologie, in: Enciclopedia Universalis, Paris, 1989 [1980], pp. 921–924.

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and a further opening and socio-cultural participation, which defines the international movement that has managed to remove the museum institution from its foundation. All these advances were related to the previous works about museology in general, and to concepts such as the ecomuseum in particular, of the recognized Georges H. Rivière.8 Desvallées, Maure and Rivière could see how the rusty museology of the 19th century was destroying the museum from inside. Therefore, the rupture with this conventional profile of the museum has been favoured from the last fifty years. Thus, we arrive to a new conception of museum in the 20th and 21st centuries as a result of this new paradigm, which gives rise to an organized, lively and didactic museum, leaving behind the idea of the warehouse museum, to become an exchange databank. Moreover, the New Museology creates an alluring museum, which attracts all kinds of audiences, in the line of the entertainment culture, and in direct relation to the post-industrial and consumerist culture of postmodern society.9 Thanks to the New Museology, museums have become both a means and an end of cultural action. In other words, the most conservative facet of museums is being lost in favor of the enhancement of human aspects and to the detriment of the exhibition quality or the appropriate conservation of heritage. As Valdés Sagués says, the museum’s socializing character makes words such as education, teaching, pedagogy, dissemination and communication essential when we talk about the museum institution.10 Along these lines, the relationship between society and museums has evolved over time, so if we take the Enlightenment museums as an initial point, we will see that it has been a complex process that has completely transformed the situation until today, where different types of public demand new ways of relating from the institution, using new technologies and digital media.

The Museum in Digital Environments In recent times, the museum has crossed the border of its buildings to access digital devices, adapting to the reality of contemporary society, which demands its presence. Although we are faced with a fairly recent issue, the debates about the level of “digitalization” that the museum has to assume are extensive. These issues have caused various disagreements among the theorists of the more traditional museology, who understood that this institution should not appropriate this communicative language, which was considered far from the original purposes of the museum. These positions corresponded to misinterpretations of what the technological revolution of the museum really means today, which has not replaced the essence of the museum, but quite the opposite.

8  George Henri Rivière, La Museología. Curso de Museología, textos y testimonios, Madrid: Akal, 1993. 9  Alonso 1999 (as fn. 5), p. 56. 10  María Carmen Valdés, La difusión cultural en el museo. Servicios destinados al gran público, Gijón: Trea, 1999, p. 45. At this point, could be an interesting book recent work of Ferrán Urgel, Manual de estudios de público de museos, Gijón: Trea, 2014.

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As Deloche says, the debate about the virtual museum tends to focus on the competence of information and communication technologies in museums. For him, the reasoning is very simple: If the public can see the collections through the Internet, they will stop coming to the museum, which will lead to a decrease in the number of tickets sold and, consequently, the institution’s sources of funding. However, we have been observing that the visit rate does not stop increasing, which seems that the competition, if it is real, must be in another place, where we do not expect it […]. So, there are two curiously confused problems: about the definition of the virtual museum and about the competition of new media with the institutional museum11.

Deloche insists in his work The Virtual Museum that “the museum is not a cyber museum”, in other words, the museum must be understood as a cultural institution that uses the media of each time to publicize its collections, support research and conservation and specially to spread their activities and connect with the visiting public. Similarly, this author calls the utopian idea of the virtual museum into question as a kind of artificial museum manufactured to replace the traditional museum, as we conceived so far. He tries to explain how some researchers imagine “a kind of cybermuseum that would replace the dusty museum of once, a museum for educated people, but in a hurry that would visit every morning like who reads the newspaper while having breakfast”. For these theorists reluctant to update the institution, the museum we know today would disappear to become “a kind of robot capable of offering its customers a new version of cultural fast food”,12 a museum based on the latest technical advances and the computer programming, an “automatic museum” like the one Benoist imagined in his Musée et Museologie in the 1960's.13 In contrast to these theorists’ thought, the museum has naturally been adapting to the new times and has been including digital technologies in its daily work as another tool. The New Museology, above mentioned, meant a fundamental step in the social evolution of museums, reaching its peak with the advent of the Internet and digital connection networks in the late 80's, when the great museums began to use that new medium, finally settling in the mid‑90's.14 Prior to that, the technology reached the museums through the first digital applications designed for the delight of the public and as one of the most attractive elements of the visit. In order to use them, it was decisive the introduction of computers in the exhibition halls with the aim of interacting with visitors. This type of dynamic tools of the exhibitions in the museums that allowed to extend information to the public in the same room have also been evolving with the technological advances. In the last decades, we have shifted from seeing in the museum simple audiovisual equipment, audio guides or interactive screens fixed, to see augmented reality or touch devices that accompany us through the rooms.

11  Bernard Deloche, El museo virtual, Gijón: Trea, 2001. 12  Deloche (as fn. 11), p. 187. 13  Luc Benoist, Musée et Museologie, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971, pp. 121–122. 14  José Nicolás del Río Castro, Museos de arte en la Red, https://telos.fundaciontelefonica.com/archivo/ numero090/museos‑de-arte‑en-la-red/ (accessed July 23, 2019).

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Returning to the 90's, the first cd‑roms used to visualize the works that made up the permanent collections of the museums and, to a lesser extent, the temporary exhibitions came into existence. This technology, which shortly after was replaced by the DVD, currently has a residual representation within the offer of merchandising products in museum stores.15 Obviously, as we have already advanced in the previous pages, the appearance of the Internet was the great communicative revolution of the museum because it directly interconnected the user with the museum without the obligation of the physical visit. It was no longer necessary to go to the museum to learn about the works that were exhibited in a digital museum that was open 24 hours a day, every day of the year. With this purpose, the first websites of museums arose, and have remained the most important corporate reference of the institution up‑to-date, and which officially represents the museum on the Internet. In this way, the current institutional communication model, based on unidirectionality, has expired. This practice, consisting in the organization transferring its message through the media, advertising or marketing, with the intention of impacting a passive receiver, has been outdated. The technological advance has enabled a change of role in the different actors that make up the communication process.16 The Internet allows us to break, on the one hand, with the barriers of time – since it is not necessary the simultaneity of the visit- and, on the other hand, of space – since it is accessible from any point of the planet. All of this modified the function of those responsible for the museum, as well as the wide range of public to whom the activities of the institution can be directed. Nowadays we cannot think only of the local public, who can move physically to the museum, but also in that public of many other countries that may be interested in the institution, making the museum a completely accessible space.17 Likewise, the museums conceived their presence on the network as an advertising tool. Through them, they showed in a simple way their opening hours, their location or their contact information. Later, the websites of the museums ceased to be simple calling-cards to become work tools, and learning and leisure tools for all audiences. In this way, museums began to offer in their digital spaces interesting materials to the user, from digital pictures of their backgrounds with textual information, to educational activities related to the collection, as an invitation and complement to the physical visit to the museum, so the user could know better the space he was going to visit from his electronic device.18 Another of the great advantages of the network is that it served as a meeting point between visitors and museum professionals, which allowed, for the first time, the fluid communication between them. Therefore, the communicative barrier was broken and the museum got to know

15  Bellido 2001 (as fn. 3), p. 40. 16  Raquel Martínez-Sanz, Estrategia comunicativa digital en el museo, in: El profesional de la información 21 (4) (2012), pp. 391–395. 17  César Carreras, Gloria Munilla and Laura Solanilla Gruo Òliba (eds.) Museos on‑line: nuevas prácticas en el mundo de la cultura, http://www.personales.ulpgc.es/emartin.dch/tutorialCD/obligatorias/Museos%­ 20on.‌pdf (accessed 25 July 2019). 18  Miquela Forteza, El papel de los museos en las redes sociales, in: Biblos 48 (2012), pp. 31–39.

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the public’s opinion through the introduction of visitors’ suggestions. Before, the only possibility of obtaining this information was from surveys that facilitated this adaptation of the institution to the visitors’ preferences, in the so‑called public studies, that with the emergence of these new technologies have also been revolutionized.19 At the beginning of the 21st century, the online museum begins to take shape as its own entity. It goes from being an advertisement that redirects the potential visitor to the museum, providing useful information, to use digital tools, and mainly the website, to introduce content and services that enrich the museum’s offer. In this way, the visitor will arrive at the museum with a clearer idea of what will be found in the museum, but there is also the possibility of bringing the museum closer to audiences who, for different reasons, will not be able to know the institution face‑to-face. As Forteza Oliver says, we find two very differentiated audiences: on the one hand, the off-line audience, represented by the locals and tourists who go to museums to have an experience similar to what they would have if they went to a cinema, to a theater or restaurant; and on the other, the online audience, looking for a tool that can offer different utilities, from instruction and information, to expansion and fun. This is one of the keys of the online museum, making the museum accessible to the non-face‑to-face public and improving the presence of visitors.20 In addition, at present, the digital presence of museums is not a recommendation to attract new audiences or boost their activity; now, the museum has the obligation to provide this service at the same level that dedicates its efforts to the conservation of its collections or the assembly of temporary exhibitions. Furthermore, this is not exclusive to large museums, but is also a challenge for the smaller ones. As we will see in the following pages, and almost paradoxically, the smaller museums have worked the most in having a careful online presence, serving as an example on many occasions to the most important museums. It is important to keep in mind that, in the virtual scene, the spatial limits are blurred, the surface that the museum occupies is a second place and where the museum is located is left in the background because the Internet user only can see in the screen the content that the institution has posted, with the image that the museum wants to offer to its users. What the virtual visitor is looking for is useful information and quality content, without worrying so much about which institution it comes from. For this reason, museums with fewer resources should work together, developing a network museum policy in order to join efforts and prevent the individual work from going unnoticed in the digital maelstrom. Social media, in addition to serving to boost and expand the museum’s message, is an excellent listening channel, which allows bidirectionality and, consequently, valuable feedback for both the institution that directly receives what its public wishes to convey as for the Internet user who feels himself as an active part in the evolution process of the museum.

19  Álvaro Notario, El público en el museo actual. Reflexiones sobre la Nueva Museología y las masas, in: De Arte. Revista de la Universidad de León 17 (2018), pp. 191–203. 20  Forteza 2012 (as fn. 18), p. 33.

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This dynamic is what will make it possible to strengthen a community of followers around common concerns.21 In contrast, it is important to consider the differences presented by more relevant museums regarding to smaller ones. To start with, smaller museums can empirically investigate with their digital communities what kind of performances their audiences like the most, which ones have greater and lesser impact, and which ones find better results, both virtual and face‑to-face. However, large institutions, due to the impact they have, are usually much more cautious on the creation of new dialogues with the public in general terms, and specifically in the case of virtual presence, because the conversation becomes in multichannel. These museums try to be very conservative and analyze carefully each step they take. Regarding to the mentioned impact that the great museums have, it is necessary to point out the differences between the resources that some museums can have in front of others. Not only in terms of economic resources, which can allow a greater deployment of digital media, with the latest generation programs with constant updates, but also with specialized personnel dedicated to these tasks in a specialized manner. In this sense, we see how the staff dedicated to these tasks in museums is not a specialist in the field, in general terms. Museum curators have had to specialize in museums with continuous training in parallel to their usual work to meet these needs. Only in the great museums and just recently, journalists, graphic designers and community managers are slowly beginning to be included among their teams. In short, the digital communication professionals begin to be decisive. Even the location of these professionals in their departments has been a problem for many of these museums. In general, although the departmental organization of each museum is different, everything related to communication began to be treated from the departments of education until, little by little, it has been sliding away and assuming a relevant role within the organizational chart of the museum, with specific departments of press, dissemination or communication. Only in larger museums, it has been considered essential to have departments dedicated to new technologies, with complete teams specialized in the field. However, most museums, because of their tight budgets and limited staff available, assume these tasks as a complement to the rest of their work, with the consequent neglect that this implies in something as important as the communication of all their activities. It is essential the continuous training of the museum staff and the transversal work of all the departments, to achieve these objectives, which will be reflected in the innovation, rigor and originality of the virtual content that the user will receive. The museum in its online version, in addition to qualified professionals, requires the involvement of all departments of the museum, ceasing to be an individual activity to become a teamwork. New professional profiles must be added to the museum’s own team, although they work from outside the institution, invigorating the contents through its own digital tools. In the recent past, we could refer to them as bloggers or digital journalists, perhaps today is more appropriate the term of cultural influencers. They are the new art critics, who through their opinion articles in the press, on their own blogs, video channels and, of course, with their work on social networks, 21  Martínez-Sanz 2012 (as fn. 16), pp. 393–394.

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help spread the museum’s activity. In this sense, it is increasingly common for museums, as well as for their traditional press conferences when an exhibition is inaugurated, to organize a meeting with these new digital communication professionals.

Digital Communication in the Current Museum At this point and before studying the Spanish situation specifically, we are going to analyze the keys of communication in the current museum. As we will see, the web and social networks have become essential aspects when we consider communication strategies, but the fact of having them does not guarantee good results. It is essential to know how to manage them and exploit the potential of each of these communicative channels, within the overall strategy of the museum. However, as the ConnectaMuseu report shows, which analyzed the online reality of museums in 2016 and that will guide us to analyze the phenomenon of digital communication in general terms, in some museums there is a lack of online strategies, and, even worse there are museums that do not have these essential tools yet.22 The museum of the 21st century, in addition to virtual, in the words of Gómez Vílchez, is a social museum that has transformed the idea of a traditional museum and now focuses on creating a dialogue with the public, understanding that it should not only work for its visitors, but also with its visitors. The new museum is a center that generates and distributes content and information, offering varied channels for museum-user interaction and accepting the participation and collaboration of its visitors in the construction of knowledge. Based on communication education, the museum uses the possibilities of technology and new networked environments, but it is not enough to make use of the virtual medium, it must be included as part of everyday work and as part of Institution development.23 From our point of view, we understand that the museum must have minimums that guarantee its digital presence today. In addition to the importance of the web and the presence in social networks, in which the museum must work on its maintenance and constant updating, nowadays, streaming, augmented reality and the mobile device are strategic tools for communication between the museum and the user, being keys to the online-museum. Website The website is the new door created by the Internet that allows the virtual visitor to enter the museums. These corporate websites are gradually important in the communication of museums, 22 The ConnectaMuseu report has allowed us to consider the situation of museums and art centers in Spain, but it is not the only one of this type that tries to put a spotlight on this issue. For example, Dosdoce.‌com presented in 2016 a report that analyzed the degree of use of all types of technologies in the three phases in which a citizen has direct contact with a cultural entity. These three phases include, first of all, the actions before visiting the center (discovery phase), secondly, during the visit (direct experience phase) and finally, after visiting it (phase where you share your experience/satisfaction), https://www.lasnaves.com/ wp-content/uploads/2017/08/INFORME-CONNECTA-MUSEU-2017.‌pdf (accessed August 1, 2019). 23  Soledad Gómez Vílchez, Museos españoles y redes sociales, https://telos.fundaciontelefonica.com/­ archivo/numero090/museos-espanoles‑y-redes-sociales (accessed July 26, 2019).

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as they are increasingly visited by web-surfers and they progressively stay longer in them. For this reason, beyond the basic information museums should take advantage of communicative opportunities to publish the maximum information about their collections, economic management, administrative organization, visitor data, etc., which creates a positive transparency image of the institution.24 The website remains the official channel of the institution, which bundles all the information necessary to visit the museum, such as that calling-card we referred to, or the origin of its existence. But at the same time, it is the place where the museum more fully explains its functions and its activities and where it presents its collections and the full range of resources and products it can offer the virtual user. Moreover, due to its greater extension and the great possibilities it offers, it is the platform that brings together the rest of the communicative channels, redirecting us to social networks, blogs, video channels or even related pages, where we can find information that is potentially of the interest of the user. For example, platforms or digital projects in which the museum participates, in the case of Spanish museums, Cer.‌es, or in the European ones, such as Europeana,25 which we will refer to later. The great revolution of the websites, has come with the semantic-websites, a type of websites that allows you to link all digital tools and databases to the service of the user, and therefore helps to generate a global strategy in digital terms with the same platform on‑line. This kind of websites also allows interconnecting all the data to adapt them to different audiences and aimed at maximizing the satisfaction of their interests, offering data explicitly related to those results, satisfying the user’s questions.26 Social Networks On the other hand, as other lighthearted information channels, we can find social networks. Recently, these networks have become essential tools to boost the daily life of museums. Within the great revolution that the Internet has meant in society in general, the social networks have had the greatest impact on the daily life of the population, becoming the backbone of the Internet. Thanks to them, museums are offered an opportunity, as never before, to establish a constant and direct dialogue with the public through social networks. These new digital communication channels offer museums the possibility of approaching their visitors in a different way and also try to reach those web-surfers who do not know the museum, bringing the institution closer to their electronic devices. Thanks to social networks, the museum reaches more people, its communicative potential is inexhaustible and represents a new way of working that can bring great results to the institution, with new dissemination cam-

24  César Carreras, Gloria Munilla and Laura Solanilla (eds.), Museos on‑line: nuevas practicas en el mundo de la cultura, http://www.personales.ulpgc.es/emartin.dch/tutorialCD/obligatorias/Museos%20on.‌pdf (accessed July 25, 2019). 25  Europeana Collections, https://www.europeana.eu/portal/es (accessed August 1, 2019). 26  Museo del Prado, Estándares semánticos y datos enlazados, https://www.museodelprado.es/modelo-­ semantico-digital/estandares-semanticos‑y-datos-enlazados (accessed August 1, 2019).

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paigns more effective than traditional ones. It gives to the museum the ability to attract new sectors of the public to Museum. We can observe a direct and unlimited medium of communication, with all the risks that implies for the institution, and many benefits if they are well spent. The key is to generate a commitment from the virtual public, in through the creation of a digital community related to the museum, which participates in the proposals that the institution made to its users. In this way, these tools have become the point of union of a virtual community interested and loyal to the museum project. The museum has a crucial role in managing its relationship with the physical audience, but also with the on‑line user, knowing how to grant him his position as an interlocutor. Communication expands and the museum even reaches those who are not potentially public. Thanks to social networks, any user can now be talking about a museum, anywhere in the world, in any language.27 Museums have positioned themselves in a diverse way, carried by the responsibility of opening the doors of the institution in this way. At the beginning, there was a fairly major rejection of museums entering the world of social networks. Even, certain museums expressly prohibited opening institutional profiles on social media, but currently the social trend has been growing and museums have launched themselves to create diverse network spaces. Gradually, museums have entered the dynamics of digital presence and, to a greater or lesser extent, today, all museums have profiles on different social networks. An analysis based solely on quantitative elements could imply that cultural institutions have understood the message and that the museum has been opened to its public and has been updated to current times. However, although the general use of these digital tools is adequate, in some cases the absence of a careful digital strategy is perceived and it is not always easy to recognize if certain museums make use of social media by conviction or if they are following the inertia of this rising trend. Being present in networks without a structured communication plan, a development program and clear objectives are not positive. Gómez Vílchez says that an institution must be part of social networks and must assume a series of commitments. It implies creating community and responding to the requirements of its members. It is not enough to be simply present in these media, but it is necessary to carry out a work program, agreed and organized, that promotes conversation and participation.28 A few years ago, the tendency was to create new institutional profiles in all the new digital platforms that were becoming fashionable (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Vimeo, etc.) without a specific strategy for each of them. However, nowadays, there is an increasing recognition of the importance of having a smaller but careful digital presence instead of a wide range of neglected social networks or in which repetitive content is turned over. The current commitment is to maintain a communication strategy appropriate to each of the social networks, in form and content, evaluating the real resources that the museum has to attend them. There is 27  La Visible, La comunicación online en los museos. Nueve tendencias, http://www.lavisible.org/larevista/ 2016/03/22/comunicacion-online/ (accessed July 23, 2019). 28  Gómez (as fn. 23).

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nothing that causes a worse impression on an institutional profile than the outdated content, so many museums have eliminated those that were unable to attend, and focused on those that have the greatest impact. Streaming One of the great social networks’ novelties has been the possibility, not only to share content with users from any part of the world and at any time, but also to share it in rigorous direct. Although there were specific tools for this, such as Periscope, nowadays Instagram or Facebook, allow you to generate connections with users and broadcast live videos from a mobile phone, which can be saved and subsequently shared as content that can be viewed in the future. This allowed in the mid-2010's that the web-surfers attended cycles of conferences, press conferences, restoration laboratories, book presentations, concerts, etc. from home. Undoubted­ ly, this commitment to immediacy and innovation in communication has come to stay. Museums, increasingly, include these live connections with their virtual community in their daily schedules. The use of this type of social network extends the audience’s experience and above all it generates closeness between the institution and the virtual public.29 Augmented Reality As part of virtual technology, augmented reality currently represents a powerful tool that has shown its versatility in a wide range of applications in different areas of knowledge, especially in the educational field where it has found great possibilities for the dissemination of content that is presented in an attractive and pedagogical way at the same time.30 The Augmented Reality has appeared with great force within this context in recent years, and in museums it is represented as a substitute for the interactive elements we talked about previously. It offers great possibilities for its attractiveness, its ability to energize the exhibitions and to interact with the visitor. However, despite providing useful options, its implementation is still a problem in many museums and it is often difficult to take advantage of it when there are many people in the rooms. In addition to not being a technology available to all museums, due to its high economic cost, not all users have understood how it works. The use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets to access this expanded information of the works through augmented reality is complex, it takes a few minutes to focus with one of these devices and it may make the experience uncomfortable for the rest of visitors.31 Let us not forget that, like the previous interactive tools, all the digital elements used in their rooms are characterized by obsolescence, which represents a risk for the institution that invests on these technologies. Many of them choose to sign collaboration agreements with leading companies, generating a mutual benefit.

29  La Visible (as fn. 27). 30  David Ruiz, Realidad Aumentada, educación y museos, in: Revista Icono 14 (2) (2011), pp. 212–226. 31  La Visible (as fn. 27).

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Mobile Phone All the applications, platforms and digital tools that we have mentioned are essential to connect the museum with the user, both inside and outside the museum, but they have the mobile device as a meeting point. Thanks to the mobile phone, we live connected to the world, we know the news and we communicate with our environment, we establish social relationships, we share our own information through social networks and we spend our leisure time surfing these applications. It is not surprising that it also becomes a key element for communication used by museums in order to transform the visitor’s experience both before making their physical tour of the ­museum and during their visit: the mobile phone has become the new audio guide from the museum. By downloading an application created by the museum or by capturing a QR code, the viewer has in his personal mobile all the information that the institution has prepared to make his visit to his exhibitions more enriching. Many museums have invested in the implementation of Wi‑Fi connections in their spaces so that users can consult that information during visits. Many of these mobile applications already have geolocation based on beacons, portable devices that are incorporated into physical objects and that, through the Bluetooth connection generates virtual maps that are reflected in the applications. In consequence, we obtain personalized interactive tours that give museum visitors additional information about what they are seeing, such as the stories about some paintings, X‑ray images of the works, as well as interactive games. In addition, iBeacon technology can detect the active presence of visitors thanks to the mobile application, thus starting to offer information that is updated according to the distance and location in the museum. It also offers a virtual map-guide based on GPS technology on the works of art of the museum.32 The Spanish Situation In Spain, the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies in museums has followed a slow path. Technological changes have been taking place gradually but, little by little, they have been growing in their virtual presence with the use of different tools. Spanish museums, in general, began to bet decisively on new technologies at the end of the 90's, at the time, the digitalization of the collections of state museums with the DOMUS program began. It is a parallel process to which we are analyzing and it has a great relationship. Thanks to this program, the collections of our museums were also made accessible to researchers and the general public by the Internet, while ensuring their conservation. Undoubtedly the creation of Cer.‌es, the virtual public access platform in which all the information of the DOMUS program can be found, implied a revolution in the dissemination of the collections of Spanish museums.33 Focusing on the communication tools of museums and users, after the first trials of corporate websites, it will be at the end of the first decade of the 21st century when Spanish museums 32 Ibid. 33  Red Digital de Colleciones de Museos de España, http://ceres.mcu.es/pages/SimpleSearch?index=​true (accessed August 1, 2019).

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have begun to incorporate the new tools of Web 2.0 in their areas of communication as more broadcast channels, although the modernization has been different in each specific case. According to the 2016 ConectaMuseo report, it wasn’t until 2009 when state museums started opening their profiles on social networks. However, as we anticipated in the previous pages, the smallest museums have been the pioneers in many cases, especially in the use of social networks, with virtual projects that required the response of users, creating small communities on‑line with great results. By analyzing the general panorama of Spanish museums, we can see the independence of the magnitude of the institutions of good practices, despite the fact that the impact and effect of large museums is always much greater. As said by Gómez Vílchez, by typologies of museums, we can observe that the involvement of modern and contemporary art museums in social media was, at the beginning, higher than in other categories of museums34. In opposition to this, archaeological and fine art museums, especially provincial and local ones, have taken longer time to join their presence on the Internet and especially in social networks. Although with some exceptions, the number of these museums in networks is reduced and their profiles do not reach a majority support from users. In the same situation there are ethnographic museums, science museums and house-museums, which do not get good positions. We can also perceive a similar effort in some museum networks, for instance, the State Museums. Their presence in social media did not exist until the early years of the 21st century. However, they have grown qualitatively and quantitatively in the last decade, with numerous profiles widely supported by the public. If in 2010 Gómez Vílchez said that the involvement of Spanish museums in social networks “is still limited”, 10 years later we have to say that evolution has not only been positive, but that expectations have been exceeded. Many of the most traditional museums, following the great examples worldwide, such as the Louvre, the Metropolitan or the Tate, have taken a great step in this direction. They surprise us every day with innovative and dynamic content with which the user interacts actively. According to Conxa Radó there are many Spanish museums that can serve as an example to the rest. She says that one of the best references could be Museo Thyssen that, from the beginning of this incursion in the virtual world of museums, has worked in a good on‑line communication strategy through the creation of blogs, then with their profiles in social networks and later with their applications and interactive games of great quality. Radó also highlights the MUSAC of León that has organized several years meetings about museums and social networks in the 2010's. and in Barcelona she stresses the CCCB Lab and the Picasso Museum, which have a very powerful social networking activity.35 Within the numerous public and private museums that make up the cultural reality of Spain, we must highlight the role of State Museums, which with few economic and human resources have managed to position these public institutions on the Internet. However, there are also 34  Gómez (as fn. 23). 35  Ende Comunicación, La dimensión digital alcanza a todos los ámbitos del museo, Interview with Conxa Radó, http://endecomunicacion.com/entrevista-con-conxa-roda-responsable‑de-estrategia-digital-delmuseu-­nacional‑d-art‑de-catalunya-cataluna/ (accessed July 23, 2019).

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public museums, Museo Nacional del Prado and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, that have great equipment, budgets and the immediate impact of everything they do. Both museums, main cultural institutions in our country, generate a lot of content and know how to manage their resources, reaching unthinkable objectives for the rest of the museums. In this sense, the work they have done in Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía with the website is noteworthy. This is a perfect example of how the information about exhibitions or about the collection can be clearly expanded thanks to this channel. There, you can find all kind of information, for example, the podcasts of the Reina Sofía Radio (RRS) in which we can find debates, conversations and programs that add context to the works available in the different exhibitions and in the collection of the museum.36 Despite this, it is the Museo del Prado and its newly released semantic web the most notable example. Regarding networks, the digital media par excellence was Facebook. Its format allows to explain in a comprehensive way the news of the institution and redirect the flow of users to the web. Facebook perhaps was the platform with which Museums join the social networks world. On the other hand, Twitter, much more instantaneous and that allows less extension in the shared contents, was the most used medium and the one that experienced the greatest growth until the arrival of Instagram. Nowadays, Instagram is undoubtedly the social network that stands out in growth. However, the museums’ video channels on YouTube or Vimeo usually maintain their activity but, in some cases, they have been replaced by streaming connections. The participation of some of the Spanish museums in the Google Art Project, which allows virtual tours of some of the most prestigious museums in the world, is also very remarkable. In addition, in some specific cases, such as the Museo Nacional del Romanticismo, playlists have been generated in Spotify with musical songs according to the time of their art collections. In contrast, accounts on Flickr or Pinterest have gradually disappeared, with some exceptions, to give way to Instagram. It was in 2010 when Instagram was born. No museum could anticipate the importance that social networks and their online communities would have in the dissemination of art. In fact, many of the large centers did not have communication departments specialized in social networks and online communication at that time. We should underline the foresight that museums such as Museo del Romanticismo or Museo Cerralbo had at that moment. They opted for this new network, despite being small-impact museums and in spite of having reduced teams, achieving excellent results and positioning themselves at the top of digital communication in their field in our country. Must be also highlighted the activity of Museo Thyssen and its headquarters in Málaga, Museo de la Alhambra, MACBA (Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona), Fundación Canal, Espacio Fundación Telefónica or Museo Guggenheim Bilbao.37 Thanks to social networks, and especially thanks to Instagram, the museum opens the doors to events and spaces never known by the visitor, whether for reasons of accessibility, security or conservation. In this way, the virtual user knows from his mobile phone the day‑to-day of the museum 36  La Visible (as fn. 27). 37  Mariola Llorca, Museos en red. Instagram al servicio del arte, http://www.hojadellunes.com/index.php/ reportajes/81-museos‑en-red-instagram‑al-servicio-del-arte (accessed August 1, 2019).

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and its workers. These on‑line users can attend press conferences, bloggers’ meeting, exhibition assemblies, the work of restorers. In addition, they can participate in creative competitions to win tickets, exhibition catalogs, etc. Surprisingly, the last ones to join this social network in our country have been Museo Nacional del Prado, in February 2017, and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in September 2018, continuing the example of the most pioneering museums without risks. More than these initiatives that demand the participation of visitors, a series of celebrations have been established for the museum community in which users also participate, mainly through Twitter. For instance, the international days of the #MuseumWeek or the #MuseumSelfieday. Alongside them, museums continue to commemorate, on a particular level, the artists’ anniversaries of their collections, dates of historical importance for the institution. In addition, they participate in the celebration of religious or civil festivities sharing in their social networks the art works of the collections of each museum, related to this holiday, generating dialogues in network and offering new knowledge to the web-surfer. Next to these activities that, with greater or lesser intensity, all the museums carry out in their digital channels, it stands out the life-shows of the 10 in the morning of Museo Nacional del Prado or the humorous stories of Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, both on Instagram, to give just a few examples. As a conclusion, museums, like the rest of cultural institutions, should not remain outside of this digital revolution that has impregnate all stages of life, from the point of view of the organization it requires opening up to the participation and demands of the audience, who want to be heard. These changes entail, not only a renewal of the communication tools, led by the incorporation of the social media, but also require a change of mentality and priorities.38 One of the main consequences of the implementation of the new communication technologies has been the emergence of large groups of people connected through their personal computers and mobile phones to get involved in joint projects for ludic, business, scientific, social or policies purposes. Museums in general, as well as Spanish museums in particular, have managed to adapt to the times and, despite the initial caution, they have positioned themselves at the top by updating their professional teams with very good acceptance by users. We do not know what the future will hold in terms of virtual relationships, what we can be sure of is that museums, as institutions that grow and evolve with the society of their time, will know how to adapt to continue growing.

REFERENCES Adorno Theodor W., Valery Proust Museum, in: Theodor W. Adorno et al, PRISMS, London: Neville Spearman, 1967, pp. 175–185. Alonso Fernández, Luis, Nueva Museología, Madrid: Alianza, 1999. Bellido, María Luisa, Arte, museos y nuevas tecnologías, Gijón: Trea, 2001. Benoist, Luc, Musée et Museologie, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1971.

38  Martínez-Sanz 2012 (as fn. 16), p. 394.

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From the Public Museum to the Virtual Museum Carreras, César, Gloria Munilla and Laura Solanilla (eds.), Museos on‑line: nuevas prácticas en el mundo de la cultura, http://www.personales.ulpgc.es/emartin.dch/tutorialCD/obligatorias/Museos%20on.‌pdf (accessed July 25, 2019). Cordeiro, José Luis, El Combate Educativo del Siglo, Caracas: CEDICE, 1998. Del Río Castro, José Nicolás, Museos de arte en la Red, https://telos.fundaciontelefonica.com/archivo/­ numero090/museos‑de-arte‑en-la-red/ (accessed July 23, 2019). Deloche, Bernard, El museo virtual, Gijón: Trea, 2001. Desvallées, André, Nouvelle muséologie, in: Enciclopedia Universalis, Paris, 1989 [1980], pp. 958–961. Ende Comunicación, La dimensión digital alcanza a todos los ámbitos del museo (interview with Conxa Radó), http://endecomunicacion.com/entrevista-con-conxa-roda-responsable‑de-estrategia-digital-­ del-museu-nacional‑d-art‑de-catalunya-cataluna/ (accessed July 15, 2019). Forteza, Miquela, El papel de los museos en las redes sociales, in: Biblos 48 (2012), pp. 31–39. Gómez, Javier, Dos museologías. Las tradiciones anglosajona y mediterránea: diferencias y contactos, Gijón: Trea, 2006. Gómez, Soledad, Museos españoles y redes sociales, https://telos.fundaciontelefonica.com/archivo/­ numero090/museos-espanoles‑y-redes-sociales/ (accessed July 26, 2019). ICOM International Council of Museums, Creating a new museum definition, https://icom.museum/en/­ activities/standards-guidelines/museum-definition/ (accessed July 30, 2019). La Visible, La comunicación online en los museos. Nueve tendencias, http://www.lavisible.org/larevista/  ­2016/03/22/comunicacion-online/ (accessed July 23, 2019). Llorca, Mariola, Museos en red. Instagram al servicio del arte, http://www.hojadellunes.com/index.php/­ reportajes/81-museos‑en-red-instagram‑al-servicio-del-arte (accessed August 1, 2019). Martínez-Sanz, Raquel, Estrategia comunicativa digital en el museo, in: El profesional de la información 21 (4) (2012), pp. 391–395. Notario, Álvaro, El público en el museo actual. Reflexiones sobre la Nueva Museología y las masas, in: De Arte 17 (2018), pp. 191–203 Rivière, Georges Henri, La Museología. Curso de Museología, textos y testimonios, Madrid: Akal, 1993. Ruiz, David, Realidad Aumentada, educación y museos, in: Revista Icono 14, 2011, Año 9, Vol. 2, pp. 212–226. Valdés, María Carmen, La difusión cultural en el museo. Servicios destinados al gran público, Gijón: Trea, 1999. Urgel, Ferrán, Manual de estudios de público de museos, Gijón: Trea, 2014. Álvaro Notario Sánchez, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5377-1293

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SEDUCING AUDIENCES Empathy Marketing Signs in the Centro Botín

Introduction Linking a process as complicated as empathy marketing to a museum or an art center is a very difficult task. Identifying their development and application in these spaces needs of an open mind, with investigative capacity and expert eyes in order to see beyond what is traditionally established in management. In the field of museums, especially in the Spanish case, the influence and development of their management models1 is usually linked to the Mediterranean tradition, with few exceptions. The influence of Mediterranean museology in the administration of cultural centers is defined by being traditional. Its perspective on the museum is very conservative, almost Victorian, so the introduction of modern concepts such as management or marketing is usually not the most common. When it is done, due to inexperience, these terms are often confused with those of diffusion and communication,2 leaving marketing3 condemned to the background. The Centro Botín de Santander, with its two years of existence, is one of the few cultural containers in Spain that has an area dedicated strictly to marketing. Its management resembles, unquestionably, much more the North American4 model, usually developed in the scope of the Anglo-Saxon museology, which referents are the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. This situation is clearly reflected in the normal functioning of the institution, where communication and dissemination are completely different tasks, clearly separated from the marketing department. This art center has become an international museological reference space, for a reason that goes beyond the development of its activities or exhibitions. The Centro Botín (pl. 9) is characterized by its efficient management model in which the application of a series of unique and 1  Josep Ballart Hernández, Jordi Juan I Tresserras, Gestión del Patrimonio Cultural, Barcelona: Ariel, 2001, pp. 219–222. 2  Paco Pérez Valencia, Tener un Buen Plan. La hoja de ruta de toda colección: el plan museológico, Gijón: Trea, 2010, pp. 27–28. 3  Luis Walias Rivera, Marketing vs. Comunicación. Conflicto práctico y conceptual entre los modelos de gerencia museológica anglosajona y mediterránea, in: Patricia Centeno del Canto (coord.), Propuestas para financiar museos y colecciones, León: Fundación Sierra-Pambley, 2014, pp. 119–140. 4  María Teresa Álvarez Oller, Del Coleccionismo Privado a Entidad Pública, in: Manuel Arias (coord.), La Gestión del Patrimonio Cultural. La transmisión de un legado, Valladolid: Fundación del Patrimonio Histórico de Castilla y León, 2002, pp. 21–46.

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innovative marketing strategies stand out, differenciating it from the rest of its competitors. Among all of them, there is one that may go unnoticed by public opinion due to its possible involuntary development, but not in the eyes of researchers and experts. This strategy is undoubtedly marking a turning point in the world of the management of museums and modern art centers. Ladies and gentlemen, we introduce you to empathy marketing.

Marketing, from Business to the Museum The arrival of marketing to culture, and later to the field of museums, involved the development of a long, winding and expensive road, whose course has not ended in many places, as is the case of Spain. But however hard this journey may be, the results offered by the correct development of strategic marketing in cultural organizations implies a series of unquestionable successes. From the scientific perspective, we must not forget that we are dealing with a management tool: a process, essential for the successful development of modern companies, which can and should be used for the improvement of cultural activities through intelligent promotion. Its use in the field of museum management is currently essential, although it seems to have no connection whatsoever. Today, due to the immense cultural offer, strategies are needed to attract both the public and possible investments in the cultural sector. It seems a very modern strategy, but it is not that much, given that it has strong roots. Lo­ gically, concepts such as relationship marketing, neuromarketing or empathy marketing were unimaginable and, at best, science fiction, in the late sixties. Cultural management has received a contribution from the business sector that would end up revolutioning the museums. Marketing appeared, right then, in a new field. Soon, its natural evolution reached the substratum of museums and art centers. In 1967, the economist Philip Kotler published Marketing Management. Analysis, planning and control, work in which he gave shape to the concept of cultural marketing from a purely academic point of view. In this book, Philip Kotler pointed out that cultural organizations, regardless of their type, produced a series of goods.5 As generators of goods, from that moment, these organizations discovered themselves in an environment of constant struggle for the attraction of public and funding. Competition in the culture sector was born and cultural entities had no choice but to face the question of marketing with absolute seriousness if they wanted to survive and progress, in the image and likeness of the organizations of the business world. 6 The new concept took route quickly, even easily, so its jump to the museum sector did not take too long to arrive. In 1969, Philip Kotler and Sydney J. Levy published an article in the Journal of Marketing entitled Broadening the Concept of Marketing. This article collected the first reference that exists of marketing in the field of museums. Both economists observed that each year the attendance of the public to museums in the United States increased, but that this growth was not entirely significant and was far from the objectives set by cultural institutions themselves. This situation 5  Philip Kotler, Marketing Management. Analysis, planning and control, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967. 6  François Colbert and Manuel Cuadrado, Marketing de las Artes y la Cultura, Barcelona: Ariel, 2003, p. 24.

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was due, no doubt, to the little interest that the public felt to go to these cultural containers. But, in the same way, both the presentation of the offer and the absolute ignorance of these institutions by American society7 were direct causes of failure. Philip Kotler did not hesitate and suggested to the directors of the great museums of the moment that this indifference was due to the antiquated and erroneous approach they had when presenting the museum offer. As we can all imagine, the question was not very well received among the managers of cultural organizations. But, the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Thomas Hoving, began to reflect on this. He quickly understood the reasoning put forward by Kotler and decided to improve the attractiveness of his museum by securing certain sponsorships for the development of contemporary art exhibitions enlivened by a series of happenings. The result of the application of a new marketing strategy directed from the museum’s own administration was very positive, producing a more than significant increase in the number of visitors8 to the Metropolitan. Museum institutions of Anglo-Saxon nature, on both sides of the Atlantic, seeing the success achieved, quickly opted to apply the innovative technique of cultural marketing, especially in relation to the strategies developed so far for attracting the public. The positive results were immediate, so the specific strategies on the marketing of museums multiplied exponentially. From that moment they began to develop the new line of study and interest that represented the discipline of marketing applied to the management of museum institutions.9 This situation does not come out of nowhere. Cultural marketing and, later on the marketing of museums, have a series of very relevant social and historical precedents. As we all know or intuit, marketing can be applied outside the business sector,10 especially by non-profit entities, with a public, cultural or a directed towards society purpose.11 The importance of cultural marke­ ting has its parallel with a historical reality with a strong economistic vision. During the Old Regime, the demand for goods or needs was infinitely higher than the existing supply, so there were no problems linked to its possible commercialization. With the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, this situation was radically transformed, giving a 180º turn. Since the mid-seventeenth century, and up to the present, the supply of products has been increasing disproportionately. This has followed a process of continuous and exponential growth linked to the passage of time, especially since the implantation and development of the capitalist economy in Western countries. For its part, demand has grown at a much slower pace. In the current market there is no adequate outlet for so much product. Organizations should opt for the development of certain quality criteria,12 so that the consumer chooses a certain good. They also have to undergo the use of the 7  John Thompson, The Manual of Curatorship, London: Butterworth, 1984, p. 347. 8  Philip Kotler and Sidney J. Levy, Broadening the Concept of Marketing, in: Journal of marketing 33 (1969), pp. 11–13, p. 11. 9  Fiona Combe McLean, El Marketing en el Museo. Análisis contextual, in: Kevin Moore (ed.), La gestión del Museo, Gijón: Trea, 1998, pp. 347–371, p. 347. 10  Tim J. Hannagan, Marketing for the Non-profit Sector, Londres: Macmillam Business Masters, 1992, p. 6. 11  Ignacio A. Rodríguez del Bosque (coord.), Marketing. Estrategias y aplicaciones sectoriales, Madrid: Civitas, 1998, p. 33. 12  Rafael Azuar Ruiz, Museos, Arqueología, Democracia y Crisis, Gijón: Trea, 2013, pp. 209–218.

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most advanced marketing techniques. If we extrapolate this situation to the culture sector, and especially to museums, we will observe that something very similar has been happening for more than a century. It was at the end of the 19th century when, coincidentally, the British population began to acquire a series of achievements and social guarantees, closely related to the labor sector. The days of work were gradually reduced, the days of rest or holidays became official and soon the concept of free time appeared, a lapse dedicated to leisure and culture. To occupy this temporary availability, a multitude of cultural or recreational offers were designed to attract and entertain a bored citizenry. The society had more time and found itself confronted to a good, which was already known, but did not enjoy enough and which offered a new perspective that brought a much more interesting and informative approach. Unfortunately, many of the proposals sent to the market died drowned in a short period of time, given that the social situation of the time caused the culture to suddenly become a business unit very attractive to the general public. And as it usually happens in these cases, there was a quick increase and diversification of the existing supply, generalizing its growth until it exceeded demand. The competition was going to make its majestic appearance on stage. The cultural products of the time did not find the necessary outlet to make themselves known and encourage their consumption by an increasingly expectant public. The situation became more complicated, due to the exaggerated nature of the offer and the reduced demand. Undoubtedly, the irruption of competition in the cultural sector was preparing the way for the arrival of marketing. As if this was not enough, after the end of the Second World War there was a disproportionate increase of interest on art and heritage worldwide, perhaps due to a society aware of the ravages that the war had caused on them. The data is clear: from 1945 until the year 2000, 90 % of all the museums in the world13 that we know today were created. With the passing of time, in the post-industrial era, this situation was compounded by a new problem that had long been stealthily stalking all cultural products alike. It was about reducing the economic resources linked to financing, both public and private. Hundreds of anxious institutions, in the form of cult products, undertook a terrible fratricidal struggle to feed the same and punished fields that, in the case of the Public Administration, did not possess such capacity. Darwinian natural selection did not wait, moving quickly to the world of culture and allowing the Grim Reaper to assure the extinction of the weakest organizations. The success of the cultural institutions of this dark era marched directly related to the capacity of development and adaptation that they had to the various changes, whether internal or external. To all the above we must add the capacity that the institutions possessed to reposition themselves with immediacy and creativity, offering new proposals, within a very unstable and excessively changing sector. It was precisely in the second half of the twentieth century when the world of culture, influenced by neoliberal currents, had no choice but to apply a new business mentality and competitivity to its market, in order to seek higher degrees of effectivity. So, it set its sight on the use of business marketing strategies. The discipline of marketing seemed to hold some hope on the 13  Patrick Boylan (coord.), Cómo Administrar un Museo. Manual práctico, Paris: ICOM-UNESCO, 2007, 73.

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solution to the epidemy caused by the enormous cultural offer, while its strategies were specified as an unmistakably accurate response to this situation. The term “cultural marketing” refers expressly to the application of those success principles, actions or strategies located in traditional or business marketing that are subsequently extrapolated to the culture sector, thus guaranteeing the achievement of identical results. Logically we must highlight the particularities and specificities of both the cultural sector and marketing, since little or nothing have to do with each other, emphasizing the work of their marriage. The process of cultural marketing is very similar to the traditional one, since those behaviors, terms and commercial variables of the economy discipline, such as price, distribution and promotion, are linked to the cultural product object of the strategy. The objective of the process is to properly connect potential consumers with cultural organizations, becoming their museums, theaters, archaeological parks, etc. Marketing tried to find a point of union between the organization and its public, in such a way that interests and expectations of both were satisfied. A balance had to be struck between the process that constituted the decision making of the cultural institution together with the targeted audience's needs, tastes and preferences. The success of cultural institutions began to depend directly on the capacity they had to adapt to the different changes produced in the environment, as well as their work to evolve creatively, providing brand new market proposals. The dilemma became a simple matter: adapt or die. The time of cultural marketing had made its official appearance. Ignoring this discipline in an environment of absolute competition condemned any cultural organization to failure and its possible extinction.14 Since its inception, cultural marketing has been configured as a synonym for the promotion and sale of cultural products, especially from the perspective of the private sector. 15 It was a logical process given that the field of culture, like any other activity, needed to attract, in order to survive, the attention of society. The public was transformed into an achievable goal by cultural organizations through the proper application of marketing as a management tool. This situation had to be evaluated with some prudence, given that cultural marketing was very different from the traditional one.16 In the end, the objectives were achieved by extrapolating the strategies of business marketing to the culture sector, along with its social and sectorial applications. Thanks to the application of these modern strategies, the old techniques which only objective was to attract the public were abandoned. Marketing managed to build its own and new audiences, in such a way that it could adequately satisfy the needs of a more than segmented market. To achieve this goal, products and services were directed separately to each fragment of the company with the clear intention of achieving an adequate positioning before the selective point of view of each type of public. Thus, through adding to the definition of traditional marketing the adjective cultural, a new management process was obtained that directly involved cultural resources and which had as 14  Bonita M. Kolb, Marketing for Cultural Organizations. News strategies for attracting audiences to classical ­music, dance, museums, theatre and opera, London: Thomson, 2005, pp. 7–13. 15  David Roselló Cerezuela, Diseño y Evaluación de Proyectos Culturales, Barcelona: Ariel, 2004, p. 164. 16  Colbert and Cuadrado 2003 (as fn. 6), p. 28.

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main objective to satisfy the needs of different audiences profitably.17 In conclusion, starting from the basis established by the economy vision and the extrapolation of the marketing concept to the cultural sector, we can define cultural marketing as a process through which man, individually or collectively, achieves what he needs or desires thanks to the creation or mutual exchange of products, services, experiences and values located in the field of culture. Marketing is aimed as a goal according to which cultural organizations would not conform themselves with surviving, but rather trying to achieve the fulfillment of their objectives and ends in a much more appropriate way and without associated hardships, whatever their type is, but particularly the economic ones. For this, cultural marketing was structured as an effective and competent response to solve a large part of the problems that harassed cultural organizations and institutions, even in the case of the so‑called non-profit. But not everything has been a simple path. Unfortunately, since the appearance of the discipline of cultural marketing, some serious problems have developed within the culture sector and they are directly harming both its development and sustainability. These conflicts are defined by the incidence of economic, political, social and strategic factors in culture. The economic factors have had effects on the global economy, such as the economic crisis that appeared in 2008. This type of situation has forced to prioritize the basic needs of the population. In this sense, the answer proposed was a clear reduction in the consumption of culture, which has been automatically sent to the background. This situation led to a decrease in public and private financing, as well as a strong decrease in the number of visitors and the consumption of associated cultural products. On the other hand, economic factors have also been reflected in the palpable scarcity of adequate cultural policies by Public Administrations, regardless of the rank they possess, although this situation has always existed to a greater or lesser extent. The national, regional, provincial or local governments are losing themselves in an absurd argumentation coming from the excessive theorization about the product or the cultural offer that does not lead to any situation or result. In the same way, the culture-consuming public has become ill-equipped to attend free events, thus granting an inadequate or scarce value to those products. These social factors are the cause that, in Spain, a spectator has no trouble in paying approximately ten euros for attending a movie theater, but does not want to contribute with a smaller amount to visit a prominent museum. In addition, some sectors of the public wrongly link culture with education, demanding free education. They believe that culture must reach all strata of society, regardless of their economic situation, which is why it must be completely free. The culture must be universal, that is undeniable, but unfortunately this thought is sectorized, given that most of the population understands that access to a national museum must be free, but nevertheless pays to attend an audiovisual event. Finally, there are the strategic factors, generated by the little or non-existent knowledge of the management tools by the cultural administrators in each institution or activity. Today, museum directors, gallerists, archaeologists, antique dealers, etc. do not know the exact procedures of strategic management processes. Hence the importance in training in the field of cultural management for the proper development of these positions. Unfortunately, many of the cultural organi17  Carmen Camarero Izquierdo, Marketing del Patrimonio Cultural, Madrid: ESIC, 2004, pp. 64–65.

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zations, regardless of their type, although knowing the existence of cultural marketing, ignore the proper use of this tool. They do not count, among their ranks, with professional experts in the correct development of this management process. Due to this situation, the cultural entities do not usually reach neither the much-desired attraction of resources nor the seduction of new publics, resulting into to very poor financial statements. Returning to the case that concerns us, in the world of museums and art centers, since the middle of the past century, marketing has managed to break through with the intention of creating a new environment in which to generate a three-way relationship between cultural institutions, the exhibits and their publics, with the sole purpose of attracting as many visitors as possible. The marketing of museums is a process which result is to intelligently encourage society to frequent these institutions.18 Their strategies try to focus the visit to the museum as an extremely interesting and satisfying experience. The management process that implies this type of marketing has tried to respond to the strategic challenges of modern museums based on the design of a mission and an identity, the creation of audiences and the attraction of financial resources.19 The managers sought, from the beginning, that the marketing of the museum organizations was not concentrated on a purely economistic line of action, but also on applying a scientific discourse based on research. For this reason, museum marketing can be defined as a management process that, after confirming the aims and objectives of a museum, seeks to provide answers, identify, anticipate and effectively meet the needs of users.20 Thus, through the application of a series of extrapolated techniques of business marketing, it was possible to evaluate the reactions of the public and their proposals. The managers of the museum institutions found how to respond to the questions posed by the visitors in relation to the custodial goods, solving in the best way possible the needs of an audience that was increasingly more cultured and demanding. This has allowed the marketing process to be established quickly in the sector, becoming very strong inside the museums. From this strategic position, marketing has worked as coordinator of all action tools, them being image, services, offers, communication, promotion or public relations.21 Undoubtedly, museum marketing has become a fundamental issue, given that a significant percentage of citizens enjoy these institutions, which means a broad and interesting market. Through the development of marketing strategies, museums can influence that market by making their visit attractive. To achieve this goal, it is necessary, in the first place, to identify the markets in order to later develop an adequate communication through the messages that the museum intends to send to its diverse audiences. The marketing must support a continuous and exponential self-demand that entails the improvement of the products and services offered by

18  Francisca Hernández Hernández, Manual de Museología, Madrid: Síntesis, 2001, pp. 288–289. 19  Neil Kotler and Philip Kotler, Estrategias y Marketing de Museos, Ariel: Barcelona, 2001, pp. 56–86. 20  Peter Lewis, The Rule of Marketing. It’s a fundamental planning function; devising a strategy, in: Timothy Ambrose and Sue Runyard (eds.), Forward Planning. A handbook of business corporate and development planning for museums and galleries, London: Routledge, 1991, pp. 23–37, p. 26. 21  Ángel Blas Rodríguez, Nueva Sociedad, Nuevos Museos. El papel del marketing en los museos, in: Revista de Museología 24 (25) (2001), pp. 25–38, p. 36.

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the museum to its potential target audiences. Thus, it will develop strategic measures that favor a greater attendance of the public to the museum while increasing the income generated by each visitor.22 And all this is well known by the Centro Botín (pl. 10).

Marketing Implementation in the Centro Botín At the end of July 2010, the Fundación Botín, a prestigious social and cultural institution linked to Banco Santander, announced the construction of a fabulous space dedicated to arts and culture in the city of Santander.23 The location was chosen for hosting both its headquarters as those of the bank. From that moment, the world of art and museums placed a particular interest on this small city located in the north of Spain. Santander became almost magically the epicenter of international cultural attention. This expectation increased exponentially when announcing the name of the architect chosen for the construction of the new art center. It was the Italian Renzo Piano, Pritzker Architecture Prize in 199824 and father of spaces such as the Centre Pompidou of Paris, The California Academy of Sciences of San Francisco or the Zentrum Paul Klee of Bern. The future Centro de Arte Botín25 would become Renzo Piano’s first building in Spain. Renzo Piano's work was piling up, since at that time he was building the new Whitney Museum of American Art26 in New York. The future art center was designed to be part of the lives of the inhabitants of the city of Santander. It was in the form of a revolution, implementing facets such as culture, urbanism and local society. Undoubtedly all this pointed in the same direction as, or better remembered so much to the claims of the so‑called Guggenheim effect27 or, in the Anglo-Saxon, the Bilbao effect.28 even a new denomination was coined for these expectations, the Santander effect.29 Unfortunately, this mirage did not last for too long. It was a slight dream due to the particularities and insurmountable distances that separated Frank Gehry’s building – the Guggenheim institution – and the town of Bilbao, from the work of Renzo Piano, the Fundación Botín and the city of Santander. But, the point of union between both centers was apparently well connected by the development of a management process that had little to do with the models used in present-day 22  Barry Lord and Gail Dexter Lord, Manual de Gestión de Museos, Barcelona: Ariel, 1998, pp. 129–130. 23  El Centro Cultural Botín generará un nuevo espacio ciudadano en el frente marítimo, https://www. eldiariomontanes.es/v/20100731/cantabria/centro-cultural-botin-generara-20100731.‌html (accessed April 11, 2019). 24  Richard Ingersoll, Renzo Piano gana el Pritzker de arquitectura, https://elpais.com/diario/1998/04/20/ cultura/893023201_850215.‌html (accessed April 23, 2019). 25  Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Centro de Arte Botín. Santander, Madrid: Fundación Botín, 2011. 26  Javier Gómez Martínez, The Whitney Museum and The Centro Botín. Reasonable distances from New York to Santander, http://www.aacadigital.com/contenido.‌php?idarticulo=​1476 (accessed April 11, 2019). 27  Iñaki Esteban, El Efecto Guggenheim. Del espacio basura al ornamento, Barcelona: Anagrama, 2007. 28  Hanna McGivern, Spain’s new Centro Botín shuns the ‘Bilbao effect’, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/ news/spains-new-centro-botin-shuns-the-bilbao-effect (accessed January 22, 2019). 29  El efecto Santander, http://www.eldiariomontanes.es/v/20110918/opinion/editorial/efecto-santander-­ 20110918.‌html (acceseed April 1, 2019).

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Spain, more inserted in the tradition of the Mediterranean museology30 and in line with its conservative nature. This link had to do with the development and implementation of strategic marketing of museums. Undoubtedly, the modern international art centers, with a projection to the future, bet on the implementation of this type of techniques, seeking not only the necessary financing for the development of their activities but also the adequate achievement of their aims and objectives. The Museo Guggenheim of Bilbao, effectively immersed in the doctrine developed by Thomas Krens, becomes the closest and most tangible example. Its management system, clearly North American, made a timid way in Spain, but did it with fantastic results. The reflection of this excellent work was clearly seen in the growth of a fully revitalized town in Bilbao, where urbanism, culture and society developed day after day. Although the American management model and the application of strategic marketing in museums are a benchmark of indisputable success, based on the results obtained in the international arena, in Spain museums and art centers do not usually develop it. This somewhat foolish behavior, sometimes has to do with the guarantee of subsistence, although not of growth, which implies the constant promise of financing from the various Public Administrations of the State. Fortunately, the Centro Botín, our object of study,31 has private funding. This comes from the Fundación Botín and Banco Santander. When observing the shadow projected by the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao, the art center of Santander did not hesitate and chose to become one of the few institutions in Spain that defend and develop the North American management model and, logically, the application of strategies of marketing. In this regard, in July 2014, the Fundación Botín reported on a revolutionary issue in the field of management of Spanish museums. The future Centro Botín was going to count on the services of Marga Meoro. For the general public, this name did not say much, although it was one of those that were shaping the direction of the future art center. But the experts in the matter knew that she was an accredited professional who for more than eight years had been deputy director of the Communication, Marketing and Social Media Area of the Museo Guggenheim of Bilbao. The Centro Botín used one of the great minds of its neighbor to try to properly develop as an institution, using modern museum management methodologies that implied the correct use of marketing processes. And, undoubtedly, at the same time it showed its clear intention to try to implement the Bilbao Effect in Santander.

30  Javier Gómez Martínez, Dos Museologías. Las tradiciones anglosajona y mediterránea. Diferencias y contactos, Gijón: Trea, 2006. 31  Analyze, with a scientific perspective, what happens in the Centro Botín of Santander is a complicated issue that, practically, can be defined as an authentic epic. The Centro Botín, like other art centers, has become an opaque and hermetic institution towards the external researcher, characterized by an excessive zeal in relation to its management. This behavior may represent a tangible and legitimate form of self-protection, to avoid unnecessary criticism or interference, but it really condemns the museologist to a simple external observation, not participatory, with which from sensations and experiences he must configure his theories. Unfortunately, speculation in approaches and hypotheses often leads to the abandonment of interesting initiatives due to its low empirical value, as reflected in the almost null existence of scientific publications related to this institution.

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Marga Meoro occupied, from that moment, the direction of the newly created Marketing and Development Area of the Centro Botín, exponentially increasing the possibilities of success of the artistic institution, due to her extensive experience as a specialist in marketing and corporate communication. Her work, have consisted in the development of the dissemination32 of the exhibition and educational activity of the center ever since. She has also strategically developed the creation of a network of volunteers and friends of Centro Botín, thanks to the effective extrapolation of her extensive experience, acquired in part at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao. In addition, the director of the Marketing and Development Area is trying to position the Centro Botín, long before its inauguration, in the international circuit of first-class museum and art centers, without losing sight of the complicated objective of converting Santander in one of the most important cultural hubs of Europe.33 As time passes by, we have seen that the work developed both by the Marketing and Development Area of the Centro Botín and by its director, has not been fruitless. This is reflected through a series of data that clearly speaks of the work carried out by this and other areas also involved. For example, in 2108, the Centro Botín received 202,080 visitors, of which 12 % were foreigners. Similarly, 34,225 people participated34 in all kinds of educational and cultural activities. 133,596 inhabitants of the Autonomous Community of Cantabria have a permanent pass that allows them to access completely free of charge all the exhibitions. Finally, it should be mentioned that the Centro Botín has a total of 4,603 friends and 30 volunteers.35 Perhaps these are not very high figures in the scope of the great international museums, used to millions of visitors, but we must not forget either the size of the city nor of the institution. Of course, it is not a matter of us judging the efficiency of the art center, but mentioning the good reception of the project by the different audiences and its clear viability.36 The numbers of visitors are not the only data that praises the development of successful marketing strategies. In July 2017, the graphic image of the Centro Botín received the ADG Laus Award for Graphic Design and Visual Communication to the corporate identity/logo, 37 for its dynamic and innovative nature. The jury of these prestigious awards, which since 1964 have recognized and recognize the excellence of graphic design and visual communication at the international level,38 considered the brand identity of the new space as extremely powerful and

32  Juan Carlos Rico (coord.), La Caja de Cristal. Un nuevo modelo de museo, Gijón: Trea, 2008, p. 141. 33  El Centro Botín contrata a Marga Meoro para el área de Desarrollo y Marketing, http://www. eldiariomontanes.es/santander/201407/02/centro-botin-contrata-marga-20140702170855.‌html (accessed March 21, 2019). 34  Joan Santacana Mestre, Un Apunte Final. Construir museos hoy, in: Joan Santacana Mestre and Núria Serrat Antolí (coords.), Museografía Didáctica, Barcelona: Ariel, 2005, pp. 633–653, pp. 637–639. 35  Centro Botín receives 202,080 visits in 2018, https://www.centrobotin.org/en/centro-botin-­receives202080-visits‑in-2018/ (accessed April 14, 2019). 36  Helena Hernando Gonzalo (dir.), Exposiciones Temporales. Organización, gestión, coordinación, Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 2006, pp. 14–15. 37  Bronce·Logotipo, https://www.‌adg-fad.org/es/laus/proyecto/centro-botin (accessed February 22, 2019) 38  About, Recognising excellence, https://www.‌adg-fad.org/en/laus/about (accessed April 11, 2019).

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avant-garde, with the capacity to adequately reflect the history of the Fundación Botín as the personality of the center.39 The truth is that not all the merit should fall on the Marketing and Development Area, given that the graphic image was drawn up by the Estudio 2X4 Madrid, although they undoubtedly worked together. This company is the Spanish delegation of the ambitious design consultancy 2X4, based in New York and Beijing. Its important task is to identify and clarify institutional values and then convert them into innovative forms with the capacity to generate experiences that are visually dynamic and can, through reflective design, attract key audiences40 as a marketing stra­ tegy.

Clear Signs of Empathy Marketing in the Centro Botín Necessity and desire can be generated among audiences. In most cases, the products are created due to a pre-existing need, not because of a simple desire. So, the correct functioning of many organizations is based on giving correct answers to human needs, and empathy is undoubtedly one of them. The spaces that project empathy do not intend to generate a desire or need starting from a product, but to oversee, the need which will subsequently generate that product. Museums and art centers must remain attentive to the needs of society such as empathy to generate adequate products, with the ability to give correct answers. When the Fundación Botín projected the construction of the Centro Botín, it opted for an educational mission as a point of union with society. Through pedagogy this art center has worked to become a living, tangible, close-to-the-people element and a generator of social development and place before "wealth" wealth both economic and cultural. In this way, Renzo Piano’s captivating building, together with the artistic references it houses and the educational program Arts, emotions and creativity, based on the development of emotional intelligence, became the most important attraction poles of the entity. Undoubtedly, the scientific basis of the educational program carried out in collaboration with the Center for Emotional Intelligence of Yale University,41 together with the associated publications and the execution of activities for the diverse publics, configured this strategy masterfully (pl. 11). Perhaps, as a direct consequence of this educational proposal, the gestation of a marketing process, not very developed in the field of museums, at least in the Spanish ones, began. It is even likely that this marketing strategy was a coincidence, something involuntary and not premeditated, which goes unnoticed today for the Marketing and Development Area of the Centro Botín. But undoubtedly, the bases of an innovative strategy to attract visitors, that we can define without fear of error as empathy marketing, are being timidly established in Santander.

39  La imagen gráfica del Centro Botín recibe un premio Laus, https://www.europapress.es/cantabria/ noticia-­imagen-grafica-centro-botin-recibe-premio-laus-20170704165018.‌html (accessed January 14, 2019). 40  About, https://2x4.org/about/ (accessed April 11, 2019). 41  Artes y emociones que potencian la creatividad, https://www.fundacionbotin.org/89dguuytdfr276ed_ uploads/EDUCACION/creatividad/artes%20y%20emociones%202014/2014%20Informe%20Creatividad%20 ES.‌pdf (accessed April 20, 2019).

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This delicate process, close to concepts such as neuroscience and neuromarketing, seeks to connect with audiences through the creation of a series of tangible sensations giving the museum the ability to appear as an extension of the visitor. To achieve this goal, museums treat their audiences as a fundamental and necessary part of the institution. The first features that were observed, both before the inauguration and within the first months of life of the Centro Botín, were closely related to the treatment that the art center received from its diverse public, either in person or through mail or telephonically. The work of the staff of the institution was excellent and their attitude in front of the audiences, especially those already loyal, magnificent. The sponsors, friends of the center and volunteers42 benefited from a personalized, close and very correct attention. During these first months of the institution’s life, it was possible to observe and analyze carefully how the audiences established a kind of link with the Centro Botín, feeling it as something absolutely of their own, to the point of literally forming part of it. I insist, this situation went beyond the usual traditional marketing strategies. The response of the audiences had nothing to do with the quality of the exhibitions hosted, the activities carried out or the unquestionable beauty of the Renzo Piano building. The behavior of the audiences, in this sense, was a direct replica of the excellent attention received by the art center. The work developed had the capacity to transform its audiences into a fundamental part of the Centro Botín. This huge work was done with a lot of effort. The professionals were placed next to the audience, trying to respond as soon as possible and with a smile to all their needs or even anticipating them. In the end, the work was so precise that this attention made the Center worry about such simple matters, apparently, as the resolution of a poorly made reservation or the situation of an unanswered e‑mail. Without a doubt, the Centro Botín tried to empathize with its audiences. And it always did it in the best possible way, since it managed to put himself willingly in the place of his audiences. From the Marketing and Development Area, a kind of after-sales service has been generated, but with a plus of professionalism, quality and warmth that could be defined as a new tangible marketing process. Perhaps emotional intelligence, the epicenter of the educational program, directed and successfully designed this situation as a fundamental strategy. But without a doubt, the responsibility should be shared directly with the Marketing and Development Area of the institution, although there was something else. As in the case of the design of the graphic image aforementioned, which final execution was carried out by Estudio 2X4 Madrid, the direct attention to the public and management was carried out by MagmaCultura, another external company, which had its headquarters in Barcelona. We must insist without a hint of doubt, that the participation, through coordination and constant collaboration, of the center’s Marketing and Development Area undeniable led this success. MagmaCultura is defined through its website as a company with more than 25 years of experience in the fields of education, culture and tourism. If we read a little further, this company is one of those directly responsible of the proper implementation of empathy marketing, given that this organization is directly responsible of the development of customer service strategies

42  Support the Centro, https://www.centrobotin.org/en/support-the-centro/ (accessed April 22, 2019).

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and comprehensive management of the visitor’s experience.43 To perform this task, it uses the fantastic professionals for public attention in its teams. This shock force, which deals directly with the audiences, is responsible of informing, guiding and organizing visitors, through reception, ticket sales and room service, displaying masterfully all those empathic strategies that can be related to the marketing. But is it about professionalism, cordiality or really marketing? As I mentioned, all this huge work is always done in close coordination with the center. MagmaCultura team and project managers are directly responsible for managing their human resources, as well as guaranteeing and supervising their efficiency, always in complete coordination with the Centro Botín. Undoubtedly, the value that is given to empathy rests on MagmaCultura’s own philosophy. This organization understands that people and culture are two inseparable concepts, dedicating a great effort and a high number of strategies to the adequate attention to the visitor, the management of audiences and the contact center. This position is reinforced by its excellent work developed in the fields of communication and marketing. From this perspective, MagmaCultura tries to implement relational marketing techniques, with the clear intention of seducing and interesting target publics through the development and execution of communicative actions.44 To all this we must add the delicate implementation of complementary techniques such as attracting audiences, such as communication campaigns, telemarketing and the role of the community manager. Undoubtedly, as a result of the proper marriage between MagmaCultura and the Marketing and Development Area, those outstanding and clear brushstrokes on empathy marketing emerged. Unfortunately, the experience does not seem to extend too much in time. Months after the inauguration, as the passion between a couple newly in love, the very high levels observed in the attention and the relationship with the audience relaxed. The high feeling of empathy perceived from the Centro Botín diminished without disappearing. The attitude towards the public became appropriate, correct, like in any other cultural or artistic institution, losing that degree of excellence that had been undoubtedly reached thanks to empathy. The reason for this change in management is unknown. Perhaps we are in front of a simple strategy of the center to retain its public during the months immediately before and after its opening, without any other intentionality. Maybe it was the reflection of a simple mirage, devoid of substantive issues. It is possible that we witnessed a strategy that arose through spontaneous, unwanted or unexpected attitudes and it is for this reason that the Center has not been able to implement or develop it properly over time. We will never know it, especially due to the opaque character of this institution, which has not given much attention to the resolution of questions posed by researchers. But what is clear is that were detected and subsequently at the Centro Botín established, in the second half of 2017, the foundations of a new strategy to attract visitors. This has given rise, in Spain, to the empathy marketing of museums.

43  Management of the visitor’s experience, https://magmacultura.com/en/centro-botin-santander/ (accessed April 12, 2019). 44  Communication, information and customer attraction, https://magmacultura.com/en/communication-­ information-and-customer-attraction/ (accessed April 12, 2019).

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Empathy Marketing in Museums. Genesis, Concept and Development The features observed in the Centro Botín, regardless of whether they had an intentional or involuntary origin, represent the birth of a new strategy configured under the concept of empathy marketing. To understand its meaning it is necessary to establish a delicate process that allows, through several steps, to understand its meaning and evolution in the hand of museum marketing. In the first step we must become familiar with a series of very subtle definitions,45 as they are able to configure the most accurate meaning of the concept of empathy marketing. From this perspective it seems necessary to clarify the meaning of concepts so foreign to the cultural field such as empathy, emotional marketing, neuroscience and neuromarketing. We begin with empathy, which runs independently from the rest as it is an emotion and not a science or a marketing process. Empathy is simply the feeling of identification with something or someone. But, at the same time, it is the ability to share a series of feelings. It is an innate feeling, although it can also be acquired and developed, allowing a very adequate emotional attunement with others. In short, empathy allows to naturally synchronize with the emotions of others and easily put oneself in their place.46 The second concept that we must analyze is that of neuroscience.47 From the perspective that concerns us, it can be defined as the science that aims to study human behavior before the various external stimuli received by our nervous system. To reach this goal, cognitive and behavioral neuroscience is based on the detailed analysis of both mental processes and brain circuits that intervene in this type of stimuli. That is, neuroscience is responsible of analyzing the spontaneous activity of the brain that establishes the bases of functional connectivity.48 Interestingly, neuroscience generates immense contributions to other subjects little or nothing related to medicine, biology and chemistry, such as marketing or market research, through the development of commercial communication elements.49 From the implementation of that part of the neuroscience related to marketing the concept of neuromarketing50 is developed. This concept is defined as the extrapolation of techniques, formulas and approaches typical of neuroscience to the marketing field. Their mission is to determine the characteristics that a stimulus needs in order to generate a desired response for the acquisition of a certain product or, in our case, for audiences to develop a desire to visit to a

45  This is not the appropriate space to discuss in depth on this type of issues, much less the objective of the present investigation. Therefore, we will make a slight approximation to the concepts that can be considered as fundamental to establish the meaning of empathy marketing. 46  Federico Gan Busto and Jaume Triginé, Manual de Instrumentos de Gestión y Desarrollo de las Personas en las Organizaciones, Madrid: Diaz de Santos, 2006, pp. 580–581. 47  Mark F. Bear, Michael A. Paradiso and Barry W. Connors, Neurocienca. La exploración del cerebro, Barcelona: Wolters Kluwer, 2016. 48  Diego Redolar Ripoll, Neurociencia Cognitiva, Madrid: Médica Panamericana, 2017, pp. 143–148. 49  Vicente Castellanos and Daniel González, ¿Qué Puede Aportar la Neurociencia al Marketing y a la Investigación de Mercados?, in: Revista de Estudios de Juventud 103 (2013), pp. 51–68, p. 51. 50  Néstor P. Braidot, Neuromarketing. Neuroeconomía y negocios, Madrid: Puerto Norte-Sur, 2005.

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museum. Neuromarketing studies the brain processes that explain this type of behavior and decision making. Analyze consumers’ perceptions, sensations and emotions.51 But it especially focuses on emotions, located in the most primitive part of the brain, trying to convince audiences through them. To achieve this goal, neuromarketing, like any marketing strategy, segments potential clients. Subsequently, as is evident in our case study, it tries to convince audiences, even those already loyal, through the stimulation of a series of neuro-points. This work in the Centro Botín took place by sending ordinary mail and e‑mail, messages or phone calls and even using verbal discourse in face‑to-face conversation.52 Finally, and due to the evolution of neuroscience and neuromarketing, the concept of emotional marketing arises when passing from science to the process. This can be defined in a simple way as the introduction of the sentimental variant in the marketing process, thus awakening the sensitivity of the audience. It tends to be directed towards the emotions of a target audience that makes them reflect, at the same time as raising awareness and motivating them. The strategy pose by emotional marketing is to love the user, a goal that is achieved through emotions.53 This type of marketing works and develops emotions. But it does not do it with all of them, it only tries to awaken those understood as appropriate according to the message wanted to transmit by the institution and the channel used to do so emotional marketing seeks to establish an emotional bond with customers through communication, trying to make the audience easily identify with the most human values of the brand.54 Once the first step of the definitions has been achieved, it is necessary to establish a logical perspective of how these concepts, feelings and processes have managed firstly, to reach the scope of museums and, secondly, to jointly lead to empathy marketing. It seems a complicated task, but it is very simple. We start from the concept of scientific marketing, the traditional one, related to the companies that little or nothing has to do with the digital or 2.0.55 This type of marketing is developed, logically, in parallel with neuroscience and the field of culture. By relating, on the one hand, marketing and neuroscience, the concept of neuromarketing is configured. But, on the other hand, if we establish a point of union between scientific marketing and the field of culture, cultural marketing appears. Emotional marketing emerges from neuromarketing and, to this, we can add the feeling of empathy. Similarly, by retaking cultural marketing we see that it can evolve towards museum marketing. At this point, if we put in relation emotional marketing with the feeling of empathy 51  Nick Lee, Amanda J. Broderick and Laura Chamberlain, What is “Neuromarketing”. A discussion and agenda for future research, in: International Journal of Psychophysiology 63 (2007), pp. 199–204, pp. 199–201. 52  Patrick Renvoisé and Christophe Morin, Neuromárketing. El nervio de la venta, Barcelona: UOC, 2016, pp. 179–202. 53  ¿Qué es el marketing de las emociones? Conectando con los clientes, https://www.webdelmarketing. com/que‑es-el-marketing‑de-las-emociones-conectando-con-los-clientes/ (accessed April 23, 2019). 54  José Gómez-Zorrilla, ¿Qué es marketing emocional?, https://laculturadelmarketing.com/que‑es-­ marketing-emocional/ (accessed April 23, 2019). 55  Luis Walias Rivera, The Museum 2.0 Divide. Approaches to digitization and new media, in: Museum International 65 (2015), pp. 31–38.

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and, at the same time, the marketing of museums, the process of empathy marketing for museums appears. But if we really want to understand the role of empathy marketing in the museum, we should look at how neuromarketing becomes, practically, a fundamental inflection point in the genesis of the whole process. To begin with, we must not forget that neuromarketing is a fantastic tool with the capacity to establish the reasons and emotions by which audiences are guided or inspired to certain services or, in this case, to visit museums. It is very useful tool that can easily predict how audiences will behave at the exact moment of making a certain choice or purchase decision.56 Therefore, cultural institutions use neuromarketing as one strategy more (pl. 12). Its application57 through the offer of associated products and services has enough capacity to excite the public. Museums and art centers must excite. The brand must also do it to attract a greater number of audiences and achieve loyalty appropriately. Neuromarketing oversees which experiences, services or products thrill people. This emotion will be the key to museums, regardless of the size they have. A successful management is a guarantee of success. As we have already seen, the natural development of neuromarketing applications in the museum derives from emotional marketing. If we add empathy to this, we get empathy marketing, our object of study. Understanding empathy marketing works within a museum or art center is a very simple matter. It is enough to place us in the perspective of formal marketing and begin to work on the implementation of empathic strategies. To do this, we must simply start by adequately segmenting the diversity of audiences. Once these have been analyzed we must offer them what they really need, but never generate it artificially. The response to their needs must be made through the implementation of relationships established between the mind and the behavior of the public.58 In this case, the scope of museums allows us to situate ourselves in the perspective of the target audience, giving them what they need at an emotional level, without forgetting the important cultural component that this equation contains. Emotions allow to adequately identify the state of mind of the audiences, perceiving in a cognitive way what they feel. Owning that capacity allows a better connection with visitors, to the extent of avoiding obsessively focus on attracting new audiences, seeking to retain those that museums already have. Empathy marketing establishes a magnificent emotional connection, more human, even with the brand,59 building with audiences a series of strong and consistent relationships that are also long lasting.

56  Pilar Alcázar, Conocer los Deseos del Cliente, in: Emprendedores. Las claves de la economía y el éxito professional 119 (2007), pp. 85–96. 57  Néstor T. Braidot, Neuromarketing en Acción, Buenos Aires: Garnica, 2013. 58  Miguel Ángel Ivars Mas, La empatía en el marketing, https://www.puromarketing.com/27/16331/­ empatia-marketing.‌html (accessed April 24, 2019). 59  Brand belonging. Por qué la empatía y la idea de comunidad se han convertido en la piedra angular de la estrategia de marketing, https://www.puromarketing.com/44/31930/brand-belonging-empatia-idea-­ comunidad-han-convertido-piedra-angular-estrategia-marketing.‌html (accessed April 1, 2019).

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Traits of Empathy in the Centro Botín There are many traits that we can observe about empathy marketing in the management process developed by Centro Botín. For example, this art center is defined without shyness as a space for citizenship, alive, open and participatory.60 At the same time, it is considered as a tangible entity with excellent capacity to bring art and culture and capital letters, closer to society.61 This work is always developed by seeking a real interrelation with their potential audiences. Among the purposes and objectives of the Centro Botín, the one of being a true generator of social development stands out, relying on the rich culture that it seeks to treasure and produce. In the same way it wanted to become a new economic agent62 in northern Spain. This objective seeks justification in the results of the much-admired Bilbao effect, but under the perspective of a Santander effect or Botín effect which longed for better results. Theorizing a little, it is very possible that the management process that the Centro Botín carried out responds to an empathy marketing strategy, originated in a market segmentation of the subsequent definition of the target publics. Once limited, the Centro Botín was able to address these processes through the development of inbound marketing, which is the set of non-intrusive techniques such as SEO, content marketing, mailing, web analytics and the development of social networks or databases of data. These tools were used and in an intelligent way to generate value, interest and attraction among the possible audiences segmented63 and defined in advance. The process that involved the recruitment of both friends and volunteers from the center was launched once the audiences were attracted and, therefore, loyalty bonds could be stablished.64 During the development of this important step, which continues today, the Centro Botín acquired profiles, motivations and tastes of its potential audiences, as well as valuable personal information. To achieve this goal, it adopted a lead strategy. This consisted in the attainment of the personal data of the users through the offer of promotional advantages65 associated with the category of friend of the future Centro Botín. This strategy involved the use and development of a landing page or page of recruitment,66 located on its original website. 60  Joëlle Le Marec, Museología Participativa, Evaluación y Consideración del Público. La palabra inhallable, in: Jacqueline Eidelman, Mélanie Roustan and Bernadette Goldstein (comps.), El Museo y sus Públicos. El visitante tiene la palabra, Barcelona: Ariel, 2014, pp. 291–310. 61  El Centro Botín llenará de vida, arte y cultura la ciudad de Santander, https://www.centrobotin.org/ el-centro-botin-llenara‑de-vida-arte‑y-cultura‑la-ciudad‑de-santander/ (accessed April 15, 2019). 62  The Centro Botín aims to be, https://www.centrobotin.org/en/the-centro-botin/ (accessed April 24, 2019). 63  ¿Cómo crear una estrategia de inbound marketing paso a paso?, http://www.academiadeconsultores. com/estrategia‑de-inbound-marketing/ (accessed April 26, 2019). 64  Deborah Pitel, Marketing on a Shoestring Budget. A guide for small museums and historic sites, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016, pp. 25–40. 65  Estrategias de captación de leads ¿Cómo conseguir clientes?, http://www.academiadeconsultores. com/estrategias‑de-captacion‑de-leads/ (accessed April 27, 2019). 66  ¿Qué es una landing page en ibound marketing?, https://www.inboundemotion.com/blog/que‑­esuna-landing-page‑en-inbound-marketing (accessed April 27, 2019).

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The valuable information obtained was fundamental for the implementation of the total marketing strategies that the Centro Botín wanted to start up. By knowing in depth their audiences,67 the institution could identify much better both the needs and interests of visitors, fine-tuning the interaction with the audiences even to an individual level. This strategic positioning also allowed us to raise awareness and generate a series of feelings with enough capacity to establish the foundations of a strong atmosphere of empathy between the institution and its visitors. The Centro Botín, aware of the steps needed to be taken to establish this or other marketing strategies, has sought from the beginning to focus exclusively on the public, trying to involve them through a strong emotional connection. Before the opening and during the first months of activity, it chose to listen carefully to the opinions and needs of the audiences. This activity allowed to even fully identify the states of mind by paying a high level of attention to visitors. The institution had the capacity to resolve the doubts of the audiences, even getting ahead of its needs. In this way the Centro Botín communicated and interacted with its audiences while offering responses related to their needs, desires68 and feelings. The diversity of publics felt pampered69 while being almost hypnotically attracted and developing a strong feeling of loyalty. Of course, to all the above, we must add the constant improvement of the artistic offer and training activities. We must not forget that the development of activities can be of different intensity, which entails an important strategic function. In our case it is a fundamental element given that this cultural container uses art as a mechanism for the identification of emotions.70 The Centro Botín relies on a flexible and sensitive programming in which the development of creativity occupies a central space, allowing the public to live with greater intensity the art, thus benefiting from its potential and, at the same time, establishing an interrelation of empathy with the institution. This huge work was also complemented through the successful implementation of the pedagogical actions offered.71 This, as we could see before, curiously relies on the development of emotional intelligence.72 Finally, it is necessary to mention, the absolutely professional, cordial and personal attention developed by the human team in charge of visitors as a fundamental axis of generating empathy with the audiences. These people implement an honest and bidirectional communication, with

67  Miquel Sabaté Navarro and Roser Gort Riera, Museo y Comunidad. Un museo para todos los públicos, Gijón: Trea, 2012, pp. 29–46. 68  Rafael Martínez-Vilanova, Realidad y Posibilidades del Marketing en los Museos de España, Gijón: Trea, 2017, pp. 231–232. 69  Tània Martínez Gil and Juan Santacana Mestre, La Cultura Museística en Tiempos Difíciles, Gijón: Trea, 2013, pp. 49–50. 70  Rafael Bisquerra empleará el arte como herramienta para activar e identificar emociones en el Centro Botín, https://www.fundacionbotin.org/noticia/rafael-bisquerra-empleara‑el-arte-como-herramienta-­paraactivar‑e-identificar-emociones‑en-el-centro-botin.‌html (accessed April 24, 2019). 71  Jean Clair, Malestar en los Museos, Gijón: Trea, 2007, pp. 85–87. 72  El Centro Botín potenciará la ‘inteligencia emocional en España’ a través del arte, https://www.abc.es/ cultura/20140508/abci-centro-botin-potenciara-inteligencia-201405071731.‌html (accessed April 24, 2019).

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an efficient resolutive capacity, anticipating any possible question, which the best empathy strategy. This tangible work is also developed, very appropriately, from the department of attention to the Friends of the Centro Botín. As I mentioned before, the service, regardless of the means used, is fantastic, which leads to the development of a feeling of empathy towards the institution.

Conclusions The empathy developed by the Centro Botín has been able to generate a force of attraction for audiences as strong as the sirens singing in Homer’s Odyssey. This strategy, voluntarily or involuntarily, has laid the foundations of a marketing process, not correctly identified until now. It can be used and implemented with certain work and development, with identical or better results, both in this and other art centers. The empathy marketing traits observed in the Centro Botín are characterized by establishing a strong and lasting connection with their audiences, through the development of emotions. To achieve this goal, the Marketing and Development Area opted for the appropriate use of communication through various channels. Thanks to this delicate work, the Centro Botín brand73 managed to connect with Santander society. Goal that was reached thanks to the development of the human perspective of the institution, arriving with much effort and dedication to the more emotional side of its audiences. This connection, which was not simple, either evident has been made through the development and export of a series of sensations that have sentimentally interconnected the citizenship with the cultural organization. Through them, the diversity of publics managed to conceive the Centro Botín as an extension of themselves, as a fundamental part of everyone. But in order to achieve this goal, the art center also needed to position itself strategically and try to convert its publics into an important part of the institution itself. The delicate development of this whole process has allowed the construction of a series of invaluable audiences. Coincidentally, they are the only ones responsible of optimizing the visibility of the institution. Circumstance that has elevated the reputation of the Centro Botín brand, generating a tangible and unprecedented notoriety which also reveals a palpable and magnificent affinity between brand and user. We can assert that the Centro Botín is in theory very close to its publics. And I emphasize the in theory because, like many other cultural organizations, by analyzing it in depth we see that we are facing a non-participatory institution, in which audiences have little or nothing to say or contribute to any of its organizational aspects. Like other Spanish cultural containers, regardless of their inclinations in relation to the choice of management models, The Centro Botín practices the game of no truth, allowing us to glimpse the excessive weight that its audiences have in the final decision-making process or in the definition of its aims and objectives, when we are really

73  Guillem Marca Francés, Marcas y Patrimonio Cultural. Tangibilización de la comunicación, in: Santos M. Mateos (coord.), La Comunicación Global del Patrimonio Cultural, Gijón: Trea, pp. 155–174, pp. 156–158.

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facing a palpable illusion or a mirage of immense proportions. The maxim of Despotism Illustrated “tout pour le peuple, rien par le people” magnificently defines this situation. From this scenario springs a magnificent positioning that, among other tools, we must attribute to the development of empathy marketing. This strategy has made the various public fall, so to speak, in a sticky spider web that firmly catches them. Audiences, feeling very close to the art center, are structured to define themselves as an indispensable part of it, rewarding the Centro Botín with its unwavering loyalty. In conclusion, the Centro Botín has become an excellent breeding ground for the generation and implementation of management processes of Anglo-Saxon museums. Its system, very close to the North American model of administration, allows the execution of marketing strategies in order to attract visitors and the correct loyalty of audiences. Thanks to this fantastic substrate observed in Santander the concept of empathy marketing was born. This can be defined as a magnificent tool, an opportunity that clearly has produced excellent results, fulfilling the purposes and objectives established in the institution. The empathy marketing traits observed in this art center are simply light strokes of a much larger strategy, the visible tip of an iceberg that is about to be redefined in its whole. The Centro Botín has only established its bases, laying the first stone of a structure that must grow in volume and height. The correct development and future implementation of this tool augurs an excellent future for the strategic management of marketing in museums and art centers, being a concept to be considered soon. The dawn of the Spanish cultural containers will pass, perhaps, by the unquestioning adoption of the management systems of the Anglo-Saxon museology, opting for the application of methods and processes that, like marketing, will develop these and many other innovative strategies.

REFERENCES About, https://2x4.org/about/ (accessed April 11, 2019). About, Recognising excellence, https://www.‌adg-fad.org/en/laus/about (accessed April 11, 2019). Alcázar, Pilar, Conocer los Deseos del Cliente, in: Emprendedores. Las claves de la economía y el éxito profesional 119 (2007), pp. 85–96. Álvarez Oller, María Teresa, Del Coleccionismo Privado a Entidad Pública, in: Manuel Arias (coord.), La Gestión del Patrimonio Cultural. La transmisión de un legado, Valladolid: Fundación del Patrimonio Histórico de Castilla y León, 2002, pp. 21–46. Artes y emociones que potencian la creatividad, https://www.fundacionbotin.org/89dguuytdfr276ed_­ uploads/EDUCACION/creatividad/artes%20y%20emociones%202014/2014%20Informe%20Creatividad­%­ 20ES.‌pdf (accessed April 20, 2019). Azuar Ruiz, Rafael, Museos, Arqueología, Democracia y Crisis, Gijón: Trea, 2013. Ballart Hernández, Josep and Jordi Juan I Tresserras, Gestión del Patrimonio Cultural, Barcelona: Ariel, 2001. Bear, Mark F., Michael A. Paradiso and Barry W. Connors, Neurocienca. La exploración del cerebro, Barcelona: Wolters Kluwer, 2016. Boylan, Patrick (coord.), Cómo Administrar un Museo. Manual práctico, Paris: ICOM-UNESCO, 2007. Braidot, Néstor P., Neuromarketing. Neuroeconomía y negocios, Madrid: Puerto Norte-Sur, 2005. Braidot, Néstor T., Neuromarketing en Acción, Buenos Aires: Garnica, 2013.

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LUIS WALIAS RIVERA Brand belonging. Por qué la empatía y la idea de comunidad se han convertido en la piedra angular de la estrategia de marketing, https://www.puromarketing.com/44/31930/brand-belonging-empatia-idea-­ comunidad-han-convertido-piedra-angular-estrategia-marketing.‌html (accessed April 1, 2019). Bronce·Logotipo, https://www.‌adg-fad.org/es/laus/proyecto/centro-botin (accessed February 22, 2019). Camarero Izquierdo, Carmen, Marketing del Patrimonio Cultural, Madrid: ESIC, 2004. Castellanos, Vicente and Daniel González, ¿Qué Puede Aportar la Neurociencia al Marketing y a la Investigación de Mercados?, in Revista de Estudios de Juventud 103 (2013), pp. 51–68. The Centro Botín aims to be, https://www.centrobotin.org/en/the-centro-botin/ (accessed April 24, 2019). El Centro Botín contrata a Marga Meoro para el área de Desarrollo y Marketing, http://www.eldiariomontanes.es/santander/201407/02/centro-botin-contrata-marga-20140702170855. ‌html (accessed March 21, 2019). El Centro Botín llenará de vida, arte y cultura la ciudad de Santander, https://www.centrobotin.org/el-­centrobotin-llenara‑de-vida-arte‑y-cultura‑la-ciudad‑de-santander/ (accessed April 15, 2019). El Centro Botín potenciará la ‘inteligencia emocional en España’ a través del arte, https://www.abc.es/­ cultura/20140508/abci-centro-botin-potenciara-inteligencia-201405071731.‌html (accessed April  24, 2019). Centro Botín receives 202,080 visits in 2018, https://www.centrobotin.org/en/centro-botin-receives-­202080visits‑in-2018/ (accessed April 14, 2019). El Centro Cultural Botín generará un nuevo espacio ciudadano en el frente marítimo, https://www.eldiariomontanes.es/v/20100731/cantabria/centro-cultural-botin-generara-20100731.‌html (accessed April 11, 2019). Clair, Jean, Malestar en los Museos, Gijón: Trea, 2007. Colbert, François and Manuel Cuadrado, Marketing de las Artes y la Cultura, Barcelona: Ariel, 2003. Combe McLean, Fiona, El Marketing en el Museo. Análisis contextual, in: Kevin Moore (ed.), La gestión del Museo, Gijón: Trea, 1998, pp. 347–371. Communication, information and customer attraction, https://magmacultura.com/en/communication-­ information-and-customer-attraction/ (accessed April 12, 2019). ¿Cómo crear una estrategia de inbound marketing paso a paso?, http://www.academiadeconsultores.com/ estrategia‑de-inbound-marketing/ (accessed April 26, 2019). El efecto Santander, http://www.eldiariomontanes.es/v/20110918/opinion/editorial/efecto-santander-­ 20110918.‌html (acceseed April 1, 2019). Esteban, Iñaki, El Efecto Guggenheim. Del espacio basura al ornamento, Barcelona: Anagrama, 2007. Estrategias de captación de leads ¿Cómo conseguir clientes?, http://www.academiadeconsultores.com/­ estrategias‑de-captacion‑de-leads/ (accessed April 27, 2019). Helena Hernando Gonzalo (dir.), Exposiciones Temporales. Organización, gestión, coordinación, Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, 2006. Gan Busto, Federico and Jaume Triginé, Manual de Instrumentos de Gestión y Desarrollo de las Personas en las Organizaciones, Madrid: Diaz de Santos, 2006. Gómez Martínez, Javier, Dos Museologías. Las tradiciones anglosajona y mediterránea. Diferencias y contactos, Gijón: Trea, 2006. Gómez Martínez, Javier, The Whitney Museum and The Centro Botín. Reasonable distances from New York to Santander, http://www.aacadigital.com/contenido.‌php?idarticulo=​1476 (accessed April 11, 2019). Gómez-Zorrilla, José, ¿Qué es marketing emocional?, https://laculturadelmarketing.com/que‑es-marketing-­ emocional/ (accessed April 23, 2019). Hannagan, Tim J., Marketing for the Non-profit Sector, Londres: Macmillam Business Masters, 1992. Hernández Hernández, Francisca, Manual de Museología, Madrid: Síntesis, 2001. La imagen gráfica del Centro Botín recibe un premio Laus, https://www.europapress.es/cantabria/noticia-­ imagen-grafica-centro-botin-recibe-premio-laus-20170704165018.‌html (accessed January 14, 2019).

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Seducing Audiences Ingersoll, Richard, Renzo Piano gana el Pritzker de arquitectura, https://elpais.com/diario/1998/04/20/cultura/ 893023201_850215.‌html (accessed April 23, 2019). Ivars Mas, Miguel Ángel, La empatía en el marketing, https://www.puromarketing.com/27/16331/empatia-­ marketing.‌html (accessed April 24, 2019). Kolb, Bonita M., Marketing for Cultural Organizations. News strategies for attracting audiences to classical music, dance, museums, theatre and opera, London: Thomson, 2005. Kotler, Neil and Philip Kotler, Estrategias y Marketing de Museos, Barcelona: Ariel, 2001. Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management. Analysis, planning and control, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-­ Hall, 1967. Kotler, Philip and Sidney J. Levy, Broadening the Concept of Marketing, in: Journal of marketing 33 (1969), pp. 11–13. Le Marec, Joëlle, Museología Participativa, Evaluación y Consideración del Público. La palabra inhallable, in: Jacqueline Eidelman, Mélanie Roustan and Bernadette Goldstein (comps.), El Museo y sus Públicos. El visi­ tante tiene la palabra, Barcelona: Ariel, 2014, pp. 291–310. Lee, Nick, Amanda J. Broderick and Laura Chamberlain, What is “Neuromarketing”. A discussion and agenda for future research, in: International Journal of Psychophysiology 63 (2007), pp. 199–204. Lewis, Peter, The Rule of Marketing. It’s a fundamental planning function; devising a strategy, in: Timothy Ambrose and Sue Runyard (eds.), Forward Planning. A handbook of business corporate and development planning for museums and galleries, London: Routledge, 1991, pp. 23–37. Lord, Barry and Gail Dexter Lord, Manual de Gestión de Museos, Barcelona: Ariel, 1998, pp. 129–130. Management of the visitor’s experience, https://magmacultura.com/en/centro-botin-santander/ (accessed April 12, 2019). Marca Francés, Guillem, Marcas y Patrimonio Cultural. Tangibilización de la comunicación, in: Santos M. Mateos (coord.), La Comunicación Global del Patrimonio Cultural, Gijón: Trea, pp. 155–174. Martínez Gil, Tània and Juan Santacana Mestre, La Cultura Museística en Tiempos Difíciles, Gijón: Trea, 2013. Martínez-Vilanova, Rafael, Realidad y Posibilidades del Marketing en los Museos de España, Gijón: Trea, 2017. McGivern, Hanna, Spain’s new Centro Botín shuns the ‘Bilbao effect’, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/ news/spains-new-centro-botin-shuns-the-bilbao-effect (accessed January 22, 2019). ¿Qué es el marketing de las emociones? Conectando con los clientes, https://www.webdelmarketing.com/ que‑es-el-marketing‑de-las-emociones-conectando-con-los-clientes/ (accessed April 23, 2019). ¿Qué es una landing page en ibound marketing?, https://www.inboundemotion.com/blog/que‑es-unalanding-page‑en-inbound-marketing (accessed April 27, 2019). Pérez Valencia, Paco, Tener un Buen Plan. La hoja de ruta de toda colección: el plan museológico, Gijón: Trea, 2010. Pitel, Deborah, Marketing on a Shoestring Budget. A guide for small museums and historic sites, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. Rafael Bisquerra empleará el arte como herramienta para activar e identificar emociones en el Centro Botín, https://www.fundacionbotin.org/noticia/rafael-bisquerra-empleara‑el-arte-como-herramienta-para-­ activar‑e-identificar-emociones‑en-el-centro-botin.‌html (accessed April 24, 2019). Redolar Ripoll, Diego, Neurociencia Cognitiva, Madrid: Médica Panamericana, 2017. Renvoisé, Patrick and Christophe Morin, Neuromárketing. El nervio de la venta, Barcelona: UOC, 2016. Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Centro de Arte Botín. Santander, Madrid: Fundación Botín, 2011. Rico, Juan Carlos, (coord.), La Caja de Cristal. Un nuevo modelo de museo, Gijón: Trea, 2008. Rodríguez, Ángel Blas, Nueva Sociedad, Nuevos Museos. El papel del marketing en los museos, in: Revista de Museología 24 (25) (2001), pp. 25–38. Rodríguez del Bosque, Ignacio A., (coord.), Marketing. Estrategias y aplicaciones sectoriales, Madrid: Civitas, 1998. Roselló Cerezuela, David, Diseño y Evaluación de Proyectos Culturales, Barcelona: Ariel, 2004. Sabaté Navarro, Miquel and Roser Gort Riera, Museo y Comunidad. Un museo para todos los públicos, Gijón: Trea, 2012.

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LUIS WALIAS RIVERA Santacana Mestre, Joan, Un Apunte Final. Construir museos hoy, in Joan Santacana Mestre, Núria Serrat Antolí (coords.), Museografía Didáctica, Barcelona: Ariel, 2005, pp. 633–653. Support the Centro, https://www.centrobotin.org/en/support-the-centro/ (accessed April 22, 2019). Thompson, John, The Manual of Curatorship, London: Butterworth, 1984. Walias Rivera, Luis, Marketing vs. Comunicación. Conflicto práctico y conceptual entre los modelos de ­gerencia museológica anglosajona y mediterránea, in: Patricia Centeno del Canto (coord.), Propuestas para financiar museos y colecciones, León: Fundación Sierra-Pambley, 2014, pp. 119–140. Walias Rivera, Luis, The Museum 2.0 Divide. Approaches to digitization and new media, in Museum International 65 (2015), pp. 31–38. Luis Walias Rivera, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0540-6814

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BORDER PEDAGOGY AND EMPOWERMENT EDUCATION IN MUSEUMS

Becoming an educated citizen means learning a lot of facts and mastering techniques of reasoning. But it means something more. It means how to be a human being capable of love and imagination. We may continue to produce narrow citizens who have difficulty understanding people different from themselves, whose imaginations rarely venture beyond their local setting. It is all too easy for the moral imagination to become narrow in this way. […] We produce too many citizens that are like Marley’s ghost, and like Scrooge before he walked out to see what the world around him contained. But we have the opportunity to do better, and now we are beginning to seize that opportunity. That is not political correctness; that is the cultivation of humanity.1 […] In this journey, I have also learned how important it is to take the obvious as the object of our critical reflection, and to enter into it, to discover that it is not, at times, as obvious as it seems.2

Unpacking: Museum Education and Silent Pedagogies Since the mid-1980's, museums have been the focus of academic and political attention around the world.3 We have witnessed changes in the perception of their role and, at least in rhetorical terms, a paradigm shift, from the museum as a temple to the museum as a forum. As a result of this shift, museums are increasingly understood as spaces for diversity and democracy. Also, in a context of greater professionalism and complexity of the sector, profoundly marked by critical theory and the cultural turn, critical and emancipatory pedagogy, feminism and grassroots social movements, globalisation and market change, social and human sciences have focused their attention on theoretical and practical concerns that include an institutional critique of the museum, its power dynamics and representation politics. A new theory of museums, viewed by Marstine as a synonym of “new museology and critical museology”, has scrutinised the museum, exploring issues associated, in particular, to the binomial power/knowledge and the subjects involved in its representation and production.4 1  Martha Craven Nussbaum, Cultivating humanity, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 14. 2  Paulo Freire, Acçao Cultural Para a Libertaçao e outros Escritos, Lisboa: Moraes Editores, 1975 [1977], p. 207. 3  This text was written in the context of the Research Project “Educación Patrimonial for territorial and emotional intelligence of citizenship” – EDU2015-67953-P (MINECO / FEDER). 4  Stephen Weil, Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990; Michael M. Ames, Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes, Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992; Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge, London: Routledge, 1992; Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics, London: Routledge, 1995; Douglas Crimp, On the Museum’s Ruins, Cambridge, MA: MIT

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It is without doubt that those engaged in writing about the museum in recent decades have been deeply concerned about the relationship between museums and social formations, engaging in debates about social and cultural reproduction. As often noted, these studies have shown that the museum is an instrumental institution in the formation of knowledge and in disciplining social and cultural practices of collecting, exhibiting, and educating. The physical environment of the museum, the processes of classifying and organising collections, and the public exhibition of knowledge (using diverse means of communication available to museums) are, in general, flagged by these studies as essential vehicles for the mediation and materialisation of the museum as a place of control, discipline and authority. Many of them dissect its authoritarian, positivist, conservative, elitist and excluding positioning and furthermore, regard museums as institutions involved in projects of modernity and colonialism, racism and gender policies. They recognise that while museums typically naturalise policies and procedures as a “professional practice” and “good practices”, their decisions reflect underlying value systems embodied in institutional narratives that are neither natural nor innocent. As a matter of fact, Stuart Hall5 has argued that “representation” is one of the most powerful and productive socially constructed discursive practices of our time and work within a historical, practical and “worldly” context of operation. By selecting certain cultural products for official preservation and public exhibition, museums have “the power to name, to represent common sense, to create official versions, to represent the social world, and to represent the past”.6 Meaning, as Hall7 puts it, that “is produced by the practices, the “work” of representation. It is constructed through signifying (i. e., meaning-producing) practices. These practices of representation that entail the “embodying of concepts, ideas and emotions in a symbolic form which can be transmitted and meaningfully interpreted is what we mean by ’the practices of representation’”.8 This process implies the recognition and sustaining of some identities while omitting others, and has an extraordinary impact on what one considers to be knowledge and of value and, thus, to be real and normative; a process which attempts to fix meaning and, therefore, one which is profoundly intertwined with power/knowledge arrangements.9 Moreover, “taking the Press, 1993; Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museum, London: Routledge, 1995; Alexander García Duttman, Werner Hamacher, John G. Hanhardt, Thomas Keenan, Friedich Kittler, Gyan Prakash, Andrew Ross and Kristin Ross, The End(s) of the Museum, Barcelona: Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 1996; Sharon MacDonald, Gordon Fyfe, Theorizing Museums. Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World, Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996; Carmen María Mörsch, Alliances for Unlearning: On the possibility of future collaborations between Gallery Education and institutions of Critique, in Afterall: A journal of art, context and enquiry 26 (2011), pp. 5–13; Christopher Whitehead, Museums and the construction of disciplines: Art and archaeology in nineteenth century Britain, London: Gerald Duckworth, 2009. 5  Stuart Hall, The work of representation. Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices 2, in Stuart Hall (ed.), Representation: cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage/Open University, 1997, p. 47. 6  Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the interpretation of visual culture, London: Routledge, 2000, p. 19. 7  Hall 2007 (as fn. 5), p. 28. 8  Ibid., p. 10. 9  Ivan Karp and Stephen D. Lavine, Introduction: Museums and Multiculturalism, in: Ivan Karp, Stephen D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibitint Cultures: The Poetics and politics of Museums Display, Washington: Smithsonian Insti-

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meaning”, that is an active process of interpretation, is at the core of signifying practices as meaning and has to be actively “read” or “interpreted”.10 In this sense, museum education and interpretation becomes an essential aspect of the process by which meaning is given and taken: museum education programmes are as important as other museological apparatus in the production of meaning, such as exhibitions or the processes of collecting, as every signifier given or encoded with meaning has been meaningfully interpreted by them.11 Interpretation is, thus, neither neutral nor objective, but rather ideologically driven and pedagogically intentional. Agency in museums is always possible and it seems more than ever urgent in these unrestful days. Long-standing social structures are in flux; new opportunities are being called for and grasped by those who feel their lifestyles have been subjected to disadvantage; territories are fragmenting and identities are being reshaped and reasserted. Karp and Kratz12 believe that the critique guidelines set out by the abovementioned research are fertile ground for what they call the interrogative museum. “Exhibit the problem, not the solution” is, as they say, at the core of this interrogative museum.13 In exhibitions (or, for that matter, in all other dimensions of the museum, namely in museum education), this means: […] moving away from education programmes14 that seem to deliver a lecture which (to spin out the classificatory scheme) might be seen as declarative, indicative, or even imperative in mood to a more dialogue-based sense of asking a series of questions. It means taking museum education programmes as essentially contested, debatable, and respecting the agency and knowledgeability of audiences when we develop and design exhibits.15

An interrogative attitude is one that will challenge, not in order to overturn, but to challenge, the claims to museum authority. Karp and Kratz also make a distinction between two essential types of curatorial authority at work in museums: cultural authority and exhibitionary authority […] the first derives from the relationship of museums to the institutions and values of the broader society; claims authority might be manifest in mission statements, museums’ role in addressing questions about such values as beauty and truth, their often temple-like architecture, and so on. The second relates to the more tenuous way exhibitions embody claims to authority through their combination of various media of communication, as in configurations of objects, lighting, texts, and space that create a diorama or the white cube of modernist art museums.16

tute Press, 1991, pp. 1–9; Henrietta Lidchi, The poetics and politics of exhibiting other cultures, in: Hall 2007 (as fn. 5), pp. 151–222; Whitehead 2009 (as fn. 4). 10  Hall 2007 (as fn. 5), p. 32. 11  Ibid., p. 33. 12  Ivan Karp and Corinne A. Kratz, The Interrogative Museum, in: Raymon A. Silverman (ed.), Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges, London: Routledge, 2015, pp. 279–298. 13  Ibid., p. 281. 14  Exhibition, in the original text. 15  Karp and Kratz 2015 (as fn. 12), p. 281. 16  Ibid., p. 294.

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The recently published book From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum, by Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius and Piotr Piotrowski,17 sums up most of the ideas that are present in this notion of the museum: […] we believe that the critical mission of museums can be considered from three aspects: their activity in the public space, their self-critique and as regards changers of artistic geography. First of all, the museum’s mission must take into account the changes going on in the present world, such as democratization, the cosmopolitan politicization of culture, European integration and its limitations, the interaction of local and global factors, and the problems of social minorities, migrations and social inequalities. The critical museum should have an active role, encouraging the public to understand the complexity of the present world and to acknowledge the significance of memory and the past for the development of civil society which is transnational (cosmopolitan) and diverse. Secondly, a new identity for the museum should be forged by the critique of the art museum’s tradition and of the practices of the key encyclopaedic museums. Finally, what should be recognized by this new museum is a non-traditional artistic geography, favouring the margins instead of centres of western artistic culture, and challenging the hegemony of the West, which has been legitimized both by tradition and by the contemporary global tourist industry. This is not a new theory of museum practice but a chance to put these ideas into practice in a traditional museum of art.18

These questions and reassessments about the role of the museum, curatorial authority and ways of working have gained ground, permeating different dimensions of the museum, namely those related to the processes of collecting, documenting and inventorying collections, curating, exhibiting and mediating. That is, processes of “doing/packing” museums. The “new theory of museum education” also grapples with this complex relationship between museums, knowledge and society to study the language and practice of museum education and critique its core assumptions. It strives for richer and deeper understandings and a more reflexive insight into the social construction of knowledge (re)produced within these spaces.

Power/Knowledge Silent Pedagogies Since the nineteenth century, the world of museums has been characterised by taxonomy tasks often materialised in binary logics, drawing borders that produce faulty and incomplete notions, untruths and scientific misjudgements. In a complex interconnected world and for the increasingly permeable and fluid boundaries of the museum, this logic is no longer conceivable. Surely it is not good enough as a museums’ system of thought that aims to move from the classification of the world to its analysis and critical/narrative imagination where the personal

17  Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius and Piotr Piotrowski, Introduction, in: Katarzyna Murawska-Muthesius, Piotr Piotrowski (eds.), From Museum Critique to the Critical Museum, London: Routledge, 2015, pp. 1–12. 18  Ibid., pp. 1–2.

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becomes political19 and cosmopolitics and a borderland – like approach replace a seemingly obsolete border.20 Drawing borders is indeed an instrument of dichotomisation. Within the simplistic oppositions on which the traditional categories of museums are based, everything is one thing or another: a masterpiece or a minor work, an original or a reproduction, a connoisseur or an amateur, this or that species, keepers of culture or makers of culture, objects speaking for themselves or objects requiring interpretation. Drawing lines around people and things always produces a binary order, where inside and outside, inclusion and exclusion face each other without any opportunity to be rearranged. Borderlines run through the museum space as silent pedagogies and acts of power and control thought up and instituted to differentiate, filter and control bodies. Every border is an act not only of closure and exclusion, but also of symbolic violence. They are not innocent. Invisibility, blindness and disinterest are common negative affordances. These are political charged spaces and this is why they are spaces where contestation over identity and power often occurs. Its normative value refers to a naturalised construct of a dominant narrative, one which manages and controls complexity and difference, by reducing it to the binary logic of inside/outside, natural world/human world, self/other, etc. The inner logic of these dualistic borders seems to provide safety and an illusion of control. However, in reality, the breaches it creates help foster inaccurate and unproductive learning atmospheres. This nineteenth-century taxonomic endeavour creates limitative boundaries that are of little importance in the contemporary world. As a matter of fact, the range of stories told in museums tends to be limited since they have a tendency to be related to restricted collection categories and remain structured around history, archaeology, ethnography, art and natural history as separate categories. As Hooper-Greenhill remarks,21 the museum has been called emblematic of the modern period because it displays one of the characteristics of the period: “the construction of master narratives, grand narratives, universal stories, that were intended to stand as valid outside the context of the site from which they were spoken. These master narratives were intended to enable mastery of the messy and complicated real world”.22 This unidimensional and linear view of culture produces a homogeneous

19  María Acaso, Del paradigma modernista al posmuseo: seis retos a partir del giro educatico (¿Lo intentamos?), in: María Acaso (ed.), Perspecticas: situación actual de la educación en los museos de artes visuales, Madrid: Fundación Telefónica, 2011; Norman K. Denzin, Critical pedagogy and democratic life or a radical democratic pedagogy, in: Cultural Studies – Critical Methodologies 9 (3) (2009), pp. 379–397; Emma Waterton and Steve Watson (eds.), Heritage and community engagement: collaboration or contestation?, London: Routledge, 2013. 20  Fiona Cameron and Sarah Mengler, Activating the networked object for a complex world, in: Handbook of Research on Technologies and Cultural Heritage: Applications and Environments, IGI Global, 2011, pp. 166–187. Étienne Balibar, Europe as borderland, in: Environment and planning D: Society and space 27 (2) (2009), pp. 190– 215; Robert R. Janes, Museums, social responsability and the future we desire, in: Simon J. Knell, Suzanne MacLeod and Sheila Watson (eds.), Museums Revolutions: How museums change and are changed, London/ New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 134–146; Nora Sternfeld, Unglamorous Tasks: What Can Education learn from Its Political Traditions?, in: E-flux journal 14 (2010), https://www.e-flux.com/journal/14/61302/unglamorous-­ tasks-what-can-education-learn-from-its-political-traditions/ (accessed October 20, 2019). 21  Hooper-Greenhill 2000 (as fn. 6). 22  Ibid., p. 24.

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mapping that tends to construct it both as an authoritative single narrative and as a reified product of “genius” production. As a result: […] museums of all types often are subject to what historian David Hackett Fischer calls the fallacy of tunnel history. Art often is assumed only to be influenced by other art; designed objects are thought to arise only from genetic mutations of earlier objects, untouched by societal changes; and many history and technology museums depict a myth of unrelenting progress. Strict adherence to disciplinary boundaries yields interpretation and exhibitions that are far from multidimensional.23

Unidimensional museum education reproduces and legitimizes these silent pedagogies24 and hidden curricula and, more importantly, actively participates in its circulation, returning them to culture as ways of thinking and making sense of the world. Categories imposed to make phenomena understandable often compartmentalise and confine experience. Only by transcending these boundaries can museum education create far more opportunities to experience collections in more complex interconnections of life. Furthermore, borders refer to signifying practices and, by their very nature, are not fixed entities. On the contrary, borders entail unstable processes of differentiation, where multiple actors continuously negotiate meaning. Indeed, this is a crucial step towards transcending them in order to embrace complexity in the twenty-first century museum. In order to reveal this complexity and fragmentation, museum education needs to move away from an “informative museology” to a “performative” one. In other words, from establishing strict borders to create borderland – like spaces inspired by cosmopolitics25 and the dismantling of dichotomisations and any other kind of static categorisation inscribed in the border dispositive. On these grounds, spotlighting these simplistic but persistent binary oppositions in museum education repertoires is key to, firstly, unveil the power structures and historical-political constructions implicit in the theoretical analysis of rationality, in terms of normative power in museums; and, secondly, support the understanding of how these binary oppositions act as the invisible and all-pervading masters of the game of discourse: that is to say, as silent museum pedagogies. Braidotti also points out two crucial dialectic ideas and powerful political strategies, which in this case help us to think about how to overcome dualistic modes of thinking:

23  Lois H. Silverman and Mark O’Neill, Change and complexity in the 21st Century Museum, in: Museum News 83 (6) (2004), p. 7. 24  By ‘Silent Pedagogy’, Eisner and Dobbs (1988) mean “the use of non-spoken information that provides museum visitors with cues for perceiving, thinking about, and appreciating works of art. These cues include the way works are displayed, the themes that relate one work to others, the content of the signage (wall panels and labels) that is provided, comprehensibility of the text, and the overall effectiveness of the installation. All of these and other elements can be used intentionally by those who conceptualise, design, and install exhibitions to help the Joe Johnsons of the world gain some insight and satisfaction from the often subtle and complex works that adorn the museum’s walls and that are displayed in its galleries. What does the museum do, beside displaying the works, to help visitors connect with the works? Why do museums do what they do? And, finally, what might museums do to help visitors get what works of art provide – sources of satisfaction, insight, and pleasure” (p. 7). 25  Balibar 2009 (as fn. 20); Cameron and Mengler 2011 (as fn. 20).

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“the need for metabolic repossession of meanings and representations, which I also call mimetic repetition” and “the necessity to find points of exit from the debris of the posthumanist universe”.26 Hopefully, this strategic move in museum education will open up a space of difference and coexisting possibilities, a space of multiplicities and diversity. Perchance this means opening up a complex space of controversial meanings that will reveal deceptive features of dominant museum representations. Museums are the most trusted knowledge-legitimating institutions in society today and this status makes them powerful education devices. I would like to allude to three studies coming from the Anglo-Saxon world. One of them, conducted in 2008, showed that, on a scale of 1 to 5, museum visitors classified them as highly reliable (4.62), but this belief is based on the idea that museums present unmediated facts.27 Respondents demonstrated that there is no clear realisation that, in selecting and organising objects to support a particular argument/story, museums construct an interpretation, and that the experience of the visit is also shaped by the design of the exhibition and the type of texts presented. Consistent with the previously mentioned research, the second is a more recent study and shows the prevalence of these perceptions.28 Museums have a unique position of trust in society, especially in contrast to the media and government. Museums are seen as “guardians of factual information” that “present all sides of history”. When invited to reflect on what should not be kept among the essential purposes of museums, the participants in this study referred to the promotion of justice and human rights, as well as the creation of forums for debate as not being the most appropriate. These activities have been referred to as undermining the core values of trust and integrity that are associated thereto. For the respondents, museums can address controversial issues, but should always take each side of the issue into account, staying neutral, rather than taking a stand; they can appropriately have a “moral point of view”, but not a political point of view; museums should provide unbiased, non-politically driven information. In this article, it is argued that if museums choose to discuss issues such as climate change or human rights, there is a risk of closing the door to many people who feel that one of the museum’s main objectives is to provide a fun day to spend with your family. Other recent studies continue to reinforce these perceptions about museums.29 In the last study I would like to mention here (a US study), museums are once more seen as more credible sources of information than newspapers, other NGOs and, to a large extent, than governmental US agencies. The authors of the report say that “this level of trust is not to be taken lightly, and it’s 26  Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory, Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1994, p. 279. 27  José-Marie Griffiths and Donald W. King, InterConnections: The IMLS National Study on the Use of Libra­ ries, Museums and the Internet, http://www.interconnectionsreport.org/reports/IMLSMusRpt20080312kjm.­ ‌pdf (accessed 11 May, 2017). 28  BritainThinks for Museums Association, Public percepctions of ‑and acttitudes to- the purposes of museums in society, http://www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=​954916 (accessed 11 May 2017). 29  What role do museums play in today’s world of mixed messages and “alternative facts?” A pretty big and important one, according to research, https://www.colleendilen.com/2019/03/06/in-museums‑we-trustheres-­how-much-data-update/ (accessed 2 May, 2019).

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a testimonial to organisations that stand by their missions to educate and inspire audiences”. Museums are trusted, they argue, because they employ and/or consult topic experts and thus provide credible content. On the other hand, the report underlines the aforementioned latent contradiction: some museums take up issues that are overly politicised, talking about climate change and human evolution, or designing missions to bring together specific diverse, underserved, and underrepresented communities. Despite these efforts, however, people do not view museums as having a political agenda. People continue to believe that museums should suggest or recommend certain behaviours and actions, but these are not seen as “being political”. Recommending things like cutting down on using plastic may not be seen as necessarily “political” to people, but rather “as an organisation walking its talk in terms of supporting its mission”. Museums are seen as trusted sources of highly credible information, and people expect them to be advocates of their missions and causes, but this does not mean the public is aware of an implicit political dimension. Aware of this paradoxical “expectations gap” (museums-visitors), the authors go on to ask the following questions: “are museums trusted because they are not seen as having political agendas?” When an organisation’s mission itself may be viewed as “politicised”, where does an organisation draw the line? What’s an organisation to do when facts become politicised?” In order to preserve trust levels, they say, “it is the museums’ responsibility to stand up for their missions, and to figure out where to draw the line. If standing up for a cause is a good thing, then “opting out” of a mission impact when it’s threatened may be viewed as untrustworthy”. “We have a superpower. Let’s use it when appropriate to make the world better”, they proclaim. Indeed, recent events suggest that when a museum’s mission is pinned against a politicised topic, standing up for its mission wins. In response to President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) replaced works in its permanent collection galleries with eight works by artists from the targeted nations. Though it might sound small, the rehang is an unprecedented gesture in the museum’s history, instigated and executed by staff who wanted to react to unsettling political circumstances. Data demonstrated their gesture was favourably received.30 As Christophe Cherix, MoMA’s chief curator of drawings and prints mentioned to Hyperallergic, “We want the gallery to be a place of freedom, where people can find a safe haven”. “A lot of artists in our holdings of the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s came from abroad. The [executive order] just made us think that it could be interesting to think about history in relation to today and bring into the galleries works by artists we deeply care for whose nations are part of the current ban”.31 These less commonly seen pieces replaced familiar works of Western art by Picasso, Matisse, James Ensor, Francis Picabia, Umberto Boccioni, Oskar Kokoschka and Alberto Burri. Rather than being confined to one room, Cherix said, they are spread across multiple galleries, each accompanied by a

30  Colleendilenschneider, MoMA Sees Reputation Boost After Displaying Muslim Artists (DATA), https:// www.colleendilen.com/2017/03/08/moma-sees-reputation-boost-after-displaying-muslim-artists-data/ (accessed 2 May, 2019). 31  Claire Voon, MoMA Installs Works by Artists from Countries Targeted by Trump’s Travel Ban, https://­ hyperallergic.com/356224/moma-installs-works‑by-artists-from-countries-targeted‑by-trumps-travel-ban/ (accessed 2 May, 2019).

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statement clearly expressing MoMA’s intention “to affirm the ideals of welcome and freedom as vital to this Museum as they are to the United States”. He further concludes by saying that MOMA’s galleries “are also a platform where people can really think about the role of artists from those different countries within our own culture. The collection should also be reactive to what happens around us”. Other cases that have taken on the front pages of the press, involve wealthy families. Museums have always been exceptionally good places to convert roughly obtained private wealth into social prestige, in spite of the dubious sources of its wealth. The National Portrait Gallery has become the first major art institution to give up a £1 m grant from the controversial Sackler family, whose US pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma LP makes the highly-addictive opioid prescription painkiller OxyContin, in a move that campaigners said was a landmark victory in the battle over the ethics of arts funding. Protesters at the Guggenheim Museum last February dropped white slips of paper symbolising OxyContin prescriptions and the following month the museum said it would no longer accept money from members of the family behind the drug.32 The Tate museums in London also decided that they would no longer accept gifts from their long-time Sackler benefactors. The Tate’s statement noted the family’s “historic philanthropy”, and then added: “However, in the present circumstances we do not think it is right to seek or accept further donations from the Sacklers”. In a witty article in the Washington Post,33 Hugh Eakin, a National Endowment for the Humanities public scholar, explains that after the killing of Jamal Khashoggi last fall, museums came under fire for taking money from the Saudi government. The Sackler situation is just one among others. New York’s Whitney Museum, for example, is confronting a new round of roiling protests against Warren Kanders, the tear-gas billionaire who is its vice chair. In a witty letter written to the Guardian (September 11th, 2017), referring to BP’s links with museums, Chris Garrard from Culture Unstained states further that by turning a blind eye to companies’ close ties to regimes that violate human rights, something breaches the museums’ ethical standpoints, as museums clean up their tarnished reputations. And he asks: “What value is our enjoyment of art when it comes at the expense of those on the frontlines of climate change and the destructive impacts of the fossil fuel industry? We need art and our cultural institutions to expose injustice, promote debate and create change in society. Denying BP the social legitimacy of a sponsorship deal would allow the gallery to rescue its reputation before it is damaged any further, and be part of the shift to a fossil-free culture”.34

32  Alex Marshall, Museums Cut Ties With Sacklers as Outrage Over Opioid Crisis Grows, https://www.­ nytimes.com/2019/03/25/arts/design/sackler-museums-donations-oxycontin.‌html (accessed 2 May, 2019). 33  Hugh Eakin, For better or worse, our greatest museums are built on the backs of billionaires, https:// www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/29/better‑or-worse-our-greatest-museums-are-built-backsbillionaires/?utm_term=​.74212e05887b (accessed 2 May, 2019). 34  The Guardian, Arts and oil firms should not mix, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/sep/11/ arts-and-oil-firms-should-not-mix (accessed 2, May 2019).

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Agency and Complexity: a Metamuseal Function Critical museum education is aware of these contextual and sensitive processes of curatorial authority (profoundly associated with credibility and trust) through which knowledge is produced and disseminated, and thus of its partial and forcibly positioned nature. A growing number of voices have challenged the excluding and often colonising discourses of the museum.35 This perspective as it is being developed in various postcolonial, feminist and other critical discourses embraces museum education as a potentially pulsating centre of resistance and creati­ vity, as places where new identities and alliances can and are being forged in the rewriting of the museum space as plural. These forms of critical imagination and cultural resistance are rewriting museums (and museum education) as historical and social constructs which can be made and remade within (not outside of ) an array of multiple experiences. Along the same lines, Giroux and Trend36 argue for the vital importance of historical memory for cultural work. By historical memory they mean “the recognition that there is no language, knowledge or social practice that is beyond the past. In addition, historical memory rejects the notion of the past as a linear progression or history as an unproblematic train of events moving forward toward greater heights of achievement and progress. In this case, historical memory rejects the monologue of totalising narratives and theories”. Instead: […] it represents a putative shift or movement that is not beyond and away from the past but rather involves a circulating back on it, a return, a stepping back down into its details, earlier silences and margins, into its previously “blank” spaces and hidden networks, in order to extract from it a more extensive sense of the possible…, the struggle is not an absolute truth, the horrifying void of the ultimate referent…, but about what is “good” and beneficial for us. Instead of stable foundations and a rational directive accompanying us on our journey down the single road of truth towards the “real”, we seek our liberation in the multiple voices, languages, her- and his-stories, of a world that is altogether less guaranteed, but for that lighter, more open, accessible and, in a profoundly secular sense, more possible.37

Again, such a shift links the notion of critical museum education inquiry to the imperatives of moral and political agency: it is a matter of locating ourselves and our visions inside of, rather than outside of the language of history and possibility. 35  Ames 1992 (as fn. 4); Annie E. Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Edwardian England, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994; Lisa G. Corrin, Mining the Museum: Artists Look at Museums, Museums Look at themselves, in: Lisa G. Gorrin (ed.), Mining the Museum: An Installation by Fred Wilson, Baltimore: The Contemporary, 1994, pp. 1–22; Nélia Dias, Musées et colonialisme: entre passé et présent, in: Du musée colonial au musée des cultures du monde, Paris: Maisonneuve and Lorose, 2000, pp. 15–34; Elisabeth Edwards, Chris Gosden and Ruth Phillips, Sensible Objects: colonialism, Museums and material Culture, Oxford: Berg, 2006; Vivien Golding, Learning at the Museum: Frontiers, Identity, Race and Power, Farnham: Ashgate, 2009; Karp and Lavine 1991 (as fn. 9); Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Multiculturalism and museums: Discourse about others in the Age of Globalisation, in: Theory, Culture and Society 14 (4) (1997), pp. 123– 146; Divya P. Tolia-Kelly, Feeling and being at the (postcolonial) Museum: Presencing the affective politics of ‘race’ and culture, in: Sociology 50 (5) (2016), pp. 896–912. 36  Henry A. Giroux and David Trend, Cultural workers, pedagogy and the politics od difference: Beyond cultural conservatism, in: Cultural Studies 6 (1) (1992), pp. 51–72. 37  Ibid., pp. 68–69.

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Truth be told, critical museum education, as a form of cultural politics, as proclaimed some twenty years ago by Hooper-Greenhill,38 concerns itself with issues of ethics and morality, democracy and empowerment. Museum education, as a form of cultural politics has “the power to affect lives by opening up or closing down subjectivities, attitudes and feelings towards the self and others” and that implies “the possibility of agency, or action, rather than mere abstract theorising, as the purpose of analysis”.39 Accordingly, it is a deliberate attempt to encourage “how” and “what” knowledge and subjectivities are produced within particular sets of historical and social relations. This view also draws attention to the ways in which knowledge, power, desire and experience are produced under the basic conditions of learning in the museum. Indeed, critical (and radical) museum education practice ambitions to do more than simply uncovering what is left out of dominant representations. Paraphrasing Solomon-Godeau40: the Benjaminian formula for radical cultural practice, making the invisible visible, can no longer be understood as a matter of supplementing, reconstructing, or repositioning the normative givens of representation in such a way that the real relations of power and domination are functionally exposed. To use museum education to effect demystifications or constructions, one must additionally combat the ideological effects of the apparatus itself (otherwise these are mere empty gestures, disconnected from the world that museum education wants to inhabit). In this sense, the significance of museum education practice lies in the attention given equally to: (a) the institutional conditions of cultural production (a radical practice must be integrally constituted to resist commodification), (b) an internal critique of those modes of representation that have historically functioned to naturalize, authorize, and validate their status, (c) and the emphasis placed on availability and on the visitor’s active engagement in the process of signification (while radical availability entails a notion/practice of activism and social responsibility, politicising the visitor requires that the museum context encourages the production of meaning rather than the consumption of meaning). The question then becomes whether and how museum education can be freed from these prevailing hegemonic connotations and advance alternative ones and, in terms of radical museum availability and practice, if “naming” them is enough. How do we incorporate these complex questions into pedagogical approaches and practices that are modelled both by ethics and by praxeology as a method? What strategies do we design to identify values and prejudices, preconceptions and repertoires of meaning creation, unlearn vocabularies and rethink our own identity and ways of looking, doing and being? What kind of museum education theories and practices can help us to approach the museum and the world critically? How can we frame a political theorisation of museum education in the contemporary social and political landscape? How do we understand the socio-political promise and function of museum education in such a context? How do we understand political action in such a context? What are the challenges that a socially engaged and political museum education encounters in the present context? What kind of alternative imaginaries, if any, could museum education engender? The challenge

38  Hooper-Greenhill 2000 (as fn. 6). 39  Ibid., p. 19. 40  Giroux and Trend 1992 (as fn. 36), p. 61.

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is, then, to figure out what form of agency museum education should take and how to embrace complexity in the museum world. The option for positions more aligned with critical pedagogy, represented in the works of Paulo Freire, Ira Shore, Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren and other theoretical approaches with an eye ­towards on‑the-ground politics that connect educational theory and practice to the building of a sustainable, transformative radical social museum education, constitutes an essential answer to this question. Its main educational objectives are the manifestation of humanisation, critical awareness and problematisation of the educational system. In the present context, taken as a whole and as it relates to museums, critical pedagogy is an approach to the study of museum education and society that has, as main function, the revelation of tacit values that underlie the museum education enterprise. The achievement of such ends typically requires careful attention to the structure of museum education, the ways in which roles are defined, and the covert messages that are communicated. In short, it requires an awareness of the museum’s “silent pedagogies” and “hidden curriculum”. Moreover, the notion of radical availability and critical museum education, as already argued, is inherently transformative and involves more than simply naming and exposing these structuring devices. Inasmuch as researchers and practitioners alike have used theoretical tools such as ideology, hegemony, and consciousness in order to think through resistance to an unjust social order, they do not write and think only as theorists of museums but broadly as social and political theorists, very much explicit about their radical political commitments and thinking. Within this theoretic-­ practice setting, the museum locates itself in the shifting grounds of the margins: opening up to unpacking and radical decolonisation processes and to the incorporation of performativity, subjectivation, intelligibility and nomadic consciousness and practices as ways of being in the world. The borders to which these margins refer signal the metaphorical and literal sense of how power is inscribed differently on the body, culture, history, space, land and psyche. These borders have an inherent constructed and contested nature, and through this positioning they are unveiled for what they are: cultural artefacts and political formations. Being on the border requires a work on imagination; that is neither being inside nor outside, but in that in‑between space which is the border.41 Critical imagination, as understood by Royster and Kirsch42 is an inquiry tool, a mechanism for seeing the noticed and the unnoticed, rethinking what is there and not there, and speculating about what could be there instead. Also, the critical imagination required for being on the border “is radically democratic, pedagogical, and interventionist”.43 Struggle, resistance, and dialogue are thus key features of its pedagogy, one that as Denzin tells us44 “extends the rights of democratic citizenship to all segments of public and private life, from the political to the economic, from the cultural to the personal”. The other complementary notion to be taken

41  Balibar 2009 (as fn. 20). 42  Jacqueline J. Royster and Gessa E. Kirsch, Feminist rhetorical practices: New horizons for rethoric, composition, and literacy studies, Illionois: SIU Press, 2012, p. 83. 43  Denzin 2009 (as fn. 19), p. 383. 44  Ibid., p. 385.

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into account here is that of narrative imagination. Narrative imagination, as Martha Nussbaum45 discusses it, is “the ability to be an intelligent reader of another person’s story”, an ability tied to being a democratic and cultivated world citizen, one who understands the lives of others. Narrative imagination does not only need knowledge and logical reasoning but also love and compassion. In museum education also means working in the subjunctive mode. Braidotti46 says that if critical consciousness that aims at engendering transformations and changes is engaged in this process, this practice of “as if” is empowering precisely because of “its potential for opening up, through successive repetitions and mimetic strategies, spaces where alternative forms of agency can be engendered”. As she points out: […] the nomadic tense is the imperfect: it is active, continuous; the nomadic trajectory is controlled speed. The nomadic style is about transitions and passages without predetermined destinations or lost homelands. The nomad’s relationship to the earth is one of transitory attachment and cyclical frequentation; the antithesis of the farmer, the nomad gathers, reaps, and exchanges but does not exploit.47

This nomadic state has the potential for positive renaming, for opening up new possibilities for life and thought in‑between spaces where new forms of political subjectivity can be explored. “Imagining” is, then, the essential starting point to explore those complex spaces produced at the intersection between borders and museum education practices. By disrupting the impression of objectivity and authority suggested by museum borderlines and offering alternative visions and experiences of the border, museum education can challenge the dominant narratives of the museum, opening up a productive space for resistance and struggle. Through working on imagination and creating alternative spaces, critical museum education enables the unveiling of alternatives and possibilities to contest dominant representations and hegemonic discourse. In doing so, the border becomes an active site of resistance that produces unexpected change. This imagination dialogically inserts itself into the world, provoking conflict, curiosity, criticism, and reflection. Like nomadic radical consciousness, it is also “akin to what Foucault called countermemory; it is a form of resisting assimilation or homologation into dominant ways of representing the self. Feminists (or other critical intellectuals as nomadic subject) are those who have forgotten to forget injustice and symbolic poverty: their memory is activated against the stream; they enact a rebellion of subjugated knowledges.”48 This in‑betweeness notion (a state that presupposes a situation of non-isolation but integra49 tion) is important here since to be in‑between implies a grounded action that is achieved in the conscious perception that the performance of mediation means being among many: among the works and connections that it establishes with other works; with the museum or cultural 45  Moira Von Wright, Narrative imagination and taking the perspective of ohter, in: Studies in Philosophy and Education 21 (4–5) (2002), p. 407. 46  Braidotti 1994 (as fn. 26), p. 7. 47  Ibid., p. 25. 48  Ibid., p. 25. 49  Kaija Kaijatavuori, Laura Kokkonen and Nora Sternfeld, It’s all mediating: outlining and incorporating the roles of curating and education in the exhibition context, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013, p. 18.

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institution, the artist, the curator, the exhibition design and the wall texts; with the media and the art market that values certain works while discarding others; with the historian and the art critic who interprets and contextualises these works; with the educational materials and edu­ cators who favour certain works in their educational curatorship; with the quality of the photographic reproductions on display (photocopies, transparencies, slides or PowerPoint presentations); with the cultural heritage of our community, expectations of schools and others, as well as with us mediators, also filled with others within us, as internal voices that are part of our personal and cultural repertoire.50 Although the spatialised discourse of objects remains central to this more radical model, critical museum education aspires to participate in extended cultural practices, opening up to the unexpected, to the entangled and complex, to criticism and shared reflection. Here, pedagogy is simultaneously about the knowledge and practices that museum educators might engage in together and the cultural politics that such practices support.51 It is in this sense that Giroux and Trend52 say that to propose a pedagogy is at the same time to construct a political vision. 53 Mieke Bal54 also speaks of a metamuseal function, declaring that museums would do well to bring their frames and bodies to the forefront of their exhibition spaces in order to better locate the knowledge they construct/exhibit/interpret and alert their audiences to the reasons of (certain) anachronistic whims of their collections and, as argued here, mediation approaches. Museums are generative spaces; they construct frameworks for social understanding. As such […] its metaphors and rhetorics, the content and the style, play pedagogic roles in the construction of knowledge and identities, in producing potential for leaning, and in the mobilisation of desires. Much of the work of museums in the past has involved the establishment of a canon. Canons create order by giving authority to certain texts, figures, ideas, problems, discursive strategies and historical narratives. This is a strategy of boundary maintenance through which some are enabled to speak and empowered but others are silenced and marginalised.55

Again, one talks about museum education as a form of cultural politics, which means not only a concern with analysis of the production and representation of meaning and how museum practices are implicated in the dynamics of power (discourse of critique), but also an action and engagement in the creation of alternative/resistant meanings (project of possibility). This political dimension of museum education suggests that educators have to be attentive to the obvious and covert ideological and institutional forces that inform, mediate and constrain their work. It also suggests a critical recognition of the “rhetorical and formal strategies that determin(es) the

50  Miriam Celeste Martins, Mediaçao: estudos iniciais de um conceito, in: Mediaçao: provocaçoes estéticas, Sao Paulo: Universidade Estadual Paulista, 2005, pp. 54–55. 51  Pablo Helguera, Notes toward a transpedagogy, in: Art, architecture, pedagogy: Experiments in learning, 2010, pp. 99–112. 52  Giroux and Trend 1992 (as fn. 36). 53  Ibid., p. 62. 54  Mieke Bal, Telling, showing, showing off, in: Critical Inquiry 18 (1992), pp. 556–594. 55  Hooper-Greenhill 2000 (as fn. 6), pp. 20–21.

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work’s meaning, reception, and use”56 as mentioned earlier. This approach to critical museum education may entail, for example, a wariness of the forces that aestheticise difference and commodify dissent. It may also address how various people engage with such representations in the practice of comprehension and significance. This consideration highlights the importance of understanding what actually happens in museums by raising questions regarding what knowledge is of most worth, in what direction one should desire, and what it means to know something. In this regard, the first gesture of the museum is indeed “interpretation” and making the exhibition of mediality, as Agamben57 calls it, visible in a profound ethical gesture. As Meszaros argues, “the circulation of sense-making repertoires is not only a hefty task for which the museum must take responsibility; it is, more crucially, an ethical issue”.58 By doing so, museums would move from their mere “self-representation” to a true “reflective representation”59 and from an “information museology” to a “performative”60 and activist one, as already pointed out. In this desire for reflection and performativity, Jenny Kidd61 goes even further by warranting that museums “have become live sites of struggle, through and in which groups and individuals have questioned authority, authenticity, ownership, voice, absence and silence”.62 The idea of a critical, interrogative, activist and ethical museum is implicit in these notions. One that takes responsibility for the kinds of individuals and societies it shapes. It is not a matter of inculcating moral values or civic virtues as the first public museums guided by civilisational ideals did, but rather of promoting spaces for ethical thinking. That is, spaces to reflect on how values and moral issues have become institutionalised, normalised and internalised by all. For these reasons, and in particular in terms of vision, critical museum education sees itself as a provider of inquisitive spaces that does not shy away from debate and controversy. While openly dialoguing with other possibilities, it embraces the shifting ground of the margins and “takes sides”. The critical, interrogative, performative, activist and ethical museum aims at standing before human rights and social justice issues, overcoming unproductive binary narratives, and taking on a position of radical availability. In this renamed museum pedagogy, museum professionals understand that reality is transformable and recognise problematic issues rather than overlooking them; they can act propositionally.

56  Giroux and Trend 1992 (as fn. 35), p. 69. 57  Giorgio Agamben, Means without end: Notes on politics, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000, p. 58. 58  Cheryl Meszaros, Modeling Ethical Thinking: Toward New Interpretive Practices in the Art Museum, in: The Museum Journal 51 (2008), p. 165. 59  Pieterse 1997 (as fn. 35). 60  Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, The museum as catalyst, in: ICOM Sweden (ed.), Museums 2000: Confirmation or Challenge, Vadstena, 2000, pp. 1–19. 61  Jenny Kidd, Introduction, in: Jenny Kidd et al. (eds.), Challenging History in the Museum, Burlington: ­Ashgate publishing Co., 2014, pp. 1–15. 62  Ibid., p. 3.

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In Freirian terms,63 for critical museum education it is no longer a matter of thinking of the museum as the pole bearer, the depository of consciousness (e. g., historical consciousness) and the visitor as an empty pole of consciousness or bearer of an empty consciousness. In fact, visitors are neither void of conscience nor their conscience, on the other hand, is an empty deposit. As already established, such reconstructive approaches to museum education often begin by examining established power structures within the museum, exposing, decoding and disrupting the hegemonic messages in the objects, displays, curatorial statements, labels, and even in object placement and stage crafting. These approaches function as a practice of “direct agency”, a means to re‑write and engage with museum narratives in hopes to contributing to making societal improvements related to multiculturalism, feminism, the ecology and other social justice concerns. Its main educational aims take on a Freirian inspiration,64 that is, humanisation, critical conscientisation and the establishment of an interrogative museum education approach. It believes that through the praxis of reflection, action, naming, and renaming based on dialogue, love, mutual trust and horizontal partnerships museum education can be transformed and changed. Within this radical pedagogical approach, the performative and the political intersect on the terrain of a praxis-based ethic. This ethic enacts politics of possibility and radical imagination.

Radical Availability: Humanisation, Critical Conscientisation, and the Establishing of an Interrogative Museum Education Approach Humanisation The recovery of humanistic pedagogies is grounded in a long history of dissent and critical thinking (e. g., anti-colonial movements for civil rights and self-determination; promotion of a national/local consciousness and sense of cultural identity as a means of self-representation and assertion). Its education projects and “pedagogy of the oppressed”, to borrow Paulo Freire’s expression, are frequently associated with emancipation from dominant power/knowledge structures (emancipation from the “pedagogy of servitude” that is, the emancipation from Eurocentric representations of non-Europeans, whether inspired by Orientalism or by other discourses that instituted a global hierarchy of peoples along the lines of race; emancipation from a patriarchal system of power that maintains problematic hierarchical binaries of masculinity and femininity) and the rehabilitation of marginalised knowledges, practices and voices together with the creation/ recreation of hybrid forms of culture. This humanistic approach to pedagogy is rooted in ideas and practices that outdo conventional borders and involves a collective process of bringing together people drawn from very different backgrounds, imaginaries and practices in mutual exchange and expression. In this manner, the museum becomes also a site of true mutuality,65 where knowledge is constructed, rather than transmitted, through the account of multiple sub63  Freire 1975/1977 (as fn. 3), p. 193. 64 Ibid. 65  Hooper-Greenhill 2000 (as fn. 6), p. 11.

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jectivities and identities. This means that it aims at no longer offering an authoritarian voice, but a voice that acknowledges differences in perspectives. As such, this approach argues that theory should emerge from inquiries into forms of knowledge-practice that inhabit the in‑between spaces and are usually considered illegitimate, irrational, vernacular, tacit, embodied and sensorial. In other words, it seeks to produce de‑colonial readings of being in‑the-world making visible its inherent contradictions. Nevertheless, critical museum education is not just about rethinking museums and their epistemic endeavours in a global and local context, or discovering a forgotten “history” or practice, or either to include a marginalised point of view. The attention to cognitive structures that delegitimised these in‑between spaces of cultural expression and transmission is unquestionably central to this view; but then again, it is the different arenas where knowledge about what it means to be human and how it is creatively and collectively mediated that is at the core of their interest. Museum education is inherently a site for humanistic knowledge. As a critical pedagogy approach, museum education refers to acts of conscientious reflexive intentionality and compromised attitude with the world. That is, to an active, inquiring and investigative conscience that develops a critically conscious understanding of one’s relationship with the world. In this way, instead of being a mere transfer of knowledge, education is the authentic act of knowing, in which visitors (and educators) act as “intentional” consciences in the world, as conscious bodies and, as a consequence of the act of recognising existing knowledge, undertake the search for new knowledge.66 Thus, this is also an emancipatory museum pedagogy, meaning a pedagogy that allows both museum visitors and educators to become subjects who are consciously aware of their own personal condition as human beings in the world. Addressing these challenges nevertheless requires a broad change in the way the museum imagines and performs its interpretive and pedagogical responsibilities. A critical approach to museum education involves a way of thinking about, negotiating, transforming the relationship museum-visitor in museums, the production of knowledge, the institutional structures of the museum and the social and material relations of the wider community, society, and so on. In the single narrative museum, the voice of the museum, for example, tends to take over those of its visitors. The museum guides visitors as to what to see, what to read, and where to go next, mostly taking on the imposition of an explanatory and authoritative voice. Visitors are treated as passive recipients of knowledge as opposed to learning agents. The role of the educator is to “give awareness” to visitors and to give them consciousness is to fill their consciousness with the consciousness of the museum. As a result, both the museum and visitors become depositories: on one hand, the museum is understood as a depository of history, knowledge and art, and, on the other hand, visitors are seen as depositories of what the museum has contained, collected, and imposed. This view of knowledge reinforces subject/object relations in which professionals always speak for non-professionals and the value of everyday experience is inherently devalued. It fails to acknowledge that stories and images change when viewed by different people, at different places and at different historical moments. For one thing, it does not recognise that reception is an inherent part of the process and that signification is, therefore, always local and contextual; for another, it does not acknowledge the reciprocal character of speech acts and meaning-ma­ 66  Freire 1977 (as fn. 3), pp. 136–140.

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king, the realisation that knowledge is produced within the “museum experience” complex dimensions and that this production needs to be encouraged and expanded. In practice, this view on knowledge and education establishes a hierarchy that identifies curators and educators as “experts” to whom visitors must always look for knowledge, insight or inspiration. Intellectual products pass from institutionally knowledgeable and certified senders (bearers of conscience) to visitors (empty consciousness vessels). In this manner, rather than a dialogic process, knowledge becomes a static currency that can be accumulated and exchanged as in the Freirian banking critique to education. Establishing an Interrogative and Dialogue-based Museum Education Changing museum education to a humanised one is only feasible through dialogue. Nonetheless, the museum is neither a raw material for humanisation, nor a guileless resource to be mapped and appropriated. The codes of the museum are not still, waiting only to be read; on the contrary, the museum is both a social artefact and an active subject with whom critical museum education strikes up non-innocent conversations by means of prosthetic devices, including visualisation technologies.67 In this regard, museum education is not a resource but an active agent. Hence, dialogue is nor a formality, nor a simple exchange of ideas, but rather an indispensable condition for the very act of knowing and acting in the world.68 Similarly to Charles Garoian’s69 call to “perform the museum” through “dialogic play”70 museum education is performed, also taking a role in translating and integrating the various elements of the museum (and of our complex world) and seeing each part as a chain that makes up the complex museum object. These performed and multivoiced spaces are activated namely through relevant and multidirectional problem/questioning-posing approaches. Departing from the work of Linell71, who takes on a more abstract and comprehensive understanding of the concept of dialogue with reference to dialogic theories about any form of human-sense making, semiotic practice, action, interaction, thinking or communication, Olga Dysthe72 associates her broader notion on dialogue to the internal dialogue with the self (conscientisation); a dialogue between ideas, a dialogue with artefacts, as well as an interaction between two or more persons. Genuine dialogue, she says, “is characterised by the fact that we experience each other as being personally and genuinely present and that the other is viewed as a real and unique person. This also means that we accept and affirm each other as persons”.73

67  Donna Haraway, Situated knowledes: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial parspective, in: Feminist studies 14 (3) (1988), pp. 575–599; Charles R. Garoian, The prosthetic pedagogy of art: Embodied research and practice, New York: Suny Press, 2013. 68  Freire 1977 (as fn. 3), p. 200. 69  Charles R. Garoian, Performing the museum, in: Studies in art education 42 (3) (2001), pp. 234–248. 70  Ibid., p. 247. 71  Per Linell, Rethinking language, mind and world dialogically, Charlotte: IAP, 2009. 72  Olga Dysthe, Nana Bernhardt and Line Esbjoorn, Dialogue-Based Teaching: The art museum as a learning space, Skoletjenesten, 2013, p. 52. 73  Ibid., p. 55.

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Dysthe74 also calls on the work of Bakhtin to emphasise that dialogue is the very foundation for all human understanding. Dialogue is at the core of a relational attitude, focused on the interpretative and meaning-making and other type of relations created. In this sense, museum education, both as process and product, is relational through connecting objects, ideas and people together. Relational pedagogy is a third communicative path between the two main roads built in education during the twentieth century: the object/educator-centred one and the visitor/learner-centred. Aspelin75 defines it as a theoretical perspective on humans as relational beings which “is based on the idea of subjectivity as founded in inter-subjectivity”. Instead of focusing on individuals or on the collective, it focuses on the in‑between spaces created among these poles by the interplay between those who communicate, and the response from the other. Meaning is created within these spaces and is the activating principle that creates understanding. When visitors create new meaning by reacting to what others say, a network of other voices is also activated. As Dysthe76 puts it, “what they have heard, read, or seen before plays in when they respond and, since each visitor’s experiences are unique, the utterance becomes ’unrepeatable’”. Importantly, Dysthe refers to Bakhtin’s use of the concept of “voice” to designate the speaking personality. That is, a visitor/educator enters into dialogue as an integral voice. From this socioconstructivist point of view, when different voices are expressed they always do so from their own point of view, permeated by sociocultural and personal experience.77 Again, I am associating these meaning-making spaces to situated knowledges and subjectivities. In Bakhtin’s terms, as Dysthe goes on to say,78 it is through negotiation of meaning in the encounter and confrontation79 between different voices that understanding and knowledge emerges. Here, dialogue is not consensual as a goal; on the contrary, it values the articulation of difference and embraces the difficult terrain of uncertainty and contradiction. Thus, dialogue is seen here as a situated engagement between people and, as such, cannot be seen merely as a method or a technique. It is within these relational interstitial spaces and through dialogue, sharing, critical inquiry, expression, connectedness… that uniqueness emerges and critical/narrative imagination is activated.80 As useful tenets on these interpersonal dimensions of education to refer to in this context the following are mentioned: the human being is a relational being; relationships are the foundation for human existence; we live in a pluralistic world; the searchlight is aimed at interpersonal interactions, and the in‑between and face‑to-face; human subjectivity is intersubjectively constituted; teaching and learning are seen as relational processes; visitors' participation is in focus. These relational spaces are multilayered and link various components of growth and development, drawing together both the subjective and the intersubjective. They also bring 74  Ibid., pp. 58–59. 75  Jonas Aspelin, Beyond individualised teching, in: Education Inquiry 5 (2) (2014), p. 235. 76  Dysthe 2013 (as fn. 62), p. 59. 77  Ibid., p. 60. 78  Ibid., pp. 61–62. 79  The mere juxtaposition of voices is not sufficient, discourse only becomes dialogical when ideas are tested and confronted applying, namely, narrative/critical imagination strategies. 80  Von Wright 2002 (as fn. 45).

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about ways of being in the world, such as actuality, potentiality (a state of growth, stillness and listening, reciprocity or empathy). That is, ways of building connection through being present and listening deeply.81 But listening “does not simply mean we hear other voices when they speak but that we also learn to listen to the voice of our own hearts as well as inner voices”.82 These powerful museum education approaches to building ways of “complete the loop between inquiry and expression, connection and belonging”.83 As already established, dialogue is not an end in itself. The interest lies not only in how dialogue contributes to meaning-making, but also in how dialogical practices promote the visitor’s ability to think critically and imagine the world. Freire calls this method “pedagogy of questioning”. Whereas the banking model of education is said to kill creativity, problem-posing education chooses dialogue and thinking over repetition and lecturing to constantly attempt to discover the reality. The former is said to obstruct conscientisation while the latter attempts to manifest conscientisation and critical thinking, it is humanising and liberating. Here, all knowledge begins with the question, since without questions we do not seek answers, which in turn should only be sought from questions. In practice, educators create with visitors the habit of posing questions so that visitors, in a process of enduring education, become great questioners of themselves and of the world. Asking questions is not asking randomly or drawing empty and senseless questions which intention is merely associated with a “pedagogy of the answer”.84 Problem/ questioning-posing is prepositional and fully engaged with the world. In this sense, it is “a practice of objectivity that privileges contestation, deconstruction, passionate construction, webbed connections, and hope for the transformation of systems of knowledge and ways of seeing”.85 Problem/questioning-posing museum education depends, then, on a dialogical theory of praxis and self-knowledge and on a revised relationship between educators and visitors. It requires a semiotic-material technology to link meanings and bodies, and an atmosphere that supports critical investigation of the assumptions that are made by museum repertoires. Haraway argues that these interrogative technologies are ways of life, social orders, and practices of visualisation: how to see? Where to see from? What limits to vision? What to see? Whom to see with? Who gets to have more than one point of view? Who gets blinded? Who wears blinders? Who interprets the museum field? What other sensory powers do we wish to cultivate besides vision? […] How should one be positioned in order to see, in this situation of tensions, resonances, transformations, resistances, and complicities?”.86 These are interrogative skilled practices that invite visitors to think critically and make them aware of their own condition and the world in which they live. These technologies and atmosphere allow visitors and educators to become jointly responsible for the learning process and contribute to breaking down the vertical characteristics of the submissive banking system and its dichotomic counterparts (the knowing and the

81  82  83  84  85  86 

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Ibid., pp. 41–42. Bell Hooks, All about love: New visions, New York: William Morrow and Company, 2000, p. 157. Von Wright 2002 (as fn. 45), p. 40. Freire 1977 (as fn. 3), p. 201. Haraway 1988 (as fn. 57), pp. 584–485. Ibid., pp. 587–588.

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ignorant, the capable and the incapable) and to enhancing more horizontal intellectual relationships. Through mutual relationship, humanisation, critical thinking and conscientisation, instead of a passive confrontation with the world, visitors make meaning based on their own personal histories, memories, knowledge and experience. That is, based on present, existential, concrete situations that reflect the aspirations of both visitors and educators. Incorporating connections to identity motivations and the context of the real world allows for the development of motivated visitors, consistently activating the processes of critical inquiry to support emancipated learning. In this sense, visitors are not only empowered to act as learning agents, but all involved are positioned as subjects (individual subjectivity and identity). The value of curatorial specialised knowledge and the prepositional nature of museum education are not denied herein. However, it is the creation of a transformed learning environment that, in Haraway’s terms,87 not only feeds on and explores self-knowledge (necessarily partial and never finished as well as always constructed and stitched together imperfectly) but also invites visitors to interpret this knowledge in thought-provoking ways that are relevant to their lives (visitors as agents of learning) and enable all “to see together without claiming to be another”88, that sustains the view of an emancipated knowledge and museum education. By the same token, emancipated museum education, that is, education that builds on mutual and horizontal relationships, is an empowering and transformative process and enables a change in the way that all the involved perceive and transform their world, also meaning that educators and visitors will face challenges which invite them to reflect on the nature of knowledge and, ultimately, make their own decisions. Positioning implies responsibility and accountability for our enabling practices. All voices (educators and visitors) should be just as heard, equally responsible and accountable for interrogating prevalent museum dichotomic repertoires and its silent pedagogies, and for building more critical museum knowledges and ways of seeing, understanding and acting in the world. Situated and embodied knowledges that, in the words of Haraway, sustain “the possibility of webs of connections which are called solidarity in politics and shared conversations in epistemology”. Knowledge, which is not universal, is made of webbed accounts and is undoubtedly a map of tensions and resonances, yet it is “potent for constructing worlds less organised by axes of domination”89 and “views from nowhere, from simplicity”.90 Furthermore, “its images are not the products of escape and transcendence of limits (the view from above) but the joining of partial views and halting voices into a collective subject position that promises a vision of the means of on­ going finite embodiment, of living within limits and contradictions of views from somewhere”.91 This approach also reflects dissatisfaction with Kantian models of aesthetic transcendence that separate the worlds of museums from life. Museum educators are increasingly recognising the limits of apolitical appropriation, pastiche and bricolage in a world of lived homophobia, racial oppression and escalating economic inequity. Necessary as it is to struggle in the political

87 Ibid. 88  Ibid., p. 586. 89  Ibid., pp. 584–585. 90  Ibid., p. 589. 91  Ibid., p. 190.

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terrain of representation, the need is becoming equally apparent to bring those struggles into the world of material relations. Otherwise, museum education runs the risk of slipping into abstract solipsism and sustaining a form of textual criticism that ignores its own political constraints and the material dimensions of human suffering and power.92 However, as Elisabeth Ellsworth has vigorously warned, critical pedagogy’s recourse to dialogue can also be experienced as repressive for visitors who think or believe differently and may reproduce relations of domination and act as a vehicle for repression. Critical pedagogy may give the illusion of equity while leaving the authoritarian nature of the educator/visitor relationship intact. “Why doesn’t this feel empowering?” asks Ellsworth93 in the title of an essay that draws attention to the way in which the call to dialogue is also an exercise of power, with its accompanying assumptions and expectations regarding educators’ authority, communication norms, legitimate forms of participation and privileged differences and identities. Discussion of uneven power relations leads to fundamental questions about the very possibility of dialogue at this particular historical moment. Ellsworth94 argues that dialogue in its conventional sense is impossible in the culture at large due to unjust power relations and that the way in which those injustices distort communication cannot be overcome in museum education, no matter how committed the educator and visitors are to overcome this condition. Despite commitments to shake off authoritarian stances, not all voices carry equal legitimacy and power in dialogue within museum education spaces. Furthermore, social agents are always subjects split between the conscious and unconscious and among multiple social positionings which are forcibly partial and partisan (fragmented). Partial and partisan, she says, “in the sense that they are unfinished, imperfect, limited; and partial in the sense that they project the interests of ‘one side’ over others”.95 They are partial in that they are “self-interested and predicated on the exclusion of the voices of others and partial in the sense that the meaning of an individuals or group’s experience is never self-­evident or complete.”96 In her research work “Between the Camouflaged and the Unveiled Potentialities of the Mediation of the Contemporary Art on Outdoor Exhibition” Vanessa Freitas points out some of these dissonances that, as she says, appear to be democratic and participatory, but then ultimately reproduce traditional forms of knowledge transmission: instead of cultivating autonomy of the subjects in these processes, these practices often create a dependence on the relationship among educator, visitor and object for the construction of meaning. By contrast, she suggests a decentralised mediation understood as a transversal element of the museum. Placing mediation on a more comprehensive position will allow these practices to be aligned with the paradigmatic

92  Giroux and Trend 1992 (as fn. 36), p. 62. 93  Elizabeth Ellsworth, Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working thourgh the repressive myths of critical pedagogy, in: Harvard educational review 59 (3) (1989), pp. 297–325. 94  Ibid., p. 316. 95  Ibid., p. 305. 96  Ibid., p. 318.

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changes required for responding, in particular, to the critique of commodification of education in cultural institutions.97 Within education spaces, handling disagreement and different viewpoints is an essential part of the dialogical process. However, as Mercer and Littleton emphasize, one that can lead to the smoothing out of disagreements, where weaker parties give in, or that the minority yield to the majority without being convinced. It is easy (perhaps tempting?) to fall into the practice of monologue and elucidation. Hence, in the exercise of dialogue, there is a need for constant vigilance.98 If, for example, we use the question device from a stimulus and response approach (behaviourist), the meaning-making process is compromised, creating a naturalisation or standardisation of this facilitating mechanism. Even the counter-question method, when used randomly, that is, when the visitor asks the question and the professional replies with another question, can result in the opposite effect of what one hopes to achieve, giving the impression that any answer will do, or that the meaning is obvious, or even that nobody knows anything. Nevertheless, as argued before, dialogue as understood in this context cannot enforce a harmony of interests or be based on any vision of completeness, synchrony, self-evidence or sameness. This is why Ellsworth99 calls for a “Pedagogy of the Unknowable” that recognizes differences as “different strengths” and as “forces for change.100 A kind of knowing in which objects, nature, and “Others” are seen to be known or ultimately knowable, in the sense of being “defined, delineated, captured, understood, explained, and diagnosed” at a level of determination never accorded to the “knower” herself or himself”.101 In this sense, museum education practice and, in particular, dialogue, should be “a practice grounded in the unknowable which is profoundly contextual (historical) and interdependent (social)”.102 Acknowledging that these dialogic tensions cannot be fully resolved marks a significant shift away from idealistic thinking about dialogue. Rather than viewing dialogue as an ideal that we should aim to achieve, as a pre-determined solution, dialogue should be viewed as a problem, riddled with tensions with which museum education is constantly confronted. Navigating these tensions, Lefstein says,103 “is usually not a matter of choosing between dialogue or monologue, but between competing dialogic concerns”. Moreover, as already seen, while a dialogic approach may encourage, empower and foster growth for some visitors, it may also silence and alienate others. Educators need to be aware of and sensitive to such unbalances. Power relations

97  Vanesa Nascimento Freitas, Entre o Camuflado e o Desvelado potencialidades da Mediaçao da Arte Contemporânea ao Ar Livre, Ph.D thesis in Museology, Porto: Universidade do Porto, 2018, p. 277. 98  Julia R. Pinto, Reflexoes sobre o meio: O Espaço entre a Escola e o Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Doutoramento em Educaçao Artistica, Universidade do Porto, 2015. 99  Ellsworth 1989 (as fn. 93). 100  Ibid., p. 318. 101  Ibid., pp. 320–321. 102  Ibid., p. 323. 103  Adam Lefstein, More helpful as problem than solution, in: Karen Littleton and Christine Howe (eds.), Educational Dialogues: Understanding and Promoting Productive Interaction, London: Routledge, 2010, pp. 170–191.

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are implicated in all human intercourse and attempts to dismiss them from dialogue serve some interests while harming others, therefore, ultimately self-defeating. In her ground-breaking article, Ellsworth104 declares that educators (museums) should be accountable for naming the political agenda behind a particular programme. Hence why written museum education policies are vital to disclose and affirm a prepositional positioning in particular historical contexts. Questions of a more general crisis of the concept of authority and how it relates to power/knowledge are raised here. Side-stepping of anything suggesting of authority is at the heart of the visitor-centred versus museum-centred debate. But, deceptively, the avoidance of imposition in the name of freedom seems to frame the issue incorrectly at the outset. Resorting to the work of Saul Morson and Bakhtin, Olga Dysthe105 highlights that in this context it is also necessary to distinguish between a positive and a negative form of authority. On one hand, she says, “authoritative discourse based on the authority of power, tradition, or ignorance (which makes doubt or testing impossible) and, on the other hand, about authoritative discourse based on trust and respect (which opens up dialogue)”. Paraphrasing Dysthe, one might say that in the museum education context, visitors’ trust in the educator’s/museum’s professional authority106 is a precondition for the critical testing of different voices and, thus, for them to develop their own “internally persuasive word”, whether is about knowledge, values or their own opinions about museum objects or the overall themes at hand. Dysthe certainly argues that “many have found that a professionally adept educator107 with a clear and explicit voice is precisely the kind of person to open up a dialogic testing of diverging viewpoints. She is, indeed, someone who can even do it by using provocation”.108 This point of view is not far from Arendt’s109 thought on authority. In her view, the lack of authority erodes the fundamental relationship between educator/museum and visitor110 based on mutual trust. Mutual trust, as already pointed, out is essentially positive and constructive rather than negative and limiting. While the deconstruction of a hierarchical order is desirable from the point of view of the interrogative museum, it may also, however, have some undesirable and unexpected effects with regard to the roles of educator and visitor. Making a parallel with the context of schools, the danger is, as Dahlbeck and Lilja argue,111 that the notion of museum educator as, above all, an altruistic provider of services makes for a weak concept insofar as museum education is then reduced to a helping profession that is “unsustainable and ultimately undesirable because it tends to collapse into asceticism and

104  Ellsworth 1989 (as fn. 93). 105  Dysthe 2013 (as fn. 62), pp. 63–64. 106  Associated with trust. 107  In the original, Teacher. 108  Dysthe 1989 (as fn. 93), p. 64. 109  Hannah Arendt, What is authority?, in: Between past and future 91/92 (1958), http://la.utexas.edu/users/ hcleaver/330T/350kPEEArendtWhatIsAuthorityTable.‌pdf (accessed May 5, 2019). 110  In the original, teacher and student. 111  Johan Dahlbeck and Peter Lilja, The concept of authority and the Swedish educational crisis, in: Philo­ sophy of Education 2016, Illinois: Urbana, 2017.

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lead to educator burnout.112, 113 Also, they say, another unfortunate effect of the erosion of museum authority and conceiving museum education as a service to be provided is the commodification of education. As they put it: […] the problem inherent in the consumer-model is that a customer, by definition, seeks out a given service or product in order to satisfy an already identified need or desire with a certain preconceived solution in mind. In education, however, the very notion that we already know what we want or desire is at odds with the image of education as an introduction into a world not yet fully known (…).114

Consequently, the task ahead, as they argue, might lay “in the establishment of a viable concept of authority for a pluralistic democratic society”, in relation to which the roles of museum educator and visitor can become meaningful and be conceived as integral parts of a common critical imaginative educational project. Such a project needs to be founded on the educators’ ability “to present the world as it is”, so that visitors “can form knowledge about this world in order to be able to change it”.115 The notion of “Threshold Concepts” introduced by Jan Meyer and Ray Land gives us the opportunity to think about this task.116 These authors state that in certain disciplines there are “conceptual portals” that lead to a transformed view of something, “the world looks different” when those boundaries are exceeded, or it may be that one sees features that were previously not discernible in a familiar landscape. This type of concept refers to broad ideas that introduce complex knowledge and new ways of understanding them. That is, it introduces complex themes, demanding the abandonment of habitual ways of seeing things, of previous and familiar visions. This departure implies a disturbing ontological change of something established and, therefore, the main characteristic of a threshold concept is its transforming capacity. Moreover, these concepts seem to have an integrative function, in the sense that they show relationships that were not previously apparent, bringing together other pieces of the puzzle to provide a new and perhaps more significant perspective. Mutuality and trust are part of this notion that constructs museum education spaces as being prepositional. Nevertheless, the proposal for an interrogative museum education cannot be confused with an education that does not seek answers and is not committed to building knowledge. Not having all the answers cannot prevent educators from responsibly formulating some provisional (and certainly risky) answers.117 This, of course, presupposes a bond of trust between educators and visitors based on society’s trust in the museum. Also, they infer, “such trust needs to be founded on some kind of shared set of beliefs, aimed at the continuation of a democratic community rather than some kind of lais-

112  In the original, teacher burnout. 113  Dahlbeck and Lilja 2017 (as fn. 111), p. 269. 114 Ibid. 115  Ibid., p. 271. 116  Jan H. F. Meyer, Ray Land and Peter Davies, Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Issues of variation and variability, Sense Publishers, 2008. 117  Cayo Honorato, Educaçao Perguntadora, in: Compartilhamento na arte: redes e conexoes, Santa Maria RS, 2015, http://anpap.org.br/anais/2015/comites/ceav/cayo_honorato.‌pdf (accessed June 20, 2016).

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sez-faire individualism manifested in the image of the visitor118 as a consumer”. It is important to note, however, that museums119 are not democratic in themselves.120 Reflexivity (or dialogue about dialogue) has to be an integral part of this move: […] the element of reflexivity puts within the concept of dialogue the possibility of renegotiating, as part of an ongoing dialogical engagement, questions of inclusiveness, linguistic difference, bias, domination, and so forth. None of this guarantees the success of such attempts to identify, critique, and renegotiate those limits; but one need not necessarily step outside of the dialogical relation in order to challenge them.121

Freire also warns us that dialogue and dialogic spaces cannot exist without love, humility, faith, trust, hope and critical thinking. The naming of the world not only involves analysis and systemic criticism but is a true act of creation and re‑creation based on love for the world and its people. It is not possible if it is not infused with love and humility, that is, dialogue (and change) cannot exist in the absence of a profound love for the world and for human beings and cannot be an act of arrogance. For instance, bell hooks (2000) describes love as much more than a feeling. Love involves various ingredients: care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment and trust, as well as honest and open communication. A love grounded in actions that demonstrates respect is a positive force, especially as it automatically assumes accountability and responsibility. It is this love ethic that encodes possibility for harnessing emotional power in the name of transformation. As hooks states, “I want to know loves' truths as we live them”. These “truths” of love can be found in museums as we enact a critical museum pedagogy. Also, dialogue entails an intense faith in humanity: faith in its power to name the world together, to make and remake, to create and re‑create the world; faith in its vocation to be more fully human. Indeed, the naming of the world through dialogue is a matter of actively assuming our right and collective duty as communicative and emotional beings, to invent and reinvent the world in which we live as active objects and subjects of history (museums included). Founding itself upon love, humility, and faith, dialogue also involves mutual trust and hope. Relationships of trust relate to ways of being and provide the basis for joint communication, interdependence and further ability to solve relational questions. Hope is an ontological need.122 As Nouri and Sajjadi put it,123 “hope rooted in human beings” incompleteness and constant search, a search which can be carried out only in communion with others”.124 Drawing on Freire’s

118  In the original, student. 119  In the original, schools. 120  Dahlbeck and Lilja 2017 (as fn. 111), p. 271. 121  Nicholas C. Burbules and Bertram C. Bruce, Theory and research on teaching as dialogue, in: Virginia Richardson (ed.), Handbook of research on teaching, Washington: American Educational Research Association, 2001, pp. 1102–1121. 122  Paulo Freire, Pedagogia da esperança: um reencontro com a pedagogia do oprimido, in: Obra de Paulo Freire (Série Artigos), 1992, pp. 147–149. 123  Ali Nouri and Seyed Mahdi Sajjadi, Emancipatory Pedagogy in Practice: Aims, Principles and Curriculum Orientation, in: The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 5 (2) (2014). 124  Ibid., pp. 79–80.

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readings, Denzin125 also says that “hope is the desire to dream, the desire to change, the desire to improve human existence”. Thus, “hope is ethical. Hope is moral. Hope is peaceful and nonviolent. Hope seeks the truth of life’s sufferings. Hope gives meaning to the struggles to change the world. Hope is grounded in concrete performative practices, in struggles and interventions that espouse the sacred values of love, care, community, trust and well-being. Hope, as a form of pedagogy, confronts and interrogates cynicism, the belief that change is not possible or is too costly. Hope works from rage to love”.126 Giroux and Trend127 also maintain that in order to apply a notion of leadership and pedagogical practice that combines a discourse of hope with forms of self- and social criticism, requires cultural workers (museum educators, in this case) to reject all forms of objectivism and distance. Instead, they need to reclaim and reassert the importance of a discourse and politics of location that recognizes how power, history and ethics are inextricably intertwined so as to position, enable and limit our work within shifting relations of power. This represents museum educators as public intellectuals who combine a sense of their own partiality with a commitment for social justice, hope and resilience. Finally, relevant dialogue cannot exist without critical thinking. That is, thinking as a means to find and make meaning in the world, make sense of our experience, and understand our engagement with the social and physical environment; this thinking does not separate itself from action, but constantly immerses itself in temporality without fear of the risks involved, with the ultimate goal being living well and productively in the world. Critical Conscientisation From this emancipatory museum pedagogy standpoint, one of the most important characteristics of authentic learning is the manifestation of “conscientisation”. That is, of a conscientisation of, for example, curatorial authority which implies both objective (the existence of authoritative acts and negation of the museum as an open space) and subjective factors (the conscience by visitors and educators of these acts and their disposition to change the state of things).128 Nonetheless, as Freire puts it,129 unveiling, knowing reality does not yet imply its transformation: if there is no awareness without the unveiling of objective reality, such disclosure, even if it follows a new perception and renaming of reality, is not yet enough to authenticate awareness. For museum educators, this means, for example, thinking critically about their own practices, recognising existing problems, and creating new museum education practices that can be challenged again and again through a repetitive process of naming, renaming and new-naming. Questions of representation, as recurrently pointed out along this text, are a central node for reflection as they are central not only to the production and deconstruction of ideologies but also and primary to “the construction of pedagogical practices that address how knowledge and power come together to produce particular ways of being in the world, particular ways of

125  126  127  128  129 

Denzin 2009 (as fn.19). Ibid., p. 385. Giroux and Trend 1992 (as fn. 36), p. 63. Freire 1977 (as fn. 3), p. 185. Ibid., p. 204.

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dreaming and desiring and how these are taken up by dominant and subordinate groups within specific historical and cultural contexts.”130 As such, the task of museums and museum education becomes far subtler than the mere discussion and correction, for example, of negative stereotypes through the rearranging of exhibitions deploying positive images. As these authors point out, “beyond this level of textual critique, we also need to scrutinise the structures through which such questions are formulated, for no other reason than to examine the way they divert attention from such dominant categories as maleness and whiteness. In this regard, even the progressive and constructionist position that interrogates the relationship of the margin to the centre must be questioned for the authoritative privilege it affords its European practitioners, even if it ­critiques them. In effect, this means developing a notion of culture and political struggle informed by a language that is simultaneously historical, political, critical, pedagogical and hopeful.”131 In this critical museum, becoming a museum educator involves considerably more than accumulating skills and strategies. It is also a matter of attitude and, as already seen, ways of being in the world. Ways that involve a critical/narrative imagination, love for the world, hope and trust, and a relentless vigilance. Moreover, it involves, as Larrivee points out,132 both the capacity for critical inquiry and self-reflection. Since it implies a deep examination of values and personal beliefs incorporated into assumptions (such as pedagogical routines, how visitors are “imagined”, etc.), critical research is not solely self-reflection. Critical reflection involves not only the examination of personal and professional belief systems, but also its ethical implications and the impact of interpretive authority in educational practices. Cheryl Meszaros133 argues that critically engaged interpretative practice seeks, for example, to explore interpretative authority by understanding it as a potent tool for meaning-making. A tool sustained by powerful discourses of truth about the world. Her problematising approach to interpretive authority which, as already ascertained, often takes the form of texts, lectures, or educational programmes/activities, is indeed of use here. Meszaros associates interpretative authority with the social imaginary, arguing that the exhibition of “the discourses and repertories of meaning-making that constitute, sustain, and make sense of the objects and stories in their exhibitions”134 plays a central role in its understanding. These repertoires and vocabularies are essential, because “although there may be great debate as to what extent we are or can be shaped by the culture that rears us, there is little dispute that we are indeed shaped by the language, habits and customs that create both a social world and the idea of an individual.”135 Thus, critical reflection includes both the concept of critical inquiry and self-reflection and defines a basic skill, competence, attitude of a reflective education practitioner. Hence the challenge for museum education is to make discourses, values and

130  Giroux and Trend 1992 (as fn. 36), p. 68. 131 Ibid. 132  Barbara Larrivee, transforming teaching practice: becoming the critically reflective teacher, in: Reflective Practice 1 (2000), pp. 293–294. 133  Meszaros 2008 (as fn. 58), pp. 163–165. 134  Ibid., p. 158. 135  Ibid., p. 163.

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interpretative repertoires of the museum and its pedagogical practices visible and accessible to visitors. Also, a praxeological approach to museum education work is called for in this context, understood as a strategic critical conscientisation method to provide the basis of a language of both critique and possibility (imagination) that allows multiple solidarities and possibilities as part of a new vision to rethink the meaning of museum education and museums in the contemporary world. Here, praxeology deals with the empirical question of how social practices of the museum and museum education constitute the world. In this sense, it has a dual nature: it is pr‑axiological (because of the pragmatic values and criteria implied) as well as praxio-logical (because of its ends-means, relationships and regularities).136 On one hand, it refers both to the specific methodological approaches to explore museum education practices, activities, actions and praxis empirically and, on the other, to its theories of action. Through reflection (phronesis) and action (praxis) immersed within an awareness about power (politics) and a sharpened focus on values (ethics) as related to museum education thinking and acting, museum education is praxeologically reconstructed in order to work out its meanings, effects, interdependencies, etc.137 The focus on phronesis, praxis, politics and ethics lies also on bodily, performative, tacit and emergent aspects of museum practices and its silent pedagogies by which museum education worldviews are also produced. As argued, the critical museum is a space for self-reflexivity for all, one which provides a space to meet, debate and reflect. As such, the knowledge of museum education repertoires is an integrated part of these critical spaces, since its unpacking allows everyone involved (museum-educator-visitor) to take on responsibility for the way they appropriate, manifest and reproduce them in their practices and lives, in exhibitions, ways of collecting, pedagogies, etc. These questioning and reflection spaces invite the museum-educator-visitor to a self-conscious involvement with their own meaning-making mechanisms. Besides, “thinking about one’s thin­ king” has recently emerged as a common thread among museum education programmes which argue for the use of metacognition and mindfulness techniques both with visitors and museum professionals. Metacognition focuses on the process of learning and at its core is indeed the act of thinking about one’s own thinking. It involves two major engagements: reflection and self-re­ gulation. Reflection involves an awareness of what we know and what we do not know, and of the thinking strategies we are using. Self-regulation involves planning one’s own approach to learning, monitoring one’s activities at the moment, checking outcomes, and other processes involved in managing how we go about learning. As such, reflection is also active learning. A variety of strategies to instil metacognition and facilitate the process of reflection are explicitly employed in museum education programmes and training. From think-aloud approaches to

136  Wojciech W. Gasparski, Rationality of and preparation for action, in: Wojciech W. Gasparski, Marek K, Mlicki and Bela H. Banathy (eds.), Social Agency: Dilemmas and Education Praxiology, Transaction Publishers, 1996, pp. 1–9. 137  Chris Pascal and Tony Bertram, Praxis, ethics and power: developing praxeology as a participatory paradigm for early childhood research, in: European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 20 (4) (2012), pp. 477–492.

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model thinking process, to self-assessment, mind mapping (making thinking visible), to thinking routines like Think/Pair/Share and See/Think/Wonder (helping educators/visitors create mental patterns that become automatic), and insight-based strategies to encourage slow processes of engaging with objects, metacognition helps all those involved to learn how they think. By naming what one knows and describing the thinking skills one uses to gain the new knowledge, we are not only building the new content, but also a vocabulary of thinking strategies that we can call upon when faced with future cognitive challenges. This transparency of learning that metacognition facilitates also helps in the transfer of skills and knowledge from museum learning to real-life contexts. This side of critical self-reflexivity is one of the dividing lines between constructivist learning theory and ethical thinking, much more aligned with approaches closer to the critical pedagogy increasingly embraced by museums (at least rhetorically). In fact, the reference to ethics is notorious in these approaches: this exhibition of repertoires and self-reflection directs attention to the ways in which values become instituted, normalised and internalised in the community of practice’s social imaginary. Reflection also implies knowledge and, in this case, Meszaros138 speaks of the need to “understand comprehension”. Only this knowledge will allow us to displace the kind of knowledge hierarchies and power relations that continue to be representative among educators and “haunt the spaces of the museum”. Furthermore, just as the gnosiological cycle does not end at the stage of acquiring existing knowledge since it extends to the stage of creating new knowledge, awareness cannot stop at the stage of unveiling reality. Without action, words become mere empty vessels of reflection. In order to transform the world, action is essential.139 Again, true conscientisation forcibly leads to political action. However, action and reflection must be balanced otherwise an unhelpful dichotomy in the world is created. Separated from practice, reflection and theory is pure inoperative verbalism; disengaged from reflection and theory, practice is blind activism. For this very reason, there is no authentic praxis outside the dialectical unity of action-reflection, practice-theory. Likewise, there is no theoretical true context “except in dialectical unity with the concrete context.”140 Thus, conscientisation implies knowing that it includes understanding and the ability to act on the learning in such a way as to effect a change. It implies taking action and its authenticity occurs only when the practice of the unveiling of the museum apparatus constitutes a dynamic and dialectical unity with the practice of the transformation of this same reality.141 The importance of reflection, action, critical thinking and the will to transform reality is hereby emphasised.

Great Expectations Knowledge and its organisation continues to be a fundamental component of curatorial authority, one which transverses all its dimensions, namely a pedagogical one. However, over the last 138  139  140  141 

136

Meszaros 2008 (as fn. 58), pp. 166–168. Freire 1977 (as fn. 3), p. 190. Ibid., p. 189. Ibid., p. 204.

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decades, the world has changed and the role of museums in the world has changed with it. Social and political changes have placed greater emphasis on education and new technologies, and temporary exhibitions have also gained an increasing importance in museum life. These are just a few of the factors that have shaped this change, bringing with it additional challenges associated with both knowledge production and curatorial authority. These also relate to the training of those who work in museum education. Museums open themselves up to the embodied and experiential dimensions and to the construction of a museology (an activist museum) that incorporates performative forms of democracy.142 This critical museum pays attention to the sensitive and contextual processes through which knowledge is produced and disseminated, and is, itself, attentive to its forcibly partial and positioned nature. These new conceptualisations about the role of museums in the contemporary world and, in this context, about education, have made it possible to think about museum education in a different way. Within this understanding of the museum, as an arena where issues of cultural production and creation of knowledge can and should be made, other pedagogical promises gain a new meaning. The concept of identity and an understanding of the museum as a “powerful machine for the definition of identity,”143 for example, has been central to this repositioning of museum education. The growing number of studies on the “museum experience” has also provided greater openness to new museological practices that seek to emancipate the visitor from interpretive restrictions. These studies have also supported a review of concepts and practices associated with this experience (such as learning, personal and social identity, memory, inclusion), establishing the urgency to reconsider the complexity of the museum’s communication system and of the meaning-making practices involved. A new set of best practices for visitor engagement is emerging, providing individualised and empowering experiences, promoting mindfulness, and tackling difficult content directly. Accordingly, the notion of the museum visitor has been reconfigured, expanding and opening itself up to the re‑signification processes of these mediation and knowledge spaces and their pedagogical possibilities. As the new theory of museums argues, museums respond to life outside their walls to explore social goals and actively engage with the most diverse sectors of the community.144 Now, it is time to (re)inhabit the spaces where they have lived. These complex questions require pedagogical approaches that can incorporate these findings into practices shaped by ethics and praxeology as a method. Museum education rethinks its relationship with visitors, examining questions of interpretive authority reinforced by theoretical models supported by socio-constructivism and a more philosophical and systemic view of critical pedagogy. Educators identify values, assumptions and meaning-making repertoires, unlearn 142  Homi Bhabha, DissemiNation: Time, narrative and the margins of the modern nation, in: The Location of Culture, London/New York: Routledge, 2004, pp. 139–170; Dipesh Chakrabarty, Museums in Late Democracies, in: Humanities Research 10 (1) (2002). 143  Carol Duncan, Art museums and the ritual of citizenship, in: Ivan Karp and Stephen D. Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1991, pp. 88–103. 144  Elaine Heumann Gurian, Civilizing the Museum: The Collected Writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian, New York: Routledge, 2006; Janes 2007 (as fn.117).

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vocabularies, rethink their own identity and ways of looking, doing and being. What is more, they seek explicit ways to give body to their own voice which becomes visible in the museum space. Cheryl Meszaros’s145 problematising approach to interpretive authority, which, as already ascertained, often takes the form of texts, lectures, or educational programmes/activities, is of use here. Meszaros associates interpretative authority with the “social imaginary”, arguing that the exhibition of “the discourses and repertories of meaning-making that constitute, sustain, and make sense of the objects and stories in their exhibitions” plays a central role in its understanding.146 These repertoires and vocabularies are essential, because “although there may be great debate as to what extent we are or can be shaped by the culture that rears us, there is little dispute that we are indeed shaped by the language, habits and customs that create both a social world and the idea of an individual.”147 Hence, the challenge for museum education is that of making discourses, values and interpretive repertoires of the museum and its pedagogical practices visible and accessible to visitors. As the expectations and understanding of the civic purpose of museums have expanded from information authority to performativity, acting as a platform for individual and collective meaning-making, the skills and work of museum educators is seen as more important to museum practice, shifting away from past museum internal hierarchies. Also, in recent years, the collaborative ways of thinking/constructing/unpacking/challenging/imagining these spaces have gained momentum in institutional projects and museological policies, consolidating themselves both as a basic strategy for working in museums, and as a way of developing a plural sense to interrogate them. It is argued that these collaborative projects provide configurations in which discrepancies between classificatory systems are enhanced, thus encouraging an inquiring mode to think about these museum dimensions. In fact, the building of an activist museology (an activist and professional museum), which incorporates ethical gestures and performative forms of democracy, is in the air. Now more than ever, in these uncertain days of institutions‑in-crisis, museums aspire to be more than mere information repositories, to become places for critique and reflection; places to act and think in the world ethically. This demand for ethical relevance may be further associated with the construction of new forms of public dialogue and civic participation as announced by the post-museum, and more recently by the interrogative museum (critical, reflective, performative, activist…). This positioning requires not only reciprocity but also continuity and, henceforth, it is at the local level, through partnerships with communities, that it will probably work best and become sustainable. Here ethical relevance is created through the design of webbed connections that function as critical agents of places. That is to say by offering collections, spaces, research, education programmes, etc., museums act not as mere resources to be simply mapped and appropriated, but as forums and witty agents that make room for unsettling interpretation possibilities and critical imagination in order to cultivate innovative ways to address issues typical of the public

145  Meszaros 2008 (as fn. 58). 146  Ibid., p. 158. 147  Ibid., p. 163.

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space and contemporaneity. As the debate of recent years has shown,148 these are often contentious issues. In other words, museums are thought of as actors of the third space149 that actively participate in urban, local and global politics, and get involved in the construction of the public space and performative democracy.150 In this sense, one could say the museum is a “performative place”; a place of “communicative action” that somehow materializes the values of the “rationalised utopia” of which Bourdieu speaks.151 As such, museums are, admittedly, political and places to act in the world.

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ALICE SEMEDO Pascal, Chris and Tony Bertram, Praxis, ethics and power: developing praxeology as a participatory paradigm for early childhood research, in: European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 20 (4) (2012), pp. 477–492. Pieterse, Jan Nederveen, Multiculturalism and museums: Discourse about Others in the Age of Globalisation, in: Theory, Culture & Society 14 (4) (1997), pp. 123–146. Pinto, Julia R., Reflexões sobre o meio: O espaço entre a Escola e o Museu de Arte Contemporânea, Doutoramento em Educação Artística, Universidade do Porto, Portugal, 2015. Royster, Jacqueline J. and Gesa E. Kirsch, Feminist rhetorical practices: New horizons for rhetoric, composition, and literacy studies, Illinois: SIU Press, 2012. Silverman, Lois H. and Mark O’Neill, Change and complexity in the 21st-century museum, in: Museum News 83 (6) (2004), pp. 36–43. Soja, Edward, Thirdspace: Expanding the scope of the geographical imagination, in: Alan Read (ed.), Architecturally Speaking: Practices of Art, Architecture and the Everyday, 2000, pp. 13–30. Sternfeld, Nora, Unglamorous Tasks: What Can Education learn from Its Political Traditions?, in: E-flux journal 14 (2010), https://www.e-flux.com/journal/14/61302/unglamorous-tasks-what-can-education-­learnfrom-its-political-traditions/ (accessed October 20, 2019). Tolia-Kelly, Divya P., Feeling and being at the (postcolonial) Museum: Presencing the affective politics of ‘race’ and culture, in: Sociology 50 (5) (2016), pp. 896–912. Von Wright, Moira, Narrative imagination and taking the perspective of others, in: Studies in Philosophy and Education 21(4–5) (2002), pp. 407–416. Warrior, Claire, What is a Curator?, in: University of Cambridge Art and Science of Curation 2013–2014 project, http://www.artandscienceofcuration.org.uk/what‑is‑a-curator-claire-warrior/ (accessed May 11, 2017). Vlieghe, Joris, Rethinking emancipation with Freire and Rancière: A plea for a thing-centred pedagogy, in: Educational Philosophy and Theory 50 (10) (2018), pp. 917–927. Waterton, Emma and Steve Watson (eds.), Heritage and community engagement: collaboration or contestation?, London: Routledge, 2013. Weil, Stephen, Rethinking the Museum and Other Meditations, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990. Whitehead, Christopher, Museums and the construction of disciplines: Art and archaeology in nineteenth- century Britain, London: Gerald Duckworth, 2009. Alice Semedo, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8308-0971

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ACCESSIBLE MUSEUMS: VISION OR REALITY? The Impact of Belgian Museum Education on Society

Introduction This paper analyses how museums and museum education programmes have dealt with accessibility since the end of the 19th century. Were the ideas of some museum pioneers utopian or are they still relevant? How did the curators and museum directors consider the educational role of museums and which role did their museums play in society? How do their successors in the 21st century consider their mission now that UNESCO recommends promoting and protecting museums? Following Jacqueline Eidelman’s report for former French Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay,1 how should one define a museum today? These questions are under constant analysis by ICOFOM the Committee for Museology of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).2 They will be hereunder analyzed, based on my experience of some forty years in the museum education field within the ICOM Committee for Education and Cultural Action of Museums (ICOM-CECA), a committee, which is constantly eager to attract new visitors to museums in a participatory and inclusive way.

Communication and Inclusion: “In a Changing World, Should Museums Change”? American Pioneers This question which founder of the Newark Museum (Newark, Essex County, New Jersey) John Cotton Dana (1856–1929) brought forward in The New Museum3 is still relevant nowadays. For Dana, “a good museum attracts, entertains, arouses curiosity, leads to questioning, and thus promotes learning” as stated in the mission of the museum: “The Newark Museum operates, as it has since its founding […], as a museum of service, and a leader in connecting objects and ideas to the needs and wishes of its constituencies. We believe that our art and science collections have the power to educate, inspire and transform individuals of all ages, as well as the local, regional, national and international communities that we serve”.4

1  Jacqueline Eidelmann (dir.), Musées du XXIe siècle, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Direction générale des patrimoines, February, 2017, http://www.culture.gouv.fr/var/culture/storage/pub/musees21_ vol1/index.‌htm#/35 (accessed April 9, 2019). 2  François Mairesse (ed.), Définir le musée du XXIe siècle. Matériaux pour une discussion, ICOFOM, 2017. 3  John Cotton Dana, The New Museum, Elm Tree Press, Woodstock, Vermont, 1917. 4  Newark Museum, https://www.newarkmuseum.org/mission (accessed April 8, 2019).

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George W. Stevens’s motto for the Toledo Museum of Art (Ohio) was far ahead of his time: “The Museum is not a cold storage for works of art, it is a center of activity”.5 Stevens (1866–1926) wanted to integrate art into people’s lives.6 “The museum has linked itself to the lives of all people, young or old”.7 The educational system of the Toledo Museum of Art was of the greatest value for its community. Its quality was such that “even a great museum of Europe, the Cinquantenaire of Brussels, sent its learned Director, Mr. Capart, to study the educational system of the Toledo Museum of Art. He adopted it and called it The Toledo Plan.”8 Belgian Jean Capart (1877–1944) quoted Stevens years later in a lecture given at the Young Lawyers’ Rostrum in Brussels (December 16th, 1929): “The busiest city on earth is fast asleep unless it is doing something towards the higher education of its people. Work should be a means to leisure in which to enjoy the sublime creations of science, literature, music and art. No city is great until it rests the eye, feeds the intellect and leads its people out of the bondage of the commonplace. Hospitals do much: they make sick men well; museums of art do more: they make healthy people better”.9 John Dewey’s (1859–1952) Art as Experience10 dealt with accessibility, communication, construction and desire of knowledge, leading to eventually revising one’s perception. His main preoccupation was the education of the layman in a democratic society thanks to the art experience. Constructivist George E. Hein presented Dewey’s main ideas at the annual conferences of the Committee for Education and Cultural Action of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CECA) both in Oaxaca, Mexico, in November 2003 and in Zagreb, Croatia, in September 201111 followed by Progressive Museum Practice: John Dewey and Democracy.12 Hein links theories about education with each one’s socio-political progress in what oughts to be a democratic society. He analyzes how museums serve democracy. Moreover, he studies how museum education can help in “providing education that leads to better informed, critical citizens for a more egalitarian society” as commented by Jette Sandahl, Director of the Museum of Copenhagen and leader of ICOM’s standing committee for Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials (MDPP). For Sandahl, “as the concept of democracy continuously expands into more radical and direct 5  Nina Spalding Stevens, A Man & A Dream. The Book of George W. Stevens, Hollywood: Hollycrofters, 1941, p. 155. 6  Toledo Museum of Art, https://www.toledomuseum.org/about (accessed April 8, 2019). 7  George W. Stevens, A Small Museum: The Toledo Museum of Art, in: Art and Progress 4 (1913),   p. 997–1002, p. 1001–1002, https://archive.org/details/jstor-20560941/page/n5 (accessed April 9, 2019). 8  Nina Spalding Stevens, A Man & A Dream. The Book of George W. Stevens, Hollywood: Hollycrofters, 1941, p. 35, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=​uc1.b3296391;view=​1up;seq=​9 (accessed April 9, 2019). 9  George Stevens, Museum Manifesto – A Museum of Art Why?, in: The Blade 13 (1912) quoted by Jean Capart, Le rôle social des musées, in: Jean Capart, Le Temple des Muses, Bruxelles: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 1932, pp. 73–98, p. 95, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65737814/f1.image.r=​.langFR   (accessed April 9, 2019). 10  John Dewey, Art as Experience, New York: Minton, Balch & Company & Capricorn Books, 1934. 11  George E. Hein, John Dewey and Museum Education, in: Curator 47 (4) (2004), pp. 413–427, http://www. george-hein.com/downloads/Hein_DeweyMuseumEd.‌pdf (accessed April 9, 2019); George E Hein Why Museum Educators?, in: Željka Jelavić (ed.), Old Questions, New Answers, Zagreb: Icom, 2012, pp. 9–18. 12  George E. Hein, Progressive Museum Practice: John Dewey and Democracy, Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2012.

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forms in the 21st century, museums correspondingly wrestle with the challenges and obligations of public participations and organisational forms that facilitate them”.13 Belgian Pioneers In Belgium, founder of the Royal Museum of Mariemont, Raoul Warocqué (1870–1917), embodies the social and philanthropic trend of the time led by his wish to allow “man’s emancipation.”14 The fact that Belgian oldest museologist, Samuel Quiccheberg (1529–1567), was rediscovered thanks to the exhibition RTBF 50 ans -L’extraordinaire jardin de la mémoire15 at this Museum of Mariemont is maybe mere coincidence. Organised on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Belgian radio and television by François Mairesse, at that time director of the museum, the exhibition analysed the role played by images both in the past and the present days. It allowed reflecting on what a visitor remembered of his/her museum visit thanks to appropriate mediation tools like texts, models and illustrations, as mentioned in Quiccheberg’s treatise translated in French.16 Egyptologist and museum director of the Royal Museums of Art and History Jean Capart (1877–1947), who had visited the Toledo Museum of Art, may be considered as the real pioneer of museum education in Belgium. He is probably the first museum director to have given such high value to museum education and to consider it as important as research.17 He was conscious of continually having to adapt to an evolving society. Following Director and Chief Librarian of the British Museum, Sir Frederic George Kenyon, in his lecture delivered in 1927 at the Romanes Lecture in Oxford, he considered a museum “a living organism that evolves; if it is not flexible, it risks of no longer participating in the momentum of the nation,”18 a means of “heightening in value and extending in breadth the individual’s conception of life giving him ideals of beauty and of human achievement, which increase his sense of his own possibilities.”19 Capart’s vision of the educational and social role of the museum still inspire contemporary museum educators and has certainly contributed to the development of museum education in Belgium as I have commented in ICOM Education.20 His popularity was such that he served as model for two comic heroes, Hippolyte Bergamote and Professor Grossgrabenstein.21

13 Ibid. 14  Maurice Van den Eynde, Raoul Warocqué, Seigneur de Mariemont, 1870–1917, in: Monographies du Musée de Mariemont (vol. 1), Morlanwelz: Musée de Mariemont, 1970, p. 183. 15  François Mairesse, Ludovic Recchia, Muriel Hanot and Marie-Cécile Bruwier, RTBF 50ans – L’extraordinaire jardin de la mémoire, Morlanwelz: Musée royal de Mariemont, 2004. 16  Nicole Brout, Samuel Quiccheberg. Inscriptions ou titres du théâtre immense, in: Mairesse 2004 (as fn. 15), pp. 81–135. 17  Capart 1932 (as fn. 9), p. 90. 18  Ibid., pp. 83–84. 19  Ibid., pp. 83–84. 20  Nicole Gesché-Koning, The avant-garde of museum education in Belgium, in: ICOM Education 26 (2015), pp. 71–86, pp. 73–75. 21 Hergé, Les sept boules de cristal, Bruxelles: Casterman, 1984; Edward P. Jacobs, Le mystère de la grande pyramide (vol. 2), Bruxelles: Lombard, 1987, p. 4.

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The Role of Museum Education in an Evolving Society The Art and History Museum in Brussels The Royal Museums of Art and History (called nowadays Art & History Museum) continued following the trends of openness and participation initiated by Capart. He continued being praised by his followers, like Head of the museum from 1969 till 1984 René De Roo. He not only developed the education department but adapted it to the daily reality “taking into account the preferences and desires of the public together with the evolution and changes which occur in the present society.”22 He initiated the Musée des Aveugles (museum for visually impaired people) in 1975 and entrusted both the Flemish and French speaking education departments of the museum to organize yearly temporary exhibitions using original objects from the collections of the museum carefully sought out with the museum curators and after taking all conservation measures; the museum guides were also in charge of the catalogues of the exhibitions published both in big characters and in Braille. He also managed the social challenge of offering all museum educators a legal status of employment. Unfortunately, thirty years later, due to financial restrictions, this is no longer the case and museum educators are once again struggling as free lance workers with little security as even the activities organized by the education department are facing budgetary cuts. The latter has so far not stopped some convinced ‘old’ museum educators to continue developing programmes to attract new visitors and engaging them to participate in the life of the museum. Later initiatives within this pioneer museum education department have further been discussed in ICOM Education.23 The ‘Educateam’ at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts The Education department of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts called Educateam has developed interesting programmes tailored to all the needs of different types of disabilities. Musée sur mesure (Made to Measure), welcomes blind and visually impaired (Equinoxe), deaf and hearing impaired (Sign language), adults in literacy programs (Sésame) and people with mental health problems, special educational needs, psychiatric patients and people coming from young detention centres (Comète).24 In 2005 it collaborated with Amnesty International organizing tours through the paintings of the museum dealing with themes very much discussed nowadays (i. e. violence against women). The selected works ranged from the Flemish artists of the 15th century to the 20th century analyzing how women coped with their role in society and the various problems they were confronted with from being a mother, a worker or having to deal with men at war. In 2018, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Human Rights declaration, it collaborated once again with the Belgian section of Amnesty International to create a special educa22  René De Roo, Educational services, in: Museum XX (4) (1967), pp. 269–275, p. 271. 23  Gesché-Koning 2015 (as fn. 20), p. 78–80. 24  Educateam, http://www.extra-edu.be/MSM?lang=​en&PHPSESSID=​f833c70b586107fb9f0f2206eb300456 (accessed April 11, 2019).

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tional tour regarding Human Rights. Launched on 18th December 2018, international Day of the migrants, the tour will be developed by the education department from September 2019 onwards around Canadian artist David Altmejd’s sculpture Bodybuilders 12 (conceived in 2015 for the exhibition 2050 A brief history of the future). Altmejd’s sculpture symbolizes the migrant’s quest for a new future: the statue’s body climbing steps is made of all the hands which have dug the clay leaving behind the trace of memory and building up a new life, the hole in the middle representing the sorrow of having had to leave and abandon a past life. The Prehistomuseum of Ramioul Located not far from the city of Liege this museum and activity centre is thought as a total education and philosophical project25, engaging the visitors in a continuous reflection on their lives and their place within society, as one finds on one of the exhibition panels: “we are all relatives and yet different. We are all Homo sapiens with physical characteristics, which express the diversity of our geographic origins and our cultural mix.”26 The entrance fee to the museum is not due at the entrance but when coming out and depending on the time spent at the museum. A family or group of four is considered as a tribe and benefits from a discount; moreover, the time spent at the cafeteria of the museum is deducted from the total time spent. What a better idea to maintain good relations with the museum visitors taking their life and economic situation in consideration, following Stephen E. Weil (1928– 2005) definition of a ‘good museum’, one “which makes a positive difference in the quality of people’s lives”27, as one can find at the National Museum Liverpool.28 The Museum L in Louvain‑la-Neuve Open to Dialogue and Participation The first museum of Louvain‑la-Neuve opened in 1979 on the site created to relocate the French speaking part of the oldest Belgian university founded in 1425 of Louvain/Leuven. The premises within the university soon appeared to lack of space to adapt to a changing society. Several interesting and challenging projects were launched but never came to light.29 Eventually in November 2017 the last project succeeded and the Museum L opened in a fully refurbished building, the former Science Library built by the architect André Jacqmain and designer Jules Wabbes.

25  Nicole Gesché-Koning, Communicating scientific information to the general public, in: UMAC Journal 7 (2014), p. 92–99, p. 95. 26  Prehistomuseum: www.prehistomuseum.‌be (accessed April 14, 2019). 27  Stephen E. Weil, Making Museums Matter, 2002, http://lukeweil.‌com/_pages/stevePage.‌html (accessed April 18, 2019). 28  National Museum Liverpool, Making a Difference. The economic and social impact of National Museums Liverpool, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/about/corporate/reports/nml-economic-and-social-­ impact-report-2017.‌pdf (accessed April 18, 2019). 29  Nicole Gesché-Koning, Creativity in Museum Education to Help in Facing Changes, in: Magaly Cabral (ed.), Museums (Memory + Creativity = Social Change), Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Oficial do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2014, pp. 109–118, pp. 112–114, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8yHu7SudP4kcENWMHVrR2JhZjg/ view (accessed April 14, 2019).

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Choosing this building, the first one built on the new city30 speaks of the sense of continuity and keenness of preserving the built heritage while at the same time adapting to present day society. The city, meant originally as a students’ city, has, since its foundation in 1971, evolved into a city inhabited by all generations, backgrounds and origins. The three founders of the first museum saw the museum both as “a huge workshop or laboratory, and a forum where each object and each visitor contain energies of vision, of perceptions and interpretations, which possibilities need to be analysed.”31 Thus, from the very beginning, the museum was thought as a place open to dialogue and cultural pluralism where visitors from various backgrounds were invited to stroll through the galleries at their own pace and be confronted with unexpected associations of works of art from different origin, space and time. This idea which prevails in the new museum opened by the end of 2017 (pl. 13). The museum presents itself at the entrance as being a “university museum”. A big welcome sign in capital letters welcomes all visitors; in smaller letters the five goals of the museum: feeling amazement, questioning, being moved, passing on knowledge, contemplating. Present director Anne Querinjean’s strongest desire is to anchor the museum within the city allowing links between the historical centre and the rest of the city, tackling all the issues our present society is facing; and, at the same time, linking humanities, arts, science and technology. Hence, the last exhibition BienvenUE (Welcome, but with UE in capital letters for European Union) enhanced the crucial migration problem Europe seems unable to properly handle, as well as Understanding capitalism, an exhibition planned by local citizens after a trip to the Museum of Communism in Prague amazed to realize that at the best of their knowledge nowhere could one find a Museum of Capitalism. The idea of dialogue fostered previously by the founders of the first museum is overall present in this museum. It presents itself on its website as being a museum like any other; it is a place of exchange and life dedicated to emotion and exploration where everyone is welcome.

Inventing the Museums of Tomorrow Back to new Belgian Initiatives Praising Social Inclusion, Participation and Criticism The Absent Museum The art centre WIELS, located on the former completely refurbished brewery site of Wielemans, was founded in 2007 in another borough of the city of Brussels, counting inhabitants from numerous socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. The challenge was to speak to both the local communities and a broad international audience based in the capital of Europe. The exhibition The Absent Museum created in partnership with the international festival Kunstenfestivaldesarts for its tenth anniversary aimed at being a kind of “substantive framework or blueprint for a pos-

30  Resulting from the political splitting of the university of Louvain in two parts, the University of Leuven being kept in its original place in Flanders and the French Université catholique de Louvain (UCL) transferred to French speaking Wallonia. 31  Free translation of Ignace Vandevivere & Bernard Van den Driessche, Le musée de Louvain‑la-Neuve: de l’Université à la cité, in: Courrier du passant 92 (2010), pp. 12–15, p. 14.

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sible museum of contemporary art in the capital of Europe” anchored within an international perspective of art and globalisation. Some 47 artists have thus invaded the different floors showing how they see the challenges museums are facing today and how they struggle to “maintain the tension between globalisation’s paradoxes and history’s turbulences, and their individual sensibilities and voices.”32 Lili Reynaud-Dewar’s Small Tragic Opera of Images and Bodies in the Museum (pl. 14) was particularly striking. This operatic chorus raised “timely questions about identity, representation, art and its institutions. Who may speak for whom? To whom do these images belong? How can we avoid building walls between us?”33 How should an institution like the WIELS tackle the difficult issues present day society is facing and how should it speak to its various and so varied audiences? Which responsibility does it have in front of works of art (in this case a performance) dealing with images of trauma and using violence as leitmotiv? Polemical text panels have been printed on the pinafore dresses worn by the different characters: the curator, the museum staff, the art critic, the community, the activist artist… representing the different voices in the institution; their purpose was to make one “think about the complex role of artists and institutions when they attempt to speak for others” about recent events like the killing of a young man by a policeman; the art institution becomes here a “site conversation, a reciprocal exchange that has the potential to communicate with audiences and transform them into communities.”34 KANAL – Centre Pompidou A major city and capital of Europe like Brussels having no real museum of contemporary art seems almost impossible. Yet, a part from the former museum in the premises of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts closed to accommodate an important Art Nouveau donation. The role of WIELS played this role since the opening by organizing many temporary exhibitions all very successful and challenging. The role of KANAL is therefore rather promising. The 35.000 m2 cultural centre and museum KANAL – Centre Pompidou, which opened May 2018 in the sadly renowned borough of Molenbeek in Brussels35 is due to close end June 2019. Not for lack of vision, on the contrary, before conversion of the whole site into a fabulous cultural hub due to open 2022–2023. The premises on the former industrial site comprising the factory, workshops and show room of the Citroën-Yser garage close to the canal and centre of Brussels were sold to the City of Brussels after the firm decided to relocate its activities. The site remained for a year in that state after the garage was abandoned, hence its name ‘KANAL Brut’ . It allowed the public to

32  Dirk Snauwaert (ed.), The Absent Museum. Blueprint for a Possible Museum of Contemporary Art in the Ca­ pital of Europe, Brussels: Wiels & Mercator Fonds, 2017, http://www.wiels.org/en/bookshop/65/The-­AbsentMuseum (accessed April 23, 2019). 33  Small tragic opera, http://www.kfda.be/en/program/small-tragic-opera‑of-images-and-bodies‑in-themuseum (accessed April 23, 2019). 34  Curatorial Research Bureau, The Absent Museum: Blueprint for a Museum of Contemporary Art for the capital of Europe, https://curatorialresearchbureau.org/programs/2018/case-studies-absent-museum (accessed April 23, 2019). 35  The City of Brussels counts nineteen bilingual (French and Flemish speaking) boroughs.

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become acquainted with the empty site in its current state and discover the rich cultural heritage in an area of the town often neglected (pl. 15). Temporary exhibitions are a partnership for a period of ten years with the Pompidou Centre in Paris, hence the name KANAL – Centre Pompidou. Various cultural and social events (like playing football on the 5th floor!) have attracted many visitors since the opening. Present Director Yves Goldstein’s wishes to refurbish the whole site to keep in close contact with the neighbours of the centre, its children and adolescents, who are too often left to themselves with no guide whatsoever and thus an easy prey for religious fanatics and radicalism. One of the most popular decisions is the opening time, which differs from traditional museums: It closures at 10 o’clock p. m.36 The public has thus many opportunities to discover this exceptional industrial heritage preserved in its current state. Thanks to the loan of some works from the rich collections of the Centre Pompidou, the former Citroën garage has turned into a new cultural hub where visual arts, design, architecture, performing arts and works by artists working in Brussels are presented to a public both from the neighbourhood and culture fans. “The ambition of KANAL – Centre Pompidou is to offer a centre of culture and exchange open to all, to put the creative scene of Brussels in the limelight and to contribute to the capital’s cultural appeal.”37 Museum at Home The Museum of Ixelles (another borough of the city of Brussels) is closed for renovation and extension. The museum staff nevertheless wished to remain in touch with its public and to build a new relationship with its neighbours. They therefore initiated a three years programme called Museum at home in partnership with the cultural heritage association Patrimoine à roulettes (Heritage on wheels). The first step was to contact the neighbours of the museum in an attractive way, by’revisiting’ the work of art and invite them to a special evening. The neighbours were then presented with various works of art from the museum collections and asked to choose their favourite. All of these works could be theirs for a weekend. They just had to think the type of activity they could suggest to their visitors – families and friends on Saturday, and the general public on Sunday. All conservation measures were taken and a loan convention signed with the heritage association. Two weekends have already been very successfully organized in June and December 2018. For the public it was an amazing experience to (re)-discover works from the museum in another context where, for a short period of time, they were brought to life according to the imagination of their temporary owners (pl. 16). They were from various origins, social and cultural background: families, gays, retired, students and even people who had never visited a museum before! A documentary film38 shows the whole process from the first meetings to the first weekend insisting on the importance of careful planning, a step too often neglected when it comes to museum education activities. Museum educators tend to skip this step and concentrate on the doing, forgetting the thinking and evaluation phases. This has led two very active

36  Kanal – Centre Pompidou: https://kanal.brussels/en (accessed April 18, 2019). 37 Ibid. 38  Aurélia Pfend, Musée comme chez soi – Le film, 52 minutes. Production: CVB, Patrimoine à roulettes, bx1.

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CECA members Colette Dufresne-Tassé (Université de Montréal) and Marie-Clarté O’Neill (École du Louvre) to establish a Best Practice Tool described hereunder. This museum is continuously on the move. Their last idea has been to bring art into primary schools thanks to ‘Wheelie’ a magic bicycle for which they have launched a crowd funding call. Wheelie is an electrical bicycle bearing in the front a big container with separate compartments to be filled with games and reproductions of the works of art in the museum allowing children to discover the richness of the museum collections and modern art. The CECA Best Practice Tool Thanks to the CECA Best Practice Tool39 museum educators can carefully plan their activities reflecting on what is at stake and what goal they want to achieve. A ‘good’ programme should count on the following four stages: (a) Design stage, with 14 aspects to take in account, (b) Delivery of the programme, (c) Evaluation, (d) Implementation of the evaluation. The reflection behind this tool makes for its success. Launched seven years ago, it led to a Best Practice Award and an annual publication describing the awarded projects.40 These publications are full of inte­ resting initiatives set by museum educators worldwide and easily reproducible in other contexts. The newly awarded programmes serve as source of inspiration for many other colleagues. These examples will allow all professionals to take the best decisions in function of their institutions, goals and work environment; and to researchers, who will at last have comparable data from different countries.41

Towards a New Museum Definition From the various Belgian programmes presented here it is clear that museums and related cultural institutions are in a continuous evolving process rethinking their goals and role in society. Numerous debates are organized towards defining the museum of the 21st century. Former French Minister of Culture and Communication Audrey Azoulay – now Director General of UNESCO, commissioned Jacqueline Eidelman with a survey on the role of museums in present day society in 2016. Her report42, which defines four different categories of museums: the citizen and ethics museum, the proteiform museum, the inclusive and collaborative museum, and the museum as a creative and professional ecosystem, served as basis for the discussions of

39  Marie-Clarté O’Neill and Colette Dufresne-Tassé, Best practices in museum education and cultural programmes: Planning, developing and evaluating a programme, http://network.icom.museum/ceca (accessed April 19, 2019). 40  Best Practice Award, http://network.icom.museum/ceca/best-practice/award/ (accessed April 24, 2019); Emma Nardi, Best Practice 2011–2016. A tool to improve museum education internationally, Rome: Nuova Cultura, 2016. 41  Nicole Gesché-Koning, Research for CULT Committee – Education in Cultural Heritage, Brussels: European Parliament, Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies, 2018, p. 28–30. 42  Jacqueline Eidelmann (dir.), Inventer des musées pour demain. Rapport officiel de la mission Musées XXIe siècle, Paris: La Documentation française, 2017, p. 249, https://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/var/ storage/rapports-publics/174000177.‌pdf (accessed April 18, 2019).

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the participants of the three-days symposium organized by the ICOM committee for museology ICOFOM in June 2017 following ICOM’s process around a new definition of the word museum.43 Other symposia followed, first in Asia at the Shu’xiang Art Academy (Qinghai Province) and at Peking University in Beijing, then in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), and St Andrews (Scotland). In 2018 various roundtables were organized around the same theme in Leuven (Belgium), Moscow (Russia), Friedrichshafen (Germany), joint conference of the German Speaking National Committees of ICOM, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Kaunas (Lithuania), as well as the USA (online joint symposium Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) & ICFOM) and Valencia (Spain).44 Next to the analysis of the museum of tomorrow the committee met in Havana (Cuba) for its 40th annual conference on the theme Politics and poetics of museology. All these debates have nourished ICOM’s standing committee for a Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials (MDPP) led by Jette Sandahl in search with all museum professionals, of a possible new definition of the museum since “points of intersection between museums and communities are continuously shifting.” Museum professionals have discussed the definition of the museum since the birth of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The globally approved definition adopted during the ICOM General Conference in Vienna 2007 is presently under revision, as it “does not reflect and express adequately the complexities of the 21st century and the current responsibilities and commitments of museums, nor their challenges and visions for the future.”45 ICOM members are thus invited to share through the web their views and come up with new proposals, which will be further discussed at the 25th ICOM General Conference in Kyoto, 1–7 September 2019.46

Conclusion Before including more and more visitors from as many social and intellectual backgrounds as possible, should museums not first start bringing their present visitors to reflect upon themselves as expressed by former director of the Ethnography Museum in Neuchâtel, Jacques Hainard ­“I think that today one must convince the public that the most important thing to do is to reflect upon oneself, upon ourselves. In order to analyze the stereotypes and ideologies, which make us understand how we see other people. This seems to me the only way to become more tolerant.” He therefore recommended transforming the museum in “a place of questioning, a place of cultural destabilisation, which questions our knowledge and interrogates the visitor while en43  François Mairesse (ed.), Définir le musée du XXIe siècle, Paris, June 2017. For the English synthesis of the symposium: http://network.icom.museum/icofom/meetings/previous-conferences/defining-the-museum/ (accessed April 18, 2019). 44  Defining the museum, http://network.icom.museum/icofom/meetings/previous-conferences/defining-­ the-museum/ (accessed April 18, 2019). 45  Icom.museum, https://icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/MDPP-report-and-recommendations-­ adopted‑by-the-ICOM‑EB-December-2018_EN‑2.‌pdf (accessed April 17, 2019). 46  2019 ICOM General Conference took place between the composition of this chapter and its edition. An agreement on the new defintion was not reached at the Kyoto Conference due to a lack of consensus. ICOM decided to postpone the voting indefinitely.

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hancing freedom.”47 Enhance curiosity and build up critical and responsible citizens: was this not already John Dewey’s goal in education? Instead of seeing the museum visitors as strangers, guests or clients,48 why not see them just as our friends, wherever they come from, people with whom we are happy to share our enthusiasm for the heritage we are taking care of. As human beings we are a mixture of emotion and reason. Is it not the role of the museum to discover how to trigger the magic encounter between both? Therefore we should never forget that behind each museum object there is a human being with his/her own existence and story. Generally speaking, he/she belongs to the past, and so do the objects they have produced. As museum professionals we have to carefully analyze these productions in order to grasp the quantity and quality of messages they contain. Nevertheless, each of our interpretations is partly subjective. We, too, are human beings living at a certain period of time with our own particular way of thinking, our own philosophy and our own culture. The public in museums is composed of a multitude of individuals with many different social and cultural backgrounds and special needs. We should always remember to address our visitors from their own level (the ‘threshold level’), not from the level we consider they could or should have when entering the museum and being exposed to the museum experience. This means to start by reflecting upon ourselves, and how we see our role in society.49

REFERENCES Brout, Nicole, Samuel Quiccheberg. Inscriptions ou titres du théâtre immense, in: François Mairesse, ­Ludovic Recchia, Muriel Hanot and Marie-Cécile Bruwier, RTBF 50ans – L’extraordinaire jardin de la mémoire, Morlanwelz: Musée royal de Mariemont, 2004, pp. 81–135. Capart, Jean, Le rôle social des musées, in: Jean Capart, Le Temple des Muses, Bruxelles: Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, 1932, pp. 73–98. Cotton Dana, John, The New Museum, Vermont: Elm Tree Press, 1917. De Roo, René, Educational services, in: Museum XX (4) (1967), pp. 269–275. D. Doering, Zahava, Strangers, guests, or clients?, in: Curator 42 (2) (1999), pp. 74–87. Eidelmann, Jacqueline (dir.), Musées du XXIe siècle, Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. Direction générale des patrimoines, February 2017, http://www.culture.gouv.fr/var/culture/storage/pub/­ musees21_vol1/index.‌htm#/35 (accessed April 9, 2019). Gesché-Koning, Nicole, Creativity in Museum Education to Help in Facing Changes, in: Magaly Cabral (ed.), Museums (Memory + Creativity = Social Change), Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Oficial do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, 2014, pp. 109–118, https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8yHu7SudP4kcENWMHVrR2JhZjg/view (accessed April 14, 2019).

47  Jacques Hainard, Geneve active, Magazine culturel de la Metropole lémanique, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=​iIJF-yQdMBk (accessed October 7, 2017); Jacques Hainard, http://www.plansfixes.ch/films/jacques-­ hainard/ (accessed April 19, 2019). 48  Zahava D. Doering, Strangers, guests, or clients?, in:, Curator 42 (2) (1999), pp. 74–87. 49  Nicole Gesché-Koning, Which Voices Are Heard? The Human Side of Ethnographic Collections, to be published in the Proceedings of the Ethnocoll international colloquium Gedeeld Erfgoed en Source Communities (April 14–15, 2016).

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NICOLE GESCHÉ-KONING Gesché-Koning, Nicole, Communicating scientific information to the general public, in: UMAC Journal 7 (2014), p. 92–99. Gesché-Koning, Nicole, The avant-garde of museum education in Belgium, in: ICOM Education 26 (2015), pp. 71–86. Gesché-Koning, Nicole, Research for CULT Committee – Education in Cultural Heritage, Brussels: European Parliament, Policy Department for Structural and Cohesion Policies, 2018. Gesché-Koning, Nicole, Which Voices Are Heard? The Human Side of Ethnographic Collections, to be published in the Proceedings of the Ethnocoll international colloquium Gedeeld Erfgoed en Source Communities (April 14–15, 2016). Hein, George E., John Dewey and Museum Education, in: Curator 47 (4) (2004), pp. 413–427. Hein, George E., Why Museum Educators?, in: Željka Jelavić (ed.), Old Questions, New Answers, Zagreb: Icom, 2012, pp. 9–18. Hein, George E., Progressive Museum Practice: John Dewey and Democracy, Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2012. Mairesse, François, Ludovic Recchia, Muriel Hanot and Marie-Cécile Bruwier, RTBF 50ans – L’extraordinaire jardin de la mémoire, Morlanwelz: Musée royal de Mariemont, 2004. Mairesse, François (ed.), Définir le musée du XXIe siècle. Matériaux pour une discussion, Paris: Icofom, 2017. Nardi, Emma, Best Practice 2011–2016. A tool to improve museum education internationally, Rome: Nuova Cultura, 2016. O’Neill, Marie-Clarté and Colette Dufresne-Tassé, Best practices in museum education and cultural programmes: Planning, developing and evaluating a programme, http://network.icom.museum/ceca (accessed April 19, 2019). Snauwaert, Dirk (ed.), The Absent Museum. Blueprint for a Possible Museum of Contemporary Art in the Capital of Europe, Brussels: Wiels & Mercator Fonds, 2017. Spalding Stevens, Nina, A Man & A Dream. The Book of George W. Stevens, Hollywood: Hollycrofters, 1941, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=​uc1.b3296391;view=​1up;seq=​9 (accessed April 9, 2019). Stevens, George, Museum Manifesto – A Museum of Art Why?, in: The Blade 13 (1912). Stevens, George, A Small Museum: The Toledo Museum of Art, in: Art and Progress 4 (1913), p. 997–1002, https://archive.org/details/jstor-20560941/page/n5 (accessed April 9, 2019). Van den Eynde, Maurice, Raoul Warocqué, Seigneur de Mariemont, 1870–1917, in: Monographies du Musée de Mariemont (vol. 1), Morlanwelz: Musée Royal de Mariemont, 1970. Weil, Stephen E., Making Museums Matter, Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002. Nicole Gesché-Koning, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8489-7729

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MUSEUM AT HOME Engaging New Audiences through the Sphere of Domesticity

Introduction When a museum closes for refurbishment, renovation and extension, a plethora of questions arise. With the facilities undergoing major changes, it is the ideal moment to reconsider the museum’s role. As the museum is closed to the public, the question of accessibility during the works and in the future comes to the forefront. The Museum of Ixelles (Brussels, Belgium), a medium-size museum focused on Belgian modern and contemporary art, took the opportunity of its closure to experiment with a new type of extra muros outreach project, seeking at once to keep on exhibiting the museum collection, as well as to maintain and even reinforce the engagement with the local audience.1 This double objective marked the birth of the project Museum at Home in 2018, in partnership with Patrimoine à roulettes.2 Ever since, twice a year, the museum has been inviting ten residents from the neighbourhood to host a work of art from its collection in their own home. The work remains at the resident’s home during one weekend. On Saturday, the viewing is restricted to the residents’ own social circle as well as to the other participants. On Sunday, the residents open up their home to the general public. Ten domestic spaces are turned into intimate micro museums, to be visited and enjoyed one after the other. In three years, sixty works from the collection will be shown to the public as part of this project. Key factors for success lie in the involvement and commitment of the ten hosts. This process is kicked off by the selection of the artwork and ends with the final viewing moment on Sunday. The participants are encouraged to experiment with art mediation by imagining a context and developing a story or any type of activity they find appropriate to propose to their guests. Social

1  This article reports on an extraordinary adventure currently being experienced by a Belgian museum, its art collection and its surrounding neighbourhood (2018–2020). Easily transposable to other places, this innovative participatory project, called Museum at Home, raises a whole series of questions about the museum, its practices and its relationship with the public. Halfway through the project, here is a first insight into the ingredients that make it successful and the lessons that can be learned from this experience at this stage. 2  Patrimoine à roulettes (Heritage on Wheels) is a Belgian not-for-profit organization working in several countries. Their goal is to promote cultural heritage and favour an innovative approach to cultural mediation. Since 1998, they have been active in the streets, in museums, among the inhabitants, in the woods, in parks … “where you don’t expect them”. Patrimoine à roulettes, https://patrimoinearoulettes.org (accessed August 29, 2019).

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interaction plays a key component here, being essential to the project, which seeks to strengthen community ties. Exhibiting the art collection in a new setting – the domestic environment – while the museum undergoes transformation, gives rise to new types of relationships between the museum, its collection and its audiences. Instead of bringing interaction to a standstill, the museum’s closure marks the beginning of a period of experimentation in which local audiences play a fundamental role in an innovative way, thus giving the museum an opportunity to experiment and rethink the undertaking of the institution.

Museum at Home. Genesis of the Project Embarking on an adventure like Museum at Home is not something you can just improvise! For the Museum of Ixelles, its outcome was the result of a combination of fortuitous events. Museum in Progress The closure of the Museum of Ixelles for renovation and extension started in spring 2018. It will last several years, the reopening being planned for 2023. Before that, the museum had experienced a significant increase in attendance due to, among other things, a rich programme of exhibitions and the development of innovative projects that placed the public at the heart of its concerns.3 As from the time of closure, the entire museum team4 has developed a project called Museum in Progress which runs along two main streams: –– Regular activities appealing to various audiences maintain the visibility of the museum and its collection, which aims to integrate the collection into other cultural institutions and museums and, above all, to the heart of the city: neighbours, schools,5 inhabitants.

3  The last two exhibitions scheduled at the museum before its closure were the retrospective dedicated to the French photographer Robert Doisneau and the interactive exhibition for children, Hop! In a period of 3 and a half months (19. 10. 2017 > 04. 02. 2018), together they welcomed more than 65,641 visitors. Hop! was the first collaboration of the Museum of Ixelles and the not-for-profit organization Patrimoine à roulettes (Heritage on Wheels), its partner in the Museum at Home project. Focused on the theme of movement, its scenography included interactive devices to appreciate art with all five senses as well as a video installation inviting visitors to ­experiment movement. It also had the particularity of exhibiting the works from the collections at a child’s height, already questioning the classical rules of museum scenography. Museum of Ixelles, http://www.museumofixelles.irisnet.be/en/exhibitions/current-exhibitions/expo-­ bis-hop-art-exhibition-for-kids?set_language=​en (accessed August 29, 2019). 4  As an indication, during the closing period, the team of the Museum of Ixelles consists of 12 people, seven of whom are administrative and scientific staff and five of whom are technical staff (who also used to be assigned to the supervision of the galleries during the opening period). 5 The Museo’Class project offers the opportunity for fifth and sixth grade pupils (10–12 year olds) to discover all the steps of the creation of an exhibition as well as the different museum professions. Classes visit an exhibition by observing it with the informed eye of a scenographer, explore the Museum of Ixelles storage facilities with the director, create their own works and set up an exhibition in their school.

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–– An internal reflection about the collection6 and the (re)conceptualisation of the future of the museum. This particular context of active and prospective closure is a fertile ground for experimentation and questioning oneself about the public and the collection of the museum. It also gives the opportunity to break down, literally and figuratively, the museum walls. Opening up to the Neighbourhood The Museum of Ixelles is anchored in the Athénée district within the municipality of Ixelles. This very dense residential area characterised by a mix of populations and significant socio-cultural diversity is the subject of an urban revitalisation programme put in place from 2017 to 2020 called Athénée Sustainable District Contract.7 With Museum at Home, the institution was not at its first attempt to develop participatory projects focused on its neighbourhood, but these had until then been extremely limited in time and did not include any physical works from the collection.8 The concomitance of its renovation works leading to a rethinking of new forms of mediation outside the walls and the opportunity represented by the resources of a District Contract have led the museum to develop a social cohesion project that proactively addresses new audiences and puts this municipal institution in the heart of its neighbourhood. Meeting the Right Partner at the Right Time Museum at Home was conceived with the Patrimoine à roulettes team.

Kindergarten classes (3–7 year olds) located within a maximum radius of 5 kilometres around the museum have the oppor­tunity to be visited by Wheelie, an electric dual-carrier bike equipped with a box containing fun and edu­cational accessories. Five one-hour animations are proposed, each session allowing the discovery of a single work (reproduction) that is revealed through multisensory activities. Mash up is a programme led in colla­boration with the Patrimoine à roulettes educators team to get young secondary school pupils positively involved in their neighbourhood by realising art projects inspired by the Museum of Ixelles collection. Just as Museum at Home, it is supported by the Athénée Sustainable District Contract. 6  The closing period is an opportunity to start a major project to collect and digitize the inventory of the collection. Extra muros exhibitions focusing on the permanent collection are also presented in Belgium and abroad. 7  Commune d’Ixelles, Contrat de quartier durable Athénée, http://www.ixelles.be/site/697-Contrat‑dequartier-­durable-Athenee.‌be (accessed August 29, 2019). 8  In 2016, the museum realized an intergenerational street art project involving a group of young and elderly people. Together with French artist Julien de Casabianca, they revisited masterpieces from the museum displaying their reproductions as murals in the city and created an Outings tour of 20 works in human scale in the streets around the museum. In 2018, a monumental paper mural of 60 square metres representing a work from the museum was created by the aforementioned artist. Outings Project, www.outingsproject.‌com (accessed August 29, 2019). Simultaneously inaugurated with the first edition of Museum at Home, it created a symbolic link between both projects, with each in its own way freeing the works from the museum walls to be entrusted to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood and shared by them with the public.

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Following previous collaborations with the museum, the Patrimoine à roulettes educators had acquired an excellent knowledge of the museum collection, how the museum functions and its potential in terms of audience engagement. They also have interesting expertise, both national and international, in the development of participatory projects with local roots. When the museum was asked, in a very short time, to submit a project within the framework of the Athénée Sustainable District Contract, it took contact with the organisation in order to collectively deliver a meaningful and ambitious project proposal for the neighbourhood focusing on the following objectives: –– To take advantage of the museum’s closure to develop a new relationship between the museum, the collection and the public. –– To provide visibility and accessibility to the museum’s collection during its closure. –– To encourage the inhabitants of the district to take ownership of the museum’s collection and develop a close relationship with it. –– To increase communication and connection between mixed audiences in a flourishing and sustainable artistic context which establishes the museum as a place of exchange (a kind of cultural agora). –– To create a personalised bond between the inhabitants and the institution including its staff, guides, etc. in order to encourage them to become ambassadors that play an active role in its future development. Patrimoine à roulettes’s great idea of inviting the museum’s neighbours to host a work in their homes and present it to visitors first appeared to be an impossible and unrealisable enterprise. Indeed, the idea was as attractive as it was absurd. Entrusting works to strangers in places not initially designed to accommodate them seemed like a real museum heresy. It would have been much easier, for example, to project reproductions of the works in their interiors and thus eliminate any risk of damage or security. Moreover, apart from prominent art figures such as museum directors Jan Hoet9 and Laurent Busine,10 who, in Belgium or abroad, had previously ventured to take works of art from the 9  In 1986, Jan Hoet, curator and director of the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst in Ghent (Museum of Contemporary Art, now S. M. A. K.), organised an exhibition with 51 visual artists – including renowned ones such as Daniel Buren, Sol LeWitt and Bruce Nauman… – who exhibited their works at the homes of Ghent residents. The success of the initiative was enormous. Thousands of visitors flocked to this revolutionary ­museum exhibition bringing contemporary art into people’s daily lives for the first time. That event still remains an example in the Belgian museum education field. In 2019, further to the lack of exhibition space and the impossibility of exhibiting all the works of the collection) and using the slogan S. M. A. K. is te klein (S. M. A. K. is too small), that same museum launched a call to visitors to host a work from the collection at home for a month. S. M. A. K., Stel mee onze collectie tentoon, https://smak.be/fr/actualites/handelaars‑in-gent-doe-meeaan-­actie-smakisteklein (accessed August 27, 2019). Jan Hoet, Chambres d’amis. Tentoonstelling, Gent: Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, 1986. 10  In 2002, Laurent Busine, another creative curator, inaugurated the Musée des Arts contemporains (Museum of Contemporary Arts – MAC’s) in Grand-Hornu (Belgium) as director. Located in an economically distressed area since the shutting down of the coal mines, the institution first appeared at odds with its envi-

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museum walls and dared to bring them to people’s homes? But isn’t it ultimately more dangerous for a work to be so sacred that it loses the right to be admired? And does direct contact with the work not also contribute to the magic of the museum? The museum's insurance company had the final word in this debate. The latter solved the problem by imposing a few simple conditions to the organisation of the event: –– The insurance value of the work is limited to a maximum amount. –– The works do not stay with the inhabitants during the night and benefit from a constant presence. –– The presence of an employee of the museum or Patrimoine à roulettes is required when residents welcome visitors on Sundays. All the loans in the context of Museum at Home are considered by the insurance company as a part of the annual package, just like a loan with a nail‑to-nail insurance to another museum or cultural institution would have been considered, except that the coverage is charged to the museum and not the exhibitor. As such, the insurance experts legitimate the domestic sphere as a suitable place to exhibit a museum artwork. All conditions were met to launch the adventure! Time to start!

Museum at Home. Instructions for Use The simplicity of the project makes it a model that can easily be reproduced in other museums. After a brief examination of the division of tasks between the museum and its partner, we will describe the decisive stages in the development of each edition of Museum at Home. Hand in Hand For each edition of Museum at Home, Patrimoine à roulettes receives financial support of 13,000 euros from the Athénée Sustainable District Contract. This amount mainly covers: –– The co‑coordination of the project (shared with the museum). –– The presence of six educators of Patrimoine à roulettes supporting the residents. –– Some promotional costs, such as the graphic design of the promotional ads.

ronment. Aware of this, Laurent Busine decided to visit his neighbours to present the museum to them and its collection. With an artwork under his arm, he went to their house and offered to engage in conversation with them and to invite them to the museum. He explained his initiative with these words: “Personally, I want to converse with my fellow human beings. The purpose of art is to awaken feelings, emotions that go beyond everyday life. And I think we all need it.” in: Laurence Bertels, Laurent Busine. Chez un voisin in: La Libre Belgique (September 12, 2012) https://www.lalibre.be/culture/arts/laurent-busine-chez‑un-voisin-­ 51b87a56e4b0de6db9a7950b (accessed August 29, 2019).

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–– The potential production costs for the activities hosted at the residents’ homes as well as some catering which includes a dinner in the museum at the end of each event. For its part, the museum provides its own municipal funds to cover:11 –– The co‑coordination of the project by the Head of Education. –– The communication campaign. –– The administrative and technical management of works loans: insurance, condition report, handling, etc. –– The support of the guests by four guides from the museum team. Since the start, Museum at Home has been conceived as a co‑creation between Patrimoine à roulettes and the museum, bringing the employees of both teams to work hand in hand. The museum team and its guides are particularly involved in all the actions leading to a meeting with the public, which aims at establishing lasting personal links between the neighbourhood and the museum team, outlasting the partnership with Patrimoine à roulettes. Step by Step Before the Weekend Recruitment of host candidates: Each candidate must reside within the perimeter of the Athénée district, which has a population of approximately 10,000 inhabitants.12 Museum at Home is thus a real district privilege, strengthening local social cohesion and exchanges. Street prospecting: The prospecting of candidates takes place within this specific scope. Shops, galleries, cafés, collective spaces are generally excluded in order to preserve the personal and friendly character of a home. To limit any discrimination during the prospection phase and in order to reach all profiles of people in the neighbourhood, the educators spread out posters in various places, engage with passers‑by on the street or simply knock on people’s doors. Displaying a series of museum works visuals in their raincoat lining (pl. 17), they offer amused passers‑by the opportunity to welcome a work into their home. This playful and unusual approach helps to break the ice and enables people to enter into dialogue about this crazy dream, that, will become a reality for some and for others a pleasant initiative increasing their interest in the nearby museum. Time for commitment: the introductory meeting: All convinced host candidates are invited to an informative briefing at the museum during which the constraints inherent to the hosting of a work are explained to them: safety, conservation, etc. The other regulations specific to the 11  The Museum of Ixelles is a service of the municipality of Ixelles, one of the 19 municipalities composing the Brussels-Capital Region. The main part of the museum costs is supported by the municipality. 12  Monitoring des Quartiers, http://monitoringdesquartiers.brussels/maps/statistiques-logement-­ bruxelles/type‑de-logement-region-bruxelloise/ (accessed August 25, 2019).

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exhibition of a work of art in a private home are also mentioned, such as: no domestic animals, no smoking and cooking in the presence of the works, and specific lighting conditions. The works can only be handled by the museum’s technical team and are to be placed in an area that guarantees good conservation conditions (such as the right temperature, exposure to light, etc.). The artworks’ insurance conditions mentioned above are explained in detail to the candidates to reassure them about the museum taking its responsibility for the works. The inhabitants are also reminded that their Museum at Home commitment will be much more than just hosting a work; they will have to present it to the public themselves, follow the stringent organisation rules of the weekend and welcome up to 300 people in their living room on Sunday. At the end of this meeting, some decide not to continue but the majority confirm their desire to get involved in the project.13 If too many candidates would apply, a draw should be held as the places are limited to 10 households for each 6 zones of the perimeter. Home visits: After the briefing, a visit to the candidates’ homes is organised to check whether these offer adequate space to host a work. An overheated, overexposed to light or over-ventilated space should be avoided or adapted; similarly, difficult access conditions to the dwelling will not allow a large or overly heavy work to be transported there. These constraints do not exclude small dwellings, as the selection of works includes pieces of various sizes. At the end of this visit, the candidate host is invited to sign a charter by which he/she declares to respect the above-mentioned conditions for hosting the work and confirms his/her active participation in the event. Meeting the Artworks The selection of works: For each edition, a choice of 40 works is presented by the museum to the future hosts. The selection aims to propose a representative set of the diversity of the collection by offering abstract and figurative works, portraits, landscapes, Belle Époque posters, modern and contemporary art, sculptures, paintings, small and medium formats. All works need to be in an optimal state of conservation. Candidates are first given the opportunity to discover the works in a small leaflet that is given to them when they are recruited on the street. The works appear in postage stamp format and are labelled, but without further comment. All kinds of fantasies are allowed. A few rare candidates do some research on the artists before the decisive day of the official selection of the works, but most of them tick their favourite works based on visual criteria or just wait to see them in reality in the museum. This crucial moment takes place in the museum. Only the ten candidates are invited. Together they discover the 40 artworks arranged on easels or on the floor, in a raw setting evoking the set-up of an exhibition. The tension is palpable (pl. 18). Some go with a determined air towards the work already pre-selected from the catalogue; others, still undecided, ask the staff member in charge of the collection or the director of the museum for assistance. A personal link with the theme of the work, an aesthetic love at first 13  Some statistics behind the scenes of the first host prospection: During the 1st edition, 200 street contacts were counted by the educators within a month’s time. 70 people expressed interest in the introductory meeting. 38 of them attended. i.e. 1 in 5 people contacted on the street. Further to this meeting, 10 hosts were confirmed, from single-person households to large families (44 people in total).

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sight, the colours and exceptionally, the artist’s name, are all motivations to choose a work. At the end of the session, the ten future hosts introduce themselves and the work they will host at home. Sometimes very close neighbourhood ties are revealed. Homemade Art Mediation: Once the work has been assigned, each host is associated with an educator, a collaborator from the museum (guide or employee) or Patrimoine à roulettes, who will accompany their reflection on the presentation of the work. Museum at Home intends to see the participants develop a real mediation project in accor­ dance with their personality and interests. While many people first do some research about the artist and his/her work, very often their journey leads them to a highly personalised and sometimes very elaborate presentation which can even evolve over the weekend, depending on the reactions from the public. Thus, Marianne, a lady passionate about horticulture, chose to create a floral decor to welcome an Impressionist work into her 19th century mansion; Thomas opacized the windows of his small apartment with a blue fabric, to accommodate a tiny and disturbing pen drawing by artist Jan Fabre. He reinforced the oppressive atmosphere with a personal musical composition with particularly dark accents. A family proposed shapes games based on an abstract geometric work by the artist Jo Delahaut. Elsewhere, a preparatory meeting with the contemporary artist Marcel Berlanger took place and led to the production of a video to be shared with the public. Lisbeth, on the other hand, simply chose to tell visitors about her career in the circus in front of an acrobat painted by the fin-de-siècle artist Félicien Rops. The common purpose of the mediation projects is to gather around the work and art in general. These mediation projects are all carried out with the residents’ own resources. The team of Patrimoine à roulettes and the museum only intervene for technical reinforcements, limited to the essential. In this participatory project, it is not obvious for the educator to learn to listen to the host and to adopt a position of facilitator. This role requires a certain retreat. Sometimes it is necessary to be patient to accompany the start of a real dialogue between the hosts and their work, and to then let the magic of meeting the audience work.14 Role shifts are occurring. Preparing a mediation project for the first time in life, spending two days with a work gathering the public’s impressions, leads some hosts to develop interesting personal knowledge about the artwork. Sometimes, they even create a real documentary file on it and also on their art approach. A logbook encourages them to keep a record of their reflections on the art piece and the steps of the mediation process. With their agreement, the museum keeps a copy of it in order to enrich its own interpretation and mediation of the collection.

14  During the 3rd edition (June 2019), a museum guide, who had recently joined the project, commented on her collaboration with the host as follows: “For my part, I really appreciated the experience. My host may not have seemed the most committed one at first, but I quickly realised that she simply worked differently. It was in the warm welcome she gave to the neighbours and the improbable meeting with the artist that I finally understood the full benefit of the operation. When I saw the sudden excitement she had in front of the audience, the delight of the visitors and the amused satisfaction of the artist, I thought it was a real success.”

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An Intense Weekend Thursday and Friday, the last checks: On the Thursday and Friday preceding the event, the museum’s technical staff meets every host at their home to set up the easel or the plinth to present the work. This allows the team to find the most convenient routes to easily deliver and collect the artworks over the next two days. It is also an opportunity to adjust the location of the work according to the weather forecast or other constraints. This last contact before the event is also the last chance to remind the hosts of all the instructions and schedules to be checked, enabling them to have a good understanding of what to expect. Saturday, Intimate Warm‑up Day On Saturday (and Sunday), the work is delivered to the hosts in the presence of the facilitator. The museum technicians set it up according to the rigorous museum rules, which bestows a ceremonial feeling on the event. The inhabitants then enjoy the privilege of having the work to themselves. They observe it from every angle and sometimes rediscover it with some surprise as a few weeks have passed since they chose it at the museum. Some final adjustments to the set‑up are also made on this occasion. Saturday, in the early afternoon, while the educators act as museum attendants for the work, the inhabitants gather to discover the entire route of the displays at each other’s homes. It’s one of the most enjoyable moments of the weekend. Not only do they get to know better the other neighbours engaged in the same adventure, but they can also experiment their own mediation project with a benevolent audience. For previously less involved hosts, this moment often proves to be a stimulus. In the late afternoon, the guests return home and welcome their friends and family. Some make it into a big event; others keep it very intimate. Sunday, D‑DAY Sunday is a particularly intense day, despite the previous day’s warm‑up. For five hours, 200 to 300 people on average will be visiting each house.15 Visitors have to gather at a central information point where they receive a map of the route as the hosts’ addresses are not disclosed beforehand. The activity is completely free of charge. A volunteer welcomes them at the front door, managing the entry and exit flow in close collaboration with the educator/facilitator. The latter keeps an eye on the work for security reasons, but also makes sure to step aside and let the hosts take up their role as mediation project leaders. At the end of the day, after the works have been removed, the residents all gather at the museum to enjoy a meal with the museum staff, the Patrimoine à roulettes team and the volunteers. Everyone shares their experience of an extraordinary day full of intense and numerous encounters. This often leads to a lasting bond between neighbours. 15  Number of visits recorded during the first three editions: On Sundays: 24/06/2018: 1,653; 10/12/2018: 2,770; 23/06/2019: 1,825. On Saturdays: the total number of visitors varies between 150 and 350 people.

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The End is no End The relationship between the museum and the hosts does not end with Museum at Home. After each edition, in order to perpetuate and enrich the new contacts, each inhabitant becomes a member of the association Friends of the Museum of Ixelles for one year. This membership grants them access to a wide range of activities and also allows neighbours to meet and to stay in touch with the museum team. Upon specific request of the hosts and to strengthen the emerging community, once a year, the museum and Patrimoine à roulettes organise a barbecue for the participants of all previous editions. This social event takes place on the site of the closed museum undergoing works, an atypical and unique setting for a meal together (pl. 19). The neighbours enjoy an exclusive sneak peek behind the scenes of the construction site and behind the scenes of the museum itself. Prior to the meal, the neighbours get the chance to discover the museum’s storage facilities, containing 10,000 works. It is a way for them to see what is usually not disclosed to the public and to spend once again a privileged moment with the museum’s masterpieces held in storage whilst the museum is closed. The neighbours are encouraged to invite one of their neighbours to the gathering, thus acting as ambassadors for Museum at Home, as this is a way for potential hosts to get to know the project.

Mid-term Insights After three editions of the Museum at Home project and halfway through the adventure, it is already possible to draw up a first assessment of the operation. We will highlight here a series of ingredients essential to the success of such a project, but also how it is still evolving by focusing on the questions that are already emerging at this stage, concerning the foundations of the museum as an institution. A Perfect Mix of Ingredients Involved Hosts Being anchored in a dense residential area is an obvious asset for a museum institution that wishes to create a close link with its neighbourhood and mobilize it in a cultural project. Each edition of Museum at Home and particularly the first has required extensive informal communication in the neighbourhood. Despite the originality of the project, the risks and responsibilities it entails, it quickly appealed to the residents who were willing to actively engage in the social revitalization of their neighbourhood as well as in the enhancement of the works of art of the nearby museum. These two motivations are an essential starting point. Throughout the operation, the hosts become a central part as ambassadors of the museum by allowing the intimacy of their interior to become a space of meeting and mediation around the collection. Getting out of the Museum’s Comfort Zone When a museum embarks on such a project, it is essential that it receives the support of the entire museum team, encouraged to think out of the box and to reinvent the museum during

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its closure. Working together on a project like this is a way of maintaining good team cohesion in a period defined by question marks. Different teams and roles are involved: –– The municipal authorities and, first of all, the museum direction need to stand behind the project. They must be willing to take up the challenge of questioning the institution and defying the taboos of the profession by agreeing to open up the safe and share its treasures in “profane” places with uninitiated people. –– The Head of Education and the Head of Communication play a vital role, as this project is all about renewing the museum, diversifying audiences and promoting the institution and its collections during its closure. –– The museum’s administrative team is tasked with creating a formal and structured framework for a project disrupting traditions. –– The museum’s scientific team is in charge of selecting the works of art. The art historical quality of the works chosen for the project is testimony to the museum’s engagement and willingness to provide an extra muros exhibition without sacrificing its usual high standards. For example, the selection includes works by renowned Belgian artists Jan Fabre, Félicien Rops, Théo Van Rysselberghe and international artists such as Wifredo Lam and Auguste Rodin. The scientific team also inform the residents about the conservation conditions and respond to any enquiries they may have regarding the works. –– The museum’s technical team is in charge of transporting the works and installing them at the inhabitants’ home. A Subversive Partner Could the idea of entrusting works of art to private individuals to exhibit them at home and, above all, to present them to the public be conceived by a museum team? Without a doubt. We may even have previously imagined it in our subconscious mind. As the museum’s director, Claire Leblanc, pointed out when she discovered the first work that was picked by one of the inhabitants: It’s so obvious, and yet, this evidence had to be brought to light. Imprisoned by institutional shackles, museums often lock themselves in an ivory tower whose access requires to be delicately forced into. This is where the intervention of Patrimoine à roulettes, a trusted external partner, not constrained by any institutional logic, makes all the difference and helps lend the museum a touch of eccentricity by thinking outside of the box. Respectful Visitors who Legitimate the Project Some of the fears and risks associated with this project are based on contacts with visitors outside the protected museum walls. Yet, they have been a key success factor. Their respectful attitude towards both works and hosts, but also all their essential questions about the museum institution and its relationship to its collections and visitors, brings real legitimacy to this project.

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A Well-prepared Dish All good ingredients need to be in harmony to achieve the perfect meal. And in this case, it is undeniably the quality of the interactions between the essential stakeholders in the project that binds it and contributes to its success. It also demands a high degree of trust between the protagonists. It is in this respect that Museum at Home can really be described as a well-prepared dish. This is if all of them agree to move forward together onto unknown territory, driven by the common desire to share an unprecedented experience involving an art collection, a district, a museum and the interaction between them all. Towards a Redefinition of the Museum? While the museum institution is going through a profound identity crisis16 and its redefinition will be the subject of intense discussions at the 25th General Conference of ICOM (1–7 September 2019, Kyoto)17, we can observe in the field the emergence of a number of initiatives that raise profound questions about society’s relationship with the institution. “How can our museums evolve by integrating the complexities of the 21st century? What are the museums responsibilities and commitments, as well as its challenges and visions for the future?”18 In this debate, mediation offers an unprecedented field of experimentation and multiplies the opportunities to actively involve the public in this reflection on museums. By offering the inhabitants of a district the opportunity to host a work at home and present it to the public, Museum at Home inevitably makes the lines move, as each protagonist, in his own way, questions the canons of the classical museum institution. Focus on the Hosts and the Community From proto-collector to curator: When looking at how to develop accessibility and audience engagement, an important question to keep in mind is, “What is in it for them?”. Museum at Home never fails to attract people willing to become hosts because the experience is associated with a sense of privilege, the possibility to live a unique experience engaging with a museum artwork of quality in one’s private space. In a way, a Museum at Home host briefly benefits from an art collector’s intimate relationship and prolonged contact with an artwork, even though the freedom and entitlement coming with the sense of possession remains ultimately out of reach. The excitement that comes along with the prospect of benefiting from what is anticipated as a privileged, exclusive moment first appears when the future hosts come to the museum to pick their work of art. At this stage of selection, the neighbourhood resident turns into a proto-collector. The desire to find one’s perfect match amongst the 40 available works reaches fever

16  Catherine Grenier, La fin des musées?, Paris: Regard, 2013. 17  2019 ICOM General Conference took place between the composition of this chapter and its edition. An agreement on the new definition was not reached at the Kyoto Conference due to a lack of consensus. ICOM decided to postpone the voting indefinitely. 18 ICOM, Creating the new museum definition: over 250 proposals to check out!, April 1, 2019, https://icom. museum/en/news/the-museum-definition-the-backbone‑of-icom/ (accessed August 27, 2019).

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pitch. In some cases, this focus is sharpened by a sense of urgency, something which has been observed especially amongst those who take part in the experience with a specific wish, artist, or type of work in mind. It is interesting to note that this focus shifts when the next stage of the process is reached. The meeting following the selection of the artwork addresses the practicalities about opening up one’s home to the public and the goal of experimenting with art mediation. The host’s future audience is brought into the picture, encouraging the host to integrate the exclusive experience within a broader, relational framework. The privilege is not just about the momentary near-ownership, it is now enriched and enlarged by the perspective of sharing the experience with others. This is when the proto-collector turns into a curator and turns the domestic sphere into a true micro museum. A Museum Creating and Sustaining the Community Spirit: Museum at Home establishes a firm relationship between the Museum of Ixelles, its neighbourhood and its inhabitants. The project leads to the creation of a community amongst neighbours who are aligned with a common mission in relation to the museum, a source of identification and pride. Neighbours meet and bond over the project. In many cases, they keep in touch with each other after their weekend as museum hosts has ended. Furthermore, through Museum at Home, the neighbours also get to know the museum’s staff. The museum is no longer just an institution with closed doors around the corner, but is now also perceived as the result of a continued team effort and a willingness to connect with the local community. This ambassadorship is a key component of the long-term relationship established between the museum, the hosts and their own social circle. When participants spontaneously endorse the project and discuss it with friends and acquaintances, they contribute to the visibility of Museum at Home and of the institution as a whole, which sometimes leads to new opportunities and partnerships. A mother who participated in the project put the museum in contact with her children’s school, located within a stone’s throw from the museum, and with which a collaboration had not yet been developed. This invaluable link has made it possible to accelerate the implementation of artistic activities in the school, reaching about ten classes in a year. During the closure of the Museum of Ixelles, the deployment of the museum’s mediation activities across the private homes of the neighbours in the district and more broadly, in the whole of the municipality of Ixelles is not limited to Museum at Home. Educational activities are offered outside the museum’s walls in classes of all school levels. Just like Museum at Home, most of these activities have the particularity of taking the museum’s collections as a starting point, and of being developed over the fairly long period that the closure exceptionally allows for. After two years of intensive activity in the neighbourhood, it is already clear that by working with different audiences and multiple long-term approaches, a real-life network is starting to take shape. In this respect, the closing period has the potential to mark a decisive turning point in the life of the institution in its neighbourhood. The challenge remains to capitalise on all this potential by immediately putting in place new strategies to use once the museum reopens; the resources and partnerships will again have to be distributed among a wider range of audiences.

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Focus on the Museum Back to the museum roots: While the hosts experience a zone of tension between their position of being for a short period of time a private collector, eager to be the privileged owner of a work intended for his/her delight and that of a few carefully selected informed circle of experts, being a curator at the same time, the museum is similarly confronted with the zone of tension that regarding the museum’s artwork and its accessibility. While the modern museum has extracted the artwork from the Renaissance, inspired by curiosity cabinets, to make it accessible to everyone,19 paradoxically, the 21st century museum seems to have to come out of its walls and reinvest the private sphere or other non-museum places to bring its artworks to a wider audience.20 Reinvested permanent collections: Whilst in the opening period permanent collections are too often relegated to the background compared to temporary exhibitions of a more event-oriented nature, a period of closure leads to a greater use of the permanent collection and is, therefore, particularly conducive to reflection regarding its accessibility, including the part of it lying dormant in storage rooms for years. Museum at Home leads us to questioning the role played by the museum collections21 and the strategies that are still to be developed to enable the public to take greater ownership of the museum. Each work exhibited and taken care of in this privileged private setting reminds us that the public museum institution is, above all, the repository of a common good. A lesson in modesty: Through their multiple and extremely personal interpretations, the hosts also help the museum to renew the way it looks at its works. Some of them, absent or little highlighted in recent exhibitions, are offered a new life in this new setting. Hosts sometimes undertake research about artworks or contact the artists who created them. The latter, seduced by the initiative of the inhabitants, often respond positively to their requests and, are encouraged to engage in passionate conversations about their perception of their own work and of art in general, outside the institutional museum space.

19  Andrea Meyer, Bénédicte Savoy, Towards a transnational history of museums. An introduction in: Andrea Meyer and Bénédicte Savoy (eds.), The Museum Is Open: Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750– 1940, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014, pp. 1–16. 20  See recent examples of the pop‑up trend with museums trying to open up conversations outside their traditional space. Charlotte Coates, Lessons from pop‑up museums reaching new audiences and creating a buzz, May 9, 2019 in Blooloop. Networking the attraction business, https://blooloop.com/features/lessons-­pop‑­ up-museums/ (accessed August 29, 2019). 21  E. g.: in 2018–2019, the UK Museums Association has launched Collections 2030, “a major research project that studies the current state of museum collections in the UK and seeks to understand how collections can be made more empowering, relevant and dynamic”. Patrick Steel, Museums Association launches “Collections 2030”, in: Museums Association, https://www.museumsassociation.org/news/20032018-museums-­ association-launches-collections-2030 (accessed August 29, 2019).

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By hosting a work from the collection, the neighbours symbolically make theirs a piece of the institution. Enveloped in an aura22 that differs radically from that of a private collection, it suffers sometimes from the weight of art history and its inalienability. By engaging with it, the neighbours free the work from its symbolic discourse. The host’s interpretation is perceived and validated as an invitation to appreciate the work intuitively, without reserve. In a way, their contribution is complementary to that of the art specialist (pl. 20). The art historian’s discourse remains reserved for the museum and the latter can learn some modesty when seeing how the hosts, by their personal and interactive interpretation of the works, are able to bring the audience into a very intense approach to art. It enriches, diversifies and updates the way we look at the museum collection, helping to keep this heritage alive. This inevitably leads to a change in the hierarchy, the host being able to create meaningful art experiences benefi­ting to a large audience.23 Integrating the public into the institution: Co-created with the complicity from the inhabitants of the district, Museum at Home infers that the museum considers the hosts as full partners. They are no longer viewed as just visitors, but share with all the museum’s staff the responsibility for its collection, thus their legitimacy is recognised by both visitors and authorities. The duties they assume also give them rights that require them to have a place in the museum. To do this, the hosts of the first edition had to convince the museum (and especially the technical team, the same one that supervises the works during the opening period) of their seriousness and their ability to integrate the museum’s rules. Their involvement in the project, their attentive questioning on the conservation of the work, but also the warmth of their welcome, allayed concerns and validated the newly initiated partnership. Over the years, the place of the hosts in the museum has become more and more fluid. Focus on the Audiences Audience diversification: Museum at Home attracts a variety of audiences: –– Art and culture lovers, including the museum’s unwavering attendees, who are delighted to be back at the museum for this biannual event, despite the closure; –– The neighborhood residents, who also use the event as an opportunity to meet new people in the neighbourhood; –– The guests’ relatives with very diverse profiles; –– A few passers‑by discovering the event by chance, hailed in by a volunteer. 22  The term was used by Walter Benjamin in his influential 1936 essay. See: Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. Second version, in: Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty and Thomas Y. Levin (eds.), The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 2008, pp. 19–55. 23  See this interesting reflection about opening the museum to knowledge coming from outside: Imke Duijf, A Bachelor dissertation on the opportunities of involving expert audiences in museums, Bachelor dissertation Cultural Heritage, Amsterdam: Reinwardt Academy, 2011, https://www.ahk.nl/fileadmin/afbeeldingen/ lichting2011/Reinwardt/i.duijf-scriptie.‌pdf (accessed August 23, 2019).

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Most hosts show an interest in culture or are involved in the life of their neighbourhood, but do not necessarily visit museums in general nor the Museum of Ixelles in particular. The project therefore represents a great opportunity to broaden the museum's audience, without however being able to attract many visitors with socio-economic profiles radically different from those usually encountered in galleries. If hosts function as magnificent ambassadors to relatives and neighbours who have little or no contact with culture, it remains interesting to persevere in mobilising strategies similar to those used in our museums to diversify the profile of visitors as well as that of hosts. For example, partnerships with associations make it easier to reach specific audiences. At each edition, the director proposes to accompany a group of a few people during their journey (deaf and hard of hearing people, neighbourhood committee, members of a community centre, etc). This privileged welcome encourages audiences less familiar with this type of initiative to attend the event. For the 4th edition of Museum at Home, contacts are also made with social housing agencies so that they could promote the project to their tenants. Rehumanising the museum: The Museum at Home itinerary intrigues as much for its artistic discoveries as for the attractiveness of the interiors or, even, for the opportunity of new encounters around the works. Visitors are therefore very sensitive to the generosity of the welcome and the mediation imagined. The presence of the host is required. The guests arrive at their home, and get to know them. They form a real bond with the work and everyone is bursting with questions about their choice, the relationship they have with the work and their participation in the project. The route map distributed to visitors includes the list of all ten works with a photo, the artist’s name, the title of the work and its year of production; in the host’s home, all this information is absent and the work, and how the host chose to present it seems more interesting to the visitor than the artist’s name, which is usually what drives a visitor to the museum. Comparisons were made in which a certain dehumanisation of museums is criticised, as well as the intimidating nature of the institution. Here, visitors are welcomed by the warmth of a home in free access. There is no need to go through security gates or buy a ticket. A volunteer invites the passers‑by to come in. Inside, personal universe is revealed. A host welcomes the audience with a smile, driven by the same desire for an interesting encounter around the artwork. The museum institution in question(s): By inviting its neighbours to display the works of its collection in their interiors, the museum provides the public with a potentially subversive forum for discussion about the museum’s role and finality. In the intimacy of the private sphere, languages are often loosened and no words are lost. For the Museum of Ixelles and the Patrimoine à roulettes teams, this is an opportunity to listen to visitors and, most especially, to non-visitors voices. Very often, the public wonders about the place of the work in this new setting, generally considered more appropriate than the museum walls. Visitors often stress the importance of this initiative, which finally shows works considered as hidden away in the museum storage. For

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visitors, Museum at Home puts the work back in its place, positioning it as close as possible to the people, in the settings for which it was once thought and created. Displayed alone in the middle of a living room, as a unique object attracting all the attention and interpretation, it seems to regain its colours. While it was supposed to be sanctified in the museum, it is on its easel or plinth, in the heart of all these private interiors, that it benefits from its most beautiful pedestal (pl. 16). Here, it does not suffer from competition with other works or from the saturation and weariness felt by visitors in the face of an often abundant museum display. Far from the museum walls, it suddenly seems to deserve more than a few seconds of distracted attention. You can experience deceleration and slow down enjoying and savouring Slow Art.24 Against the current of excessive marketing-isation, from which few museums escape, Museum at Home proposes here to Think Local, practice Slow Art and share artistic emotions rather than to run after big names. Reception of the project by the press and peers: Museum at Home’s first edition gave rise to considerable media interest, both nationally and internationally. The news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) covered the event, which was relayed by leading French and Swiss national media25. Journalists generally highlighted the innovative and daring nature of the initiative. They equally focused on the participatory mediation action and its accessibility. However, they also questioned the museum’s responsibility by displaying their works out of their protected setting, in strangers’ houses. In the second edition, once the sensational effect had passed, media interest took on a more local dimension. Museum at Home is also an initiative that intrigues peers from the cultural sector. It is observed with mistrust, envy or interest, but rarely with indifference. The first edition preparation was even the subject of a documentary of 52’ directed by Le Centre Vidéo de Bruxelles (Brussels Video Centre).26 In June 2019, the initiative was also awarded a prize by a jury of cultural patrons highlighting exemplary Belgian cultural mediation projects.27 Following the media hype and various presentations of the project and of the video documentary during study days or symposiums, several museums, both Belgian and foreign, contacted the Museum of Ixelles and Patrimoine à roulettes to find out about the modalities of the project in order to, perhaps experiment the same concept in their context.

24  Arden Reed, Slow Art. The Experience of Looking, Sacred Images to James Turrell, California: University of California Press, 2017. 25  France Inter, Le 6/9 (broadcasted: June 23, 2018); RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse francophone), Le 12h30 (broadcasted: June 24, 2018). 26  Aurélia Pfend (dir.), Musée comme chez soi, Bruxelles: Centre Vidéo de Bruxelles, 2018 (52’). 27  Collectif aKCess by Promethea, Musée comme chez soi, http://www.akcess.be/fr2/labels/2019-3/ (accessed August 25, 2019).

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Conclusion With 3 more editions to go, the Museum at Home adventure is far from over, so to draw a conclusion in the true sense of the word wouldn’t be recommended at this stage of the operation, but it is already clear that for the Museum of Ixelles and the neighbourhood, there will be a before and an after Museum at Home. This turning point in the life of the institution will have to be thoroughly taken into account when it comes to reinvesting the museum space because the expectations raised are high and the challenges will be numerous. This participatory project has highlighted a whole series of underlying tensions amongst the museum institution, the public and the art collection, but it has also created interesting connections. A series of recent achievements can thus be capitalised upon: new links have been forged around the works of art between the inhabitants of the neighbourhood as well as between them and the museum; it will now be necessary to work on consolidating their interest, extending this newly formed community to other audiences to avoid potential gentrification of the project now that it has gained notoriety. In this respect, the museum will have to motivate its hosts to go beyond the event framework to actively assume their role as ambassadors and to clarify their mission with a view towards the reopening of the museum. In the same way, it must reflect on how to renew, in another form and within the institution, the fabulous field of experimentation created in the heart of the city, at the level of art mediation, but also of the museum redefining its role as a real agora, opening up conversations and connecting people through art. This work, initiated with the precious collaboration of Patrimoine à roulettes, currently allows the deployment of human resources that will no longer be available once the reopening time comes, so it is now, outside the walls, that the museum must create the conditions for its successful future in a collective rethinking of its identity and missions.

REFERENCES Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility. Second version, in: Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty andThomas Y. Levin (eds.), The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press, 2008, pp. 19– 55. Bertels, Laurence, Laurent Busine. Chez un voisin in: La Libre Belgique (September 12, 2012), https://www.lalibre. be/culture/arts/laurent-busine-chez‑un-voisin-51b87a56e4b0de6db9a7950b (accessed August  27, 2019). Catherine Grenier, Catherine, La fin des musées?, Paris: Regard, 2013. Coates, Charlotte, Lessons from pop‑up museums – reaching new audiences and creating a buzz, May 9, 2019 in Blooloop, Networking the attraction business, https://blooloop.com/features/lessons-pop‑up-museums/ (accessed August 29, 2019). Commune d’Ixelles, Contrat de Quartier durable Athénée, http://www.ixelles.be/site/697-Contrat‑de-quartier-­ durable-Athenee (accessed August 29, 2019). Collectif aKCess by Promethea, Musée comme chez soi, http://www.akcess.be/fr2/labels/2019-3/ (accessed August 25, 2019).

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Museum at Home Duijf, Imke, A Bachelor dissertation on the opportunities of involving expert audiences in museums, Bachelor di­ ssertation Cultural Heritage, Amsterdam: Reinwardt Academy, 2011, https://www.ahk.nl/fileadmin/­ afbeeldingen/ lichting2011/Reinwardt/i.duijf-scriptie.‌pdf (accessed August 23, 2019). Eidelman, Jacqueline, (dir.), Inventer des musées pour demain. Rapport de la Mission Musées XXIe siècle, Paris: La documentation française, 2017. France Inter, Le 6/9 (live broadcasted June 23, 2018). Hoet, Jan, Chambres d’amis. Tentoonstelling, Ghent: Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, 1986. ICOM, Creating the new museum definition: over 250 proposals to check out!, April 1, 2019, https://icom.museum/ en/news/the-museum-definition-the-backbone‑of-icom/ (accessed August 27, 2019). Reed, Arden, Slow Art. The Experience of Looking, Sacred Images to James Turrell, California: University of California Press, 2017. Meyer, Andrea and Bénédicte Savoy, Towards a transnational history of museums. An introduction, in: Andrea Meyer and Bénédicte Savoy (eds.), The Museum Is Open: Towards a Transnational History of Museums 1750–1940, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 1–16. Museum of Ixelles, www.museumofixelles.‌be (accessed August 27, 2019). Outings Project, https://www.outings-project.‌org (accessed August 27, 2019). Patrick Steel, Museums Association launches “Collections 2030” in Museums Association, https://www.­ museumsassociation.org/news/20032018-museums-association-launches-collections-2030 (accessed August 29, 2019). Patrimoine à roulettes, https://patrimoinearoulettes.‌org (accessed August 27, 2019). Pfend, Aurélia (dir.), Musée comme chez soi, Bruxelles: Centre Vidéo de Bruxelles, 2018 (52’). RTS (Radio Télévision Suisse francophone), Le 12h30 (live broadcasted June 24, 2018). S. M. A. K., Stel mee onze collectie tentoon, https://smak.be/fr/actualites/handelaars‑in-gent-doe-mee-aan-­ actie-­smakisteklein (accessed August 27, 2019). UK Museums Association, Empowering collections, https://www.museumsassociation.org/download?id=​ 1262818 (accessed August 27, 2019). Stéphanie Masuy, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7168-5612

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NEW YORK CITY’S ART MUSEUMS AND ACTIVISM From Early-Twentieth-Century Antifascism to the Post-Occupy Condition More than any other museums in the world, New York City’s art museums enjoy, for better or for worse, extreme visibility. Caught between the city’s tourism, wealth and limelight on the one hand, and the demands and challenges posed by its diverse communities and a host of internationally acclaimed artists on the other, art museums in New York are notoriously enmeshed in contradictory drives and expectations. While funded by some of the world’s richest individuals and corporations, and welcoming millions of foreign visitors each year, these museums continue to be reminded of their responsibility to the local population and held accountable for their civic duties by New York-based artistic and non-artistic groups alike. Although too special to be seen as a microcosm of all art museums, the example of New York’s museums can illuminate the evolution of art museums’ role in society and the relationship between art museums and the public more broadly. The wide spectrum of protest actions and the intensity of activism targeting art museums in New York can help us to comprehend public perception of art museums and reasons for discontent about their directorial and curatorial decisions. By contemplating the diverse measures taken by museums in response to protest actions, both historical and contemporary, we can evaluate the accuracy, constructiveness and efficacy of those reactions. As such, the resulting analysis can assist art museums in learning from their own and others’ mistakes, reconceptualising their aims and methodologies and adjusting their mission to become more attuned to the needs and interests of their local communities. This chapter traces how activism (or, necessarily, its selected instances) against New York’s art museums has changed over the past decades (from the earliest forms of protest to the Occupy movement to most recent developments) in order to establish, finally, whether it has changed the museums themselves. Following the first weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, the MuseumNext organisation conducted a survey on US museums in relation to trust and participation in social issues. Although the results showed that American people considered museums to be more trustworthy than politicians, brands and celebrities, they also indicated that less than a third of respondents (27 %) supported museums’ social involvement.1 The group that showed the greatest enthusiasm for social engagement on the part of museums were people under 30. Still, only 44 % of those, expressed the opinion that socially engaged museums would be of greater interest to them as 1  Jim Richardson, Should Museums be Activists?, https://www.museumnext.com/2017/04/should-museums‑­ be-activists/ (accessed April 20, 2019).

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visitors. Clearly, the public does not recognise or has lost its faith in museums’ social role. And it seems that we have come to a crossroads: less than a decade ago some museum studies pundits were heralding a consolidated, socially engaged role for museums, shrouding the problems confronted by museum directors and curators in an aura of optimism and countering criticism of museums with a few isolated, positive examples. One instance of this optimistic attitude is the 2010 publication entitled The Social Work of Museums, whose author, Lois Silverman, asserts that over the years, museums have learned from the field of social work and have thus developed a constructive connection with the world they occupy. Stressing their role as catalysts of group activity, Silverman argues that “at the societal level, [museums] promote civic engagement.”2 In a similar tone, Kylie Message’s Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest, published in 2014, describes the ways in which people’s engagement is capable of exerting a profound influence on museums’ methodologies.3 Both publications identify the roots of the social engagement of museums in the widespread public unrest of the 1960 s and 70 s, and both present an encouraging vision of museums’ roles as representatives of communities and spaces that facilitate communication. Significantly, these studies focus on museums that were conceived precisely to serve the needs of communities and foster public engagement, such as the Museo de la Mujer in Buenos Aires and the Fire Safety Museum of Taipei City, both extolled by Silverman, and the Smithsonian Museum of American History and Museum of the American Indian, discussed by Message. Yet while it is relatively easy to note and praise public engagement on the part of museums which are dedicated to concrete social issues, the repeated protest actions staged in and around museums of art, particularly in New York City, suggest that local communities expect similar levels of engagement and accountability from institutions dedicated to collecting and displaying artworks. Increasingly, all manner of activist groups are mobilising to expose and challenge art museums’ isolation from the general public and from the social, political and economic problems of those museums’ local communities. Indeed, the most recent protests targeting such renowned art establishments as the Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art do not correspond with the positive picture of museums’ social commitment drawn by Silverman and Message. Before the New York history of art museum activism can be properly examined, it seems relevant to inquire why art museums in general have attracted protest actions and acts of vandalism coming from such a wide variety of sources and with such frequency and intensity. The key point to make here is that protests aimed at art museums almost always concern more than the art on display. What they all have in common is a claim to power over the institution: if people oppose certain decisions made by the art museum’s management, they do so because they deem the art museum to be part of the commons, demanding museums to be reflective of and responsible to the society at large rather than a selected group of privileged individuals. At the same time, museums strive to police, regulate and, ultimately, shape their viewers by means of elaborate lists of rules and regulations. Art museums have always placed visitors under close scrutiny, imposing rigid codes on their behaviour and restricting their interactions with exhibits. 2  Lois H. Silverman, The Social Work of Museums, New York: Routledge, 2010, p. 120. 3  Kylie Message, Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest, New York: Routledge, 2014.

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Museums were conceived not just to collect, preserve and display: they were to designate what was acceptable and what was prohibited. Helen Rees Leahy draws a connection between the countless regulations governing early museums and a sense of anxiety that stemmed from the modern, unprecedentedly democratic space, which accommodated all strata of society at the same time.4 Early museums were places where members of all classes could and often would meet, provided that they also met a set of standards issued by the institution. Museums’ entry requirements, prescribing the accepted appearance and demeanour, were the first step to achieve visitors’ compliance with the museum’s authoritative tone.5 Hence, by regulating the visitors’ comportment, museums became aligned with law-making and governing bodies. To demonstrate how such institutions came to be identified with the nation state, Leahy evokes a whole array of attacks on the contents of art museums.6 For instance, when in 1914 suffragette Mary Richardson slashed Velazquez’s Rokeby Venus in London’s National Gallery (a work which had been purchased through a nationwide fundraising campaign) the attack represented far more than Richardson’s resentment of the painting or its creator: it was an attack on the British government. Works of art enjoying the status of national treasures and bearing symbolic values for the state have often been targeted by individuals who seek to vent their frustration with state authorities and the living conditions they provide. Rembrandt’s Night Watch, perceived to be celebrating Dutch civic solidarity, was assaulted twice, in 1911 and 1975, each time by an unemployed citizen. The most recent attack on the Mona Lisa, displayed in the Louvre since 1797, was perpetrated by a Russian woman who felt indignant at her failure to obtain the French citizenship. Such acts of protest aim at art but target power structures that extend beyond the museum and beyond the art world. Art museums (particularly those that house the finest and most valued works of art) are perceived as embodiments of state authority, and by extension, of the status quo. This is not to say, however, that each act of vandalism perpetrated upon an exhibit is tantamount to an attack on the museum itself. The assaults on Charles X’s portraits during the July Revolution in France should rather be seen as acts of or “symbolic … regicide”, to use Leahy’s expression.7 Whether or not such vandalisms are directed specifically at museums, they all point to art museums’ public perception as spaces where citizens can draw broader attention to their plight. Furthermore, art museums’ affinity, both past and present, with the aristocratic, affluent and exceptionally powerful members of society – often represented explicitly by signs of elite patronage within the museum’s spaces – has consistently drawn anti-austerity activism and protests against economic inequality into those museums’ spaces. Nonetheless, while individuals who transgress art museum rules or vandalise museum exhibits rarely achieve more than briefly heightened attention, art museums face much more consistently recurring and powerful kind of activism, from the artistic community. Since New York City boasts one of the most vibrant ar-

4  Helen Rees Leahy, Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. 5  Ibid., p. 135. 6  Ibid., p. 144. 7  Ibid., p. 149.

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tistic communities anywhere in the world, it is hardly surprising that it has also been the epicentre of artist-led protest against art museums’ policies, their economic and political ties, as well as the content of their exhibitions and their educational programmes. The first signs of sustained critique of art institutions expressed in art and by artists can be traced back to Duchamp’s Fountain (1917) and other readymades, but the origins of the mode of artistic production known as Institutional Critique are usually identified in the post-war Conceptual practices of artists such as Daniel Buren, Michael Asher and Hans Haacke. Andrea Fraser, a younger but equally accomplished artist specialising in Institutional Critique, explains that works by such practitioners are defined by a methodology of critically reflexive site-specificity, by which she means that these works treat each art site (institution) as a set of social relations, and that they critically probe those relations in the hope of exposing their most problematic aspects, ultimately, to transform them.8 Institutional Critique is a political practice which reveals and questions the underlying power structures of art institutions, and importantly, rather than working the outside, it operates from within those institutions. It is and has always been, as Fraser asserts, institutionalised: this type of practice insists on “the inescapability of institutional determination”, using official museum and gallery circuits to critique the power imbalances, corporate entanglements and other forms of domination that govern and define those very circuits.9 It is this self-proclaimed awareness of the institutional inescapability that distinguishes Institutional Critique from activist art, as least in the sense ascribed to the latter by artist, writer and activist Gregory Sholette. He juxtaposes activist art with practices that are “dependent on the space of the museum for their meaning,” arguing for artistic projects that rely on “non-institutional forms of cultural distribution” in order to “speak about social injustices with an audience who presumably has little patience for refined aestheticism but does care about war, inequality, political freedom and protecting the environment.”10 And yet even Sholette recognises the seminal importance, especially for future activist practices, of works that are quintessential examples of Institutional Critique, in particular, the site-specific installations by Haacke, which the artist mounted between the late 1960 s and the early 1970 s in some of New York’s most prestigious art museums.11 The turbulent decades of the 1960 s and 70 s saw a number of artists use both the physical and the ideological structures of art museums to transmit their institutional critique to those museums’ audiences, yet it was Haacke’s work that truly defined the limits of the critically reflexive site-specificity that Fraser discussed. In 1970, Haacke produced an installation entitled The MoMA Poll, which was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) as part of the pioneering Information exhibition. The work consisted of two transparent ballot boxes and a plaque which read, “Would the fact that Governor Rockefeller has not denounced President Nixon’s Indochina

8  Andrea Fraser, What is Institutional Critique?, in: John C. Welchma (ed.), Institutional Critique and After, Zürich: JRP/Ringier, 2006, pp. 305–307, p. 305. 9  Andrea Fraser, From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique, in: Artforum 44 (2005), pp. 278–283, p. 282. 10  Gregory Sholette, News from Nowhere: Activist Art and After, in: Third Text 13 (1998), pp. 45–62, p. 49. 11  Ibid., p. 50.

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policy be a reason for you not to vote for him in November?” The visitors would answer by casting a vote into one of the boxes. The subversive nature of this interactive piece within the context of MoMA becomes apparent as we read through Nelson Rockefeller’s biography: his mother was one of the founders of the museum and Nelson himself briefly served as president of the museum’s Board of Trustees. Thus, the question did much more than simply bring the issue of the Vietnam War into the museum space, it questioned the moral values espoused by the institution in which it was posed. This work can be classified as an act of protest against the institution because when the organizers of Information commissioned a piece from Haacke they did not know what exactly he would produce: the inflammatory message only transpired as the artist completed his installation in one of the galleries.12 With minimal intervention on the artist’s part he merely set up a system which was operated by MoMA’s visitors, Haacke’s poll managed to reveal and problematise the networks of power relations at work in the art world, whilst pointing to the economic and political sources of that power. Only a year after the MoMA Poll, another work by Haacke caused New York’s Guggenheim Museum to call off an exhibition of his work. The installation, entitled Shapolsky et al. Manhattan Real Estate Holdings, a Real-Time Social System, as of May 1, 1971, consisted of over 140 photographs, as well as documents, maps and charts which chronicled the fraudulent operations of the city’s largest real estate group. Haacke’s intricate installation revealed that the group comprised several different companies and individuals, often completely unrelated on paper, which collectively owned or otherwise controlled the bulk of properties in the impoverished areas of Manhattan. Thomas Messer, then the Guggenheim’s director, deemed Shapolsky et al., together with another work in which Haacke also delved into New York’s real estate business, to be inadequate for an art exhibition held at such a prestigious museum, and when Haacke refused to pull the works from the show, it was cancelled altogether, just 6 weeks before the scheduled opening. Of the many critics’ responses to the controversy surrounding the Shapolsky work, Rosalyn Deutsche’s is perhaps the most insightful. Her analysis underlines the fact that Haacke’s installation extended the discussion about New York’s property market beyond the properties owned by Shapolsky: “Exhibited in the Guggenheim, [the Shapolsky piece] would have precipitated inspection not only of Shapolsky’s real-estate manoeuvres but of the museum’s physical space, social position, and ideological tenets.”13 Thus, the Guggenheim Museum would no longer be viewed as an architectural marvel whose sole purpose was to exhibit precious works of modern art. Rather, Haacke’s work illuminated the numerous analogies between New York’s real estate giant and one of the city’s most revered art institutions: between, as Deutsche describes it, “ownership and control of properties and the ownership and control of culture, between houses collected by the Shapolsky family and art collected by the Guggenheim family, between the commodity form of both housing and art production, and, especially after the show’s cancellation, between the concealment of power in the city and in the museum.”14 Although never exhibited 12  Adam Lauder, IAIN BAXTER&: The Artist as Drop‑in, in: Journal of Canadian Art History / Annales d’histoire de l’art Canadien 31 (2010), pp. 40–75, p. 41. 13  Rosalyn Deutsche, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996, p. 171. 14  Ibid., p. 182.

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in its intended location, Haacke’s Shapolsky piece attracted a great deal of scholarly attention and blazed a trail for other artists keen to engage with socio-economic issues at play within the institution of an art museum. As Sholette stresses, the work “demonstrated that the practice of site-specific institutional criticism had become inseparable from questions of social justice that previously seemed to have little to due with aesthetics or with the institutional frame.”15 Haacke’s work deprived art museums of the pristine façade of merely collecting, exhibiting and preserving art; it stripped them of the guise that had concealed their political and corporate connections. Yet while Haacke demonstrated the full potential of Institutional Critique, museum directors quickly grasped that by courting less incisive works produced in a similar, overtly critical mode, they could keep those intent on actually probing their financial ties and questioning their integrity at bay, a move which allowed some art museums to establish, if only for a brief moment, a reputation for self-reflexivity and accountability. Indeed, writing in 1971, Duncan Cameron observed that, “some museums […] have decided to incorporate manifestations of the antiestablishment movement within their establishment institutions because they feared protest or perhaps violence and sought to neutralize the enemy.”16 The 1970 s were undeniably a decade of protests, and by allowing activist gestures and works of Institutional Critique into their galleries, museums could retain a degree of control over their public image as well as, in some cases, improving their ratings. Cameron also suggests that such museums may have been chosen to engage with radical and activist practices so as to maintain a superficial connection with the contemporary world. One example illustrating this kind of intention was “Committed to Print: Social and Political Themes in Recent American Painted Art,” a large exhibition organised by the MoMA in 1988. The prints and posters on display were divided into thematic categories including “gender, governments/leaders, race/culture, nuclear power/ecology, war/revolution, economic/ class struggles/the American dream.”17 While ostensibly courting socially engaged artistic and design practices, the exhibition met with strong protest from ACT UP, a collective committed to raising AIDS awareness. Members of ACT UP felt that their activist art, so frequently distributed in the form of prints and posters, had been completely overlooked by MoMA’s curators. ACT UP’s reaction was to hand out leaflets explaining their cause to the visitors, a gesture that managed to subvert the seemingly progressive nature of the exhibition and suggested ties between the museum and the government, pointing to the fact that both of these institutions had failed to recognise the gravity of the ongoing AIDS epidemic. Stressing the momentousness of ACT UP’s campaigns, Douglas Crimp implies that MoMA’s lack of recognition for the group’s graphic posters resulted from the institution’s elitist approach: other exhibits in the show had been produced by highly acclaimed and established artists such as Robert Rauschenberg or Barbara Kruger.18

15  Sholette 1998 (as fn. 10), p. 50. 16  Duncan F. Cameron, The Museum, a Temple or the Forum (1971), in: Gail Anderson (ed.), Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift, New York: Altamira, 2012, pp. 48–60, p. 56. 17  Douglas Crimp, AIDS Demo Graphics, in: Allan Klusacek and Ken Morrison (eds.), A Leap in the Dark: AIDS, Art, and Contemporary Cultures, Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1993, pp. 47–57, p. 50. 18  Ibid., p. 53.

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Comprising both trained artists and members of other professions, ACT UP exemplified a wave of collectives which were united by a political initiative rather than their artistic approach, medium or style. Such collectives may be concerned with and protest against art museums’ policies or exhibition contents, but for ACT UP, protesting the MoMA’s show was also a way of obtaining a platform for their socio-political agenda. Previously, they had used the space of Wall Street with a similar same aim in mind that is, in order to gain visibility. Occupying the area directly opposite the New York Stock Exchange, ACT UP organised their signature die‑in: collectively lying down to both call attention to the massive but unacknowledged death toll caused by AIDS and highlight the problem of profiteering from anti-AIDS drugs. That ACT UP targeted both art museums and financial institutions was extremely meaningful, if not symbolic: the connection between Wall Street’s billionaires and New York’s most recognised museum collections is now widely acknowledged in fact, owing largely to activists like ACT UP and socially engaged artists such as Haacke. However, both the problem of art museums’ imbrication in America’s largest fortunes and the potential for political action in museums were recognised well before ACT UP, and even before Haacke and the emergence of Institutional Critique. One of America’s first politically motivated groups of artists, united by an antifascist cause, formed a coalition under the auspices of the American Artists Congress in New York City prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. Their numerous demonstrations addressed issues of poverty, racism, and the global arms race. Although the group eventually disintegrated, there is a clear connection between their antifascist activity in the 1930 s and the motives driving the collectives that emerged in the late 1960 s and 70 s and staged multiple museum-centred protests. Perhaps the most important of the latter was the Art Workers Coalition (AWC), which brought together a number of influential contemporary artists, critics, and writers and took as its aim New York’s largest museums. The group’s formation was a consequence of the anti-war ferment that shook the nation at the time. Most of the AWC’s actions were directed at MoMA, where artists contested the museum’s refusal to tackle the subject of the Vietnam War. As the Art Workers Coalition’s name suggest, the members felt themselves part of the workers’ movement. Owing to the proliferation of pacifist and anti-racist groups at the time, the AWC could also look to other organisations to form a highly structured body with clearly defined objectives. In April 1969, they formulated their programme and presented it to MoMA’s director. It consisted of thirteen demands for sweeping reforms of the museum.19 The first clause requested a change in the composition of the Board of Trustees: it now was to include museum staff and artists (12). Just this one demand demonstrates the artists’ desire to be active agents in the museum’s daily operations. The second point proposed that museums be free of charge at all times and open long hours (12) – clearly, the AWC conceived its role as the spokesperson for the working class. Indeed, their entire programme was designed to mount an attack on the status quo maintained by MoMA. In the absence of a minimum wage, the group also produced a list of measures to improve the artists’ economic position. Finally, the document included de19  Art Workers’ Coalition, Statement of Demands, in: Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson (eds.), Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Cambridge: MIT Press, 2011, pp. 88–89.

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mands for greater recognition of women artists as well as greater involvement opportunities for black and Hispanic communities. As it could have been predicted, MoMA failed to comply with the list of demands issued by the AWC. Similarly, the museum refused to react to the anti-Vietnam War protest which group staged by bringing in countless copies of the now iconic And babies poster and displaying them in front of Picasso’s Guernica, on loan to the museum at the time (December 1969). Even at the sacrifice of future participation of prominent artists in its exhibitions, an institution so inescapably enmeshed in corporate networks and international politics could neither meet the AWC’s high expectations nor sever its ties with such a powerful figure as Nelson Rockefeller. However, the AWC’s protests did bring about one substantial change to MoMA: the museum introduced a weekly free‑of-charge evening. While this commendable policy has since become standard for other museums, the fact that such free evenings are now commonly sponsored by corporate businesses, bearing the donor’s name for marketing purposes, points to art museums’ unchanging financial dependence on wealthy corporate patrons and explains why MoMA’s institutional identity clashed so unresolvedly with the AWC’s demands. The AWC’s call for greater inclusion of artists of colour was not isolated. In fact, the period between the late 1960 s and early 1970 s saw the emergence of numerous significant activist groups. The Black Emergency Culture Coalition (BECC) led by Benny Andrews was formed to denounce a single exhibition (the Metropolitan Museum’s 1969 Harlem on My Mind) but soon their activity escalated into a wide-ranging critique of other institutions and their permanent collections, which they condemned predominantly for disregarding black artists (notably, the Whitney Museum of American Art). The infamous Harlem on My Mind, although unmistakably intended as a demonstration of the Met’s inclusivity, consisted largely of documentary photographs depicting the Harlem community and was completely devoid of works by African American artists. The BECC organised a number of protest actions, most of which entailed picketing outside the Met and handing out informational flyers to elucidate the group’s cause. Once again, the activists pointed to a problem much larger and much more serious than the exhibition itself: they hoped to expose the systemic racism and the refusal to represent New York’s actual community (especially people of colour) that underpinned the collections and exhibitions of the city’s most cherished museums. As Susan Cahan writes, “the artists jolted the Metropolitan Museum out of the past and brought the civil rights movement to the museum’s front door.”20 Women’s representation was another major problem of New York’s museums, and although some mixed-gender activist groups advocated greater inclusion of women artists in exhibitions and permanent collections, even the progressive AWC had failed to satisfy women’s demands, which led to the creation of a group called Women Artists in Revolution (WAR). A number of similar groups, such as the Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation (WSABAL), the Ad Hoc Women Artists’ Committee and Women in the Arts (WIA), were founded around the same time. Although they continued to protest gender inequality in New York’s major art museums and their exhibitions (notably, the notoriously male-dominated Whitney Biennial) these groups 20  Susan Cahan, Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016, p. 33.

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also organised their own exhibitions and established separate exhibition spaces. Recognising the patriarchal power structures that governed not only museum management and boards but also activist groups, women artists resolved to create an alternative, feminist exhibition system for their artistic production. While the 1970 s would prove to be a pivotal decade for the women’s movement, the political unrest surrounding the escalation of the Vietnam War towards the late 1960 s and the fight for civil rights for black Americans had already engendered an atmosphere of dissent and a spirit of self-organising, both of which were favourable to the establishment of A. I. R. ​Gallery in 1972, the first cooperative gallery for women artists. As Meredith Brown notes, A. I. R. ​“played a pivotal role in the development of art spaces devoted to the feminist cause.”21 Indeed, many similar undertakings followed across the United States. Some feminist activist groups did not cease their efforts towards redressing the underrepresentation of women and people of colour in New York’s art museums even after a network of feminist, cooperative galleries had been established. One of them was the Guerrilla Girls, whose activism continues until today. What distinguishes the Guerrilla Girls from many other activist collectives is not only their extraordinary visual identity – they don gorilla masks for all their public appearances – but, most importantly, their systematic and rigorous approach to the interrogation of museum operations, which has now expanded from assessing major American art institutions to a being global project of evaluating museums’ and galleries’ work towards achieving greater equality. The collective regularly issues statistics illustrating the representation of women artists and artists of colour in major art institutions in the United States, as well as distributing posters and billboards intended to draw public attention to discrimination and violence against women. By imposing an unprecedented degree of scrutiny on museums and invariably calling public attention to the results of their investigations, the Guerrilla Girls contribute to the process that Alice Wexler calls the “demystification of the museum.”22 While it was once museums that scrutinised their visitors’ behaviour and inspected their belongings, groups like the Guerrilla Girls have actually managed to turn quite a few tables, giving the general public access to greater amounts of information than museums wish to publicise. Institutional critique, protest art and activism have paved the way for museum audiences to track and actively seek data regarding art museums’ financial operations, ethical conduct and representational issues in their collections and exhibitions. Nonetheless, as Maura Reilly stresses in her 2018 book, newly published statistics show that, even despite the potent wave of activism that shook New York’s art museums during the past decades, women artists and artists of colour continue to receive much less recognition that their male counterparts.23 Among the most outrageous instances of underrepresentation in New York’s institutions, Reilly lists the Whitney’s America is Hard to See exhibition, which in May 2015 inaugurated the museum’s move to a brand new building by starchitect Renzo Piano, as

21  Meredith A. Brown, The Enemies of Women’s Liberation in the Arts Will be Crushed: A. I. R. ​Gallery’s Role in the American Feminist Art Movement, https://www.aaa.si.edu/publications/essay-prize/2012-essay-prizemeredith-brown (accessed April 20, 2019). 22  Alice Wexler, Museum Culture and the Inequities of Display and Representation, in: Visual Arts Research 33 (2007), pp. 25–33, p. 27 23  Maura Reilly, Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating, London: Thames & Hudson, 2018, p. 17.

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well as selections from MoMAs’ permanent collection presented at two of the museum’s most recent post-refurbishment re‑openings, in 2004 and in 2016. The Guerrilla Girls have also inspired other activists to hold the art world accountable for equal representation of women artists, notably an art activist group called Pussy Galore, which in 2015 recreated the famous Report Card, originally issued by the Guerrilla Girls in 1986. Both Report Cards illustrate the representation of women artists in New York galleries. Rather depressingly, the new version shows that although some positive changes have occurred since the previous report, men continue to dominate New York’s commercial gallery sector.24 Like the recurring accusations of sexism and racism pervading museum policies and representation, the problem of unethical corporate and political activities of art museums’ board members continues to reverberate in protests targeting museums to this day. In fact, since the rise of Occupy Wall Street in 2011, museum-centred activism has intensified, particularly through the actions of Occupy Museums, which, in the words of curator Nato Thompson, “[picked] up where the Art Workers’ Coalition of 1969 had left off.”25 Occupy Museums’ mission is based on the belief that “art and culture are the soul of the commons”, and they devote special attention to museums’ financial operations and their treatment of workers.26 On 9 September 2014, the Metropolitan Museum held a gala to celebrate David Koch and the opening of the newly installed museum’s front plaza, which has been given the industrialist’s name Koch had donated $ 65 million for its renovation. Both the donation itself and the inaugural, celebratory event met with strong opposition from environmentalists and members of Occupy Museums. Throughout the day, they demonstrated on the MET’s stairs and eventually rechristened the plaza as Art for the Planet Plaza. A few hours later, during the evening gala, slogans were projected on the museum’s façade. The participating activists were outraged at the fact that such an essential, representational and conspicuous component of New York’s most venerated art museum was to be named after a billionaire who had acquired a reputation for funding lobbyists to deny the existence of the man-made climate change. The protestors made it clear that the public was claiming the right to infiltrate, criticise and control the museum’s funding structure, and while the protest action may not change the board’s decisions, it certainly jeopardises its reputation by attracting media attention to Koch’s underhand strategies. Much like the anti-war, pro-civil rights and pro-workers’ rights demonstrations in the 1960 s and 1970 s, present-day activism employs major art museums as an arena in which to discuss national politics, now enmeshed in the growing climate crisis. The anti-Koch protest was just one example of Occupy Museums’ activism. The group also collaborated with the Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G. U. L. F.) and the related Gulf Labor initiative, staging a widely publicised action in New York’s Guggenheim Museum against labour abuse during the construction of the museum’s sleek Abu Dhabi branch. Not only did the activists re-

24  Ibid., p. 19. 25  Nato Thompson, Seeing Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century, New York: Melville House Publishing, 2015, ebook, n. p. 26  Noah Fischer et. al., Occupy Museums!, https://www.occupymuseums.org/index.php/about (accessed April 20, 2019).

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spond to external reports on appalling labour conditions conducted by Human Rights Watch and Pricewater Coopers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi’s luxury district, but they also conducted their own research on the issue.27 The ensuing protests featured projecting subversive images on the famous rotunda of New York’s Guggenheim, entering the museum with artworks that mimic the exhibits, chanting slogans and dropping leaflets from the top floor onto the visitors in the main hall. One novel way of questioning the museum’s policy can be seen in the creation of a mock website that imitated the layout of the original Guggenheim page but contained a biting satire on the museum’s righteousness. This kind of digital attack has only become available in recent years, accompanied by other online means of organising protest actions, especially, social media platforms. In short, digital protest and online organising have become standard practices of the Occupy movement. Artists participating in the Gulf Labor project are concerned with the way a museum as renowned as the Guggenheim treats its workers: denying them basic rights, keeping them in policed work camps, forcing them to work extremely long hours for unliveable wages. Their activism is guided by a broad understanding of art museum ethics, encompassing all aspects of the institution’s operations. Much like in the Guerrilla Girls’ case, the independent research that Gulf Labor conducted in Abu Dhabi provided their activism with sound arguments against the museum, equipping the protesters with tangible evidence of unlawful management of work and appalling living conditions on the museum’s construction site. 28 Their investigation is yet another manifestation of public scrutiny over museums. Demonstrations such as those staged by the G. U. L. F. and Occupy Museums have implications that reach beyond the art world: they belong to the larger struggle for human rights, showing the world exactly why we need greater transparency of corporations and institutions. The spirit of grassroots organising and the political activation of the so‑called 99 % triggered by the Occupy movement may have become less evident since the occupation of Zuccotti Park in 2011, but their echoes could certainly be heard following the election of Donald Trump. On 16 November 2017, the Illuminator, art collective responsible for nocturnal projections cast on New York’s museums (for instance, during the protest against the Guggenheim’s labour abuse in Abu Dhabi, and during the gala celebrating Koch’s donations to the Met) and linked to Occupy Museums, staged an action entitled State of Emergency in response to Trump’s presidency and the ferment surrounding his election. This time, the Illuminator’s projection was more elaborate than the symbolic figures they usually tend to employ (such as 1 %): the collective showed a video consisting of 60 clips made by various artists and filmmakers as a commentary on the American political and electoral crisis. The background for the projection was the new façade of the New Museum in New York. Only a few months earlier, Occupy Museums had organised a march from the College Art Association to the MoMA to request the immediate removal of Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, from the museum’s board precisely for Fink’s ties to the Trump administration. Significantly, the statement issued by Occupy Museums, read aloud during the evening 27  Gulf Labor Artist Coalition, Timeline, https://gulflabor.org/timeline/ (accessed April 20, 2019). 28  Gulf Labor Artist Coalition, Saadiyat Island Report Press Release, https://gulflabor.org/wp-content/­ uploads/2014/05/GL-Saadiyat-Island-Report-Press-Release.‌pdf (accessed April 20, 2019).

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of 17 February 2017 by artist and activist Coco Fusco, cited historical instances of protests aimed at MoMA as the protest’s inspiration: “There is a long history of activism at MoMA. In fact, tonight’s free museum entrance was brought to you by the Art Worker’s coalition protests decades ago. So in this tradition, we are calling for MoMA to change its behavior.”29 While there is no denying that, with Occupy, we are witnessing a new phase of activist infiltration and critique of art museums’ structures and operations, it is also important to recognise that these protesters are cognisant of the activist achievements of their predecessors. They rely on the past moments of rupture and past activist success stories to legitimise their protest actions as the most, if not the only, effective ways of negotiating with the powerful institutions that New York’s art museums are. Yet, it would be too simple to equate the Occupy-inspired protests and the actions of the AWC and other activist groups in the late 1960 s and the 1970 s. For its participants, the Occupy movement is not a side activity, nor is it just a new phase of workers’ rights activism. Yates McKee’s recent book on the post-Occupy developments in the art world stresses that Occupy Wall Street, and not just Occupy Museums, was formed by many artists. McKee demonstrates that, “Occupy itself might be considered an artistic project in its own right.”30 For artists active in the Occupy movement, the boundary between art and activism does not exist; put differently: there is no art without activism. Hence, for McKee, a typical artist-member of Occupy should be called artist as organizer, which is related, but not identical, to the artist as worker, a figure that typified the AWC. Post-Occupy protests against art museum policies and the political activities of New Yorkbased artists in the 1960 s and 1970 s are also linked by the growing rapprochement between art museums and activism. Protest groups and their projects continue to be courted by museum curators, gaining representation in art collections, exhibition and biennials. As paradoxical as it may sound, Occupy Museums’ Debt Fair was in fact a part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, arguably the most important and prestigious contemporary art biennial in the entire United States, organised by one of America’s most valued art museums. It is only a matter of time before we see Occupy’s retrospective exhibition in the galleries of one of the global art museum giants, as prefigured by the history of the Guerrilla Girls’ presence in art galleries and museums. The Guerrilla Girls first attracted worldwide recognition thanks to their sustained attack on patriarchal art museums, but they now enjoy recognition from some of the very same museums whose operations they were once condemning. Furthermore, they collaborate with art institutions to present the results of their surveys on other art establishments. One recent example is the large-scale investigation into the position of women in European galleries, whose results were displayed at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. Whilst exposing the continuing problem of gender inequality in museum exhibitions and museum structures, the exhibition confirmed the status of the group’s activities as an artistic practice rather than solely a political, activist movement. Although the collective is currently more active in Europe, they also celebrated three 29  Hrag Vartanian, Protesters Demand MoMA Drop Trump Advisor from Its Board, https://hyperallergic. com/360236/protesters-demand-moma-drop-trump-advisor-from-its-board/ (accessed April 20, 2019). 30  Yates McKee, Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition, London: Verso, 2016, ebook, n. p.

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decades of their activity by staging a Pop‑up Birthday Exhibition at the Abrons Art Center in New York in May 2015.31 Even more meaningful is the increasing amount of evidence that activism targeting art museums can prompt museum directors to make positive changes corresponding to the local community’s needs or demands. This exactly is what happened at the Brooklyn Museum a few years ago. In November 2015, the museum played host to the 6th Annual Brooklyn Real Estate Summit. Rather unsurprisingly, the event sparked off controversy and opposition from a number of activist groups representing local communities, dominated by minorities and people of colour, concerned with the unstoppable gentrification of New York City. Resistance to the summit was so paramount and so widespread that it not only brought different activist collectives but also a attracted support from a group that represented a completely different cause: the Decolonial Cultural Front, protesting against the exhibition called This Place for downplaying Israel’s aggressive policies aimed at Palestinians. The coalition these parties formed together managed to mount a protest so potent that the Brooklyn Museum Director, Anne Pasternak, could not possibly ignore it. She invited the activists for talks, which led to the extremely rapid organisation of the first Brooklyn Community Forum on Anti-Gentrification and Displacement. The Forum took place in July 2016 inside the Brooklyn Museum. This case may be perceived as an indicator that museums no longer feel confortable being associated with the vilified 1 %, and that they might finally become more responsive to community protests, even if these are not concerned with the art on display. Importantly, when the art on display becomes the target of protests, responding to opposition may involve some risks. Works of contemporary art often touch upon contentious issues and may engender extremely divergent reactions. If the museum leans towards one side, it may find itself confronted by the other. As the controversy surrounding the use, or, for many, the abuse, of animals in the massive exhibition Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World at the Guggenheim has shown, even when museums fulfil the protestors’ demands, they are not safe from criticism. Animal rights activists accused three separate works in the exhibition of treating animals: dogs, pigs, as well as a selection of insects and reptiles, in a callous manner, which was quickly linked to the problem of widespread animal abuse in China, the show’s central subject.32 Although, initially, the Guggenheim sought to appease the protests (featuring marches in front of the museum and an online petition) by issuing an explanatory statement from the curators, they eventually decided to pull the works from the exhibition altogether. Although that pleased the animal rights activists, some artists, notably, Ai Wei Wei, and organisations like PEN America, a powerful advocate of free expression, voiced their concerns about the museum’s decision. For the latter group, removing contested artworks from the exhibition was tantamount to a curtailment of artistic freedom that could set a dangerous precedent for future museum policies and

31  Guerrilla Girls, A Selection of the Guerrilla Girls’ Exhibitions And Street Projects, https://www.guerrillagirls.­com/­exhibitions (accessed April 20, 2019). 32  Robin Pogrebin and Sopan Deb, Guggenheim Museum Is Criticized for Pulling Animal Artworks, https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/arts/design/guggenheim-art-and-china-after-1989-animal-welfare.‌html (accessed April 20, 2019).

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curatorial practices. While the debate that the exhibition generated included interesting views and powerful arguments, it took place outside the museum, at a moment when the works had already been evacuated, which may suggest a missed opportunity for a more constructive response on the Guggenheim’s part. This story shows that art museums, especially the ones that enjoy such a high degree of global visibility, must proceed with extreme caution when responding to any type of public criticism. Rather than issuing dry, formulaic statements and making rushed decisions, museums should also try actively to engage in dialogue with the public and invite experts and activists to help them take the most reasonable course of action. New York’s art museums have seen countless other protest actions, petitions and attacks, which this chapter did not cover, including Rudy Giuliani’s opposition to the Brooklyn Museum’s 1999 exhibition of Chris Ofili’s painting of a black Madonna, which the artist had decorated with elephant dung; or the controversy surrounding the inclusion of Dana Schutz’s painting of Emmet Till in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, to name just two. Yet, the activist campaign that is targeting the most prestigious art museums in North America and Europe at present may in fact leave a more meaningful mark on the art world, bringing an end to certain highly beneficial financial connections on which these institutions once relied virtually unquestioningly. The campaign in question, launched by photographer Nan Goldin and an emergency group she established called the Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (P. A. I. N.), demands that art museums cut their ties to the Sackler family, whose aggressive marketing strategies resulted in the ongoing opioid addiction crisis, one of the biggest health crises in recent American history.33 Goldin, herself once addicted to opioids, has long-standing experience in protesting against major institutions: as she explains, at first she intended to rely on the activist strategies she and others used during the protest actions against the Vietnam War and the AIDS epidemic.34 Indeed, some of the methods employed by her group bear resemblance to the protest actions staged in the past decades: at the Guggenheim Museum, for instance, the P. A. I. N. protesters dropped hundreds of fake prescriptions, reminiscent of ACT UP’s action of dropping of fake currency in the New York Stock Exchange, and they used another one of ACT UP’s classic protest techniques, by staging a die‑in on the museum’s ground floor. Yet, Goldin has also realised the potential of social media, joining some of the most popular platforms such as Instagram in order to connect with the broader public and to publicise her activist efforts. Together with P. A. I. N., Goldin has already achieved major successes: in March 2019, London’s National Portrait Gallery and Tate Modern have announced that they would stop accepting donations from the Sacklers, and a few days later a similar decision was made by the Guggenheim Museum in New York. While these museums constitute only a small fraction of the art institutions funded by the Sackler family, their recent decisions give us a glimmer of hope for the future; they signal to their global counterparts that they can and, indeed, must be selective when accepting donations, or else they will continue to be associated with corporations that harm societies, choosing financial gain over public trust. 33  P. A. I. N., Main Page, https://www.sacklerpain.‌org (accessed April 20, 2019). 34  Joanna Walters, I don’t know how they live with themselves, Artist Nan Goldin Takes on the Billionaire Family Behind Oxycontin, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jan/22/nan-goldin-interview‑­ us-opioid-epidemic-heroin-addict-oxycontin-sackler-family (accessed April 20, 2019).

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The problem of dirty money that supports major art museums is particularly acute in the United States, where museums receive little to no state funding. To make matters worse, as Robert Janes explains, “The dominant ideology of capitalism and the decline of public funding for museums have combined to produce a harmful offspring: a preoccupation with the marketplace and commerce, characterized by the primacy of economic interests in institutional decision-making.”35 Focusing predominantly on visitor numbers and gift shop sales, or what Janes calls “the tyranny of quantitative measures,” museums have lost sight of their responsibilities to their communities and to the society at large. And yet, in the fake news era, art museums, as repositories of physical traces of history, civilisation and human creativity, seem more crucial than ever. They have to realise, nonetheless, that their role as temples of art has long expired, instead, they should strive to adopt the model of the forum, as suggested by Cameron nearly half a century ago.36 By advocating the museum as forum, he wanted to stress the need for a publicly available arena that fosters dialogue, a demand for an institution that listens as opposed to solely speaking in an authoritative voice. Even museums as popular as the MET, MoMa and the Guggenheim cannot simply hide behind the elegant façades of their precious collections and expensive exhibitions – they have to become responsive to the critique coming from the general public. If they fail to do so, they will be regarded as epitomes of the 1 %, complete with their starchitect-designed facades and extensions and their Michelin-starred restaurants. In the post-Occupy world, museum audiences are increasingly aware of the fact that, “in return for their support, donors increasingly appear to expect undue input into exhibitions and programs,” as James Garner observed a few years ago.37 Admittedly, the dearth of public funding does force American art museums to rely on private donations, but it means neither that they should cater exclusively to the tastes of those who fund them, nor that they cannot be selective. It is only when they accept their accountability to the 99 % and turn to the interests of their local communities that art museums will maintain the status of institutions that preserve art and provide education. As the numerous examples in New York suggest, activism may finally help them to fulfil that difficult mission, but it can only happen if museums understand that dialogue is always more constructive than ignorance.

REFERENCES Art Workers’ Coalition, Statement of Demands, in: Alexander Alberro and Blake Stimson (eds.), Institutional Critique: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011. Brown, Meredith A., The Enemies of Women’s Liberation in the Arts Will be Crushed, A. I. R. ​Gallery’s Role in the American Feminist Art Movement, https://www.aaa.si.edu/publications/essay-prize/2012-essay-prizemeredith-brown (accessed April 20, 2019).

35  Robert R. Janes, Museums and the End of Materialism, in: Janet Marstine (ed.), Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First Century Museum, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 54–69, p. 57. 36  Cameron 2012 (as fn, 17), p. 55. 37  James B. Gardner, Ethical, Enterpreneurial or Inappropriate? Business Practices in Museums, in: Janet Marstine (ed.), Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First Century Museum, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 285–297, p. 293.

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MART YNA ewa MAJEWSKA Cahan, Susan, Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016. Cameron, Duncan F., The Museum, a Temple or the Forum (1971), in: Gail Anderson (ed.), Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the Paradigm Shift, New York: Altamira, 2012, pp. 48–60. Crimp, Douglas, AIDS Demo Graphics, in: Allan Klusacek and Ken Morrison (eds.), A Leap in the Dark: AIDS, Art, and Contemporary Cultures, Montreal: Véhicule Press, 1993, pp. 47–57. Deutsche, Rosalyn, Evictions: Art and Spatial Politics, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996. Fischer, Noah, et. al., Occupy Museums!, https://www.occupymuseums.org/index.php/about (accessed April 20, 2019). Fraser, Andrea, From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique, in: Artforum 44 (2005), pp. 278– 283. Fraser, Andrea, What is Institutional Critique?, in: John C. Welchma (ed.), Institutional Critique and After, Zürich: JRP/Ringier, 2006, pp. 305–307. Gardner, James B., Ethical, Enterpreneurial or Inappropriate? Business Practices in Museums, in: Janet Marstine (ed.), Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First Century Museum, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 285–297. Guerrilla Girls, A Selection of the Guerrilla Girls’ Exhibitions And Street Projects, https://www.guerrillagirls. com/exhibitions (accessed April 20, 2019). Gulf Labor Artist Coalition, Saadiyat Island Report Press Release, https://gulflabor.org/wp-content/uploads/­ 2014/05/GL-Saadiyat-Island-Report-Press-Release.‌pdf (accessed April 20, 2019). Gulf Labor Artist Coalition, Timeline, https://gulflabor.org/timeline/ (accessed April 20, 2019). Janes, Robert R., Museums and the End of Materialism, in: Janet Marstine (ed.), Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First Century Museum, London: Routledge, 2011, pp. 54–69. Lauder, Adam, IAIN BAXTER&: The Artist as Drop‑in, in: Journal of Canadian Art History / Annales d’histoire de l’art Canadien, 31 (2010), pp. 40–75. McKee, Yates, Strike Art: Contemporary Art and the Post-Occupy Condition, London: Verso, 2016, ebook. Message, Kylie, Museums and Social Activism: Engaged Protest, New York: Routledge, 2014. P. A. I. N., Main Page, https://www.sacklerpain.‌org (accessed April 20, 2019). Pogrebin, Robin and Sopan Deb, Guggenheim Museum Is Criticized for Pulling Animal Artworks, https:// www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/arts/design/guggenheim-art-and-china-after-1989-animal-welfare.‌html (accessed April 20, 2019). Rees Leahy, Helen, Museum Bodies: The Politics and Practices of Visiting and Viewing, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012. Reilly, Maura, Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating, London: Thames & Hudson, 2018. Richardson, Jim, Should Museums be Activists?, https://www.museumnext.com/2017/04/should-museums‑­ be-activists/ (accessed April 20, 2019). Sholette, Gregory, News from Nowhere: Activist Art and After, in: Third Text 13 (1998), pp. 45–62. Silverman, Lois H., The Social Work of Museums, New York: Routledge, 2010. Thompson, Nato, Seeing, Power: Art and Activism in the 21st Century, New York: Melville House Publishing, 2015, ebook. Vartanian, Hrag, Protesters Demand MoMA Drop Trump Advisor from Its Board, https://hyperallergic. com/360236/protesters-demand-moma-drop-trump-advisor-from-its-board/ (accessed April 20, 2019). Walters, Joanna, I don’t know how they live with themselves, Artist Nan Goldin Takes on the Billionaire Family Behind Oxycontin, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jan/22/nan-goldin-interview‑­usopioid-epidemic-heroin-addict-oxycontin-sackler-family (accessed April 20, 2019). Wexler, Alice, Museum Culture and the Inequities of Display and Representation, in: Visual Arts Research 33 (2007), pp. 25–33. Martyna Ewa Majewska, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9040-8987

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THE MUSEUM AS A POTENTIAL SPACE An Approach to Trauma and Emotional Memory in the Museum

Introduction: which Museum are we Talking About? From the Museum as an Authorised Discourse to the Museum as a Forum For many years, museums have been considered a place where society, over the generations, stored certain elements it considered valuable. They were considered as such for their aesthetic, historical or political value, either because they had become icons of society’s national or local identity, or because they had been selected by experts as elements that should endure and be safeguarded. The museum was aimed at visitors who were considered, in a categorical and general way, to be a group of people who had to be educated about their heritage, where dialogue was largely absent, using a unidirectional communication channel that served, in the best of cases, to verify whether the inexperienced visitors had sufficiently understood the expert’s message. This assumption excluded many communities that were not considered worthy interlocutors because they had not acquired the level of education needed, or the requisite cognitive or physical capacities. A paternalistic attitude was also taken towards communities of an inferior economic or social class, those that belonged to an inferior gender (the female) or that came from the periphery of the Western world, thereby making it clear that legitimate citizenship was the domain of a white masculine individual from the urban middle class. On the other hand, the objects exhibited in museums seemed to speak for themselves, like illustrations in an absent book. As Marta Dujovne points out,1 the visitor who is not familiar with this type of exhibit is excluded, observes a mute collection, because the objects only speak for themselves to those who can incorporate them into a network of prior knowledge. Objects that do not seem to admit more than the experts’ interpretation, and which are attributed with an almost innate, permanent and universal value. All of the above is what Laurajane Smith has called the Authorized Heritage Discourse: A professional and technical discourse with its roots in nineteenth-century Western European architectural and archaeological conservation debates. It focuses attention on aesthetically pleasing or old material objects, sites, places and landscapes that current generations are held to protect, so that they may be passed on to future generations.2

1  Marta Dujovne, Entre musas y musarañas. Una visita al museo, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995, p. 15. 2  Laurajane Smith, All Heritage is intangible: Critical Heritage Studies in Museums, Text of the Reinwardt Memorial Lecture May 26, 2011, http://www.reinwardtacademie.‌nl (accessed April 14, 2019).

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This authorized discourse presupposes in some way that “yesterday was better than today,” and that other discourses that include the objects, points of view, or depictions of actions carried out by communities and social groups shunned by museums, discredit themselves by not belonging, in Grasmian terms, to the authorized heritage languages. As Lowenthal points out, some museums operate by constructing the past, whose return serves only to give the impression that living in the past has incapacitated them for the present, or to discover that the modern world is not a place to live.3 An idea based on nostalgia for what was and is no longer, or the monolithic idea of an unidirectional interpretation of past events that compels them to ignore other interpretations about the past, allowing only one to survive. Less than 10 years ago, our research group began a pioneering study in museums in Spain, inspired by the 2007 Equality Act, which required public administrations, including museums, to rethink their ancestral fiction anchored in ethno- and andro-centrism. When asked by our research team to analyse how violence, in what are considered universal works of art, was legitimised by means of scenes of kidnapping and war, the representatives of one of the most important Spanish national museums answered “where you see violence, we see beauty.” And when, in the absence of works by female artists, our group suggested they be taken out of storage and put on display, the representatives justified their absence by saying that they work with quality criteria. Concepts such as beauty and quality continue to be elements that reinforce and underpin this notion of the authorised heritage discourse, where there is little room for other actors, other interpretations, or other points of view that legitimise a single view by discrediting any other. This vision, similar to that of the Renaissance prince who, looking out from the balcony of his palace with his single eye, that of one who holds power, brings up innumerable problems, and for more than forty years this vision has been contested and disputed. The rise of a new concept of museology and of the museum’s own scope, based on a reflection on the fundamental elements that should be added to its conceptualization, together with the meaning, reach and scope of the objects it contains, has been extended and enriched. Heritage has opened its meaning, and museums begins to open their doors. Concepts such as those mentioned by Nayeli Zepeda clearly explain this situation: the museum as a forum,4 the critical museum, the participatory museum,5 the conscious museum,6 the distributed museum7 or the museum 3.0,8 have arisen to show what a museum is and can

3  David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country revisited, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 4  Duncan F. Cameron, The Museum, a Temple or the Forum, Curator, the Museum Journal, https://doi. org/10.1111/j.2151-6952.1971.tb00416.x (accessed April 14, 2019). 5  Nina Simon, The participatory museum, Santa Cruz, Ca.: Museum 2.0., 2010. 6  Adam Gopnick, The mindful museum, 2007, https://thewalrus.ca/the-mindful-museum/ (accessed May 30, 2019). 7  Susana Smith Bautista and Anne Balsamo, Understanding the Distributed Museum: Mapping the Spaces of Museology in Contemporary Culture Museums and the Web, April 6–9, 2011; Nancy Proctor, Off Base or On Target? Pros and Cons of Wireless and Location-Aware Applications in the Museum, in: ICHIM 2005, http:// www.archimuse.com/publishing/ichim_05.html/Proctor.PDF (accessed January 31, 2010). 8  Nayeli Zepeda, El museo compartido. De la autoridad abierta y sus reconciliaciones, https://nodocultura. com/2018/03/08/el-museo-compartido/ (accessed April 20, 2019).

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be, the role played by the objects, and above all, by the people that populate the museum, being their workers, coordinators or visitors. In short, what does the museum mean as a shared dimension at a real, symbolic and projected level? It is important to reflect on several aspects of these concepts, which form the basis of our contribution (the museum as a forum and the conscious museum) and also on some epistemological aspects that compel us to rethink ideas, such as art, perception, space and time in the museum. Using several premises related to this framework of action, we put forward a proposal that is part of the so‑called shared authority, in the words of Frisch.9 For Frisch, explained by Nayeli Zepeda, the community and the experts must recognize and demonstrate the discursive dimension of the interpretive process. Mark Murawski, director of education at the Portland Art Museum, in his work “The Urgency of Empathy and Social Impact in Museums”10 lists five actions that will allow educators and museum professionals, in collaboration with their communities, to strengthen the empathy and social action in their institutions. One of these involves decentralizing traditional structures and moving them towards who we are and where we are now, writing narratives that reveal the power of our communities, having a personal vision of transformation, and building communities based on action and change. The museum, as expressed by Duncan Cameron, can be considered a temple, where objects must be venerated, or a forum offering the public “a place for confrontation, experimentation, and debate.”11 In this paper, part of a vast research project that links the creative process with the expression and development of traumatic processes, the museum is put forward as a potential transitional space, where the community and the individual, by means of their unique characteristics, can legitimize and portray their pain, giving their personal, private suffering, as well as the resources used to create it, a social, public, shared and political dimension. Before developing this idea, it is important to define the museum as a place of recognition and experience.

The Museum as a Place of Recognition Recognition implies learning to share protagonism. Equality is parity of participation and co‑­ decision, and involves the decentralising of traditional paradigms. If we work in the present with changing identities, communities and diverse people, all must find legitimacy in the museographic space, in full equality, and not as an appendix, an itinerary, or an exhibition. They must see themselves as being appreciated in a place where hegemonic knowledge has to be reconstructed for the sake of a common participatory construction. As people of gypsy or nongypsy ethnicity, from economically advantaged or disadvantaged classes, men and women,

9  Martin Frisch, From A Shared Authority to the Digital Kitchen, and Back, in: Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene and Laura Koloski (eds.), Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User-Generated World, Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011, pp. 126–137. 10  The Urgency of Empathy and Social Impact in Museums, Mike Murawski, https://vimeo.com/192969209 (accessed April 13, 2019). 11  Duncan F. Cameron, The Museum, a Temple or the Forum, in: Curator, the Museum Journal 14 (1) (1971), pp. 11–24.

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children, adults or elderly, people with an illness, alone, free or deprived of freedom, with physical or cognitive diversity, with or without mental health problems, wherever these characteristics pervade the being, their presence as singular identities with the right to choose must be reflected in a space that is considered democratic, where an individual can build its identity by rejecting or reinforcing, adding or modifying elements to the complexity of our subjective construction. According to Daniel Innerarity, recognition “is felt mainly by its absence, under the modalities of humiliation, discrimination, exclusion, contempt, invisibility and imposition.”12 That is, imposed on everything outside the single vision of what has come to be called subject (Western, white, male, middle class). For Nancy Fraser, one of the essential names in social justice the ‘politics of recognition’ rests on the acknowledgment that different community groups, with different histories, needs and aspirations, may make claims for recognition in both symbolic and material forms, and that these claims will have material consequences for equity and justice.13

Therefore, recognition goes beyond tolerance and the “condescending” thematic itinerary. Tolerance can be another form of power, where “the normal citizen,” one who considers himself or herself to be “non-nationalist” and “without identity, gender or colour,” lives in a hierarchy in which some are more citizens than others, where impartiality is often nothing more than the partiality of the hegemonic group.14 Recognition presupposes not only equality between individuals, but between groups, cultures and territories, given that certain individuals are penalized for belonging to a group. Innerarity stresses the importance of opening this cultural co‑protagonism, not as the “neutral and universal” tolerance of “the other” (presupposing a fallacious universalism), but recognizing all tradition as particularistic: There is no worse particularist than the one who is incapable of recognizing their own particularity: men without gender, States that enjoy the monopoly of good intentions, religions that administer the natural law (…) Universalism is an ideal held by all, not the property of a few.15

As Jacques Derrida mentions, the language of empire is spoken in masculine and without accent, presupposing, on the one hand, a “neutral” language in opposition to the many and diverse accents that denote origin, and on the other, the absence of a body that considers itself to be universal and neutral because it is male and western, suggesting all that is corporeal and anecdotal to be feminine. All of the above requires an effort that is not only cognitive, but also affective, based on empathy. Recognition must be a central element in museum policy, both in the design of narratives and in educational and social policies. A few years ago, we started to hear about the impor-

12  Daniel Innnerarity, Politicas del reconocimiento, in: Hermes: pentsamendu eta historia aldizkaria = revista de pensamiento e historia 30 (2009) (Issue devoted to: New scenarios), pp. 4–12, pp. 5. 13  Emma Waterton and Laurajane Smith, The recognition and misrecognition of community heritage, in: International Journal of Heritage Studies 16 (1–2) (2010), pp. 4–15. 14  Innerarity 2009 (as fn 12), p. 8. 15 Ibid.

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tance of feelings in museums, but a museum cannot work on feeling if it silences, discriminates, avoids, and above all, misunderstands and disparages (does not share protagonism with and does not recognize) each and every one of its potential visitors.

Art as Experience According to the pragmatist approach introduced by John Dewey, art is an expression of human activity that relates the individual to others and to life, thus uniting human beings with nature, be it through myth, ritual or play, in communion with their origin and destiny.16 These statements are always aesthetic, because they are expressed in a special way that evokes care and attention. Art, according to Dewey, binds the living and the dead in a common partnership, such as ritual, ceremony, myth or legend: They were aesthetic, but they were more than aesthetic. The rites of mourning expressed more than grief; the war and harvest dance were more than a gathering of energy for tasks to be performed; magic was more than a way of commanding forces of nature to do the bidding of man; feasts were more than a satisfaction of hunger. Each of these communal modes of activity united the practical, the social, and the educative in an integrated whole having aesthetic form. They introduced social values into experience in the way that was most impressive. They connected things that were overtly important and overtly done with the substantial life of the community.17

Art, artistic activity, is all those things: knowing oneself to be in the world, alone, with others, faced with nothingness, knowing that we are going to die, being able to perform an act of love to those who are leaving, celebrating the arrival of others, and life that blooms and burst in with the gift of a space marked by aesthetic values. Art helps us to be with others and to understand ourselves in the world, beyond that unbridled passage of time. Useless things that endure, touch the heart of our subjectivity, and connect with what is truly necessary. Museums are full of objects, special images which, as Hannah Arendt points out,18 are not distinguished by their functionality, or not only by it. What is it that makes an object special? Something that is loaded with something more than utility; something that, under the same signifier, under the same form, hides or represents something else. Something that can be called a metaphor for common transcendence, calling on the gift as an element not only of social survival, but also of symbolic representation, in the words of Marcel Mauss,19 or as a sign of an experience that for us has been or could again be transcendent. Societies choose objects that represent something for the next generation and that must be preserved. They are not preserved so much for themselves, but for the experience they have embodied, and the experience they can provoke. As noted in the introduction to Le musèe cannibal:

16  John Dewey, Art as experience, London: Penguin Books, 1934. 17  Ibid., pp. 327–328. 18  Hannah Arendt, La condición humana, Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2009. 19  Marcel Mauss, Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange Dans les sociétés archaïques, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007.

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MARIÁN LÓPEZ FERNÁNDEZ CAO La culture matérielle constitue la part tangible de l’expérience du monde, celle qui apparemment résiste le mieux au temps et se transmet de la manière la plus directe. Les êtres passent, les idées s’estompent, les objets et les choses restent, une bonne partie d’entre eux tout au moins, et finissent par former une masse critique que les sociétés humaines gèrent et organisent, en assimilant, négligeant, recyclant ou détruisant, sous peine d’être submergées par elle.20

Artistic practice, that which brings something special to everyday objects and underpins symbolic objects that have no practical utility, has accompanied human beings from the beginning of time, from the beginning of language. Knowing that the first human groups needed all their time and energy to survive and feed themselves, the popular notion of art as being mere entertainment or leisure is, at the very least, debatable, particularly when many art works were created when humans had to devote all their time to staying alive. It is true that art has the ability to transport human beings to other spaces and moments, and helps them survive when life is unliveable. In some way, the creative straddles two paradoxical human states intrinsic to our existence: the acceptance, on the one hand, of addressing nothingness and accepting finiteness, the crack and the gap that is life, the acceptance of one’s own contingency, and on the other, the momentary, fleeting re‑establishment of emotional homeostasis that is so essential for developing cognitive processes, and that allows humans to envisage a time and space as being complete, harmonious and balanced, which rekindles hope and carries them into the future. The experience of contemplation is understood, then, as a conscious activity that, through a tangible or intangible object, correlates memories but helps to grasp part of what is universal and becomes, in the purest Kantian sense, the starting point of knowledge. This is where observation and theoretical reflection achieve a specific meaning. Having defined human beings as a world being, in the Heideggerian sense,21 and having defined them by their openness to the world, objects, through conscious contemplation, become objects-images, sounds, actions for the being, objects that take on meaning. This is where the concepts of resonance and repercussion affect the visitor. As Gastón Bachelard points out in his poetic work on space, C’est ici que doit être sensibilisé le doublet phénoménologique des résonances et du retentissement. Les résonances se dispersent sur les différents plans de notre vie dans le monde, le retentissement nous appelle à un approfondissement de notre propre existence. Dans la résonance, nous entendons le poème, dans le retentissement nous le parlons, il est nôtre. Le retentissement opère un virement d’être. Il semble que l’être du poète soit notre être. La multiplicité des résonances sort alors de l’unité d’être du retentissement. Plus simplement dit, nous touchons là une impression bien connue de tout lecteur passionné de poèmes: le poème nous prend tout entier.22 20 VV.AA., Le musèe cannibale, Suiza: Musèe d’ethnographie, 2002, p. 6. Material culture is the tangible component of the experience of the world, those components that apparently best endure over time and are transmitted in the most direct way. Human beings come and go, ideas vanish, objects and things remain (many of them, at least) and end up forming a critical mass that human societies manage and organise, assimilate, neglect, recycle or destroy, at the risk of submerged by them. 21  Martin Heidegger, ¿Qué es filosofía?, Madrid: Narcea, 1978. 22  Gaston Bachelard, La poétique de l’espace, Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1961 [1957]. “This is where the phenomenological doublet of resonance and repercussion must be sensitized. The resonances are dispersed on the different planes of our life in this world, while the repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our own existence. In the resonance we hear the poem, in the reverberations we

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The work resonates with us, it tells us something about our life, it connects us with it, it goes inwards and situates us. And in doing so, it affects us, makes us feel fulfilled by the image, it becomes ours. Experience, as we define it, becomes the central axis of art and, therefore, of museums. As Joseph Pine II- champion, along with Montpetit, of the economy of experience23 puts it, products are tangible, services are intangible, and experiences are memorable. And this is precisely the characteristic that makes this philosophy so different: its memory. Museum should encourage transcendent experience, beyond entertainment or leisure, understood as evasion of complex thought and oneself.

The Metaphorical and Potential Space of the Museum. The Artistic Object as a ­Transitional Object. The Conscious Museum How can we achieve a transcendent experience in the museum? How can we get visitors to connect with themselves in the museum? How can we create a significant, relevant space in the museum that permits the slow and leisurely approach required for contemplation? At this point, we must turn to psychoanalytic, creative, psychological and pedagogical theories. Those that, like the pedagogy of Reggio Emilia, focus on space and time, their key strategies, conceived as the keys to education. Spaces that encourage visitors and facilitators to relate to objects and events, places such as structures in time and space that connect the events in which they take place, giving them encounters and coexistence. In the same line as Reggio Emilia’s school of thought, museums are “conceived as a dynamic and changing space that is transformed and adapted to the needs of its inhabitants.”24 This means that it is a dynamic, mobile, fluid place. It connects to the group through the physical or symbolic construction that succeeds in building a safety net and, at the same time, an opening into the unknown within ourselves, the base of our knowledge: We must understand how sensory perception, the taste of seduction, what Malaguzzi called the aesthetic vibration, can act as a catalyst for learning, and how they can support and nurture a kind of knowledge that is not nourished solely by information. A knowledge that, avoiding easy labels, can lead to a relationship of sensitive empathy with things in general, and encourage connection-building and language interweaving.25

speak it, it is our own. The reverberations bring about a change of being. It is as though the poet’s being was our own being. The multiplicity of resonance then issues from the reverberations’ unity of being. Or to put it more simply, this is an impression that all impassioned poetry lovers know well; the poem possesses us entirely.” 23  B. Joseph Prine II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999. 24  María Antonia Riera Jaume, El espacio-ambiente en las escuelas de Reggio Emilia, in: Indivisa: Boletín de estudios e investigación 3 (2005), pp. 27–39, p. 34. 25  Vea Vecchi, Poetica dell’apprendimento, in: AA.VV, Una città, tanti bambini. Memorie di una storia presente, Reggio Emilia: Reggio Children, 2010, p. 148.

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The museum becomes a space for perception that invokes cognitive development, while this, in contrast, invokes cognitive development that involves perception. Interior and exterior, perception, cognition and emotion, all working together. Resonance and repercussion. George Gusdorf, in his classic Pourquoi des Professeurs?, asks the Socratic question, the basis of our relationship with participants: Il faut être, bien sûr, un pédagogue exceptionnel pour nier ainsi toute pédagogie. Et, sans doute, il y a là une première leçon : le meilleur maître n’est pas celui qui s’impose, qui s’affirme en dominateur de l’espace mental. Le meilleur maître, bien au contraire, se fait l’élève de son élève ; il s’efforce d’éveiller une conscience encore ignorante d’elle-même, et de guider son développement dans le sens qui lui convient le mieux. Au lieu de capter la bonne volonté innocente, il se donne pour tâche de respecter la spontanéité naturelle du jeune esprit qu’il a pour mission de délivrer. Socrate, qui s’efface devant son élève, n’est pas un moindre maître que le maître qui s’impose et règne par de trop faciles prestiges.26

In this vein, he mentions Hegel, Hegel disait, dans une formule géniale : «l’intérieur, c’est l’extérieur». Une communauté de significations s’établit de proche en proche, entre la conscience personnelle et son environnement. […] Le lieu, la mise en scène de la pédagogie sont déjà des moyens pédagogiques. Ils sont parties intégrantes de ce scénario d’ensemble, de cette dramaturgie qui affronte le professeur et son élève, ou plus exactement l’élève et lui-même, si l’on en croit le Socrate du Ménon, dans la recherche de la pleine connaissance.27

The companion, or the museum facilitator, becomes an essential mediator who carefully sustains the museum activities that link the artwork, the space, the visitor and the context. The facilitator accompanies the visitor in discovering his or her relationships while, at the same time, protecting the perceptive-cognitive-emotional activities that start the process of deconstruction, disorganization and re‑elaboration, subsequent reorganization, where the visitor encounters both himself or herself and the world through the work or art in a space that becomes special.

26  Georges Gusdorf, Pourquoi des professeurs ? Pour une pédagogie de la pédagogie, Paris: Petite bibliothèque Payot, no 88, 1963, p. 16. “You have, of course, be an exceptional pedagogue in order to deny all pedagogy. And, undoubtedly, there is a first lesson: the best teacher is not the one who imposes himself, the one who claims himself to be the owner of the mental space. The best teacher, in contrast, becomes a pupil of his pupil; he strives to awaken an awareness that is still unaware of itself, and to guide the pupil’s development in the most appropriate direction. Instead of capturing innocent goodwill, he sets himself the task of respecting the natural spontaneity of the young spirit whose mission is to comply. Socrates, who gives his student centre stage, is no less a teacher than the teacher who imposes himself and strives to attain an all-too-easily obtained prestige.” 27 Ibid. “Hegel said, using a brilliant formula: ‘the interior is the exterior’. A community of meanings is gradually established between the personal conscience and its surroundings. […] The place and performance of pedagogy are already pedagogical resources. They are an integral part of this general scenario, of this dramaturgy where the teacher confronts the student, or more exactly, the student confronts himself, if one believes Socrates”, Menon, in the search for complete knowledge.

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Towards the Construction of the Museum as a Transitional Space It is as though worldly stability had become transparent in the permanence of art, so that a premonition of immortality, not the immortality of the soul or of life but of something immortal achieved by mortal hands, has become tangibly present, to shine and to be seen, to sound and to be heard, to speak and to be read.28

It is possible to consider a new museum space as a place where the object is presented, and the dismantlement and re‑establishment of new connections that can arise in the contemplation and care of the people who carry out these activities is sustained. The museum can be made into a transitional space that awakens the senses of the person who contemplates and interacts with the piece, and the person who accompanies him or her. In The origin of the work of art, Heidegger shows that a work of art has, on the one hand, something useful: it is the result of human craftsmanship; but, on the other, has something that goes beyond the mere productive model, namely, its thingness. A work of art maintains a relative independence from its productive context. It is, in itself, capable of creating a system of meanings, a notion that Hannah Arendt later developed in the Human Condition. The meaning of the work of art is not limited to the intentions of the producer, but in various receptive contexts the piece speaks, it founds a world: it establishes a world of meanings but, at the same time, it withdraws, it holds back. In other words, it cannot be incorporated into a single interpretive system. From the museum and museographic point of view, this implies an immeasurable richness in terms of what the work of art can open to the visitor, if we let the visitor speak and contemplate, if we create a space-time that allows contemplation. The important thing about the transitional character of an object is that it acts as a mediator, a “between” that guarantees the passage from one space to another. From an exterior space to an interior space, where the object is neither in one nor in another, according to Winnicott. Transitional objects (why not trying to turn works of art in the museum into transitional objects that resonate and reverberate?) fulfil this function, make it possible for the being to display his or her creativity and at the same time experience the limit of exteriority. Hence, the transitional object becomes a border mechanism between two spaces: the object exists in its own right, it is neither totally external nor totally internal.29 Therefore, in order for the being to experience its projections towards and relationship with the work of art (its resonance and repercussion) without becoming disorganized, the companion and the group must constantly support the activity that the facilitator must, very carefully, establish by creating a space for trust, safety and privacy. When working in a small group (around a single piece, with no more than six or seven participants) support and containment will protect against emotional outbreaks, maintaining anxiety. Should this emerge, at appropriate levels in order to encourage the development of the activity dynamic, where there is no pressure, judgement, or expectations. For the facilitator, this involves being in permanent contact with the group’s sensitivity, and recognizing and accepting his or her own narcissistic state (containing 28  Arendt 2009 (as fn. 18). 29  Donald Winnicott, Realidad y juego, Madrid: Gedisa, 2018.

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their own expectations in respect of the group) with the subsequent ignorance of others, different from oneself; adapting to the specific rhythm of each group, and accompanying the changes ushered in by group mental growth (like a good-enough-mother). As Winnicott points out, if the holding fails, the existential continuity is interrupted and the subject will not obtain any knowledge, beyond the bookish, which has nothing to do with transcendent knowledge. This situation harms the development of the individual and the group. Here, we should recall the clinical distinction that Sonia Abadi makes between regression and retraction.30 Regression involves the feeling of trust in the environment; it reproduces the early relationship with the sustaining mother, which allows the person to put their defences on hold and to resume states of non-integration. Retraction, in contrast, is a consequence of experiences of persecution; it is an extreme defensive state through the refusal to depend on the companion-facilitator or the group.

The Potential Space of the Museum. Decentralisation as an Exercise The space of the museum is a field for interactions, and it should be enhanced as such. The careful space of the museum, legitimised by society, but which also calls on visitors to contemplate a canvas, a sculpture, an installation; involves the piece of art and, in this case, the relationships between the group and the action of the museum facilitator/mediator. Out of all this interaction-perception, memory, relationship, cognition, art-related emotion, the facilitator as support and guarantor of containment, the group as the society that listens and the canonical space of the museum that gives visibility, recognizes and legitimises, we seek an understanding of what emerges, always relative to others and the capacity of conceptual and subjective organization. With regard to this, the museum facilitator/mediator makes the museum pieces available, just as the mother figure, using transitional objects; makes available an activity adapted to the needs of the infant, progressively withdrawing support to enable the infant to tolerate the limit and frustration, always from a position of containment and permanence. The function of the mediator is, therefore, not one of omniscience, he or she that knows, and is not one of transmission, but of channelling, contextualization and accompaniment, of supporting the piece’s resonance and repercussion in the subject, aspects that he or she can individually elaborate and integrate later on, in a plethora of new meanings and relationships, while remaining within limits. For this reason, following Gopnick,31 it is necessary to speak in museums: Because museums, I think, as much as they are places to go and see things, are also places to go and talk about things, and, through talking, to understand something about the way life takes place in time.

30  Sonia Abadi, Transiciones. El modelo terapéutico de D. W. Winnicott, Buenos Aires: Lumen, 1996 pp. 45–46, quoted by Guillermo Manrique de Lara, Ana Matos and María del Carmen Raffo, Psicoanálisis Aplicado A Un Espacio Académico: El Grupo Como Un Espacio Potencial En Un Taller De Aprendizaje, in: Revista Psicoanálisis 14 (2014), pp. 118–129. 31  Adam Gopnick, The mindful museum, 2007, https://thewalrus.ca/the-mindful-museum/ (accessed on May 30, 2019).

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In this respect, the museum becomes a mindful museum, where we are in contact with the past and, in silence, we connect personally with objects.32 The museum “should not seek to explain what cannot be explained”.33 In this sense, the space of the museum respects the unspeakable, the unnameable, the unknown that exists outside and within us. It must be a space that decentralises the subject, where the piece in the museum becomes a mediator between the past and the present, a mirror/interlocutor and also, the intermediary between the artist and the visitor, establishing an understanding of a past context, an option taken, a point of view, a position adopted, that addresses the options, limits and freedom of the participant: The museum enables us to grasp human time as something that belongs to us, and as something that is outside us, at once social and, in a way, sacred.

That would be the objective, to decentralise the subject in such a way as to overcome egocentricity, using silence, as a suspension of “the immediacy it gives to action,” of urgency. A state that, as Melloni says,34 invites freedom and lucidity, and allows the subject to give himself of herself over to reflection and contemplation. The cultivation of spirituality, which could coexist in the museum, needs time, spaces and supports, some of which can occur in the museum: symbolic space, suspended time, attentive silence, listening, lucid, conscious contemplation that merges the interior with the exterior.

From the Legitimization of Violence to the Legitimation of Pain What does human pain have to do with the museum? How can we treat it? How can we address the intimate and personal aspects of human beings and give them an open, public and social dimension? How can we link intimacy and the public space? How can we do this in a museum? The symbolic, metaphorical space of the museum, through the work of art as a transitional object, can give us some clues. The museum, invested with authority by societies generation after generation, can be a means by which society as a whole can achieve social recognition of pain. Our society tries to avoid pain. The prescriptions and proscriptions inculcated in us by society from the start of our socialization conceal feelings of suffering, and avoids recognizing it in oneself or in others. The denial or avoidance of pain, suffering, and loss is an attitude that underpins our most advanced societies. Anthropological studies on human groups before the rise of capitalism show us how the most earth-bound societies, the agrarian societies, who are linked to cyclical instead of linear time, had and still have a more natural relationship with loss and death. Mourning was a respected activity in which the community participated by organising acts that bid farewell to existing members and gave them a place and a symbolic time, like those that welcomed new member in their midst. Acts that required a long farewell. Acts that needed

32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34  Javier Melloni, La espiritualidad como universal humano, in: Enric Benito, Javier Barbero and Mónica Dones, Espiritualidad en Clínica. Una propuesta de evaluación y acompañamiento espiritual en Cuidados Paliativos, Monografía SECPAL, Madrid: SiosiPunto Gráfico, 2014.

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symbolic transition spaces, where the present and the past could coexist, preliminary acts that were forged in the limits of existence. In them, openly expressed pain dealt with the incomplete, fractured nature of the human being in the world, the discomfort induced by the lack of complete integration of subjectivity.

Trauma Psychological trauma is an affliction defined by lack of control over the causative situation, through an absolute lack of power over the circumstances that surround it. At the time of the traumatic event, the victim is completely vulnerable to the power of a far greater force. If it involves a force of nature, call it a disaster. When the force is exerted by other human beings, we call it an atrocity. Traumatic events surpass normal care systems that give individuals feelings of control, belonging, and vital meaning. Trauma has only quite recently been recognised and treated in medical and psychological institutions. The common response to atrocities is to eradicate them from our conscience at whatever cost – even that of own emotional stability. Certain violations perpetrated in and by society are too terrible to speak of: this is the meaning of the word unpronounceable. Trauma is, according to the definition given by Van der Kolk,35 unbearable and intolerable. The common denominator of psychological trauma, according to the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry,36 is the feeling of intense fear, fragility, loss of control and threat of annihilation. In this sense, trauma is extraordinary, not because it rarely happens, but because it exceeds our normal ability to adapt to life. The human being is reduced to a feeling without language, pre-verbal. The body becomes a symptom, relives terror, rage or impotence; it triggers the fight or flight impulse, action or paralysis, in ways and feelings that are impossible to understand and difficult to articulate.37 The body will probably keep the score as Van der Kolk observes in the title of his book for the rest of its existence. Atrocities refuse to be buried, as history, from the shared viewpoint, and psychology, from the individual viewpoint have taught us.38 Since the American Psychiatric Association accepted post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 1980, thanks to the mobilization and support of American Vietnam War veterans, physicians have gradually accepted and started to study the mechanisms whereby humans deal with atrocities they have experienced or seen, often denying them, dissociating them, repressing them, and how atrocity intrudes into the psyche, marks a person’s body and the way they relate to others, preventing them from leading a happy life. Only once society accepted that those who returned from the war were not heroes, but young people destroyed and devastated by what they had done, seen and suffered, only once society accepted

35  Bessel van der Kolk, The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma, London: Penguin Books, 2015. 36  Benjamin J Sadock, Virginia A. Sadock, Pedro Ruiz and Harold I. Kaplan, Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, Philadelphia: Volters Kluwer, 2009. 37  Arendt 2009 (as fn. 18). 38  Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence. From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, New York: BasicBooks, 1992.

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that raping and murdering women is an execrable crime that has nothing to do with passion, could men returning from combat and women who had been violated feel empowered and accepted, and begin to divest themselves of guilt and shame, and start to think, again, as humans. The social and public recognition of traumatic events, the social rejection of the causes of these events, is one of the absolute prerequisites for enabling victims to start to dress their wounds. This is why shared spaces, such as the museum, can be places where pain is spoken aloud in legitimized spaces, where the symbolic achieves a high degree of expression, is recognized, heard and accepted as a lack and shared responsibility. The history of art is full of the presence of violence. From the beginning, humans have felt the need to narrate, to give meaning to life through a story, and embody it in friezes, paintings or sculptures, poems or epics, for future generations to contemplate and remember. The victorius have used art to legitimize their fight against barbarians (who were always the other), to legitimise atrocity as heroics, to sublimate aggression as a necessity, and to legitimise the executioner’s actions as bravery. They have shown the murderers and rapists of the conquered people’s women, the property of others made spoils of war, as pristine heroes who have banished evil, or have portrayed wars as being result of outrages committed by others, as an act of cleanliness and a search for a necessary order. Seeking the victims’ outlook in art has never been easy, not only because victims rarely have access to a public narrative or an exhibition space, usually owned by those in power, but because they rarely have the ability to show pain and loss. As Walter Benjamin points out, there is no document of culture that is not at the same time a document of barbarism. Societies are ashamed to show their defeat, their open wounds, their vulnerability. History wants to be written about and viewed from a position of triumph. That is why there are so many triumphal arches, but no arches celebrating defeat. However, because culture is the trace of living, pain emerges. In the waking state, in a nightmare, in a scream or in silence. Culture, museums, also keep images of unresolved tragedies, of failures, of the vanquished, of the open and unfinished. They may not be in the most prominent places in the main galleries of the museum, depending on whether the prevailing norms allow or ban society from opening its wounds, but they can often be found in the corridors between galleries or asleep in the museum’s storeroom. Aeschylus’s The Supplicants or the Oresteia; the Trojan women by Euripides; Sophocles’ Antigone, have for thousands of years borne witness to the death of our people. Greek tragedies often serve as a mirror to reconcile ethics with human suffering, where piety occupies its requisite place in social relationships. “Death yearns for equal law for all the dead,” declares Antigone, demanding that her brother could be buried, while the tyrant Creon refused the mercy of burial. How far, and how near, in a country like Spain, which denies the burial and respect that thousands of victims await. This text puts forward the possibility of developing itineraries to encourage visibility and reflections on pain, in a place of safe, intimate, shared contemplation. Museums can and must accommodate all human emotions and feelings, because these are their constituent elements. They should, with the necessary containment and shelter, propose ideas that bring human beings together in their complexity, challenging simplifications, beyond closed and unidirectional discourses. We are vulnerable beings, and our societies are full of silenced wounds. Children are not the only ones that crave affection, the elderly are alone in a society that does not welcome them.

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Men and women go through difficult times that are rarely dealt with in public and common spaces. Art is also the human experience of loneliness, loss, and despair. It is also the expression of these by a single human being. To share, to listen to the experience of the other is in a way to listen to oneself, to share that experience through a past that meets the present and, sometimes, paves the way to the future. Therefore, the museum stands as a privileged, almost sacred place to share a state, to give it voice and authority, to be heard and listened to, in an act of citizenship and recognition. The museum must be a space of human respect. On this basis, some images shown in this chapter have been selected from that darker, more fragile perspective, the perspective of loss and destruction and, at the same time, of the possibility of mourning and developing the loss that every being and every society needs, and to which the museum can contribute not only, as mentioned above, through its works of art, but also by dint of the special place it occupies. Our proposal suggests using these images to bridge the pain that emanates from them and our own pain, the vision that created them and our own vision, their context and ours, as transitional images that accompany those who have gone through difficult events. To place an image where they cannot imagine, to express a poetic word where it is hardly possible to stammer a few words, to look at others and at oneself in a space designed from the perspective of safety and respect. Art, as the structuring agent of internal chaos, helps to find, through symbolic and formal pathways, a space of psychological organization. Art, together with theories on stages of trauma, can be used to detect in oneself stages of pain and recovery. Stages that inform and accompany, through research into the arts, moments that are perhaps cognitively inexplicable but perfectly understandable when viewing the faces and expressions of the figures. The museum, on the other hand, as a “sacred” place, functions as a legitimizer of private pain, publicly accepting the symbolic act of listening, of respecting what has been said, and being accountable for what has been heard. Pain has different faces that articulate the stages at which the subject has faced and transcended the events. The silent stage of suffering is the phase where the person, struck dumb, is left voiceless, incapacitated, locked in wordless suffering.

Destruction The image of Guernica (pl. 21) is one of destruction: relentless, it shows only the fragments of what was once a whole, the ruins of devastation, the presence of Weil’s hubris, chaos, where multiple figures fall apart, observe without being seen, despair, or rest in tatters, inert, broken. Elements that once existed, but exist no longer symbolise the destruction of integrity. A narrative violently interrupted calls into question meaning and continuity; everything falls, frozen, in a shattered life. In the collapse, the woman, the mother, turns in on herself. She tries, in a moment of desperation, to breathe life back into the being she loves, the most helpless and innocent soul. Few images portray intense love and the pain of irremediable loss like Köllwitz's etching "woman with death child" (1903). The sketches of women in Guernica and and the greek Laocoön (Athanadoros, Hagesandros, and Polydoros of Rhodes, Laocoön and his Sons, early first century) the father (pl. 22), also deal with filial loss, the loss that has yet to happen, the loss that happened just a moment ago. The body defends, welcomes, envelops, trying to rock the dead child again, expressing the ex-

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treme pain of loss, and denying with her body what has just happened. In her, the intense suffering for the most brutal loss is laid bare. The woman bends over here dead son, trying to surround him with her whole body, trying to rekindle life. A movement that folds, internal, inward, trying to find in the intimacy of the movement something that will protects him from external violence. A body that closes in on itself, trying to protect the slightest breath of life. On the verge of the unbearable, the body can still express, has not yet been immobilized. In Laocoön and his sons, the father’s body twists away from the horror, the serpent, of being powerless to save his children, in a desperate and painful attempt to free himself from the serpent’s grasp. These are images that preserve movement, that of the mother protecting her son, that of the father battling death. Action of embracing, gathering, caring, defending, though hopelessly is present in these works. Laocoön tries to avoid the inevitable. Impotence paralyses a body that tries to reverse the irreversible. No matter how many times a being tries, it fails. Köllwitz’s etching shudders with the pain it evokes (pl. 23). In it, we can see the universal suffering of any mother or father, any son or daughter. Capture the impossible, hold what has already gone. In this sense, the image, universal, opens, and all that is intimate is fused with all that is universal. The void opens up before us and leaves us naked, devastated. Desolated. These images of destruction, impotence and loss are open to several different interpretations; their fissures take us back to a time of intimate and collective memory. Like mirrors, they appeal to us and probe our emotional memory, glimpses that awaken affection, or its absence. Works of art, in their polysemy, in their context, bring us irremediably closer to ourselves. Guernica can be completed with the sketches which explain how can collapse be achieved, what steps should we take, where should we stop? Helped by the events that took place in the town of Guernica, Picasso depicts and interpret the painting’s characters: the light, the hand that brings it closer, the bull, the militiaman, the horse. What are they, who are they for, and when? What destructions have we witnessed? How many have we imagined? What crumbles? Allowing whatever emerges to be expressed, can help bring structure to what has been dismembered, in a space protected by the group and supported by the facilitator to understand the chaos, impotence and violence wrought. It can, in the museum space, reinstate social legitimacy through listening and understanding.

The Unspeakable According to legend, After almost all her seven sons and seven daughters had been murdered by Apollo and Artemis, Niobe wandered the land with the body of her last murdered daughter until she reached Mt. Sipylus. Overcome by pain, she could go no further. The wind did not blow through her hair, her eyes are fixed on her daughter’s face, the blood stopped flowing through her veins. She was turned into a rock, but her eyes continued to shed tears that gave rise to a spring.39

39  Mitos y leyendas, https://mitosyleyendascr.com/mitologia-griega/niobe/ (accessed April 28, 2019).

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There is no better description of the start of a trauma, after a catastrophe. In it, the victim is overwhelmed by an event, and has no resources to fall back on to help her overcome the situation. Traumatic events surpass normal care systems that give individuals feelings of control, belonging, and vital meaning. Petrifaction is one of the most significant stages of trauma. The person becomes nothing, disappears. Coming face to face with the statue of Niobe and her younger daughter, (38 BCE) is like finding a mirror on our culture where horror has a name and an image, albeit inexplicable. To study the statue of Niobe, her image, her story, is to legitimise human incapacity, to accept her unnameable pain, to understand and understand in oneself her immobility, muteness, silence. Difficulty in processing information symbolically (verbally or otherwise) after trauma is a fundamental element of PTSD.40 In fact, research into brain imaging has shown hypoactivity in the Broca area, which controls the motor aspects of speech, and hyperactivity in the amygdala (fear, terror), hippocampus (memory) and occipital cortex (visual process).41 Nevertheless, Greeks and humans, before they had even heard of neuroscience, were aware of the impossibility of articulating speech after a traumatic event. Niobe is an example of this (pl. 24). Medusa (1597), by Caravaggio, conveys a similar notion. Medusa, originally a beautiful maiden, “the zealous aspiration of many suitors”, priestess of the temple of Athena, was raped by Poseidon a symbol of the predatory force affecting nature and humans – in her temple. Athena was furious with Medusa, not with Poseidon, as the patriarchal mandate dictates and transformed the young woman’s beautiful hair into serpents. Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon when she was beheaded while sleeping by the hero, Perseus. There are many images of the bivalent Medusa; they inflict pain while suffering that same pain, but few have the alienated look that Caravaggio captured, before she suffered her terrible fate, her own annihilation, the inconceivable monstrous act perpetrated on her. Her look is frozen; the mouth, open, at once breathless and without words; her face, frozen in a grimace of incapacity. Art, as the fruit of human experience, offers opportunities for recognition. To feel that, in our alienation from the world, in our alienation from ourselves, we recognize ourselves in the body of Níobe or in the face of Medusa, in the space where we find no meaning and our life’s story is interrupted once and for all, where the body is split from the mind, causing no panic or screaming, but rather immobilization, petrifaction, in response to an unspeakable pain that paralyses us. In art, it is comforting to find the expression not only of pain, but also the most terrible expression of the inability to understand, because it is a way of depicting the unspoken. Putting a face to it legitimises it. Although Arendt points out that pain is private, incommunicable and unrepresentable, Art has managed to capture, if not pain, the consequence of extreme pain: the trauma, with its devastating and immobilizing consequences, the unspeakable trauma. This is the only way to find that fine thread that allows us to understand another’s pain and share our own. This is the only way to voice our pain in silence. Sharing the contents of this extreme pain, 40  Bessel Van der Kolk and Fisler, Dissociation and fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: Onerview and exploratory study, in: Journal of Traumatic Stress 15 (1995), pp. 255–258. 41  Scott L. Rauch and Lisa Shin, Functional neuroimaging studies in posttraumatic stress disorder, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 821 (1997), pp. 83–98.

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reflecting on it, is to begin to leave a kind of confinement and, therefore, to begin to express and to structure. It helps to share situations, including political and social situations, that cause the terrible devastation that is the trauma. I recall visiting an art therapy workshop for people with severe mental health problems derived from traumatic events. In this workshop, a woman had just gradually recovered her speech after being unable to say a single word for two years. In a tiny voice, enveloped in an environment of safety and trust, she described her inability to move on: “I stopped talking because I couldn’t stand it any longer”42 In The Arch of Hysteria (1993) (pl. 25), Louise Bourgeoise succeeds in showing how the body reacts to pain and how the body remembers, over and over again, all that is unbearable. A body without head, unable to think, a body that overflows in the grimace of itself, paralysed, impotent and tense. A tension that runs through and through it, like a spear. We could say that the “Niobe state” is that which immobilizes, empties inside, dissociates and annihilates, leaving the human being incapable of living again, of resuming life. This is one of the stages of trauma where expression is impossible. This is no place for Picasso’s crying woman; this is no place for the defensive Laocoön, no place for that defensive mother who wraps her strong arms round her dying child. It is devoid of emotion. All is lost, and the body enters a vegetative state, where only the basic functions of feeding persist. There is no place for emotion, because emotion has turned its back on him, and there is nothing like emotion to re‑experience the terrible feeling annihilation. Art manages to help us understand this state, one of the most extreme experienced by human beings, and contemplating it makes it possible to accept it, think and reflect on its re‑mobilization, in safe surroundings. What can we do with this story? Listen, respectfully, to the human experience. Give support, contain it, let words organise thought, let verbs activate the paralysed, let the image return, outside, as a structuring breath of the disorganisation within.

Adrift We stand before The Awakening slave (1520-1523) by Michelangelo, or The prisioners (1908) by Käthe Köllwitz, with his distracted look, surprised by himself, helpless, almost inert, or The raft of Medusa, by Gericault (1819) (pl. 26). One can see Michelangelo’s The prisoners, far from being eager to free themselves of the stone that imprisons them, as being irretrievably subsumed by it through a force that drags them back to matter, which, like the September tides in the Atlantic, washes them deep out the sea, to the abyss. Let yourself go, die, finally, stop suffering. Ignore the creator’s perspective and adopt, for once, the point of view of the slave, of the prisoner. It is not a liberating force that impels them to be, it is a force that draws them towards the matter of which they are part, in spite of any opposing force they might muster. Return to nothing, to the origin, to not being. We cannot fight continuously, and trauma invites one into the abyss, to disappear in it, with it. Surrender finally

42  I would like to thank Mónica Cury Abril for her willingness and kindness in letting me observe some of the magnificent sessions she leads at the Infanta Leonor Hospital.

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to a cruel life. Both Primo Levy’s If this is a man43 and Liona Millu’s The Smoke of Birkenau44 narrate and describe those who surrender, those who yield to the Nazi concentration camp. They have stopped struggling, feeling alive, they have let go of the requisite dignity of standing and begin to accept their own annihilation. They are easily recognised. Their look, their body, their walk gives them away. It is legitimate to ask for the end, to feel that you cannot fight any longer. It is legitimate to stop fighting. To surrender. It is human.

Guilt, Shame The Erinyes, according to the myth recorded by Hesiod, were created when Cronus attacked and castrated Uranus in an attempt to seize his power. The Erinyes were born of the blood and sperm that Uranus shed on the body of Gaia, mother of Kronos. There were three Erinyes: Alecto, Tisiphone and Megaera. They usually carried a whip and bronze rings with which they punished humans. Tisiphone was known as “vengeful destruction” and was in charge of punishing anyone who exceeded the limits of good behaviour; Megaera was responsible for creating hatred and discord among mortals, and Alecto had a sinister, arduous task, because the torture she inflicted did not last for just a few minutes or a day, she persecuted and tortured her victim as long as long as it took to drag them down into madness, so that they would never again commit a reproachable act. They are said to live in the Tartarus (the world of the dead); however, they could be transported immediately to earth to pursue their victim, who was condemned to wander endlessly to purify his or her crime, even if it led to death.45 Sartre, in The flies, gives an impressive description of remorse and guilt that, no matter how much we escape them, travel in our suitcase and destroy us from within, throwing us into the abyss, which appears to be our only liberation and salvation. Either that, or accept one’s own life’s project. Individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome easily re‑live feelings of terror, incapacity, fear and pain. Plays like The flies, or etching like Goya’s The dream of reason produces monsters (1799), allows us to recognize the relentless suffering of guilt, to give shape to the lurking pain, to understand it in others and, in some way, to begin be compassionate with ourselves (pl. 27).

Mercy, Compassion Art renews the space of attachment. Attachment consists of comforting, receiving the other. To understand loss, to accept it, is to begin to assume it, to be able to live with it, with the emptiness that resonates in us. Religious images, full of mercy, conjure up the pain of loss, of burial, of the

43  Primo Levy, Si esto es un hombre, Barcelona: Muchnik, 1987. 44  Liona Millu, El humo de Birkenau, Barcelona: Acantilado, 2005. 45  Las Erinias (Sangre y Venganza), https://aminoapps.com/c/terror-amino‑en-espanol/page/blog/las-erinias-sangre‑y-venganza-mitosyleyendas/Q62x_48cXueWokv2JKl15GzNVa5bZRmrgd (accessed April  27, 2019).

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closure of the cycle of life, where the living must bury and entomb their dead, just as humans must close traumatic episodes without forgetting them, without preventing us from living (pl. 28). Only by closing we can forgive and forgive ourselves. The poetic narrative, the artistic image, resumes the space of attachment to renew the desire to carry on living. According to poetess Pilar González España, growing is “building pleasure on the debris of pain.”46 Contemplating pity in the museum allows us to identify with the innumerable losses and their reception. As happens in a sacred space, they can allow building, growing, aware of the vulnerability that constitutes the human being and the humility that should accompany us as mortals.

Conclusion In one of the last visits we made to the Thyssen Museum with a group of female victims of violence, helplessness and vulnerability, with whom I had been working on the various traumatic consequences of difficult events, we sought out works of art that offered peace: the sea, a colour, the desert, a green field. The search for balance. Stendhal’s syndrome, or over-reaction to beauty, allows us to think of an existence (unattainable or unattained? It leads us to painful nostalgia) for what has been lost or for what has not been achieved. Being aware, that is what integrating trauma involves. Knowing what has happened. Knowing the irreparable pain. Being able to see it, identify it, give it shape, spoken, written, painted, composed, danced. Being able to mourn, pick up the pieces, hug them. Build a state of mercy for the dead, with the parts of us that have died, with the dead pieces of our past. Bury them with love. Look at them in peace. And then, after collecting all the pieces from the battlefield, having cleaned the bodies, buried them, we can start living again. As the poet Jorge Riechmann puts it, “to live again in a warm cave, or the density of affection.”47 The philosopher Anne Dufourmantelle speaks of beauty as a “sovereign experience,” which can help us think of “a world saved, exact.”48 Beauty “reminds us of an ancient order where life passed with the feeling of another more intimate than ourselves, that carried us, in the heart of another heart.”49 Images of peace, of affection, accompany the human being. Its balance envelops us, returns our lost inner balance. Reminds us that peace once reigned. A state of equilibrium, primal, stable, that shaped the being and comforted it. Humans can make us of their contact with culture, works of art and poetry to find themselves. These are all unique for being stable over time, immortal, structuring. In the words of Arendt,

46  Pilar González España, El cielo y el poder, Madrid: Hiperion, 1997. 47  Jorge Riechmann and Marián López Fernández Cao, Fotografías (hacia una educación de la mirada), unpublished work. 48  Anne Dufourmantelle, Eloge du risque, Paris: Rivage Poche, 2014, pp. 243. 49  Ibid., p. 242.

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MARIÁN LÓPEZ FERNÁNDEZ CAO Nowhere else does the sheer durability of the world of things appear in such purity and clarity, nowhere else therefore does this thing-world reveal itself so spectacularly as the non-mortal home for mortal beings.50

Art, “the non-mortal home for mortal beings,” made without utility, for and by beings, useless and necessary at the same time. Museum contains this possibility of work: complex, delicate, careful.

REFERENCES Abadi, Sonia, Transiciones. El modelo terapéutico de D. W. Winnicott, Buenos Aires: Editorial Lumen, 1996. Arendt, Hannah, La condición humana, Buenos Aires: Paidós, 2009. Bachelard, Gaston, La poétique de l’espace, Les Presses Universitaires de France, 1961 [1957]. Cameron, Duncan F., The Museum, a Temple or the Forum, in: Curator, the Museum Journal 14 (1) (1971), pp. 11–24. Dewey, John, Art as experience, London: Penguin Books, 1958 [1934]. Dufourmantelle, Anne, Eloge du risqué, Paris: Rivage Poche, 2014. Dujovne, Marta, Entre musas y musarañas. Una visita al museo, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995. Frisch, Martin, From A Shared Authority to the Digital Kitchen, and Back, in: Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene and Laura Koloski (eds.), Letting Go? Sharing Historical Authority in a User–Generated World, Philadelphia: The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage, 2011, pp. 126–137. González España, Pilar, El cielo y el poder. Madrid: Hiperion, 1997. Gopnick, Adam, The mindful museum, 2007, https://thewalrus.ca/the-mindful-museum/ (accessed May 30, 2019). Gusdorf, Georges, Pourquoi des professeurs? Pour une pédagogie de la pédagogie, in: Petite bibliothèque Payot 88 (1963). Heidegger, Martin, ¿Qué es filosofía?, Madrid: Narcea, 1978. Herman, Judith, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror, New York: BasicBooks, 1992. Innerarity, Daniel, Políticas del reconocimiento, in: Hermes: pentsamendu eta historia aldizkaria: Revista de Pensamiento e Historia 30 (2009), pp. 4–12. Innerarity, Daniel, Kaplan and Sadock’s Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, Philadelphia: Volters Kluwer, 2009. Levy, Primo, Si esto es un hombre, Barcelona: Muchnik Editores, 1987. Lowenthal, David, The Past is a Foreing Country revisited, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Manrique de Lara, Guillermo, Ana Matos and María del Carmen Raffo, Psicoanálisis Aplicado A Un Espacio Académico: El Grupo Como Un Espacio Potencial en Un Taller De Aprendizaje, in: Revista Psicoanálisis 14 (2014), pp. 118–129. Mauss, Marcel, Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange Dans les sociétés archaïques, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007. Melloni, Javier, La espiritualidad como universal humano, in: Enric Benito, Javier Barbero and Mónica Dones, Espiritualidad en Clínica. Una propuesta de evaluación y acompañamiento espiritual en Cuidados Paliativos, Monografía SECPAL, Madrid: SiosiPunto Gráfico, 2014. Millu, Liona, El humo de Birkenau, Barcelona: Acantilado, 2005. Onerview and exploratory study, Journal of Traumatic Stress 15 (1995), pp. 255–258.

50  Ibid., pp. 174.

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The Museum as a Potential Space Pine, B. Joseph II and James H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999. Proctor, Nancy, Off Base or On Target? Pros and Cons of Wireless and Location-Aware Applications in the Museum, in: ICHIM 2005, http://www.archimuse.com/publishing/ichim_05.html/Proctor.PDF (accessed January 31, 2010). Rauch, Scott and Lisa Shin, Functional neuroimaging studies in posttraumatic stress disorder, in: Annals of the New York Academy of Science 821 (1997), pp. 83–98. Riechmann, Jorge and López Fernández Cao, Marián, Fotografías (hacia una educación de la mirada), Unedited. Riera, Jaume and María Antonia, El espacio-ambiente en las escuelas de Reggio Emilia, in: Indivisa: Boletín de estudios e investigación 3 (2005), pp. 27–36. Simon, Simon, The participatory museum. Santa Cruz, Ca.: Museum 2.0., 2010. Smith, Laurajane, All Heritage is intangible: Critical Heritage Studies in Museums, Text of the Reinwardt Memorial Lecture May 26, 2011, http://www.reinwardtacademie.‌nl (accessed April 14, 2019). Smith Bautista, Susana and Anne Balsamo, Understanding the Distributed Museum: Mapping the Spaces of Museology in Contemporary Culture, Museums and the Web, April 6–9, 2011. Van der Kolk, Bessel, The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma, London: Penguin Books, 2015. Van der Kolk, Bessel and Fisler, Dissociation and fragmentary nature of traumatic memories: Onerview and exploratory study, in: Journal of Traumatic Stress 15 (1995), pp. 255–258. Vecchi, Vea, Poetica dell’apprendimento, in VV.AA., Una città, tanti bambini. Memorie di una storia presente, Reggio Emilia: Reggio Children, 2010, pp. 148. VV.AA., Le musèe cannibal, Suiza: Musèe d’ethnographie, 2002. Winnicott, Donald, Realidad y juego, Madrid: Gedisa, 2018. Waterton, Emma and Smith, Laurajane, The recognition and misrecognition of community heritage, in: International Journal of Heritage Studies 16 (1–2) (2010), pp. 4–15. Zepeda, Nayeli, El museo compartido. De la autoridad abierta y sus reconciliaciones, https://nodocultura. com/2018/03/08/el-museo-compartido/ (accessed April 20, 2019). Marián López Fernández Cao, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0421-3612

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MUSEUMS AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN Raising Awareness of Symbolic Violence

Introduction Despite recent social and cultural advances, violence against women continues to be a major problem in our society. This might seem to have little to do with museums, large respectable spaces, safe for women, containing beautiful and valuable objects. Why relate museums to violence against women? Can museums play a role in the prevention and eradication of this scourge? Marián López Fernández Cao,1 one of the first researchers to address this topic, establishes a relevant connection between the construction of violence in studies into peace and violence aimed against women and referring specifically to the triangle of violence developed by Johan Galtung. According to Galtung,2 physical and psychological violence is the most obvious, though not the only, form of violence; another form is symbolic or cultural violence, which is very difficult to detect, and legitimizes direct and structural violence. By exhibiting works that feature passive, usually nude, objectified women, and obscuring the contribution made by women to society and art, museums help transmit this cultural violence by perpetuating gender roles and stereotypes. On the other hand, the number of women who are considered great contemporary artists is still small compared to that of men, and high ranking jobs within the cultural sphere continue to fall into male hands. An example of this is the detailed 2013 report published by the MAV (Women in the Visual Arts) association, which shows in figures the inequality that exists in the field of creation and artistic and intellectual production in Spain.3 In this chapter, we will address the concept of violence against women, exploring the components of symbolic and structural violence. We will see how works of art have served to transmit and legitimize this violence, and we will discover what art museums should do to prevent and avoid perpetuating messages of inequality.

1  Marián López Fernández Cao, Recuperando la huella de los olvidad@s: miradas sobre el los museos y la ­ciudad desde la diversidad y el género, in: Talk given at the “VII Seminario arte e inclusión social”, https://www. museopicassomalaga.org/programa-cultural/vii-seminario-arte‑e-inclusion-social (accessed June 4, 2019). 2  Johan Galtung, Violence, Peace, and Peace, in: Journal of Peace Research 6 (3) (1969), pp. 167–91. 3  Marián López Fernández Cao, MAV te observa, entraremos en acción: Las mujeres en el sistema del arte español. Sobre piedras y vientos de igualdad, in: Investigaciones Feministas 5 (2014), pp. 91–110.

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Direct and Structural Violence Against Women Violence against women could be defined as “any non-accidental act or attitude that, stemming from a male abuse of power, is intended to undermine the physical and/or psychological status of woman for the purpose of damaging, submitting, controlling or harming them, irrespective of the injuries resulting from such actions.”4 In the critical dictionary of feminism, the term violence is used to group all forms of violence perpetrated against women because of their sex. “It includes all acts that, by means of threats, coercion or force, inflict, in either the public or private sphere, physical, sexual or psychological suffering on women in order to intimidate, punish or humiliate them, or that affects their physical integrity and their subjectivity.”5 Both definitions encompass a broader concept of violence than that contained in the current Comprehensive Protection Measures Against Gender-Based Violence, passed in Spain in 2004 (pl. 29). Under the provisions of this law, an act can only be considered “gender violence” if there has previously existed an emotional bond between the woman and the man. Since 2003, when these criteria were first used to calculate the number of gendercides, 997 women have been murdered,6 a figure that would be much higher if there was not such legal limitation. These are terrible statistics, and exceed the 854 murders committed by the terrorist group ETA in its 50 years of activity in Spain.7 The feminist philosopher Celia Amorós questions the inaccuracy of the term gender violence, because it is not a type of violence that occurs indiscriminately between the two genders, but fundamentally involves violence by men against women. For this reason, she calls for this social scourge to be re‑named patriarchal terrorism, sexist terrorism or gender terrorism.8 For many years, violence against women has also been called domestic violence, a term that sought to limit this behaviour to the private sphere, to isolated and specific cases related to crimes of passion.9 Again, Celia Amorós finds this term inadequate, because aggression against women does not always occur in the domestic sphere, and not all aggressive acts committed at home are directed against women.10 Femicide is the peak of an iceberg of extreme violence that does not only involve the private or sentimental sphere. It is a type of violence in which the main purpose of the male perpetrators

4  Nieves M. García González, Conveniencia de un Tratamiento Pluridisciplinar para Corregir el Fenómeno de la Violencia de Género y su Significación en los Medios, in: Nieves M. García González (ed.), Violencia de Género: Investigaciones y Aportaciones Pluridisciplinares. Significado de su Tratamiento en los Medios, Madrid: Fragua, 2008, pp. 12–58, p. 28. 5  Helena Hirata, Diccionario Crítico del Feminismo, Madrid: Síntesis, 2002. p. 291. 6  Portal Estadístico Violencia de Género, http://estadisticasviolenciagenero.igualdad.mpr.‌gob.‌es/ (accessed June 3, 2019). 7  ETA: El Dolor por 854 Muertos y Miles de Amenazados y Heridos, España, EL PAÍS, https://elpais.com/­ politica/2018/05/03/actualidad/1525374369_414522.‌html (accessed June 5, 2019). 8  Celia Amorós Puente, La Violencia de Género Desde la Filosofía y la Psiquiatría, in: Más Allá de la Ley: Enfoques Sobre La Violencia de Género, Madrid: Fundacion Aequitas, 2009, pp. 46–55, p. 51. 9  García González 2008 (as fn. 4), p. 62. 10  Amorós 2009 (as fn. 8), pp. 46–55.

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is to control women and abuse of their power through different forms of coercion. This is what British sociologist Liz Kelly called a “continuum of sexual violence”, ranging from small inequalities or threats to murder, and including harassment, incest, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and culminating in the extreme case of murder.11 The correlation that Marián López Fernández Cao establishes between violence against women and the theory of violence formulated by peace researcher Johan Galtung suggests that violence can have three dimensions: direct, structural and cultural.12 These three aspects of violence are represented in a triangle, where the vertex is direct violence, the most obvious and therefore visible form of violence, whose manifestation can be verbal, physical or psychological. The sides of the base of the triangle are structural violence and symbolic violence, both invisible and imperceptible. For Galtung, structural violence refers to the intrinsic functioning of the political, economic and social systems that govern the world, and that are centred on the concept of exploitation. In this system of exploitation, the powerful, those who are on top, enjoy greater privileges than those below, with a clear inequality between them.13 Patriarchy, like other dominant ideologies such as colonialism and racism, is based on the deep-rooted belief in the superiority of one group over another, in this case, male superiority, and this has traditionally given men great privileges and allowed them to abuse their power over women. According to Galtung, structural violence uses its own mechanisms to ensure that everything flows and operates to maintain the exploitation. These forms of coercion would include, for example, marginalizing and isolating those below or stablishing from a very biased viewpoint, mechanisms without which effective control could not be exercised. Another control system would be violence, which is an extreme expression of power relationships. Based on this frame of interpretation, and from a social point of view, force and violence of men against women is interpreted as an ongoing instrument of control and intimidation, where violence against women ceases to be a problem between couples and becomes structural violence against women, affecting an entire collective.14 The other corner of the base of the triangle of violence is cultural violence, which is used to legitimize direct or structural violence. This mechanism of action is so perfect that it “makes direct and structural violence appear, and even be perceived, as reasonable, or at least not bad.”15 This violence is materialized through symbolic elements, such as religion, ideology, art and language or science. It is a barely perceptible system of domination, which expresses and reproduces inequalities, inequalities that feminist movements have helped to bring to light.

11  Cited by Fátima Arranz Lozano, Meta-Análisis de las Investigaciones Sobre la Violencia de Género: el Estado Produciendo Conocimiento, in: Athene Digital 15 (1) (2015), pp. 171–203. 12  Percy Concha Calderón, Teoría de Conflictos de Johan Galtung, in: Revista Paz y Conflictos 2 (2009), pp. 60–81. 13  Johan Galtung, Violencia Cultural, Bizkaia: Gernika Gororatuz. Centro de Investigación por la Paz, Fundación Gernika Gororatuz, 2003. 14  Ana de Miguel, La Violencia Contra las Mujeres. Tres Momentos en la Construcción del Marco Feminista de Interpretación, in: ISEGORÍA. Revista de Filosofía Moral y Política 38 (2008), pp. 129–137. 15  Galtung 2003 (as fn. 13), p. 13.

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In his classic Masculine domination, Pierre Bourdieu defined this violence as symbolic violence, “this soft violence, undetectable and invisible to its very victims, which is wielded essentially through purely symbolic channels or, more precisely, through recognition and misrecognition, or even through sentiment.”16 In other words, one of the key characteristics of this type of violence is its invisibility. It victims lack of awareness, because we are imbibed in it, like we are in our own culture. According to Bourdieu, the power relations in which women become trapped make them apply “schemes of thought that are the product of the embodiment of those power relations.”17 That is why it is strange to associate the patriarchate with strength or violence, because “its socializing system is so perfect, the general acceptance of its values so firm, and its history in human society so long and universal, that it hardly needs the support of violence.”18 It is an indirect, naturalised violence that does not compel us to challenge it. Symbolic violence is wielded “invisibly and insidiously, through insensitive familiarization with a symbolically structured physical world and the precocious and prolonged experience of interactions permeated by structures of domination.”19 However, according to this author, symbolic violence is shown to have a very lasting impact on populations and their habitus, and leads to marginalization, exclusion, domination and discrimination through the process of normalization. Inequality is so assimilated that it is interpreted within biological and psychological norms, thanks to the patriarchal framework of conceptualization. One of the tools used to perpetuate these inequalities has been education and differentiated socialization between men and women. Women are educated to care, listen, and pass on values, while society tries to impose on men a model of hegemonic masculinity based on autonomy, self-sufficiency, and strength. Suppressing certain behaviours and encouraging others. Within these values, the acquisition of masculinity is associated in some way with a component of violence or, at least, male violence is more acceptable and tolerated than female violence. Undoubtedly, the phenomenon of violence contains an innate, biological component that has been used since ancient times to survive in situations perceived as threatening. We can all be violent when faced with a physical or social threat, but according to Graizer20 men are more likely to attack, regardless of cultures and historical eras. This is why we need to look at social aspects and the relationship between masculinity and violence.

16  Pierre Bourdieu, La Dominación Masculina, Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000, p. 12. 17  Ibid., p. 49. 18  Kate Millet, Política sexual, Madrid : Cátedra, 2010. 19  Bourdieu 2000 (as fn. 16), p. 55. 20  Oded Graizer, Reflexiones Psiquiátricas Sobre la Violencia de Género. ¿Existe un Por Qué?, in: Nieves García González (ed.), Violencia de Género: Investigaciones y Aportaciones Pluridisciplinares. Significado de su Tratamiento en los Medios, Madrid: Fragua, 2008, pp. 124–133.

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Art as a Transmitter of Symbolic Violence Museums are physically safe spaces for women; however, they are problematic in terms of content.21 The way in which women are represented in art throughout its history, according to Bourdieu, turns them into symbolic objects, in a state of permanent physical insecurity, since women “exist fundamentally by and for the contemplation of others, that is, as welcoming, attractive, available objects.”22 Works of art fulfil an important communicative function, they transmit a message, always intentional, that contributes to the creation of collective imagery. Undoubtedly, art, as a socializing agent, is a means of transmitting social attitudes, values, and concepts. It has promoted patterns of behaviour and models of reference. This has been transmitted over the years in works of political, religious or moral content, since art has traditionally been at the service of power, through the commissions of those with sufficient resources. Paintings, for example, such as the Summary execution under the Moorish kings of Granada by Henri Regnault, or The Death of Sardanapalus, by Delacroix contributed, along with others, to the depiction of scenes of sexual violence and death, where Orientals are shown as arbitrary, insensitive and savage. The aim of these wholly intentional messages was to present Orientals as the enemy and this, according to Galtung, helped to create the European identity through the negation of the Oriental enemy, thanks to the dehumanization of the other.23 In the case of violence against women, the messages that appear in some works of art were intended to clarify what was expected of women in terms of their duties and behaviour. For example, there is a painting in the Prado Museum that has a clear message of female indoctrination, showing explicit violence that is nevertheless attenuated by the beauty and mastery of the work. The scenes are painted on four panels, and are known as the “Scenes from the Story of Nastagio degli Onesti”, by Botticelli, based on the book by Decameron. The first panel shows the ghostly image of a naked woman running through a forest, attacked by two dogs and pursued by a man on horseback (pl. 30). On the left stands a man, Nastagio, who watches the scene and appears to try to help the woman. In the second panel, the horseman dismounts and stabs the naked woman in the back, rips her heart out and gives it to the dogs to eat. The scene is repeated in the background. Although Nastagio is at first repulsed, the horseman explains that when they were both alive, the woman he loved had rejected him and, for that reason, he had committed suicide with his own sword. The young woman was unmoved by his death and when she herself died, she was sent to hell and punished by having to repeat the same scene every Friday. Nastagio, who had also been rejected by the woman he loved, thought to take advantage of the story by inviting her to dine with his family in the pine forest, knowing that the scene of the woman’s

21  Asunción Bernárdez Rodal, Sobre Públicos, Museos y Feminismo, in: Marían López Fernández Cao, ­Antonia Fernández Valencia and Asunción Bernárdez Rodal (eds.), El Protagonismo de las Mujeres en los ­Museos, Madrid: Fundamentos, 2012, pp. 53–63. 22  Bourdieu 2000 (as fn. 16), p. 86. 23  Galtung 2003 (as fn. 13).

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persecution would be repeated (pl. 31). The third panel shows this dinner, in which the ghost, as expected, makes its appearance. Nastagio’s plan works, and the woman changed her mind and agreed to marry him. The fourth panel, not in the Museo del Prado, shows the wedding feast.24 Curiously, the panels were commissioned to celebrate a marriage because “the moralizing content was considered appropriate for the young couple.”25 The reference to morality in the Prado Museum’s website, with no mention of the explicit violence transmitted in the painting, is striking. The depiction of violence as a moralising force is accepted as natural, and never questioned. Marián López Fernández Cao has analysed this work in depth, and points out that the message transmitted is compelling: “Botticelli’s artwork conveys that a woman’s freedom of choice is met with violence; that gender hierarchy stands over class; that it is legitimate to punish disobedience to the norm. It speaks of the conversion of those acts into culture and civilizing action and of its educative consequences.”26 It is about legitimizing of the dominance of man over women, that ultimately results in physical violence and the justification of it in all spheres of society. In this way, the scene represented is accepted as totally normal, despite the evidently historical context, as opposed to modern context. Museums are also full of mythological depictions that hide scenes of sexual violence: harassment, rape and abduction are all highly eroticised and were very popular in the 17th century. Different versions of scenes like Susanna and the Elders, Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus or the Rape of Lucretia have been painted by numerous artists. The myth of Lucretia, a key figure in the history of Rome, was one of the most widely depicted in Baroque art. After being raped by Tarquin, the son of the king of Rome, Lucretia committed suicide to avoid dishonouring her husband and family. This resulted in the overthrow of Tarquin, the end of the monarchy, and the proclamation of the Republic. Lucretia thus became the symbol of courage, fidelity and dignity. According to Mercedes Alcalá, who researches rape and sexual assault during the Golden Age of Spanish literature and how it is described, the story of Lucretia changes in the 5th century, following the interpretation made by Saint Augustine. The new Christian version questions whether the victim was totally innocent, and takes it for granted that Lucrecia derived some sexual enjoyment from the rape. This presumed enjoyment was based on the notion of the female body held by the doctors and moralists of the time, who believed that its lack of physical appendages, so evident in the male body, made it secretive and hard to decipher. They therefore took it for granted that women lie, and that there really is a sexual pleasure, and this is proof of 24  Escenas de La Historia de Nastagio Degli Onesti, Colección Museo Nacional Del Prado, https://www. museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra‑de-arte/escenas‑de-la-historia‑de-nastagio-degli-onesti/6620fb36-c65d -497b-8283-92cef5bc08de (accessed April 18, 2019). 25  Museo del Prado, https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra‑de-arte/escenas‑de-la-historia‑­denastagio-degli-onesti/6620fb36-c65d-497b-8283-92cef5bc08de (accessed November 12, 2017). 26  Marián López Fernández Cao and Juan Carlos Gauli, From the Rape of Europe to Art Against Gender Violence in Spanish Culture, in: María José Gámez Fuentes and Rebeca Maseda García (eds.), Gender and Violence in Spanish Culture. From Vulnerability to Accountability, New York: Peter Lang, 2018, pp. 143–60, p. 145.

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consent to the act. “That is why Christianity assumes the woman’s guilt by default, and will take for granted that the victim of a sexual assault must feel ashamed.”27 Therefore, according to the new interpretation, Lucretia committed suicide because of her shame and guilt, and not for the sake of her family’s honour. In Rubens’ painting Tarquin and Lucretia (pl. 32), we see a clear example of Lucretia’s moral ambiguity, where the myth is used as a pretext to represent an erotic scene. According to Alcalá, there are several symbolic elements in the painting that transmit this moral ambiguity and associate this scene with a moment of passion: the presence of Cupid, god of love, the headboard in the shape Venus’s scallop shell, topped with a snake, symbol of the temptation to which Eve succumbed, the dog barking angrily, which usually symbolizes faithfulness in love. In addition, Lucretia does not appear to be scared by her aggressor, but looks at him with a serious face and weakly pushes him away, as if she were fighting against herself. In short, “Rubens’ Lucretia depicts a scene of sexual passion about to be consummated, and not one of rape that will forge the ideal of spiritual chastity, this being the most extraordinary attribute of the historical Lucretia.”28 The story of Lucretia was not the only one that was changed over time and ultimately depicted a naked female body under the pretext of a religious or mythological topic. The story of Susanna and the Elders, which was very popular in its time, is based on the Biblical story that presents Susanna as a beautiful, chaste woman married to a rich man who received a group of Jewish elders in his garden. Two judges among the guests started to lust after Susanna. One day, while her maidens were absent, they decide to besiege while she was taking a bath. As Susanna resisted their advances, the elders told her that they would accuse her of deceiving her husband. She refused to give in, the judges accused her and she was sentenced to be stoned. But finally, Susanna asked God for help, and He sent Daniel to question the elders and prove that they were lying. As a result, they were stoned instead.29 The depictions of Susanna, who was identified with beauty and chastity, gradually evolved and changed to show different moments of the story. The bath scene became especially popular during the Renaissance and the Baroque and, like the story of Lucretia, Susanna is reinterpreted as a willing participant who allows the elders to watch her, and is even shown to be complicit and provocative. An example of this is the painting by Tintoretto in the Prado Museum (pl. 33) where Susanna, rather than pushing the old man’s hand away, seems to guide it, with her face seemingly expressing more pleasure than revulsion. Biblical scenes become an excuse to show sensuality for the enjoyment of the male observers for whom these works were created. However, in addition to their eroticism, these paintings that depict sexual violence are manifestations of power, demonstrations of force and impunity on the part of the powerful men who commissioned them. Rape is in fact an act of domination

27  Mercedes Alcalá Galán, Ideología y Violencia Sexual: El Cuerpo Femenino Subyugado Según Rubens y Cervantes, in: EHumanista. Journal of Iberian Studies 1 (2012), pp. 1–40. 28  Ibid., p. 7. 29  Mónica Ann Walker Vadillo, Susana y los Viejos, in: Revista Digital de Iconografía Medieval 4 (2012), pp. 49–57.

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and power, whose purpose, according to Judith Herman (one of the greatest experts in trauma and gender) is to dominate, overcome, and humiliate the victim.30 In this scheme of values, the woman is always weak and becomes a dominable element and, therefore, sexually desirable. In the Baroque period, the notion of domination manifested as sexual assault is stripped of all social and cultural trappings, and is shown as something instinctive, essential, natural and irrepressible. Not surprisingly, in the paintings on this subject natural law is the indisputable excuse: the strong must get what they want.31

Women are seen as desirable, as the prey in the sexual hunt, as objects to possess, stripped of all humanity, a key element in the construction of the enemy (according to Galtung) which therefore justifies these acts. However, the violence and suffering of the victims did not cause any kind of moral discomfort in the male spectator. There is no empathy or discomfort possible, since from his position of power, the male observer does not identify with “the other.” However, the message can change when there is an element of empathy and identification with the victim. Perhaps for this reason, Susanna and the Elders by the Roman painter Artemisia Gentilleschi shows Susanna’s rejection to be more convincing (pl. 34). Artemisia depicts a scared Susanna who clearly rejects and is repulsed by the old men. As spectators, her attitude makes us take her side and reject the actions of the two men. Artemisia herself was raped by her teacher Agostino Tassi when she was only 19 years and endured a humiliating trial to bring the truth to light. However, at that time, the psychological suffering of women was not even considered in court cases. Women do not exist, they are invisible in the eyes of a judicial system in which women had to demonstrate their innocence, because their implicit complicity in the rape brought dishonour on the family, and this was the subject of the trail.32 Although Artemisia is considered one of the foremost female artists for her depictions of heroic, strong, active women, such as Susanna, Lucretia, Cleopatra and Judith, it took many years for art (created by women) to become a means of denouncing violence against women and their sexual objectification. The feminist artists of the 70 s used their bodies to act out their rejection of the objectification of women, a real act of subversion. It was the need to condemn and denounce violence against women that compelled Cuban artist Ana Mendieta to create Rape Scene in 1973 (pl. 35). Untitled (Rape Scene) documents an event that occurred when she was a student at the University of Iowa, and was a protest against the rape and murder of a student at the university. The artist invited her friends to her house, and when they arrived they found Mendieta in the pose shown in the photograph, recreating the press report of the murder of the student.33 If viewing this photograph is upsetting, imagine how impactful it must have been for her friends at the time. The artist involves the observer in the act of violence, not just as a spectator or voyeur,

30  Judith Herman, Trauma y Recuperación. Cómo Superar las Consecuencias de la Violencia, Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 2004. 31  Galán 2012 (as fn. 27), p. 16. 32 Ibid. 33  Tate, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendieta-untitled-rape-scene-t13355 (accessed June 3, 2019).

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but as an active participant in the crudity of the scene. Here, there is no beauty to embellish reality. There is no eroticism. The photograph shows the real scene, a reality that is unpleasant to see, and one that we would never wish to witness. As spectators, it calls out to us, it moves us, it disturbs us, and it compels us to take sides.34 This is obviously a very different rape scene than the one painted by Rubens.

The Role of Museums in Symbolic and Cultural Violence As Marián López Fernández Cao observes in her vast research on museums and genre in Spain, museums are places of cultural authority, legitimised, powerful organizations that convert all the artworks chosen, preserved and displayed into valuable and important items.35 However, the decisions on what to show or not are not neutral, because they are always taken within an epistemological framework that influences the acquisition, conservation and selection of the exhibits. Traditionally, museological discourse has been constructed from a position of upper class, masculine, western supremacy, which has excluded women and other subaltern cultures and has minimized and under-valued their productions. Thus, museum exhibitions have been created to convey a world perspective and a scale of values that implicitly and explicitly communicate the messages of the dominant discourse, favouring the reproduction of such views, and contributing to the validation of symbolic and structural violence.36 These discourses help to promote these inequalities, perpetuating the traditional power relationship between women and men, and with it, female invisibility and violence against women. An example of this is Leigh Summer’s research on the exhibition of women’s clothing in the Victoria and Albert Museum in Britain described by Bergsdóttir.37 Reviewing the display criteria, Summer observed how they had selected mainly corsets that adhered to the stereotype of Victorian women, choosing the most slender and delicate, keeping the large, used corsets in the storeroom. This seemingly trivial fact airbrushes the existence of large, lower class women who would have had to use the more worn garments. In other words, prejudice and values that are not always justified or are associated with almost unconscious criteria that perpetuate unequal power relationships are already at work in the selection of exhibits. Beauty, together with technical and aesthetic quality, are among the criteria used to prioritize the exhibition of some items over others that will be consigned to the storeroom. In the vast majority of cases, beautiful works such as the Nastaglio degli Onesti, compel us to digest the message without much thought, since its skilful composition and attractive use of light and colour clouds our vision and prevents us from making a critical analysis of the scene. In the 34  Joel Weinstein, Ana Mendieta, cuerpo terrenal, esculturas y Performance 1972–1985, in: Revista Art Nexus 3 (55) (2005), pp. 98–101. 35  Marián López Fernández Cao, Hacia una Educación Museográfica en Equidad: la Biografía Situada Como Eje Educativo, in: Marián López Fernández Cao, Antonia Fernández Valencia and Asunción Bernárdez Rodal (eds.), El Protagonismo de las Mujeres en los Museos, Madrid: Fundamentos, 2012, pp. 31–52. 36 Ibid. 37  Arndís Bergsdóttir, Museums and Feminist Matters: Considerations of a Feminist Museology, in: NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 24 (2) (2016), pp. 126–139.

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course of her research into museums and gender in Spain, Marián López Fernández Cao suggested creating an educational booklet analysing the mythological representations and the legitimization of violence against women in Western art, and received the following response from the museum curators: “Where you see violence, we see beauty”.38 In other words, beauty justifies the presence of these paintings in the museographic discourse, ignoring the content, the message transmitted, and the fact that merely by exhibiting them the museum, from its position of cultural authority, helps legitimize violence.39 According to Marían López Fernández Cao: It is necessary to draw attention to the fact that a museology selecting the works it presents on strictly aesthetic or aestheticizing criteria leads to messages about human and social conducts being ignored and pushed into the background, thus promoting aesthetic values as more important than the iconological significations involving the society that created them then and that contemplates them now.40

These criticisms of social and feminist movements are seen in the art world as exaggerations made by people with a desire to censure.41 However, works of art with no aesthetic qualities that crudely depict scenes of violence are quickly censured, such as Ana Mendieta’s Untitled (Rape Scene). The image, which is held in the Tate Gallery, is not on display in any of the rooms or on the gallery’s website, where the message appears: “Sorry, no image available.”42 After several visits to the same page, it became clear that the image is not missing due to technical problems, but to a deliberate decision not to show this unpleasant scene. Undoubtedly, Mendieta’s photograph is uncomfortable and is not suitable for school visits or sensitive members of the public. In this case, there is no beauty to legitimize its content. Its message of condemnation is more important than its technical and aesthetic quality. It is a harsh, violent image, that carries a strong message: this is rape, with no Cupid or eroticism. We can look at a beautiful painting in which a woman is cut open and her heart is taken out and fed to the dogs as a lesson not to reject a man, but we cannot look at a photograph whose purpose is clearly to provoke and raise awareness about violence against women. Each museum must be aware of its exhibition criteria. Museum curators might not choose to keep certain works of considerable historical importance and artistic quality in the storeroom, but museum should at least offer a critical discourse that will help give a feminist interpretative framework to violent images. We need to change the message to make a meaningful contribution to change. Because of their educational and social mission, museums are responsible for making an interpretation of the past that questions or legitimises the present: Images not only strike our retina, they feed our imagination with notions about what we must be to others and what we must do in order to be accepted by them. That is why we should be ready to accept that we can see beauty as well as violence, and that both categories are definitely not compatible.43 38  López Fernández Cao and Gauli 2018 (as fn. 26), pp. 143–160, p. 144. 39 Ibid. 40  Ibid., p. 144. 41 Ibid. 42  Tate, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendieta-untitled-rape-scene-t13355 (accessed June 3, 2019). 43  López Fernández Cao and Gauli 2018 (as fn. 26), pp. 143–160, p. 146.

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Feminist movements in the field of museology have led to these narratives being reviewed, questioning the official version and the principle of authority that continues to govern public discourses.44 In 2009, a remarkable event in the history of museums took place, prompted by the need to reformulate equality criteria. The agreement signed between the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Complutense University of Madrid, through the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas and research group 941035 Aplicaciones del arte en la integración social, led by Marián López Fernández Cao, director of the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas at that time, led to institutional recognition of the androcentrism of Spanish museums and the need and willingness to change.45 The objectives of the agreement signed with the Ministry of Culture were the following: –– To take all positive actions necessary to correct the obvious situation of inequality in the production, creation and dissemination of artistic and cultural works by women, through reasonable and proportionate measures. –– To enhance the cultural and social role of women in museums. –– To reinstate women in the history of artistic production, in compliance with the principle of transparency and in the interest of bringing culture to the general public. –– To promote the equal presence of women and men in public displays of art and culture. –– To reappraise the holdings of the museums included in the project in order to take the necessary measures in terms of exhibits and underlying discourse, and in the communication and dissemination works, especially by the museum’s departments of dissemination and/or education, promoting. –– To organise workshops that disseminate this new artistic perspective. –– To offer visitors guidebooks and exhibitions that actively highlight women, including educational material and teaching services that promote understanding, analysis and creative production and encourage reflection on female entrepreneurs in art in order to allow present and future generations to evaluate our historical heritage from a gender perspective. –– To promote ongoing improvements in the operation of the museums, and exhibit pieces that truly reflect history. –– To transform the museums involved in the project into institutions of reference. Based on these initiatives, in 2010 the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas and research group 941035 Aplicaciones del arte en la integración social, supported by a research fund from the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Musygen, proposed three lines of investigation:

44  María Bolaños, ¿Qué Museos? ¿Qué Mujeres?, in: Marián López Fernández Cao, Antonia Fernández Valencia and Asunción Bernárdez Rodal (eds.), El Protagonismo de las Mujeres en los Museos, Madrid: Fundamentos, 2012, pp. 101–110, p. 108. 45  Collaboration agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the Complutense University of Madrid, for the “Estudio de los Fondos Museísticos desde la Perspectiva de Género”. The agreement was signed on 2nd July 2009 by the minister of culture at that time, Ángeles González Sinde and Carlos Berzosa Alonso-Martínez, rector of the Complutense University. (Document provided by Marián López Fernández Cao).

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–– To decode the museum as a heritage space that includes the feminine perspective in its general orientation, the concept of heritage, the objectives of the exhibits and items and their hierarchies, texts and discourses as indicators of inclusion, exclusion, diversity or homogeneity. –– Based on the images in the museums’ collections, to trace the life and presence of women, their contexts, protagonism and the relationships between men and women, inaugurating other modes of interpretation. –– The notion of women as creators of objects, works or art or cultural products could serve as a reference point for new audiences, opening different approaches to understanding the past and daily life based on biographies in context or situated biographies (term coined by Marián López Fernández Cao).46 This project, together with the agreement signed between the aforementioned institutions and the Ministry of Culture, led to a detailed analysis of inequality and the androcentric approach taken by Spanish museums, and resulted in the introduction of the first gender-focussed exhibitions in Spain and Europe: the feminine exhibitions in the Prado Museum, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the National Archaeological Museum and the Costume Museum. Although these exhibitions failed to fully correct the general androcentric focus of these museums, they did succeed in raising awareness for the first time in Spain of the need to include the feminine perspective.47 Some museums have begun to include more women artists in their collections. However, real transformation is only possible by modifying museum discourses and narratives. For example, after revisiting the description of the Nastagio degli Onesti on the Prado Museum website when writing this chapter, we saw that the remarks on the “moralizing content” had been removed and a video showing the Spanish artist Marina Núñez commenting on the three Botticelli panels from a feminist perspective and reflecting on her own artistic work had been added.48 By adopting the gender perspective, museum curators, through their exhibitions, catalogues and educational activities, will recuperate forgotten memories, broaden the field of study, open new avenues of expression and enrich their collections with unexpected, revealing interpretations.49 Feminism can help create a museological discourse that shuns dogmatic, entrenched codes and exhibitions in favour of others that are more open and suggestive, and that can interrogate and challenge the viewer, allowing him or her to ask questions while relinquishing the idea of being guided by a linear interpretation of the collection. “With their discourse, museums decide

46  Marián López Fernández Cao, Aplicando Metodologías feministas para analizar la Creación: Propuestas en Educación Artística desde la experiencia de las mujeres, in: Dossiers Feministes 19 (2014), pp. 31–55. 47  The exhibitions held in these museums, together with educational guides for Secondary and University students, can be seen on the following website: http://www.museosenfemenino.‌es/ (accessed June 3, 2019). 48  Marina Núñez Comenta Nastagio Degli Onesti de Botticelli, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?time_continue=​4&v=​nm1H4pT8_Gg (accessed June 3, 2019). 49  Bolaños 2012 (as fn. 44), p. 110.

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whether to open up to the polysemy of their exhibits or enclose them in a linear meaning that impacts the shared, established identity.”50 In summary, in order to combat structural and symbolic violence, we must include women as active agents in the cultural sector, and resurrect the active role of women in the past. At the same time, we must avoid perpetuating stereotypes and seek instead other interpretations of things we do not understand, ignoring those based on a time in history when women, other nations, and other social classes were invisible. Spain, through the 2009 agreements, has been the first country to recognize inequality and to work on the gender perspective at an institutional level in museums. The conclusions of the pioneering MUSYGEN51 project published in 2014, in which the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas studies four Spanish museums (the Prado, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the National Archaeological Museum, and the Costume Museum) are explicit in this regard, and put forward recommendations that should be followed in the interests of equality and of outlawing symbolic violence against women.52 In short, as legitimisers of cultural heritage, museums must help place the history and experiences of women in a social context by showing sensitivity and educating visitors to enable them to analyse the exhibits from a feminist perspective.

REFERENCES Alcalá Galán, Mercedes, Ideología y Violencia Sexual: el Cuerpo Femenino Subyudado según Rubens y Cervantes, in: EHumanista. Journal of Iberian Studies1 (2012), pp. 1–40. Amorós Puente, Celia, La Violencia de Género desde la Filosofía y la Psiquiatría, in: Más Allá de la Ley: Enfoques sobre la Violencia de Género, Madrid: Fundacion Aequitas, 2009, pp. 46–55. Arranz Lozano, Fátima, Meta-Análisis de las Investigaciones sobre la Violencia de Género: El Estado Produ­ ciendo Conocimiento, in: Athene Digital 15 (2015), pp. 171–203. Bergsdóttir, Arndís, Museums and Feminist Matters: Considerations of a Feminist Museology, in: NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research 24 (2016), pp. 126–139. Bernárdez Rodal, Asunción, Sobre Públicos, Museos y Feminismo, in: Marián López Fernández Cao, Antonia Fernández Valencia and Asunción Bernárdez Rodal (eds.), El Protagonismo de las Mujeres en los Museos, Madrid: Fundamentos, 2012, pp. 53–63. Bolaños, María, ¿Qué Museos? ¿Qué Mujeres?, in: Marián López Fernández Cao, Antonia Fernández Valencia and Asunción Bernárdez Rodal (eds.), El Protagonismo de las Mujeres en los Museos, Madrid: Fundamentos, 2012, pp. 101–110. Bourdieu, Pierre, La Dominación Masculina, Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000. Calderón Percy, Concha, Teoría de Conflictos de Johan Galtung, in: Revista Paz y Conflictos 2 (2009), pp. 60–81.

50  López Fernández Cao 2012 (as fn. 35), p. 32. 51  MUSYGEN R&D project: Estudios de Fondos Museísticos desde la perspectiva de género. Los casos del Museo del Prado, Museo Reina Sofía, Museo Arqueológico Nacional y Museo del Traje (2010–2014). Proyectos M. E. C., Code: 4166643, FEM2010–16670. 52  See Marián López Fernández Cao and Antonia Fernández Valencia, Museos en femenino: Un proyecto sobre igualdad, empoderamiento femenino y educación, in: Storia delle Donne (vol. 14), Firenze: Firenze University Press (in press).

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Museums and Violence Against Women Escenas de la Historia de Nastagio Degli Onesti, Colección Museo Nacional del Prado, https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra‑de-arte/escenas‑de-la-historia‑de-nastagio-degli-onesti/6620fb36-c65d-4 97b-8283-92cef5bc08de (accessed April 18, 2019). ETA: El Dolor por 854 Muertos y Miles de Amenazados y Heridos, España, EL PAÍS, https://elpais.com/politica/2018/05/03/actualidad/1525374369_414522.‌html (accessed June 5, 2019). Galtung, Johan, Violence, Peace and Peace, in: Journal of Peace Research 6 (1969), pp. 167–191. Galtung, Johan, Violencia Cultural, Bizkaia: Gernika Gororatuz. Centro de Investigación por la Paz. Fundación Gernika Gororatuz, 2003. García González, Nieves M., Conveniencia de un Tratamiento Pluridisciplinar para Corregir el Fenómeno de la Violencia de Género y su Significación en los Medios, in: Nieves M. García González (ed.), Violencia de Género: Investigaciones y Aportaciones Pluridisciplinares. Significado de su Tratamiento en los Medios, Madrid: Fragua, 2008, pp. 12–58. Graizer, Oded, Reflexiones Psiquiátricas sobre la Violencia de Género. ¿Existe un Por Qué?, in: Nieves García González (ed.), Violencia de Género: Investigaciones y Aportaciones Pluridisciplinares. Significado de su Tratamiento en los Medios, Madrid: Fragua, 2008, pp. 124–133. Herman, Judith, Trauma y Recuperación. Cómo Superar las Consecuencias de la Violencia, Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 2004. Hirata, Helena, Diccionario Crítico del Feminismo, Madrid: Síntesis, 2002. p. 291. López Fernández Cao, Marián, Hacia una Educación Museográfica en Equidad: la Biografía Situada como Eje Educativo, in: Marián López Fernández Cao, Antonia Fernández Valencia and Asunción Bernárdez Rodal (eds.), El Protagonismo de las Mujeres en los Museos, Madrid: Fundamentos, 2012, pp. 31–52. López Fernández Cao, Marián, Aplicando Metodologías feministas para analizar la Creación: propuestas en Educación Artística desde la experiencia de las mujeres, in: Dossiers Feministes 19 (2014), pp. 31–55. López Fernández Cao, Marián, MAV te observa, entraremos en acción: las mujeres en el sistema del arte español. Sobre piedras y vientos de igualdad, in: Investigaciones Feministas 5 (2014), pp. 91–110. López Fernández Cao, Marián, Recuperando la huella de los olvidados: miradas sobre los museos y la ciudad desde la diversidad y el género, in: VII Seminario arte e inclusión social Mujeres, cultura y vulnerabilidad, Museo Picasso de Málaga, 14th December 2017. López Fernández Cao, Marián and Juan Carlos Gauli, From the Rape of Europe to Art Against Gender Violence in Spanish Culture, in: María José Gámez Fuentes and Rebeca Maseda García (eds.), Gender and Violence in Spanish Culture. From Vulnerability to Accountability, New York: Peter Lang, 2018, pp. 143–160. López Fernández Cao, Marián, La Función de los Museos, Preservar el Patrimonio ¿Masculino?, in: ICOM España 8, pp. 18–23, https://issuu.com/icom‑ce_librovirtual/docs/icom‑ce_digital_08 (accessed June 3, 2019). Marina Núñez Comenta Nastagio Degli Onesti de Botticelli, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=​4&v=​nm1H4pT8_Gg (accessed June 3, 2019). Miguel, Ana de, La Violencia Contra las Mujeres. Tres Momentos en la Construcción del Marco Feminista de Interpretación, in: ISEGORÍA. Revista de Filosofía Moral y Política 38 (2008), pp. 129–137. Millett, Kate, Política sexual, Madrid: Cátedra, 2010. Portal Estadístico Violencia de Género, http://estadisticasviolenciagenero.igualdad.mpr.‌gob.‌es/ (accessed June 3, 2019). Untitled (Rape Scene), Ana Mendieta, 1973, Tate, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendieta-untitled-­ rape-scene-t13355 (accessed June 3, 2019). Walker Vadillo, Mónica Ann, Susana y los Viejos, in: Revista Digital de Iconografía Medieval 4 (2012), pp. 49–57. Weinstein, Joel, Ana Mendieta, cuerpo terrenal, esculturas y Performance 1972–1985, in: Revista Art Nexus 3 (55) (2005), pp. 98–10. Carolina Peral Jiménez, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9332-4041

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THE INCLUSION OF VULNERABLE GROUPS IN UNIVERSITY MUSEUMS The Case of the Complutense University of Madrid Introduction: Universal Access to Cultural Heritage More and more cultural institutions at the international level are considering advancing accessibility issues in response to social demand and current legislation. From an academic perspective, museum accessibility has been an object of study for more than three decades, as demonstrated in the work Museum accessibility: The continuing dialogue published by Molloy in 1981.1 However, over recent years, accessibility has been considered from a technological perspective thanks to the use of new technologies such as 3D printing, artificial intelligence, and, mainly, the increased use of portable devices with Internet connectivity that permit the proliferation of QR codes and virtual or augmented reality.2 Nevertheless, what could be considered an opportunity to improve universal accessibility, may often times become a new barrier, due to the technological gap that is just as relevant as the continued architectural barriers. Therefore, many aspects should be taken into account in order to ensure greater accessibility.3 So, experts from NC State University developed the Principles of Universal Design having the following seven advantages:4 –– It is useful and marketable for individuals having diverse abilities. –– It accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. –– The use of the design is easy to understand, regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level.

1  Lisney Eleanor, Jonathan P. Bowen, Kirsten Hearn and Maria Zedda, Museums and technology: Being inclusive helps accessibility for all, in: The Museum Journal 56 (3) 2013, pp. 353–361. 2  Shirley Barkai, Beyond Compliance: Exploring Emerging Technologies to Enrich the Visual Arts Experience for Audiences of All Abilities, https://mdsoar.org/bitstream/handle/11603/4344/Shirley%20Barkai%20Goucher%20 Major%20Paper.‌pdf?sequence=​1&isAllowed=​y (accessed May 14, 2017). 3  This work has been developed within the context of the “RISE Women with disabilities In Social Engagement (RISEWISE)” projects (grant 690874) supported by the European Commission in the Horizon 2020 program. 4  Bettye Rose Connell, Mike Jones, Ron Mace, Jim Mueller, Abir Mullick, Elaine Ostroff, Jon Sanford, Ed Steinfeld, Molly Story and Gregg Vanderheiden, The Principles of Universal Design, https://projects.ncsu.edu/ design/cud/about_ud/udprinciplestext.‌htm (accessed September 27, 1997).

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–– It effectively communicates necessary information to the user, regardless of environmental conditions or the user’s sensory abilities. –– It minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. –– It may be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue. –– Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user’s body size, posture, or mobility. Lavado Paradinas5 declared that it would be painful to fail to apply all of the advances that have been made in the academic discussion to ensure that, in practice, “European Museums can be Museums for all as well as open to all senses”. The solution does not lie in making culture accessible considering only the special features of disabilities. In fact, current museums must have an open vision that is relevant to a changing society demanding easy access to culture and knowledge, not only through concepts and ideas, but also through perceptions and feelings.6 According to the Glossario dell’accessibilità museale [Glossary of the museum accessibility], edited by the Italian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), an accessible museum is: An institute designed and conceived as a comfortable, welcoming and qualitatively functioning place, for any type of audience, in order to ensure free access to its spaces, information, communication and collections for everyone, in full implementation of the museums’ social role. An accessible museum opens its doors to any type of audience, guaranteeing the use of its spaces and its collections through itineraries devoid of architectural and sensorial barriers and with educational activities aimed at everyone as its main objective. To the greatest extent possible, the museum should avoid accessibility implying different itineraries for visitors and should attempt to offer ways of use for all.7

Clearly, the previous definition refers to museum accessibility beyond mere architectural accessibility, also considering cognition and the equal use of contents and facilities. In addition, museum accessibility should be understood as a “social and cultural necessity to break down prejudices and serve as a context for interaction and education”8 for all the members of society. The scientific literature on these issues suggests that almost no museum meets the accessibility criteria for such a varied public, warning that, to some extent, everyone can be susceptible to not

5  Pedro J. Lavado Paradinas, Un museo para todos. Estado de la cuestión y nuevas aportaciones bibliográficas [A Museum for All. State of the Art and New Bibliographical Contributions.], in: Camila González (ed.), Museos abiertos a todos los sentidos: acoger mejor a las personas minusválidas [Museums Open to All Senses: Accepting Better the Disabled People], Madrid: ONCE, 1994, pp. 186–191. 6  Pedro J. Lavado, La museología social: en y con todos los sentidos. Hacia la integración social en igualdad, in: Her & Mus: Heritage & Museography 16 (2015), pp. 55–68. 7  Translation from Italian to English coordinated by the Executive Secretariat of the Central European Initiative, http://www.cei.int/sites/default/files/file/COME‑IN%20Guidelines_FINAL_28.‌pdf (accessed April  30, 2019). 8  Author’s translation: “necesidad social y cultural de romper prejuicios y de servir de contexto de inter­ acción y educación”.

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having the required competences in order to gain the proposed knowledge.9 And recently, museums have attempted to become more and more functional, thanks to the treatment provided by museum staff to their users, with all of the emotional issue involved in the interaction between the guide and the visitor.10 Therefore, it is very important to know the museum’s mission as well as the profile of the most frequent visitor, in order to optimally manage both economic and human resources. Universal accessibility, therefore, contemplates physical and cognitive accessibility, as well as social inclusion: permitting the active participation of a broad and diverse public, breaking cultural, economic, formative, religious, generational, or any other type of barriers. This objective may be achieved through what has been referred to as integrating museography, a concept that has its precedents in the setting of the French Revolution of 1789, since at this historical moment, the modern museum emerged, considered a space to democratize knowledge, and, based on this premise, the principle of universal accessibility is implicit. So, the New Museology of Henri Rivière and his lemma La Gioconde au métro (1968, Paris) posed these questions, underlining the need to bring the pieces of the museum closer to their audiences.11 More recently, the European Disability Strategy (2010–2020) and the Spanish Comprehensive Strategy for Culture for All, have once again focused on these issues, considering those groups that fail to visit museum since they were inaccessible, from either a physical, conceptual or even emotional point of view. The ICOM (International Council of Museums) drafted the Cultural Diversity Charter in 2010 and in 2013, its General Assembly began to assess the extent to which museum inclusion was being addressed (Resolutions of ICOM 2013). International and National Legislation As far as international legislation is concerned, from 2002 to 2004, the United Nations worked on the specific application of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to disabled individuals. This process resulted in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This text was adopted on 13 December 2006, and it was signed and ratified by most countries, including France, Germany and Austria. As a consequence of the acceptance, signatories committed to the following: a) To develop, promulgate and monitor the implementation of minimum standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services open or provided to the public. b) To ensure that private entities that offer facilities and services which are open or provided to the public take into account all aspects of accessibility for persons with disabilities (Article 9).

9  Sofía Rodriguez Bernis and Paloma Muñoz-Campos García, El museo, constructor de otros contextos. Cien años de Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, in: Anales de Historia del Arte 24 (2014), pp. 461–470. 10  Pablo Álvarez Domínguez, Educar en emociones y transmitir valores éticos: un desafío para los Museos de Pedagogía, in: Educació i História: Revista d’História de l’Educació 22 (2013), pp. 93–116, p. 22. 11  Luis Alonso Fernández, Museología. Introducción a la teoría y práctica del museo, Madrid: Istmo, 1992, pp. 18–42; Francisca Hernández Hernández, Planteamientos teóricos de la museología, Gijón: Trea, 2006.

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Regarding the participation in cultural life of disabled individuals: 1. States Parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to take part on an equal basis with others in cultural life, and shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities: a)  Enjoy access to cultural materials in accessible formats. c) Enjoy access to places for cultural performances or services, such as theatres, museums, cinemas, libraries and tourism services, and, as far as possible, enjoy access to monuments and sites of national cultural importance. 2. States Parties shall take appropriate measures to enable persons with disabilities to have the opportunity to develop and utilize their creative, artistic and intellectual potential, not only for their own benefit, but also for the enrichment of society (Article 30). After the signing of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, State Parties were forced to adapt their own legislation to these recommendations in order to ensure universal accessibility to cultural heritage. In Spain however, the law only regulates architectural accessibility to public spaces (including museums). Thus, the commitment is to create accessible public environments and buildings for as many people as possible.12 In fact, one of the issues explaining the delay in the application of accessibility policies in museums is the legal vacuum. Laws exist regarding museums and disability, but few legal texts simultaneously address both access to museums and disability. Neither the Law of Spanish Historical Heritage of 1985, nor the subsequent regulation of stateowned museums of 1987 mentions accessibility to exhibition contents. The laws of the autonomous communities also obviated disability. The laws of Madrid and Cantabria are exceptional, and while they do in fact consider it, they only refer to physical accessibility (Article 23, Law 9/1999 of Madrid and Article 18, Law 5/2001 of Cantabria), failing to address intellectual accessibility.

The Museums of the Complutense University In this section, we will explain the situation concerning Complutense University museums and why the application of RRI to those museums is so interesting. The Complutense University has existed for over five centuries, justifying its extensive and diverse cultural heritage.13 Within this cultural heritage, objects linked to the experimental sciences play an important role. But we should not forget that there are others that are linked to the social sciences, also having a high value in the field of humanities. Both characteristics are essential and complementary for ensuring social inclusion and consideration for vulnerable groups. The experimental nature invites a sensory experience, allowing visitors to touch the pieces, manipulate and handle them; that is,

12  Antonia Espinosa Ruiz and Carmina Bonmati (eds.), Manual de accesibilidad e inclusión en museos y lugares del patrimonio cultural y natural, Gijón: Trea, 2013, pp. 46–48. 13  Margarita San Andrés Moya, Los Museos y colecciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Origen, peculiaridades y situación actual, in Isabel García Fernánces (ed.), Congreso Internacional de Museos Universitarios. Tradición y futuro, Madrid: Complutense University of Madrid, 2015, pp. 15–39.

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they permit an active interaction between the public and the piece. In a complementary way, the social nature invites the visitor to have an emotional experience, building upon our history and memories through human feelings, a central issue when attempting to transform inert museum pieces into living, active objects that promote social inclusion. Nevertheless, the interest in documenting the University collection and, in particularly, in creating a biography of any of the museum pieces is a relatively recent occurrence. A vast number of pieces have no information regarding their origin, acquisition by the Complutense institution (or by its staff ), interventions or restorations, uses, changes in location, loans to other institutions, etc. This lack of information leads to major problems in terms of transforming the overall university collections into a unique new museum, located in a single, adapted building, staffed by a body of specialized museum employees, and with a plan that is sensitive to handicap, diversity, and social inclusion. Another question of interest revolves around the fact that at the Complutense University, fourteen museums and fifteen collections have been recognized. They are located either in the faculties of Health Science (Pharmacy, Medicine, Odontology, Optic, and Veterinary), Earth Science (Biology and Geology), Pure Science (Mathematics and Informatics) and Social Science (Education, Fine Arts, Geography and History), or are even disseminated across offices, conference halls, corridors, and common spaces within the university facilities. Nonetheless, the separation between collections and museums is quite controversial. In fact, some university collections could certainly be upgraded and renamed as museums (such as Ethno-botanic Collection) while, on the other hand, there are some university museums that would be better classified as “multifunctional creativity spaces” furnished with an initial collection (such as MuPAI).14 Regardless, we should keep in mind that accessibility, social inclusion and attention to vulnerable social groups should be easier to achieve in museums than in collections, since collections are frequently locked in closets and lack space and staff to offer workshops for vulnerable population. One key question regarding the Complutense museums is its motivation. Its origin was mainly linked to the interest of one or a few professors who wished to retain objects that would promote understanding in their classes (before students) or to further their research topics. Few objects have been acquired exclusively for exhibition purposes, considered to be pieces to be presented in a museum room. However, this latest issue is key to being accessible and inclusive. Since most pieces were chosen while considering their didactic qualities, they are particularly useful for promoting conceptual comprehension, and could be used to transfer knowledge to a diverse mosaic of social groups, including those suffering from mental diseases or those lacking formal education, among others. Furthermore, many pieces are usually carried to classrooms and are often manipulated by teachers and students in order to improve learning, therefore, they

14  Those topics have been further developed in the chapter: Cristina Álvarez Rojo, Irene González Hernando and Laura Rodríguez Peinado, Accesibilidad universal e inclusión social en los museos y colecciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, in: Tamara Bueno Doral, Irene González Hernando and Rosaura Navajas Seco, Cultura y tecnologías digitales socialmente responsables e innovadoras, Gijón: Trea, 2020. This paragraph is merely a simple synthesis for a better understanding of the Complutense panorama.

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could also be sense-experienced by groups with physical handicaps. Our experience in working with vulnerable groups has shown that Complutense University museum pieces have invaluable potential in this field. We explain this question below.

Methodology: the RRI Approach Applied to the Accessibility of Vulnerable Groups in the UCM Museums We have chosen the Responsible Research and Innovation approach for our research project Art, Accessibility, Museography, Social integration, Disability, Culture for all. Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) implies that societal actors (researchers, citizens, policy makers, businesses, third sector organizations, etc.) work together during the entire research and innovation process in order to better align both the process and its outcomes with the values, needs and expectations of society. RRI proposes that all actors participate in order to co‑design actions, transversely integrate the gender perspective, and consider sustainability from the onset. The proposal also considers the inclusion of four dimensions applied by any RRI approach, according to Stilgoe, Owen and Macnaghten (2013): anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion and responsiveness. RRI forms an open, collaborative and sustainable vision of science, in which traditional systems of value creation, based on the principles of efficiency and economic growth, are replaced by welfare objectives for all. In order to co‑design an RRI study, we have first initiated this responsible process of research and inclusive dialogue from the onset. Scientific education and public participation is becoming increasingly necessary given the current situation. It is important to include the social groups for whom we are elaborating our research in order to represent their real needs. Moreover, if civil society does not understand the scope of the investigations that are underway and how they can potentially improve our quality of life, there will be no public pressure for governments to finance them and include them in their policies. This is especially relevant in the case of accessibility. We can synthesize our RRI research into three phases: –– Collaborative preparation: meetings with the relevant stakeholders in order to integrate their needs into our research. Strategy of museum visits and questionnaire design according to their requirements. –– Visits to museums with the involved stakeholders, field research and subsequent joint evaluation. –– Elaboration of conclusions, integration and dissemination activities. Integration of the Social Group Perspective from the Onset of the Research Eight (8) preparatory meetings were held with University leaders, Complutense museum directors, researchers and non-profit organizations specializing in the following groups: Support Unit for Diversity and Inclusion UCMd + I, Spanish Autism Federation, ACCEM (NPO specialized in

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refugees) and AMREF (NPO specialized in people with disabilities). The adaptation of the research to the beneficiaries was possible by means of the meetings (groups of special vulnerability, such as refugees or people with physical or mental diversity), that also enabled adjustment to the unique nature, conditions and circumstances of the sites in which we are working (Complutense museums and collections). Thanks to these meetings, it was possible to adjust the research objectives to the specific group needs and to determine the limitations that the University must address with regards to the necessary transformations in order to guarantee accessibility. This was of great importance since it allowed us to uncover our biases as researchers and to be able to initiate a responsible investigation that takes into account the expectations and needs of the groups from the onset. The organizations specializing in vulnerable groups provided indications as to how to approach the research from an ethical perspective. They informed us about the peculiarities of each group: refugees, people at risk of social exclusion, people with physical and mental disabilities. We knew that the diversity of the groups was a challenge, so the orientation of the NPOs was fundamental in order to design appropriate fieldwork through museum visits that would adapt to their needs. The organizations also put us in touch with individuals from the vulnerable groups that are interested in participating in the research. The following measures were taken after the meetings with the stakeholders: –– Adapting the questionnaires and formulating the questions in a simple and comprehensive manner. –– Designing museum visits, taking into account the diversity of the participating group in order to guarantee their accessibility. –– Conducting visits in small groups so that participants may move comfortably in the space and receive the attention that they may require. –– Preparing each visit and subsequent evaluation with the guidance of the specialized organizations. –– Attempting to ensure a balance in participant diversity in terms of age, gender and origin. –– Given that we were investigating vulnerable groups, we fulfilled the ethical questions related to the anonymization of the collected data and other ethical issues raised by the NPOs. Furthermore, at the start of each visit, a 5–10 minutes long explanatory meeting was held to ensure that they understood the objectives and applications of the research. This RRI approach has allowed us to address aspects of the research that we would not have originally contemplated, since we are not members of the vulnerable groups. We recommend its extrapolation to other investigations given that, although more timely than the more typical preparation phase, it allows for the correcting of errors from the onset, and most importantly, it allows us to include the perspective of the social groups for which we do the research, resulting in a more ethical and responsible study.

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Collaborative Fieldwork In this section, we will describe how the fieldwork was carried out and the primary conclusions reached from the same. A total of 8 museums were studied15 and 39 sample questionnaires were collected. Museum names and responsible parties are detailed below: Museum of Medical Anthropology, Forensic, Paleopathology and Criminalistics Professor Reverte Coma (05/08/2017, evaluation and interview with Demetrio Martín, museum collaborator), Herbario de Farmacia-MAF (05/17/2017, evaluation and interview with José Pizarro, curator of the herbarium), Geology Museum (05/29/2017, evaluation and interview with María Victoria López Acevedo Cornejo, museum director), Pedagogical Museum of Children’s Art ‑MuPAI (7/06/2017, evaluation and interview with Noelia Antúnez del Cerro, museum collaborator), Museum of Ethnobotany (12/06/ 2017, evaluation and interview with Isabel Pérez-Ruzafa, museum director and with Estela Seriñá Ramírez, museum curator), Museum of Archeology and Ethnology of America (06/21/2017, evaluation and interview with Alicia Alonso Sagaseta de Ilurdoz, museum director in functions), Museum of Hispanic Pharmacology (10/23/2017, evaluation and interview with Alejandra Gómez Martín, museum curator), Museum of Optics (2/9/2018, evaluation and interview with Andrés Martínez Vargas, museum director). Visits were made with the following groups: refugees from China, Ukraine, Colombia, Venezuela, Palestine and Syria; people with disabilities; members of the Autism Spain association; and elderly individuals accompanied by the Red Cross organization. We realize that we could have achieved greater representation of the social groups, but due to time and resource limitations, we focused on the participants that were recommended and provided by the NPOs. This is one of the study limitations, so in future research, greater representation of groups that are at risk of social exclusion will be included using the same methodology. The visits were made in conjunction with other researchers, since we did not wish to separate the groups on the one hand and the researchers on the other. Integration also involves contemplating these issues. The questionnaires were distinct, given the different degrees of knowledge in this subject, but the subsequent evaluation was once again joint, since we wished to discover our biases and encourage mutual learning. The objective of this paper is to describe how an RRI approach was implemented in order to study accessibility by vulnerable groups to university museums. Our purpose was not to present a complete state of the art about the Complutense museums. Therefore, below we present the most important observations regarding accessibility that are common to all museums. Therefore, we will not focus on examining the peculiarities of each museum but rather, on analyzing the more general dimensions that were asked of the social groups and that revolve around five items: –– Information related to the museum signage and location. –– Information relating to existing architectural barriers. 15  There are 29 museums and collections at the Complutense University. In this article, however, we focus only on eight museums of which an intense analysis was conducted with researchers and vulnerable groups.

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–– Accessibility of museum posters and information. –– Accessibility of the pieces. –– General impression of the museum visit. Results of the Questionnaires: Regarding whether or not the museum location is well marked, 66.7 % of all respondents consider that no, it is not. The following three arguments were the most frequently repeated by the interviewees: –– There is no informative museum poster at the entrance of the Faculty. –– Information regarding location is not easily found on the website. –– Although an informative poster exists, it is not suitably visible. As for current architectural barriers, only 20.52 % of the participants say that architectural barriers exist in reaching the museum. The remainder, although not finding insurmountable barriers, tended to consider three main aspects to be improved: –– Very narrow elevators for wheelchairs. –– Corridors and doors are very narrow for wheelchairs. –– The museum showcases and informative signs are located very high up for people in wheelchairs, preventing them from being easily seen or read. As for the general accessibility of the museum posters and information, the result is quite divided. Only 48.71 % of the interviewees consider that the informative posters are adequate. The others indicate that there are not sufficient posters and they mention the following aspects to be improved: –– The informative posters are not located in all of the museum pieces. –– Informative posters are not adapted to people with disabilities. –– The location of informative posters is not appropriate for easy reading. –– The informative posters do not contain sufficient and clear information. Regarding the accessibility of the pieces, when evaluating on a scale of 1 to 5, the following aspects were mentioned: –– The pieces are clearly visible, receiving an average of 3.22. –– The pieces have sufficient space in the displays and cabinets, for an average of 3.13. –– The pieces transmit the information in a didactic way, with an average of 2.24. Regarding the general impression of the visit to the museum, this was positive for 84 participants, 61 % of the interviewees. The most repeated argument in favor of the university museums was the quality of the staff working in the museums as visit guides. An interest in the museum pieces is also frequently indicated in a positive manner. As for aspects to be improved in order to make the visit more positive, most participants indicate that it would be useful to include more information about certain pieces and they also suggest that a museographic story is necessary to connect all of the museum pieces.

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Collaborative Activities of Inclusion and Dissemination Thanks to the feedback received from the social groups and the organizations, we were able to organize three integration activities related to the museums that favored the accessibility of the social groups, in accordance with the detected needs. The first of these was the design of pictograms for the museums, prepared jointly by students of our university and individuals with autism; the second consisted of a workshop in the Museum of Education for individuals with intellectual disabilities, creating a video and describing what beauty meant to them during the visit to the museum, thus writing part of their script. The third was a visit to the Museum of Education and a subsequent clay modelling workshop for students with disabilities who wished to be future university students, reflecting their best qualities in the sculptures that they were making. Here we describe the methodology and results of each of the activities: Workshops to Design Accessible and Inclusive Pictograms for Museums and UCM Collections Methodology: several meetings were held with the Association Autism Spain and Association Pauta (specializing in autism) in order to design this workshop in an inclusive way. This allowed us to anticipate the range of potential difficulties that people with autism could have. In parallel, we informed the students of the “History of the Advertising Poster” course in the Communication department (UCM) as to the goals of the research. We prepared the necessary materials for the students: information about the pictograms and the group of people with autism. We also prepared the necessary materials to make the designs. Each workshop lasted one hour. Work groups were small and consisted of students from the UCM and autistic individuals who in some cases, were accompanied by organization volunteers. During the first 20 minutes, the participants discussed what they understood to be an accessible museum and in the remaining time, they tried to reflect that concept in a pictogram designed by all (pl. 36). Results: eigh pictograms were designed (four in each workshop) that represented the idea of an accessible museum (pl. 37). The workshop was very rewarding and offered a great deal of knowledge, both for the teachers and for the students participating. The UCM students learned about the characteristics of autistic people and gained awareness regarding their accessibility problems. The individuals with autism stated that they enjoyed coming to the university and participating in this inclusive activity with our students. It is our hope that the museum directors will use some of the pictograms at the Complutense University. Workshop in the Museum of Education for People with Intellectual Dissability Methodology: In collaboration with the APAMA Association, we have developed this workshop for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Students were studying Cinema with one of the teachers who participated in this research. After visiting the Museum of Education, those students wrote some texts and made some drawings that reflected the beauty that the museum had transmitted to them and the beauty existing in everyday life also. This workshop lasted two hours (pl. 38). Results: Students enjoyed seeing the museum and working there. They received inspiration and shared their texts about beauty in one of the museum rooms. They created drawings to re-

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flect the meaning of beauty for them: solidarity, friendship, companionship, etc. We subsequently used those drawings as attrezzo to shoot a scene for the video that they were creating as part of their course. Clay Modelling Workshop for Students with Disabilities Methodology: within the framework of the inclusive campus organized by the university, we designed a workshop in the Museum of Education. Once again, we chose this museum because it is adequately adapted to the accessibility needs of the social groups. The visiting students learned about the university and could consider becoming future students. For this reason, the Museum of Education was the perfect site. The museum guide selected the most interesting pieces and students asked their questions and discussed Education. The diversity profile was quite high since there were students with distinct disabilities (physical and mental). After the visit, in one of the department classrooms, an exchange was carried out regarding the qualities of each and how to guide them in their future courses. Time was also spent considering and discussing the qualities of other classmates. Later, sculptures were modelled from clay to reflect these qualities, so that they would be “fixed” and remembered. Some participants created these sculptures individually while others decided to do so in teams. The complete workshop, including the museum visit, lasted 3 hours (pl. 39). Results: Students stated that they enjoyed discovering the Education department and its museum. It was a day of considerable learning, for both students and museum guides and teachers. It was important to learn their opinions about Education and they highlighted the fact that they had enjoyed reflecting on their qualities, not simply mentioning their talents. In the workshop, this distinction was made and we valued the richness of the diversity of their qualities as potential university students.

Conclusions This research includes some practical workshops to show the progress in accessibility issues made at the Complutense University museums. Thus, it also attempts to serve as a dissemination medium to encourage other cultural centers and universities to adopt similar adapted activities for accessibility. The described scientific literature shows that the steps to move towards universal accessibility would result in a major advance to the benefit of all citizens. However, a legal vacuum exists in national legislation that prevents the achievement of this objective. The relevant stakeholders tend to be responsible for ensuring its fulfilment. Including the relevant stakeholders from the onset of the investigation and in all of its phases, allows for researchers to examine their own biases. And thanks to the inclusion of their perspectives, researchers can better address their real needs. As for the results obtained, it is found that the RRI approach is adequate in terms of working together throughout the research and innovation process, in order to better align both the process and the outcomes with the values, needs and expectations of society. Regarding the results of the fieldwork, generally speaking, the detailed issues identified for improvement refer to museum accessibility, which can benefit from this information that is pro-

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vided by social groups. However, most of the participants highlight the positive work of the museum staff and the interest value of their pieces. In the interviews held with the museum managers, most of them pointed out that a lack of economic resources at the university was the main cause for the failure to comply with accessibility. Only one of the museums is self-financed with visits and activities and its revenue is also limited. However, we recommend that some of the most necessary adaptations, according to the participants, are implemented. These include: more accessible informative posters, more suitable height of the pieces and informative posters, improved information as to the museum location, clearer information and readable, increased connection between the museum pieces (existence of a museographic story). In any case, both researchers and participants in this research wish to thank and highlight the important work done by these museum managers, work which, in almost all cases, is carried out with no salary and on a voluntarily basis.

REFERENCES Alonso Fernández, Luis, Museología. Introducción a la teoría y práctica del museo, Madrid: Istmo, 1992. pp. 18–40. Pablo Álvarez Domínguez, Educar en emociones y transmitir valores éticos: un desafío para los Museos de Pedagogía, in: Educació i História: Revista d’História de l’Educació 22 (2013), pp. 93–116, p. 22. Barkai, Shirley, Beyond Compliance: Exploring Emerging Technologies to Enrich the Visual Arts Experience for ­Audiences of All Abilities, https://mdsoar.org/bitstream/handle/11603/4344/Shirley%20Barkai%20 Goucher%20 Major%20Paper.‌pdf?sequence=​1&isAllowed=​y (accessed May 14, 2017). Cabezas, Guillermo and Javier De Cardenas, Curso básico sobre accesibilidad al medio fisico. Evitación y supresión de barreras arquitectónicas, urbanísticas y del transporte [Basic Course in Accessibility to the Physical Medium. Avoidance and Removal of Architectural, Urban and Transport barriers], Madrid: Ministry of Social Affairs, 1992. Connell, Bettye Rose, Mike Jones, Mike, Ron Macem, Jim Mueller, Abir Mullick, Elaine Ostroff, Jon Sanford, Ed Steinfeld, Molly Story and Gregg Vanderheiden, The Principles of Universal Design, https://projects.ncsu. edu/design/cud/about_ud/udprinciplestext.‌htm (accessed September 27, 1997). Eleanor, Lisney, Jonathan P. Bowen, Kirsten Hearn and Maria Zedda, Museums and technology: Being inclusive helps accessibility for all, in: The Museum Journal 56 (3) (2013), pp. 353–361. Espinosa Ruiz, Antonio and Carmina Bonmatí (eds.), Manual de accesibilidad e inclusión en museos y lugares del patrimonio cultural y natural, Gijón: Trea, 2013, pp. 46–48. Scarpati, Dario, Glossario dell’accessibilità museale [Glossary of the museum accessibility], Milan: ICOM, 2016. Hernández Hernández, Francisca, Planteamientos teóricos de la museología, Gijón: Trea, 2006. Lavado Paradinas, Pedro J., Un museo para todos. Estado de la cuestión y nuevas aportaciones bibliográficas [A Museum for All. State of the Art and New Bibliographical Contributions.], in: Camila González (ed.), Museos abiertos a todos los sentidos: acoger mejor a las personas minusválidas [Museums Open to All Senses: Accepting Better the Disabled People], Madrid: ONCE, 1994, pp. 186–191. Lavado Paradinas, Pedro J., La museología social: en y con todos los sentidos. Hacia la integración social en igualdad, in: Her & Mus: Heritage & Museography 16 (2015), pp. 55–68. Mora, Jorge, Ángel Martín, Alicia Barragán, Antonio López Culebras and Manuel Colinas, Artecnología & acce­ sibilidad en museos [Artecnology & Accessibility in Museums.], in: ArTecnología. Conocimiento aumen-

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RESEARCH STRATEGIES IN INCLUSIVE MUSEOLOGY WITH THE MUSEO DEL PRADO COLLECTIONS Towards Universal Accessibility, Sensoriality, and Social Integration Introduction Following postmodernism, for the past four decades, History of Art, heritage and museum studies have evolved towards an encounter with other disciplines. Traditional research in artworks has led to studies on cultural institutions themselves. Studies in art sociology has allowed us to evolve from an understanding of art production to understanding the people; those who create as well as those who perceive and all the individuals in between: artists, donors, collectors, audiences, etc. These researches conducted a shift of paradigm in museums administration, increasingly taking into account visitors’ needs, demands and cultural experience. It is at this moment when a will to render heritage accessible also manifest in public policies. For instance, in 1959, the Ministry of cultural affairs of France is created. André Malraux assumed the head of the ministry in its first decade of existence and stated among its fundamental missions to “make capital artworks of humanity accessible (…) and to ensure the largest audience possible to our cultural heritage”.1 With the time, other ministries of heritage and culture were created all along Europe. Ever since, they have all little by little integrated the notions of inclusion, cultural democratization and universal accessibility. Therefore, accessibility, in its broader sense, has been a major concern for cultural actors and particularly in museums. Beyond removing physical barriers ‑when possible- several solutions have been and are being tried, such as gratuity, different opening hours, development of rich cultural programmes, etc. However, studies in sociology of museums showed that visitors still responded to a rather elitist profile. In addition, accessibility for people with diverse conditions to cultural programmes was far from being achieved. A paternalistic attitude towards audiences created a dynamic in which museum’s professionals tried to figure out how to make their collections accessible instead of asking directly to stakeholders. Fortunately, past years have witnessed a deep reflection from cultural institutions on how to include the public in their policy-making. So far, “Inclusive Museology” is the term commonly used when addressing audiences policies in museums nowadays. We particularly believe that inclusion is the first step on the way of democratic and 100 % accessible museums. However, the publics’ increasing demand of actively participating in cultural life would lead us to find “culture integration” as a more accurate term. 1  “rendre accessibles les œuvres capitales de l’humanité (…) et d’assurer la plus vaste audience à notre patrimoine culturel”, André Malraux, La Politique, la culture: Discours, articles, entretiens, 1925–1975, Paris: Gallimard, 1996, p. 132.

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Integration embodies a sense of natural interaction whilst inclusion may give the idea of an inserted element. Inclusion is, therefore, a controversial concept, particularly when talking about cultural and social issues. Much literature has been produced in order to define it and reflect on how it is possible to achieve it, if it is desirable to do so. It may seem a superfluous debate, as we all understand that its main target is to offer every individual his or her rightful place in the culture sphere, but definitions matter, as they disseminate values and ideas to the broad public. Besides terminology, what seems clear is that museums are seen nowadays as key actors in the development of fairer, more democratic societies and which benefits have an impact on many aspects of the individual life, as we will see in further pages. The social role of museums as an essential part of their identity was firstly discussed by an official body of museology in 1972, at the Round table of Santiago (Chile), organized by the ICOM. But it was not clearly defined until later on, by the Declaration of Quebec “Basic Principles of a New Museology” in 1984. Following this line of action, in 1985 the MINOM-ICOM (International movement for a new Museology) was created. It focused on the relationship between museums and their communities, territories or surrounding heritage, in an attempt to encourage synergies among them. Museums themselves have been aware of this social turn. Most of them have consequently reorganised and reviewed their missions and discourses, no longer considering visitors as passive spectators. Therefore, more and more initiatives are being carried out in order to build bonds between museums and their audiences: The community museum is a process, rather than a product. It fosters the construction of collective subjects through the elaboration of memory, reflection, self-knowledge, and creativity; it helps strengthen community identity by legitimizing its own histories and values; it contributes to the improvement of the quality of community life through multiple projects for the future; and it strengthens the community’s capacity for action through the creation of networks with similar communities.2

This new approach of museology has also been supported by the international community. Supranational bodies as the United Nations, the UNESCO or the European Union encourage the social mission of museums both by funding projects or leading research3 on the impact of heritage on issues such as aging of the population, migration, extremisms or social integration. In Europe, the inclusive role of museums is defined by the economic model we are living in: the Social Investment.4 The term “investment” indicates that public resources spent have a proportionated and measurable return. It is a model in between the post-wars welfare state and the

2  Cuauhtémoc Camarena and Teresa Morales, Lessons Learned in the Principles and Practice of Community Museums, in: Selma Holo and Mari-Tere Álvarez, Remix: Changing Conversations in Museums of the Americas, Oakland: University of California Press, 2016, p. 30. 3  Many relevant studies have been carried on by United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD). 4  Thomas Leoni, Social Investment as a Perspective on Welfare State Transformation in Europe, in: Intereconomics 51, 2016, p. 195.

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neoliberalism reigning since the eighties.5 According to it, the State must be the main investor in the social field. Social Investment appeared as an alternative in order to fight back the recent distressing austerity scenario in Europe. It claims that administrations should not reduce expenditure but seek more efficient models. In order to achieve it, evaluation is key. Furthermore, both qualitative and quantitative factors should be taken into account when measuring the return of public investment. It is important to underline that these returns can manifest in other fields different from where the resource was originally invested. Some examples seem quite logical, for instance, investing in culture has positive effects on education; but recent studies are proving that investing in culture (engaging the population in cultural activities) has benefits in other “less related” fields, such as health,6 employment or justice.7 This is what the Social Investment calls a “virtuous circle”.8 Most museums in Europe are publicly funded and, therefore, should apply the dynamics settled by Social Investment. As major actors in culture policies, they carry the responsibility of representing and applying the strategies of national administration. Therefore, the turn of museums towards a social mission would seem like a natural evolution of the relationship between museums with its community. However, it presents both intellectual and practical challenges. Museums have been improving in terms of social inclusion, thanks to actions which promoted building and sharing identities as well as interacting with artworks. Nevertheless, big and small museums have different targets when addressing inclusive issues. Although their objectives are common, the paths they take in order to become active agents of this change may differ. Economic resources are obviously very important and vary a lot from one institution to another. But creativity and engagement with communities play as well a key role when developing inclusive projects. Therefore, one of the main challenges museums are facing nowadays is how to become and consolidate as referent institutions in social integration and universal accessibility. They are asked to think of and develop projects, targeting their wide range of audiences’ interests. When building the idea of an accessible museum, we must go

5  Anthony Giddens, The Third Way. The Renewal of Social Democracy, in: Daniel Perkins, Lucy Nelms, and Paul Smyth, Beyond neo-liberalism: the social investment state?, Fitzroy: Brotherhood of Saint Laurence and Centre of Public Policy, 2004, p. 1. 6 On 11th November 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) will launch its first report on the evidence base for arts and health intervention coordinated by the Health Evidence Network (HEN). The evidence synthesized in the report will be used to provide suggestions for integrating the arts, social care and health sectors to support health and well-being throughout the life course and across the continuum of care. WHO/Europe and European Member States recognize the importance of culture in shaping health and well-being throughout the life course. The cultural contexts of health and well-being (CCH) project was established as a cross-cutting initiative within WHO that takes a systematic approach to understanding how culture affects perceptions, access to and experiences of health and well-being. 7  See the scheme of interactions of economic and social policies by the European Comission in: Perkins, Nelms, Smyth 2004 (as fn. 6), pp. 10. 8  Cyprien Avenel, Marine Boisson-Cohen, Sandrine Dauphin, Nicolas Duvoux, Christophe Fourel, Manon Jullien, and Bruno Palier, L’investissement social: quelle stratégie pour la France?, Paris: La Documentation Française, 2017, p. 21.

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beyond the visual mechanism, encouraging the activation of the other senses, as well visitors’ emotional memory or their ability to express and live social sensitiveness.9 As we mentioned above, this intellectual challenge needed from the collaboration of different disciplines, coming from the professional and the academic worlds. We aimed at approaching the research done in universities to the day‑to-day practice of museums personnel, as well as becoming a screen where inclusive and innovative experiences could be projected and diffused. Gathering together all stakeholders in cultural integration allowed a collective discussion in which different points of views were exchanged, bonds among people were created and, we truly hope it, some prejudices were overcome. In the following pages we will present some of the activities coordinated by MUSACCES Consortium and how we have faced the challenge of inviting the visual impaired, hard-hearing or incarcerated people to participate in the Prado Museum’s activity. We have worked with a will of international cooperation through actions that sought a richer interaction between artworks and the diversity of publics.10

An Interdisciplinary Research Network: MUSACCES Consortium In January 2016, the Community of Madrid along with the European Social Fund co‑funds our Consortium through a call for funding for research activities in Humanities by universities of the region. A network of three of the main universities in Spain, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (as the leading one), University of Distant Education and Autonomous University of Madrid, was created. Its role was to reflect about accessibility in museums and in ways to approach the Prado Museum and its collections to our targeted audiences aforementioned. This is why MUSACCES Consortium gathered researchers from different study fields to improve the accessibility of people with access requirements to culture. Initial support from the Prado Museum (more specifically the Education department) encouraged us to open our academic activities to museum practice and to think of the museum as a place to test the results of university research. We want to underline that our activities were independent from the Prado’s in terms of personnel, educative and cultural action and strategic programme. Our network simply benefitted of the opportunity to work with universal masterpieces held in this national collection. We opened a space in which different profes-

9  Initiatives worth highlighting, include: Karin Bijsterveld, Ears‑on exhibitions: Sound in the history museum, in: Public Historian 37 (2015), pp. 73–90; Nikos Papastergiadis, The sensory museum: affective experience as the new pedagogic norm, in: Identities 24 (2017), pp. 34–40; David Raymond Bell, Aesthetic encounters and learning in the museum, in: Educational Philosophy and Theory 49 (2017), pp. 776–787; and: Sara Ebrahem, Sara Alsaadani, Zeyad El Sayad, and Ahmed Elseragy, Exploring multi-Sensory designed architectural spaces, in: International Journal of Architectonic, Spatial, and Environmental Design 12 (2018), pp. 15–24. 10  This work has been initiated by MUSACCES Consortium (S2015/HUM-3494), defined by the call for R&D funding in Humanities of the Community of Madrid and the European Social Fund‑to which we are deeply thankful for their generous support.

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sionals could apply their work and research in heritage accessibility.11 We had two main missions in our consortium. Firstly, organising national and international academic activities; and secondly, designing apps and tools which allowed a better interaction and/or encounter with the artwork. Our academic activities focused on the study of the image and visitors’ experience in museums. The latter was directly linked with our second field of action, as we searched to implement tailored pedagogic models, which have been presented in past publications.12 The quality and pertinence of our projects have been evaluated by a Quality Committee, guaranteeing the ethics of our actions and researches towards the target groups we worked with.13

A Space for Experimentation at University: The Museum though the Five Senses Approaching the collection of one of the most visited museums in Spain to these heterogeneous collectives (visually impaired, hard-hearing and incarcerated people) was a big chal11  Some of the already published works on the characteristics, objectives and achievements of MUSACCES Consortium are: José María Salvador González, Jesús Cantera Montenegro, and Víctor Rabasco García, ­MUSACCES busca hacer accesible el patrimonio cultural del Museo del Prado a invidentes, personas sordas y reclusos en cárceles, in: Rosabel Roig-Vila (ed.), Tecnología, innovación e investigación en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje, Barcelona: Octaedro, 2016, pp. 2984–2991; Herbert González Zymla, José María Salvador González, Tomás Ibáñez Palomo, and Nicolás Javier Casas Calvo, La accesibilidad de invidentes, sordos y reclusos al patrimonio artístico del Museo del Prado: objetivos y acciones del Consorcio MUSACCES, in: Alejandro Rodríguez Martín (coord.), Prácticas innovadoras inclusivas. Retos y oportunidades, Oviedo: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Oviedo, 2017, pp. 2479–2488; Isidro Moreno Sánchez and Eloísa Pérez Santos, La accesibilidad beneficia a todas las personas. Proyecto MUSACCES para el Museo del Prado, in: Ana M. Galán-Pérez; Elena López Gil (coord.), Accesibilidad y museos: divulgación y transferencia de experiencias, retos y oportunidades de futuro, Sevilla: Asociación de Museólogos y Museógrafos de Andalucía y Junta de Andalucía, 2017, pp. 101–110; José María Salvador González and Matilde Azcárate Luxán, Innovaciones del Consorcio MUSACCES para promover la accesibilidad intelectual de invidentes, personas sordas y reclusos al patrimonio artístico del Museo del Prado, in: Manuel H. Olcina Doménech (coord.), Accesibilidad e inclusión en el turismo de patrimonio cultural y natural: 3er Congreso Internacional Educación y accesibilidad en museos y patrimonio, Alicante: Diputación Provincial de Alicante and Museo Arqueológico de Alicante, 2018, pp. 276– 279. 12  In this field, we must mention the work of one of the research groups in the Consortium, INADOC, which focuses on applied technologies: Alicia Lara-Clares, Ana Garcia-Serrano, and Covadonga Rodrigo, Enrichment of Accessible LD and Visualization for Humanities: MPOC Model and Prototype. in: Emmanouel Garoufallou, Sirje Virkus, Rania Siatri, and Damiana Koutsomiha (eds.), Metadata and Semantic Research. MTSR 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 755, Cham: Springer, 2017, pp. 327–332; and: Ana Garcia Serrano and Ángel Castellanos González, Representación y organización de documentos digitales: detalles y práctica sobre la ontología DIMH, in: Revista de Humanidades Digitales (2017), pp. 314–344. 13  The methodology on research quality evaluation was published in: José María Salvador González, Ángel Pazos-López, Miguel Santamaría Lancho, Matilde Azcárate Luxán, and Teresa Nava Rodríguez, Elementos para el diseño de sistemas de gestión de la calidad de la investigación y de la transferencia del conocimiento: el Consorcio MUSACCES, in: XIII Foro Internacional sobre la Evaluación de la Calidad de la Investigación y de la Edu­ cación Superior, Granada: Asociación Española de Psicología Conductual, 2016, pp. 868–874.

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lenge. One of the earliest problems we had to address in our research was the need to tailor activities according to the groups’ needs and the research done on each field.14 Secondly, some of the activities suggested perpetuated a condescending tone or a vertical transfer of knowledge. In this dynamic, the museum acts as exclusive rightful owner of knowledge, creating a message that it shares with some specific groups. This paternalistic attitude had to be quickly solved, as it has a profound harmful effect on participants’ emotions. Following the theory of Sensory Studies, presented in works by authors such as David Howes, MaryAnne Drake or Edgar Chambers IV, we then directed our actions towards an interdisciplinary approach of it.15 Historically, the Prado museum’s collections have a strong bond with visual aesthetics. This differs very much from other museums, such as science museums, art centres or experience museums focused on sound or other senses. The latter have traditionally been associated mostly to contemporary art, which is far from the Prado’s collections. Nevertheless, artworks held in the Prado have hidden meanings that go beyond visual perception. This is the case for many other fine arts museums. Works by Day, Jutte or Bacci tell us about how senses were represented in paintings. They give us the keys to read these meanings and experience emotions portrayed in them by going further from what meets the eye.16 Obviously, approaching art through the senses was not something new in museum studies. Jennifer Lauwrens had already published a very interesting essay about the possibilities of conceptualizing a Sensory Turn in Art History had to offer. It turned out to be a significant revolution to some Graduate Studies in Visual Culture and Art History in American and European universities

14  Some relevant works are those of: Jenifer Turner and Kimberley Peters, Unlocking carceral atmospheres: designing visual/material encounters at the prison museum, in: Visual Communication 14 (2015), pp. 309–330; Nic Hollinworth, Kate Allen, Faustina Hwang, Andy Minnion, and Gosia Kwiatkowska, Interactive sensory objects for and by people with learning disabilities, in: International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 9 (2016), pp. 21–38; Fern Silverman and Andrea Carr Tyszka, Supporting participation for children with sensory processing needs and their families: Community-based action research, in: American Journal of Occupational Therapy 71 (2017), pp. 1–9; Roberto Vaz, Paula Odete Fernandes, and Ana Cecília Rocha Veiga, Designing an Interactive Exhibitor for Assisting Blind and Visually Impaired Visitors in Tactile Exploration of Original Museum Pieces, in: Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018), pp. 561–570; Anne Chick, Improving intellectual access for blind and partially sighted visitors to temporary exhibitions: An inclusive design solution, in: International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 12 (2019), pp. 39–62. 15  An essential publication gathering several essays on this line of work is David Howes (ed.), Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader, Oxford: Berg, 2004. 16  We must cite other works that were key as well for the development of our research and targets: Robert Jutte (ed.), A History of the Senses. From Antiquity to Cyberspace, Cambridge: Polity, 2005; Patrizia Di Bello and Gabriel Koureas (eds.), Art, History and the Senses. 1830 to the Present, Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Routledge, 2010; Francesca Bacci and David Melcher (eds.), Art ant the Senses, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011; Alice E. Sanger and Siv Tove Kulbrandstad Walker (eds.), Sense and the Senses in Early Modern Art and Cultural Practice, Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2012; Joy Day, Making senses of the past: Toward a sensory archaeology, New York: Routledge, 2013; Heather Hunter-Crawley and Erica O’Brien, The multi-sensory image from antiquity to the renaissance, New York: Taylor and Francis, 2019.

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who aimed to be at the avant-garde of research in this field.17 Unfortunately, the echo of sensory studies had little impact in Spain until recently. Most publications addressed the link between art and sensorial experience from an iconographic point of view. Artworks studied were those that had the senses as clear subject. In addition, many of these artworks were paintings, so vision remained on the top of the senses hierarchy.18 This is why we decided to develop a group of activities which focused on experiencing art through several senses in order to overcome traditional visual prevalence. 19 First of all, we decided to begin a programme of conferences and workshops at university. We would encourage experimentation by asking our lecturers to avoid a passive speech, giving only a theoretical approach to the subject. On the contrary, they would interact with the audience by using objects, gadgets or other materials distributed among participants. The conferences cycles had a great impact. National and international media echoed our innovating activities. But most importantly, hundreds of students, museum professionals and other people regularly gathered, overpassing our expectations and usual participation numbers in other activities related to humanities held at our university.20 This massive attendance allowed us not only to consolidate the success of our actions but to create a thoughtful and complete evaluation system. We will explain the results obtained after each activity in further chapters. In order to push our engagement with accessibility, conferences had been recorded and are available on YouTube, in the official cannel of our consortium (MUSACCES Consortium). Some of them are translated in sign language21. Other institutions also followed this dynamic by offering seminars and conferences with Sensory museology as main topic, such as the École du Louvre in Paris. We are very proud to see that the success of our proposals had echoes in other countries in Europe.22

17  Jennifer Lauwrens, Welcome to the Revolution: The Sensory Turn and Art History, in: Journal of Art Historiography 7 (2012), pp. 1–17. 18  It is the case of the exhibition held in the Museo Nacional del Prado in 1997. It focused on the subject of the artworks chosen rather than the visitors’ potential experience in the show: Sylvia Ferino-Pagdena and José Milicua (cood.), Los Cinco sentidos y el arte. Catálogo de la exposición, Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 1997. 19  This idea was not new and it is linked to works by Stefano Mastandrea. How emotions shape aesthetic experiences, in: Pablo P. L. Tinio and Jeffrey K. Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of ­Aesthetics and the Arts, New Jersey: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 500–518. 20  La Universidad Complutense organiza el seminario Los cinco sentidos en la diversidad de las artes, UCM Web, https://www.ucm.es/complutense-seminario-cinco-sentidos-musacces (accessed July  15, 2019); Seminario Los cinco sentidos en la diversidad de las artes, ICOM-Spain Web, http://www.‌icom‑ce.org/ evento/seminario-los-cinco-sentidos‑en-la-diversidad‑de-las-artes (accessed July 15, 2019); Irene Monmeneu Soler, Saborear una pintura o palpar la música es posible, Infoactualidad Diary, http://infoactualidad.­ ccinf.es/index.php/component/content/article/2-uncategorised/578-yugoslavia‑25-anos-despues (accessed July 15, 2019). 21  MUSACCES Consortium Youtube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCQaEUzVMiS9zw5PJIw2nFfw/videos (accessed July 15, 2019). 22  École du Louvre, SIEM 2018 Les cinq sens au musée: une expérience pour tous, http://www.ecoledulouvre. fr/webmaster/newsletter/Lettre052018.‌html (accessed July 15, 2019).

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First Edition: The Prado Museum though the Five Senses23 Our first activity in the programme “museums and the five senses” focused on the Prado Museum. With this title we wanted to invite lecturers and participants to think of ways of experiencing the museum through the five senses. In order to make it a both theoretical and practical activity, we connected two profiles of speakers: on one hand, Art History and museums professionals who presented works from the Prado which they found particularly suggestive. On the other, professionals from other fields, aliens to the art world, who could bring a different approach on sensorial experience (tab. 1)24. For the latter, we contacted with a cook, a specialist in optics, a sculptor, a music and theatre director and an expert in olfactory biochemistry. Table 1 | Speakers’ profiles of “The Prado Museum through the Five Senses” conference Sense

Academic speaker

Professional speaker

Taste

Prof. Jesús Cantera Early Modern Art Historian

Mateo Sierra Chef

Vision

Prof. Javier Portús Prado Museum Curator of Spanish Paintings until 1700

Agustín González Professor in Optics

Touch

Prof. Francisco Ros Early Modern Art Historian

Miguel Sobrino Sculptor

Hearing

Prof. Manuel Martín Early Modern Historian

Ignacio Rodulfo Theatre and music director

Smell

Prof. José María Salvador Medieval Art Historian

Alicia Megías Biochemistry professor

As central image for our seminar we chose a fragment of Hieronymus Bosch’s (c. 1490–1500) Garden of Earthly Delights (pl. 40). With it, we wanted to invite spectators to reflect on interpretations given to the power of senses through History. This painting makes a clear allusion to humanity’s deturpation, corrupted by sin. This vision is in line with the reigning Cristian mentality in Europe at the dusk of Middle Ages, when individuals were very concerned about the transcendence of the soul beyond death. The human beings represented among animals and plants in Bosch’s garden are falling in numerous vices. It is a symbolic representation of human beings’ animal nature that leads them to visceral and irrational behaviors and instincts. It is here where senses become relevant, as it is through them the individual perceives the holly and the sinful. Back in that time, human’s reality was essentially formed by these two elements. Therefore, the

23  First cycle of conferences was held between 19th September and 17th October 2016. It was directed by researcher Ángel Pazos-López, Academic Project Manager in MUSACCES Consortium and Research Assistant in the Department of History of Art in the Middle Ages. Universidad Complutense de Madrid. 24  Some results had already been published in: Tomás Ibáñez Palomo and José María Salvador González, Actividades del Consorcio MUSACCES para la accesibilidad al patrimonio del Museo del Prado a invidentes, sordos y reclusos, in: Alejandro Rodríguez Martín (coord.), Prácticas innovadoras inclusivas. Retos y oportunidades, Oviedo: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Oviedo, 2017, pp. 2271–2279.

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hearing, smell, taste, touch and vision were doors to a global perception of peoples’ lives, both in a physical and a transcendental sense. After each seminar, participants received an online survey through Google Forms. They were asked to answer questions concerning satisfaction with the activity, evaluation of each speaker through a quantitative grade rank, evaluation on comfort of University facilities, and a qualitative section where they could express what was they found best about the activity and what could be improved. 240 people attended the seminar and 58 % of them answered the survey. Evaluating questions could be answered in a Likert-type scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is “very unsatisfied” and 5 “very satisfied”. Also, there was a DR, “Don’t response” option. Results analysis (pl. 41) shows that 61 % of academic speakers was rated as “satisfied”, while it raised to an 81 % when rating professional speakers. We can see a very interesting tendency in valuing more positively the participative workshops rather than the traditional conferences given by academic professors of the Art History field. Comments in the qualitative section allowed us to introduce some changes in format and development of sessions. This was very much appreciated in the evaluation forms. Also, many participants valued positively the originality of our activities among other programmes offered by universities in Spain. Our efforts seeking inclusiveness, such as sign language interpreters or the multi-sensorial approach to art, beyond non-exclusively visual channels was praised among evaluation comments. For instance, some participants were visually impaired and they could experience art through the flavours of the dessert inspired by Velázquez’s work The drinkers created ad hoc by chef Mateo Sierra. Also, sculptor Miguel Sobrino brought different materials and tools used to work the stone, allowing a tactile approach to the artistic creation. Second Edition: The Five Senses in the Diversity of the Arts25 A year later, on the second edition, we decided to focus this activity on the diversity of supports and media used by the arts. Traditionally, art museums have been home for plastic arts, such as painting and sculpture. Architecture or fine arts have also been recognised among the “superior arts”. This old-fashioned vision, which still remains in some museums nowadays, leads to a misunderstanding from the audiences. It transmits the idea that these are the only art manifestations existing or, even worse, that they represent a superior form of art. Feedback provided by our qualitative surveys on 2016 seminar made us reflect on how we could change this misconception. We came up with the idea of consecrating 2017 edition to sensoriality in other art supports or media, such as gastronomy, fashion design, cinema, the theatre or even perfumery. We invited speakers from the aforementioned disciplines, encouraging them to share with us how their different fields could be experienced through the five senses. Another change introduced was to substitute the duality academic-professional speaker we worked with in 2016 seminar to more flexible and varied profiles. This allowed us to invite professionals from many

25  The activity took place between 20th September and 18th October 2018. It was created and coordinated by Tomás Ibáñez Palomo, Predoctoral Fellowship at the Department of History of Art and Assistant in Chief Staff Officer of MUSACCES Consortium.

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more disciplines other than Art History and therefore, enriched the approaches from which to experience the art through the senses (tab. 2). Table 2 | Speakers’ profiles of “The Five Senses in the Diversity of the Arts” conference Sense

First Speaker

Second Speaker

Taste

Prof. Ana Diéguez Lecturer in Flemish Painting

Mateo Sierra Chef

Vision

Javier Bernabé and Marc Gener Historic fencing specialists

Irene Ruiz Actress

Touch

Miguel Sobrino Sculptor

Prof. Laura Luceño Fashion History Lecturer

Hearing

Prof. Sonsoles Hernandez-Barbosa Musicologist

Lucía Magán Musician

Smell

Prof. Jesús Palá Ethnobotany professor

Diana Avellaneda Curator in Buenos Aires Perfume Museum

Another innovation in this second edition was the decision to go beyond the collection of the Prado museum, although many of the speakers mentioned works held in the art gallery. Our will to focus on “diversity and plurality of the arts” led us to contacting other institutions for the richness of their collections. For instance, we chose as image of our seminar one of the Flemish tapestries of the cycle The Lady and the Unicorn (c. 1500). This masterwork of textile arts is shown at the Musée national du Moyen Âge in Paris. The cycle shows a medieval woman who interacts with a unicorn through six panels, each having one of the five senses as main topic plus one more, which thematic is still a subject of controversy among art historians. The latter has “À Mon Seul Désir” as title and has been interpreted by scholars as an allegory of the Lady’s refuse on earthly passions. It was believed that it was through the senses that humankind fell into them (pl. 42). Similar evaluation mechanisms were used for this edition. The number of attendants was also very close to 2016 (around 250 people). The percentage of them responding to the satisfaction survey was a little lower (56 % compared to 58 %), but still very significant. The analysis of results (pl. 43) shows us a more homogeneous satisfaction rate between the two interventions in each session. Vision and smell senses speakers were the ones who obtained higher satisfaction results. In the first case, participants highlighted the originality and pertinence of putting together two scenic arts, the speakers being a theatre actress and two experts in historic fencing. Both interventions of the smell session distributed among the audience historical or personal “samples” of smells, allowing every participant to activate this sense during the conference. On this occasion, qualitative evaluation highlighted the general organisation of the seminar as the most remarkable aspect. It was followed by thematic diversity and the quality of the speakers invited. Also, the chance to actively participate in the different sessions was very much appreciated by participants. Those who answered the survey specified that being able to exper-

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iment through different senses other than the vision sparked rich and interesting debates on perception, the senses and the aesthetics in the art experience. The multidisciplinary character of the seminar, which sometimes received a skeptical response from some traditional scholars, was actually the element that massively attracted the public. Furthermore, we are very happy to share that we received many congratulatory messages, mails and phone calls from international colleagues. This encouraged us to continue developing our activities on this line on further editions. Third Edition: The Art for All through the Five Senses26 Third edition clustered all the ideas raised through the past years and focused on the main target of our consortium: social inclusion in the arts by a multisensorial and universal approach to collections. We want to believe it was an intelligent way to close both our cycle of conferences and the MUSACCES Consortium project, which was funded for three years of activity. Not many changes were introduced for this edition. We kept the five conferences cycle, each focusing on a sense and the two-speakers-per-session schema. Speakers’ profiles followed the criteria of the precedent edition, with a wider vary of disciplines beyond Art History. We realized that diversity on profiles led to diversity on the approach of each sense and open perspectives in interpreting the arts through the senses (tab. 3). We want to particularly point out the intervention of a neuroscientist and a blind pianist who allowed the audience to understand perception from both a cognitive and personal approach. Table 3 | Speakers’ profiles of “The Art for All through the Five Senses” conference Sense

First Speaker

Second Speaker

Vision

Laura Pascual Theatre actress

Violeta Lópiz Ilustrator

Smell

Cici Esmerali Feliz Neuroscientist

Cecilia Bembibre Historic smells specialist

Touch

Antonio Azzato Plastic artist

Prof. Estrella Sanz Textiles specialist

Taste

Prof. Eduardo C. González Historian specialised in Ancient History

Prof. José-Luis Priego Oenologist

Hearing

Pepa Castro Dubbing actress

Iulian Abagiu Musicologist

The visual identity chosen for this last cycle was the Luncheon of the Boating Party (pl. 44) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1881). The painting, held at the Phillips Collection in Washington D. C., wanted to illustrate our decision to take a leap from the 15th century to the end of the 19th cen26  This third seminar took place between 18th September and 16th October 2018. It was coordinated by Ana María Cuesta Sánchez, Research Assistant at the Department of History of Art and Director of Cabinet of the Academic Project Manager of MUSACCES Consortium.

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tury. This image expressed the concept of diversity in a historical context where leisure and amusement became central in peoples’ lives. Our idea was to transmit that art must not always be associated to an intellectual enjoyment, but a rather pleasing moment which can be experience by anyone, anytime, with no sensorial or physical boundaries. Renoir’s impressionist brushstroke tells us about the fugacity of some perceptions. These may be ephemeral automatized procedures but have the power to leave lasting traces in emotional memory. Attendance in our last edition was a little higher that the preceding ones (260 people). We gladly found out that 50 % of them had already participated in 2016 or 2017, and some of them had even accompanied us through both editions. Maybe this is one of the reasons why the satisfaction survey was “only” taken by 40 % of them (lowest percentage of response among the three editions). The survey followed the precedent model, asking for particpants’s opinion on the organisation, the speakers and transversal quality aspects of the activity. In terms of general organisation, an easy inscription procedure was very much appreciated by attendants, as well as the ability of secretary members to welcome and give accreditations to more than 200 people in a short time lapse (pl. 45). Among the comments referring to future improvements, covering of the activity through the social media was often mentioned. We admit that lack of infrastructure did not allow us to offer a richer experience to participants in this aspect. Evaluation on speakers did not vary much from past editions. They were all very positively ranked, with an average mark of 4.7/5. The seminar which focused on hearing resulted to be the most appreciated. In it, Ilulian Abagiu, pianist and visually impaired youngman, shared his experience as a blind musician. Second speaker was dubbing actress Pepa Castro who talked about the importance of modulating her characters’ voices in order to transmit their emotions. Precisely, this was the last conference of the cycle, so it acted as colophon of this activity. It was for us a very special moment as it became one of the most successful activities in our Faculty of Geography and History of the Complutense University. Our achievement was to succeed to gather and engage an audience of more than 250 people for each edition through three years by offering new approaches to the variety of arts through the five senses.

The University Goes to the Museum: Sensory Visits and Workshops The MUSACCES Consortium’s coordination with the work carried out at the University laboratories led to the opportunity to conduct from time to time a number of inclusivity oriented activities at the Prado Museum. These were devised as educational visits organized externally. On one hand, in 2017 and 2018, concurrent with the announcement of the Community of Madrid’s Science Week, two themed sensory visits to the museum collections tailored to two particular cohorts-deaf-blind people- were planned.27 The first set of visits used scented objects, textures 27  The Community of Madrid’s Science and Innovation Week is a knowledge transfer initiative promoted by the Madri+d Foundation. Its goal is to raise society’s awareness through the Research Results Transfer Offices at Universities about the activities of research institutions. Among the themes and topics covered each year, a special mention is given to those related to the access to knowledge for all.

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from textiles associated to the clothing worn in the artworks, as well as objects present in the iconography of the paintings that fell under the itineraries. The second set of visits featured sign language interpreters that communicated the professors’ remarks about each of the paintings, with an emphasis on the multisensory experience. The small group size of four to 5 people per group, along with the support of a group of young interns, guaranteed the success of the activity and positive feedback from the audience in attendance, despite the limited demand for the activity. Works contained in the museum collection such as Tintoretto’s The Washing of the Feet (1548–1549), Titian’s Danae and the Shower of Gold (1565), Diego Velazquez’s Las Meninas (1656) and The Spinners (1657) or a couple of Francisco de Goya’s Black Paintings, were especially suitable for this type of visits accessible to specific and reduced audiences, given the presence of pictorial details that could be transferred directly to their sensory experimentation in the rooms. The ultimate goal of these activities was not for people with disabilities to learn new data about artworks, but rather to help perceive the sensations of the paintings and observe how human perception activates through visual aesthetic cues or through other senses. It was very interesting to witness how visually impaired participants discovered equivalent sensations to those experienced by individuals with regular eyesight, evoked by touching textures or experiencing smells recreated in relation to the artworks. On the other hand, in the summer of 2018, the Complutense University participated in a call for the organization of an Inclusive Summer Campus, under the umbrella of projects led by the ONCE Foundation. The Dean’s Advisory Committee on Diversity at the UCM coordinated the initiative, involving a wide variety of professors and research groups to concoct activities devised for a heterogeneous audience of around 15 people, made up of teenagers aged 12 to 17 with multiple types of disabilities, along with other cognitive difficulties. Previous efforts allowed for the fulfillment of two activities closely linked to the MUSACCES Consortium’s work.28 Firstly, a “Sensory Iconography Workshop” was conducted for students to connect with seven works from the Prado Museum by recognizing in the paintings everyday objects that were displayed on a table in the workshop room. The group was split into seven teams and each was assigned to a museum artwork. The Works selected included Jan van Eyck’s Fountain of Grace and the Triumph of the Church over the Synagogue (1430–1440), Rogier van der Weyden’s Descent from the Cross (c. 1443), Sandro Botticelli’s The story of Nastaglio degli Onesti (1483), Jan Sanders van Hemssen’s The Cure of Folly (1550–1555), Pedro Pablo Rubens and Jan Brueghel’s The Sense of Hearing (1617–1618), Diego de Velazquez’s The Surrender of Breda (1635) and The Spinners (1657). The Works used had been previously printed in large panels for students to see and analyze details up close. All these paintings had stunning details, among which were scents, incense, various liquids, fruits and other foods, musical instruments, as well as costume elements with textures inspired by certain paintings. The students were capable of recognizing the objects 28  These activities were coordinated by the researchers Ana Maria Cuesta Sánchez, Ángel Pazos-López and José Maria Salvador González. They designed a program of transverse competences across the multisensory artistic experimentation.

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associated to the painting and proceeded, with the aid of a factsheet, to locate essential information about their painting through QR codes that led them to the museum’s educational resources adapted to a younger audience. The incentive for the task lied in that in a different session the students themselves from each of the seven groups would explain to their peers their artworks at the Prado Museum, thus creating a healthy competition among the Young students to do their best. Therefore, a “Multisensory visit of the Prado Museum” was designed as a continuation of the aforementioned workshop. In doing so, the students traveled by bus to the museum and once inside the students themselves discussed the characteristics of the artworks they had studied during the workshop (pl. 46). The sheer happiness that came across from the enthusiasm of the participating students, as well as their good behavior at the museum were a huge incentive both for the researchers that coordinated the activity, as for the museum staff, that were positively surprised by the exceptional proposal. Following the session and with the objective of engaging the students with the work at the museum, they were granted a diploma of “Prado Museum Connoisseurs”, which elicited further excitement from some attendees. The qualitative assessment of such a heterogeneous audience that took part in the activity led to two interesting conclusions: first, that young people with a certain diversity factor believed the Museum had little to offer: second, that the participation in an activity in which they were the main agents in the museum increased their motivation and sparked their interest to get to know other art institutions and collections. In parallel with these activities conducted in Madrid, other interesting proposals emerged in the international sphere that came to our attention and were reflected upon in the bibliography update annual seminars.29 An ongoing feeling after reading various papers published in international magazines that moved us to work ever more devotedly, was the idea that there were numerous research initiatives around the world to increase the access of all the persons to the art, especially people with diversity. Nevertheless, these experiences, practices or research did not speak to each other around the globe, hence wasting energy in redoing work already accomplished or very similar experiences already verified. For all the above mentioned reasons, the MUSACCES Consortium had to increase its efforts towards generating academic debate forums that served to bring together researchers from different corners of the world. Only through internationalization can the challenges of increased access to museums to all 21st century audiences be solved or at least contemplated. 29  Among all the published research projects, the following research projects aroused special interest: Alevtina Naumova, ‘Touching’ the past: Investigating lived experiences of heritage in living history museums, in: International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 7 (2015), pp. 1–8; Naomi Lifschitz-Grant, Mornings at the Museums: A Family Friendly Early Childhood Program, in: Journal of Museum Education 43 (2018), pp. 260– 273; David Howes, Eric Clarke, Fiona Macpherson, Beverly Best, and Rupert Cox, Sensing art and artifacts: explorations in sensory museology, in: Senses and Society 13 (2018), pp. 317–334; Hyun-Kyung Lee, Maximizing the five senses with art and design: Sensorial-experiential exhibitions in trend, in: Asia Life Sciences 18 (2019), pp. 1157–1165; Marta García-Sampedro, ‘Five senses in the museum’: A multidisciplinary experience in bilingual staff training (Spanish-English), in: Didacticae. Journal of Research in Specific Didactics 5 (2019), pp. 145–159.

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Internationalization and Future Research Directions: The Museum for All and with All People Beyond activities focusing on sensorial experiences and the field work with groups of people with diversity, building academic forums on universal accessibility was among our targets. MUSACCES Consortium aimed to create a space where international professionals could discuss about challenges, limits and approaches on the social role of museums. In order to achieve this, we planned to organise two international conferences: one at the equator of our three years project and a second one right at the end of it. Both became moments of intense and rich debate on the subjects aforementioned. They would also become an opportunity to connect our regional initiatives to international projects that successfully addressed these issues. We sought to build bonds between similar organisms in order to inspire each other and think together of ways to improve accessibility in museums. Precisely, this aspect, alongside the fantastic international welcome of our activities, defined from the beginning our Consortium work. The other institutions which collaborated with us were numerous and met the highest academic standards, enriching every discussion raised. Also, the international and intercontinental response to our projects was also very encouraging for us. It is important to underline that appearing in specialised websites on museums and art sites was key to reach such broad audiences. The Limits of Art in the Museum30 As researchers in museum studies, since the genesis of MUSACCES Consortium, we asked ourselves whether museums nowadays were able to become or transform into spaces for experimentation without putting aside their role in artwork conservation and exhibition. Accessibility cannot occur if the museum itself is not open to participation of its audiences. It is not a secret that some people in the museum world are reluctant to this kind of studies and initiatives, both in Spain and abroad. We still face a prejudice for which art historians must focus exclusively on the study of artworks instead of on the transmission of this knowledge. Therefore, we wanted to ask the academic community whether these limits actually existed or, on the contrary, museums had no boundaries in how to exhibit the art they preserve. More importantly, the second question raised was the pertinence of this social role that museums are assuming. Should museums be agents of an engaged and committed cultural and social action? Hence, the core idea of our conference was to rethink the concept of museum itself, beyond its definition as a place for conservation, research, management and exhibition of the arts. It is a fact that people’s way to see and experience art has changed throughout the centuries. But not only perception, the category of what is art and what it is not, what should be kept in a museum and what should not, has also enormously evolved in past times. Accordingly, contemporary art 30  The activity took place between 28th and 30th November 2017. The Academic Project Manager of MUSACCES Consortium entrusted the coordination to Alejandra Alonso Tak and Víctor Rabasco García. They were both members of the training research staff of our Consortium Network and had the support of a scientific committee formed by almost twenty professors from Spanish and foreign universities.

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history studies have developed a more plural approach to art analysis, which has allowed scholars to build new speeches on stablished art categories and the role of museums in this new context. Since the last decades of the past century, we have assisted to a fluctuation from museums as sacred spaces to the defense of the visitor’s experience above all. We believe there should not be such a hierarchical rapport of the object and the observer, but a thoughtful work from museums’ professionals to find a balance between the two of them. Precisely, the main topic raised throughout the conference was how these innovations have helped to overcome the limits of art in museums. Contributions that verse on approaching museums to the people were all funded on audiences’ studies. This means that research subject has shifted from the object itself to the visitor’s experience, paying particular attention to the the diversity of physical and social conditions. The conference was structured by thematic sessions and each session had a group of oral interventions. First session had the following title: “Art: theory and history”. In it, questions discussed about what we call “art”, how artworks must be studied, who determines what is art and what is not, whether there are limits on what can be considered as art and why some objects are kept in museums while some others are not. The second session was named “The museum: theory and history”. Our aim was to think of the museum definition and its contemporary mission, audiences’ attitude towards the museum, and the place of artifacts in museums collections. Taking a step further, third session wanted to focus on audiences. Under the title “Museums for society: publics, education and identities”, contributions presented experiences which put the public in its centre, as active actors. Their participation and, not less importantly, their opinions have a major role in the way museums present their discourses. Technology had a debate space of its own in the session “The innovative museum in the digital era”. We aimed at giving answers to questions such as: must museums adapt to 21st century supports and media? What is the role of museums in this society of information? Technology for the museum or museums for the technology? Contributions showed the versatility of technologies when applied to art. Technology can be art itself, used as main material and support. Technology can be a tool to improve the way we exhibit art in museums. Technology can help us develop applications to understand the visitor’s behaviour, expectations and satisfaction rate. Finally, a transversal section of posters showed diverse initiatives that focused on specific cases in contemporary museology. They ranged from innovative curation, transdisciplinary audiences studies or accessibility actions in heritage sites. The conference’s programme reunited more than 70 contributions, selected through an open process of evaluation. Besides these contributions, each session was opened by keynote speakers’ lectures, which would introduce one of the four thematics selected: José Manuel Cruz Valdovinos and Mieke Bal delighted us with their opening and closure lectures, developing the conference’s general frame. Professors Javier Arnaldo, Matteo Mancini and Georgios Alexopoulos offered us an interesting reflection on the elasticity and permeability of the heritage experience. Nicole Gesché-Koning, Esme Ward and Almudena Domínguez presented contemporary issues on education, publics diversification strategies and identities (re)presentation in museums. Juan Carlos Rico showed us the results of the LIME Project (Laboratorio de Investigación y Experimen­

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tación Museográfica), this being one of the most active experimental forum in museology and museography in Spain.31 The discussion on overcoming the limits of art in the museum was achieved from multiple points of view: firstly, the need of working in museums taking into account the artworks as much as the visitors; secondly, a rupture with traditional exhibiting tendencies; and thirdly, the assumption that the heritage experience is elastic and permeable and can be achieved through multiple medias. This conference was a milestone in our internationalization aim. It allowed us to make contact with key institutions which collaborated with us in future projects. Particularly, we closely worked with them in the organisation of our final activity, the International Conference The Museum for All People: Art, Accessibility, and Social Inclusion. The Museum for All People32 As the culminating activity of the MUSACCES Consortium’s program, an international congress had been planned that would serve as a debate forum regarding the need for museums to reach out to people with accessibility needs. Initially, it was believed that the focus of attention had to be directed to people with hearing or visual impairments that were not able to experience traditional museum visits, as well as people in the prison system who are deprived from freedom and cannot visit the museum. However, after a year’s work at the core of the Research Network itself a reflection was made surrounding the true need of the museum to reach out, in some way, to all people, regardless of their diversity profile. Stemming from this idea of assessing diversity at the nucleus, the International Conference “The Museum fo All People. Art, Accessibility, and Social Inclusion” emerged. This event had as its primary objective to attract museum professionals, professors, researchers, students and people with a diversity profile in order to create a space to exchange views about museum outreach to the most diverse audiences of the 21st century. Thanks to the collaboration of an international scientific committee, made up of members of the MUSSACES Consortium and other university, educational and museographic institutions around the world, the conference achieved widespread attention online and through social media.33 On this occasion, and prompting its internationalization, a corporate image was designed

31  Some of the contributions will follow these pages as chapters of this monography. 32  The conference took place between April 2nd and 5th, 2019. It was coordinated by professors José María Salvador González and Ángel Pazos-López, with the support of the Director of Cabinet of the Academic Project Manager, Mrs. Ana María Cuesta Sánchez, as General Secretary, as well as the President of the Economic Commission in MUSACCES Consortium Full professor Teresa Nava Rodríguez, as General Manager of the Organizing Committee. 33  The international Scientific Committee was composed of professors, researchers and museum professionals: Alejandra Alonso Tak, Laura Arias Serrano, Francisco de Borja Barinaga López, María Cristina Bordas Ibáñez, Ana Carro Rossell, Alicia Castillo Mena, María Teresa Cruz Yábar, Colette Dufresne Tassé, Marcelo Fraile Narvaez, Jorge Garcés Ferrer, Isabel Mª García Fernández, María Luisa García Guardia, Ana García Serrano, Rosa María Hervás Avilés, Marián López Fernández Cao, Marie-Clarté O’Neill, Eloisa Pérez Santos, Lea Plangger, Julio Romero Rodríguez, Mónica Ruiz Bremón, Carmen Sánchez Fernández, Ángeles Sánchez-Elvira Paniagua, Miguel Santamaría Lancho, Ana Yáñez Vega, and Ramón Yzquierdo Peiró.

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from an original illustration, especially conceived for the conference core theme: an open museum, free of walls, that encompasses people of all diversity profiles, independent of their approach to understanding art or culture, and regardless of their perceptive abilities or different identities.34 The starting point for the concept around the International Conference was brought about by the constant updating process that the art museum has experienced since its inception to adapt to the societal functions that were expected through the passage of time. The preserved artworks in these institutions possessed concrete meanings when they were created by the artists which the museums would update through museographic discourse to speak about both the past in which they were created, as well as the social values of present time. The revolution of the social museums, which center on the audiences and not on the collection, attempts to exploit the potential of the human being’s cultural diversity as one of the integral values to all people in our current increasingly democratized society. Following this line of thought, it appeared to be interesting to reflect on the experiential dimension of artistic and cultural heritage, especially through its exhibition in museums, as a contemporary knowledge space. Similarly, it was sought to tackle the different needs of the art museum audiences, among the educational and cultural action strategies, as well as the potential synergies between museums and universities. It was also of great interest to reflect on the value of innovation and technology within the 21st century museum, from the viewpoint of external communication but also with the internal space management. Moreover, it was deemed essential to tackle the relationship between all these factors with inclusive tourism strategies managed through public policies based on Design for all people. Finally, it was a further goal to enable the presentation of activities, initiatives and projects that have aimed in recent years to bring museums closer to all audiences regardless of their diversity profile. To facilitate that, poster sessions with an oral presentation were created that would serve to award the best projects through the MUSACCES Awards in social museology. The congress gathered twenty speakers invited by the organization, who were joined by close to 400 researchers and specialists that, through an open Access system via a call for papers, presented their work to be assessed under one of the eight congress topics, ranging from a theoretical reflection on artistic objects and cultural heritage, to new technologies as a communication medium in the museum. The first session, under the title Pluralism in art. Aesthetic and sensory perceptions, refers the possibilities that art possesses under the circumstances of showcasing the human expression throughout the centuries. The diversity with which the artists portrays their emotions and feelings through their works went hand in hand with the diverse ways in which art developed with regards to mediums, basis, techniques and aesthetic foci. The disciplines involved in artistic knowledge (aesthetics, art theory, art criticism) offer useful interpretative tools in order for researchers to reflect with regards to the integrating dimension of art for all people. Concepts such as style, form, genius and civilization –as initial epistemological approximations to art–, became early on integrated by methodological schools of thought such as iconography or sociology, which em34  The visual identity of the conference was created by the illustrator Valentí Ponsa. His proposal represented our will of an open museum to all in which there is room for innovative and participative proposals with the diversity of the arts.

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phasized analyzing concrete facets of visual expression focused on the meaning and contexts of artworks. The projects focused on artistic perception paved the way for the analysis of creative mechanisms as a medium of expression for trauma and emotional memory, promoting the development of important projects devoted to analyzing art as a medium for psychic healing.35 In recent years, as we have indicated previously, sensory studies have aimed to overcome the limitations of art by going beyond frontiers between artistic mediums and making interesting contributions , meant to break away with the visual and delve into the aesthetic experience through all senses, with interesting applications to the museum medium. To link all of these concepts, the invited speakers Claudia Cieri Via (Sapienza Università di Roma) and José Manuel Cruz Valdovinos (Complutense University) created two conferences which integrated visual categories with aesthetic emotion and enjoyment experienced in the art museum. The second session, Cultural heritage at everyone’s reach. Research, preservation and management, was devoted to the study of the possibilities of studying heritage from an inclusive point of view. The persons in charge of the cultural heritage must take into consideration the problems and solutions concerning the preservation of cultural heritage, as well as those of communication with audiences in museographic proposals accessible to all. For it, the meeting was tackling the new challenges that accompany the duty to preserve, to study, to interpret, to put in relief and to spread the cultural heritage between all the persons. In this respect, the safeguard and protection of cultural heritage today faces new and severe problems, such as armed conflicts, population shifts and forced migrations or natural disasters. To which we must add those problems generated as a result of the damage of cultural legacy due to inappropriate practices in the past, either due to the carelessness of those who hold them or as a result of the erosion brought about by the passage of time. This session’s invited speakers, Charles Robert Saumarez Smith (Blain Southern) and Maria Gravari-Barbas (Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne) focused on two case studies. The former, tackled the renovation of the Royal Academy of Arts, under his purview. The latter, the urban development factor and how it is necessary to understand it in order to build the museums of the average person. These are fundamental elements that compose cities. The third session, Museums as spaces for knowledge. History, theory and concepts, allowed to update the traditional categories of exhibition spaces and discourse. To some, the museum constitutes a distant and sacralized entity, immobile and unaffordable, destined to a quasi-aesthetic worship by a passive audience. To others, the traditional museum has lost its raison d’etre, after becoming on several occasions a simple spotlight for mundane shows, a go‑to place to promote values outside the world of art. In line with this debate, an interesting discussion stemming from the speeches that redefined the nature, functions, outreach potential and limitations of the mu-

35  Parallel to these, reception theories emerged, as a nexus between creators and spectators, who pointed to the need for an increasingly active role of the latter, through a clear relationship with the following studies on visual semiotics or postcolonial theories and of cultural hybridity. In recent years, theoretical proposals derived from image anthropology or visual culture have opened the doors to the memory of the presence and immanence of art through different cultures, making reference to an intangible memory that breaks away with a linear timeline with which we are accustomed to classify artistic phenomena.

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seum, as well as the problems in relation to its location, typological diversity and its professional management. This also includes the historical origin of the museum and its current day reenvisioning, in a sequential manner that covers its evolutionary process from the cabinet of curiosities and collecting, to the polyhedral spaces for knowledge of humanities’ cultural historical past.36 The invited speakers developed this topic in an excellent fashion. On the one hand, Hans Martin Hinz (International Council of Museums) conveyed the conference that opens this book.37 On the other hand, James Bradburne (Pinacoteca di Brera e Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense) reflected on how museums can help in the creation of shared identities. The fourth session, Museums and 21st century audiences. Accessibility, education and inclusion, concentrated on the topic of education and cultural action via the study of audiences. Nowadays the museum cannot continue to be a closed off entity, self-sufficient and insensitive to the expectations of the audience to which it is directed to; thus, the idea that the museum must have as golden rule to project at the service of society the cultural heritage under its custody has gained traction. After definitively abandoning the singlehanded opinion of the conservator as the sole source of truth for the passive audience, this figure increasingly opens up to the idea of an active audience collaborating in the construction of the museographic discourse, in dialogue with the museum itself. As a result, it is necessary to listen to the needs and expectations of the audience when defining the presentation and programming policies of each exhibition. Similarly, to underscore the challenges of the museum in the didactic function of its specific contents, as well as its cultural projection and action. The study of the processes, programmes, plans, strategies and initiatives that are implemented in museums must have the goal to construct museological discourses in a shared manner and in an open dialogue between museum agents and their audiences.38 The four invited speakers within this key part of the congress developed highly complementary facets: firstly, Lola Álvarez Rodríguez (Universidad de Granada) reflected upon the educational meaning of the museum and its role in current society. In addition, Alice Semedo (Universidade do Porto), who also contributes to this volume,39 focused on the training of mu36  Of great relevance were also those contributions that studied the specific needs for the museums according to its property, its profile and purpose public, private, ecclesiastic museums, etc. as well as those that studied matters regarding museum management, its administrative and functional structure, the organization of work and service teams, the design of museographic proposals and its social interaction, making special emphasis in highlighting the latest trends in curatorial studies; and additionally those that discussed the role of the museum with regards to society in their function as a cultural space, or the tensions between exhibition and spectacle. 37  Hans-Martin Hinz, Museums in a globalized World –Still in the Service of Society?, in: Alejandra Alonso Tak and Ángel Pazos-López (eds.), Socializing art museums. Rethinking the publics’ experience, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020, pp. 19–28. 38  Papers that relate to current social problems and are present in today’s museums were also included, such as the critical reflection about the historical memory, museums’ political governance, or the construction of gender-related identities; and what is more, museums’ moral responsibility in promoting culture across society, empathizing with people with special needs and promoting the integration of all cultural, religious, refugee, migrant and ethnic collectives. 39  Alice Semedo, Border Pedagogy and Empowerment Education in Museums, in: Alonso and Pazos-López 2020 (as fn. 37), pp. 107–142.

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seum professionals referring to the shifting competences they must develop, as reflexive characters. On the other hand, Eloísa Pérez Santos (Complutense University) reflected upon museums as spaces for change, enjoyment and wellness, proposing a model to ponder the experience of the visitor at art centers from the point of view of psychology. Finally, Encarna Lago González (Rede Museística Provincial de Lugo) presented the Lugo Museistic Network that she coordinated, focusing on the facets of sustainability, inclusion and equality for which her work is known at an international level. The fifth session tackled the relationship between museums and universities, as Places in common for research, experimentation and proprietary collections. It is a known fact that the museum and the university have acted under many circumstances as two parallel universes without many commonalities. Today, however, we must defend the idea that museum and university constitute two entities that need to mutually enrich themselves by collaborating. In line with this, we dedicated this session towards discussing the spaces, actors, functions, programmes and activities that both institutions can share. Projects that exposed teaching practices at university –both for degrees and masters in museum studies- were also of great interest, as well as those educational activities organized and financed by the museums themselves. Another discussed topic was the education of museums’ professionals in universities and centers of higher education, without forgetting the curatorial function. Furthermore, the speakers alluded to the typology of the university museums through the analysis of the different funding and management models. These museums often lodge interesting collections of artistic, scientific or technological pieces, and at the same time the university itself can be conceived as a museum. These problems were debated by recognized specialists as Hugues Dreysse (Université de Strasbourg) and Isabel Mª García Fernández (Complutense University of Madrid). The target of the sixth session Museums grasp spaces for inclusive innovation and technology Communication, transmedia and virtual reality for all people was the study of the technology and communication aspects of museums. Precisely, global digital and technological advances appeal to a debate on the horizons and limits of these technologies when applied to artistic exhibitions and cultural heritage in general. For this reason, we must be conscious of the need to adapt our past knowledge in humanities to the constantly-evolving digital education environment. These developments open new knowledge transfer routes between museums and society; for example, how the museum could benefit from the innovative use of the TIC.40 More specifically, the challenges that were tackled revolve amongst the challenges, problems and possibilities of technological museums, digital and virtual museums, as well as innovative museographic proposals in relation to the participation and interaction of the public both by means of the TIC, and the exploration of the users’ multisensoriality when appreciating works of art. This session’s invited lecturers were Antonella Poce (Università degli studi Roma Tre) and Tim Coughlan (The Open University), who

40  The use of disruptive technologies in the museum was also the object of analysis, such as web applications, the mobile museum, the geolocation, the networking of artwork databases, open virtual resources and digital cataloguing. Companies specialized in technological innovations play a very significant role because they help to improve museums by offering new products and consultancy.

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discoursed about the opportunities and advantages that can arise due to technological innovation in museums via the construction of inclusive memory and structures to facilitate learning. Designed transversely, the seventh session, Accessibility beyond the museum. Governmental strategies, tourism and universal design, integrated topics of the previous sections. The universal right to enjoy and participate in culture is part of the principles that the governments must guarantee to all citizens. In the context of this universal accessibility to the knowledge and to the culture, lecturers spoke about some governmental performances especially interesting in fields like the legislation on accessibility, inclusion, culture for all and, in general, cultural heritage protection and diffusion. At the same time, pioneering projects in inclusive leisure and tourism were explained. It is necessary to take into account the necessary coexistence between tourism, sustainable development, integral accessibility and social inclusion. All of this is related to the universal design of products and artistic-cultural services, including accessible architectural spaces to physicaly handicapped people. Federico Castro Morales and Victoria Díaz Zarco (University Carlos III of Madrid) discoursed upon links between action and emotion, real driving forces of connected museums. Next, Mireia Ferri Sanz (Institute Polibienestar of Universitat de València) developed the theme of accessible social tourism as a social policy strategy. In addition, Enrique Rovira-Beleta (Rovira-Beleta Accesibilidad S. L. P. and Universitat Internacional de Catalunya) focused his speech in the unnoticed accessibility issues within the museum. Finally, the eighth section, entitled Outstanding projects and practices in museology, accessibility or social inclusion, collected works in poster format. During wide time slots throughout the congress, the authors explained numerous innovative projects, including graduate and doctoral thesis, on art, heritage and museums for all people, showing activities and new strategic lines to bring the artistic dimension and heritage elements of specific institutions and collections closer to the population as a whole. Posters revealed concrete cases where the theoretical axes of the Congress had been applied.41 In order to encourage the participation and to reward good practices, an international jury evaluated the works presented in this category and granted the MUSACCES Awards in social museology.42 At the closing ceremony, academic authorities offered the winners (tab. 4) statuettes inspired by Diego Velázquez’s Las Meninas.43

41  The exhibition offered a global panorama to overcome the imbalances: regional versus national focuses, small exhibitions in front of large museums, different dynamics of visitors from regions of the center compared to those from the periphery, or the level of novelty of the proposals, some of them truly pioneers in current museum discourses. 42  The jury was formed by professors José Maria Salvador and Ángel Pazos-López, Chairs of the International Conference, together with professor Laura Arias Serrano and Ana Mª Cuesta Sánchez, from the Department of Art History of the UCM; Alejandra Alonso Tak, from the Ministry of Culture of the Government of France and coordinator of the congress poster session, accompanied them as well as Manuel Rendón Fuiza, undergraduate student in History at UCM with visual impairment. 43  The statuettes of the awards were donated by the “Teresa de Calcutta” Center for Reeducation and Reintegration of Minors Brea de Tajo in Madrid and the GINSO Association for the Management of Social Integration, whom we thank for their most generous contribution.

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Research Strategies in Inclusive Museology with the Museo del Prado Collections Table 4 | Winning projects in the categories of the MUSACCES Awards in social museology Group

Category

Title

Authors

Research

Introduction to research

Unknown border. Art and mental health: development and evaluation of a participatory inclusion project

Beatriz García (Unviersidad Complutense de Madrid), Ana de Bustos (Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas), Paloma Muñoz-Campos (Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas) y Eloísa Pérez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Research projects

Accessible culture in the MVCA – New technologies for people with intellectual disability

Teresa Alba Rodríguez (Universidad de Málaga) and Manuel Romero Pérez (Museo de la Ciudad de Antequera)

Best practices in museums and art centers

When Museums links and supports networks creating new meeting spaces. Artistic workshops in the Community

Ángeles Miguélez Martínez (Rede Museística Provincial de Lugo) and María Cristina Alonso Barreiro (Con­ federación Galega de Persoas con Discapacidade)

Best practices in cities and tourist destinations

Creating community for shared culture and responsibility among organizations and public institutions

Sonia Sin Villanova (Sociedad Municipal Zaragoza Cultural)

Best practices in business

Mimetic Lab: the laboratories of digital manufacture as places of collective research on art and accessibility

Marga Fernández-Villaverde del Valle y Carmen Rubio García (Medialab-Prado Madrid)

Best practices in organizations and groups

Reading club “on the other side of the mirror”: An area of inclusion and promotion of employment in the Museum of Malaga non-formal spheres.

Ana Robles Anaya (Universidad de Málaga)

International collaboration networks or among institutions

Buenavista Diversa. Pathways to inclusion

Ángela García Herrera (Ayuntamiento de Buenavista del Norte)

Sustainability and interaction with the local community

Earth, Water, Air Children meaning making: Using ceramics to give form to children’s ideas

Ellen Yates and Judith Szenasi (University of Derby)

New strategies in specific museums, museum-houses and local institutions

A small museum in the inner regions of the Castellon province (Comunidad Valenciana). The permanent Museographic Collection at Montanejos

David Vizcaíno León (Colección Museográfica de Montanejos)

Cultural heritage preservation, protection and dissemination initiatives to all people

AMIR | Refugees’ social and cultural inclusion

Chiara Damiani (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Stazione Utopia)

Best Practices

21st Century Challenges for Society

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In addition to the exhibited projects, which were to be assessed by the jury, the organization decided to showcase to the public certain singular projects through the invited speakers Moritz Neumüller and José María Salvador. The first presented the results of the ARCHES Project developed at European level, whereas the second presented the conclusion of the MUSACCES Consortium, with many of the activities that we detail in this chapter. A special mention should be given to the closing conference led by Nicole Gesché-Koning (Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles), with ample experience in the field of museum education who also has published as part of this book,44 and offered a speech focused on the need to provide to each person its own museum, in line with facilitating experiences that are bespoke to each individual as a function of their own vital journey.

Conclusions Research on museums, understood as actors of social inclusion must continue to be carried on. In this line, MUSACCES Consortium activities have open new fields of practice and study, crossing the academic and the museums’ ground experience. On the one hand, actions linked to arts and sensoriality have been enthusiastically welcomed by all participants, proving that it is a largely demanded and effective working field. On the other, the international conferences The Limits of Art in the Museum and The Museum for All People have gathered specialist on multiple disciplines, allowing the exchange and diffusion of the latest experiences and reflections on accessibility, education and cultural action in museums. We wanted to encourage these very much needed networks, both at a national and international scale. We truly hope that the dynamics originated here will continue developing with regular meetings and research projects on Inclusive Museology. Moreover, we also believe that our activities have also helped to raise awareness on the importance of addressing these issues in the academic world. Innovation and change are still refrained by prejudices and too traditional paradigms. Research in History of Art in Mediterranean Europe needs to open to 21st century reality and address social issues by proposing heritage as a tool to reach integration in communities. In this way, after all the experiences, projects and activities created and shared, we would like to conclude with some thoughts on why social inclusion is important in museums. First of all, why is social inclusion important? In the introduction, we mentioned the debate between the concepts inclusion and integration. The former had a sense of inserting an alien element to a stablished paradigm. When a community has a defined way to do things, it is always difficult to change these paradigms and dynamics. That is why inclusion is important. Altering given circumstances for better may lead to a mutual adaptation of elements. Therefore, we consider “inclusion” an essential step to achieve integration. Secondly, why social inclusion is important in museums? This might sound redundant, but we believe that underlining the role of museums is important, mostly in the context of the redefinition of the museum term. As we have 44  Nicole Gesché-Koning, Accessible Museums. Vision or Reality? The impact of Belgian museum education on society, in: Alonso and Pazos-López 2020 (as fn. 37), pp. 143–154.

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seen in previous paragraphs, the social role of museums has been amplified and encouraged in past years, to the point of questioning its missions in the 21st century. We do think that heritage has among its features the ability to talk to every person. Consequently, museums, as heritage custodians can become the channel of communication between heritage and people. Like in a conversation, both individuals must be active in order to effectively exchange. Therefore, museums must be active actors in social integration, their role being the one of providers. Museums can provide appropriate, safe and inclusive environments (channels) and tools. When visiting a museum, regardless their diversity, individuals should be able to express themselves and build their own cultural experience with as much autonomy as possible. In this way, social inclusion in museums is simply a step on the integration of all citizens in society. We should include the diversity of audiences in museums in order to achieve integration, which will only occur if there is a real engagement from individuals within their community. In other words, museums can act by including, whilst the action in integration must be carried out by the individuals. With our Consortium we aimed to include different approaches, coming from different disciplines, on accessibility in museums. Multisensioriality has proven to be a very effective way to reach broader audiences not only in art galleries, but also in the academic world. This aim is in line with the Social Investment model we have seen in previous pages. It defines our society as a knowledge economy.45 This means that improvement in cognitive skills leads to a more successful integration in society. Multisensorial activities as the ones proposed by our Consortium foster participants’ development of a set of skills less likely to be reached in a more traditional approach to museums. And most importantly, their inclusive characteristics allow the participation of a larger audience, regardless their diversity.

REFERENCES Avenel, Cyprien, Marine Boisson-Cohen, Sandrine Dauphin, Nicolas Duvoux, Christophe Fourel, Manon Jullien, and Bruno Palier, L’investissement social: quelle stratégie pour la France?, Paris: La Documentation Française, 2017, p. 21. Bacci, Francesca, and David Melcher (eds.), Art ant the Senses, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Bell, David Raymond, Aesthetic encounters and learning in the museum, in: Educational Philosophy and Theory 49 (2017), pp. 776–787. Bijsterveld, Karin, Ears‑on exhibitions: Sound in the history museum, in: Public Historian 37 (2015), pp. 73–90. Camarena, Cuauhtémoc and Teresa Morales, Lessons Learned in the Principles and Practice of Community Museums, in: Selma Holo and Mari-Tere Álvarez, Remix: Changing Conversations in Museums of the Americas, Oakland: University of California Press, 2016, p. 30. Chick, Anne, Improving intellectual access for blind and partially sighted visitors to temporary exhibitions: An inclusive design solution, in: International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 12 (2019), pp. 39–62. Day, Joy, Making senses of the past: Toward a sensory archaeology, New York: Routledge, 2013. Di Bello, Patrizia, and Gabriel Koureas (eds.), Art, History and the Senses. 1830 to the Present, Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Routledge, 2010.

45  Perkins, Nelms, Smyth 2004 (as fn. 9), pp. 3.

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ÁNGEL PAZOS-LÓPEZ AND ALEJANDRA ALONSO TAK Ebrahem, Sara, Sara Alsaadani, Zeyad El Sayad, and Ahmed Elseragy, Exploring multi-Sensory designed architectural spaces, in: International Journal of Architectonic, Spatial, and Environmental Design 12 (2018), pp. 15–24. Ferino-Pagdena, Sylvia, and José Milicua (cood.), Los Cinco sentidos y el arte. Catálogo de la exposición, Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado, 1997. Garcia Serrano, Ana and Ángel Castellanos González, Representación y organización de documentos digitales: detalles y práctica sobre la ontología DIMH, in: Revista de Humanidades Digitales (2017), pp. 314– 344. García-Sampedro, Marta, ‘Five senses in the museum’: A multidisciplinary experience in bilingual staff training (Spanish-English), in: Didacticae. Journal of Research in Specific Didactics 5 (2019), pp. 145–159. González Zymla, Herbert, José María Salvador González, Tomás Ibáñez Palomo, and Nicolás Javier Casas Calvo, La accesibilidad de invidentes, sordos y reclusos al patrimonio artístico del Museo del Prado: objetivos y acciones del Consorcio MUSACCES, in: Alejandro Rodríguez Martín (coord.), Prácticas innovadoras inclusivas. Retos y oportunidades, Oviedo: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Oviedo, 2017, pp. 2479–2488. Hollinworth, Nic, Kate Allen, Faustina Hwang, Andy Minnion, and Gosia Kwiatkowska, Interactive sensory objects for and by people with learning disabilities, in: International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 9 (2016), pp. 21–38. Howes, David (ed.), Empire of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader, Oxford: Berg, 2004. Howes, David, Eric Clarke, Fiona Macpherson, Beverly Best, and Rupert Cox, Sensing art and artifacts: explorations in sensory museology, in: Senses and Society 13 (2018), pp. 317–334; Hunter-Crawley, Heather, and Erica O’Brien, The multi-sensory image from antiquity to the renaissance, New York: Taylor and Francis, 2019. Ibáñez Palomo, Tomás, and José María Salvador González, Actividades del Consorcio MUSACCES para la acce­ sibilidad al patrimonio del Museo del Prado a invidentes, sordos y reclusos, in: Alejandro Rodríguez Martín (coord.), Prácticas innovadoras inclusivas. Retos y oportunidades, Oviedo: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Oviedo, 2017, pp. 2271–2279. Jutte, Robert (ed.), A History of the Senses. From Antiquity to Cyberspace, Cambridge: Polity, 2005. Lara-Clares, Alicia, Ana Garcia-Serrano, and Covadonga Rodrigo, Enrichment of Accessible LD and Visualization for Humanities: MPOC Model and Prototype. in: Emmanouel Garoufallou, Sirje Virkus, Rania Siatri, and Damiana Koutsomiha (eds.), Metadata and Semantic Research. MTSR 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 755, Cham: Springer, 2017, pp. 327–332. Lauwrens, Jennifer, Welcome to the Revolution: The Sensory Turn and Art History, in: Journal of Art Historio­ graphy 7 (2012), pp. 1–17. Lee, Hyun-Kyung, Maximizing the five senses with art and design: Sensorial-experiential exhibitions in trend, in: Asia Life Sciences 18 (2019), pp. 1157–1165; Leoni, Thomas, Social Investment as a Perspective on Welfare State Transformation in Europe, in: Intereconomics 51, 2016, p. 195. Lifschitz-Grant, Naomi, Mornings at the Museums: A Family Friendly Early Childhood Program, in: Journal of Museum Education 43 (2018), pp. 260–273; Malraux, André, La Politique, la culture: Discours, articles, entretiens, 1925–1975, Paris: Gallimard, 1996, p. 132. Moreno Sánchez, Isidro, and Eloísa Pérez Santos, La accesibilidad beneficia a todas las personas. Proyecto MUSACCES para el Museo del Prado, in: Ana M. Galán-Pérez; Elena López Gil (coord.), Accesibilidad y museos: divulgación y transferencia de experiencias, retos y oportunidades de futuro, Sevilla: Asociación de Museólogos y Museógrafos de Andalucía y Junta de Andalucía, 2017, pp. 101–110. Naumova, Alevtina, ‘Touching’ the past: Investigating lived experiences of heritage in living history museums, in: International Journal of the Inclusive Museum 7 (2015), pp. 1–8; Papastergiadis, Nikos, The sensory museum: affective experience as the new pedagogic norm, in: Identities 24 (2017), pp. 34–40.

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Research Strategies in Inclusive Museology with the Museo del Prado Collections Perkins, Daniel, Lucy Nelms, and Paul Smyth, Beyond neo-liberalism: the social investment state?, Fitzroy: Brother­ hood of Saint Laurence and Centre of Public Policy, 2004, p. 1. Salvador González, José María, and Matilde Azcárate Luxán, Innovaciones del Consorcio MUSACCES para promover la accesibilidad intelectual de invidentes, personas sordas y reclusos al patrimonio artístico del Museo del Prado, in: Manuel H. Olcina Doménech (coord.), Accesibilidad e inclusión en el turismo de patrimonio cultural y natural: 3er Congreso Internacional Educación y accesibilidad en museos y patrimonio, Alicante: Diputación Provincial de Alicante and Museo Arqueológico de Alicante, 2018, pp. 276–279. Salvador González, José María, Ángel Pazos-López, Miguel Santamaría Lancho, Matilde Azcárate Luxán, and Teresa Nava Rodríguez, Elementos para el diseño de sistemas de gestión de la calidad de la investigación y de la transferencia del conocimiento: el Consorcio MUSACCES, in: XIII Foro Internacional sobre la Evalua­ ción de la Calidad de la Investigación y de la Educación Superior, Granada: Asociación Española de Psicología Conductual, 2016, pp. 868–874. Salvador González, José María, Jesús Cantera Montenegro, and Víctor Rabasco García, MUSACCES busca hacer accesible el patrimonio cultural del Museo del Prado a invidentes, personas sordas y reclusos en cárceles, in: Rosabel Roig-Vila (ed.), Tecnología, innovación e investigación en los procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje, Barcelona: Octaedro, 2016, pp. 2984–2991. Sanger, Alice E., and Siv Tove Kulbrandstad Walker (eds.), Sense and the Senses in Early Modern Art and Cultural Practice, Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2012. Silverman, Fern, and Andrea Carr Tyszka, Supporting participation for children with sensory processing needs and their families: Community-based action research, in: American Journal of Occupational Therapy 71 (2017), pp. 1–9. Tinio, Pablo P. L., and Jeffrey K. Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Aesthetics and the Arts, New Jersey: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 500–518. Turner, Jenifer and Kimberley Peters, Unlocking carceral atmospheres: designing visual/material encounters at the prison museum, in: Visual Communication 14 (2015), pp. 309–330. Vaz, Roberto, Paula Odete Fernandes, and Ana Cecília Rocha Veiga, Designing an Interactive Exhibitor for Assisting Blind and Visually Impaired Visitors in Tactile Exploration of Original Museum Pieces, in: Procedia Computer Science 138 (2018), pp. 561–570. Ángel Pazos-López, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4551-1483 Alejandra Alonso Tak, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3131-1229

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CLOSE YOUR EYES AND OPEN YOUR MIND A Practice-Based Experiment of Cultural Mediation for Visually Impaired People

Introduction In the past decade, UNESCO recommendations (2005) and the UN convention (2006) have officially set the link between disability and museums access, asserting the right to all people to fully participate to the cultural life.1 Museum studies, by claiming the important role of the museum as a mediator in the society and reflecting on the changing meaning of the public,2 stress the importance to experiment (and integrate) participatory and inclusive methods to provide equal opportunities to all people and, therefore, to contribute to social inclusion.3 However, for people with visual impairments, full accessibility to museums is in most cases severely restricted, if not completely precluded. The European Blind Union found that according to 82.5 % of its national member organisations, the cultural rights of blind and partially sighted people are being poorly or very poorly implemented.4 The problem is even more acute among museums active in the conservation and enhancement of the visual arts, whose heritage has traditionally intrinsic specificities such that the immediacy of their use is impossible or extremely difficult for the blind and visually impaired. There are many museums that offer a certain degree of accessibility to their structures (information, orientation), but very few are able to make their assets available in a complete form (artistic experience) specially to people with visual disabilities.

1  In 2006, United Nations approved the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities with the aim “to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to promote respect for their inherent dignity”. Article 30 of that convention explicitly refers to the commitment and measures that Member States must take to promote equal participation for people with a disability in social and cultural life. 2  Dario Scarpati, The democratic museum: accessibility as a stimulus for social inclusion, in: Jörn Berding and Matthias Gather (eds.), Proceedings of the COME‑IN! Thematic Conferences 24 (2018). 3  Shaun Bowler, Todd Donovan and Robert Hanneman, Art for Democracy’s Sake? Group Membership and Political Engagement in Europe, in: Journal of Politics 65 (4) (2003), pp. 1111–1129; François Matarasso, Use or ornament? The social impact of participation in the Arts, United Kingdom: Comedia, 1997; Cristina Da Milano, Museums as Agents of Social Inclusion, in: Eccom – European Centre for Cultural Organisation and Management 6 (2013); Isabelle Moroni and Gaëlle Bianco, Les espaces de la participation culturelle. Enjeux et perspectives d’action, in: Cahiers de l’Observatoire de la culture – Valais, 2016. 4  European Blind Union, Access to Culture Survey 2012, Mapping Current Levels of Accessibility to Cultural Venues and Activities in Europe, Summary Report, 2012, p. 5.

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The project Museum Culture Inclusion. Art museums and visual disabilities: equal opportunities in the cultural life of Southern Switzerland was initiated in 2015 by the Laboratory of Visual Culture (SUPSI) and the Association for the blind and visually impaired of the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland (Unitas) with the goal to identify scalable solutions, capable of making cultural institutions accessible to people with visual disabilities, thus promoting free access to the world of culture and art. During its first 4 years the project has involved all 9 art museums of Southern Switzerland and has conceived, organized and assessed 10 inclusive activities of cultural mediation in order to better convey the meaning of the museums’ collections to people with visual impairment. This article presents the results of an inclusive participatory workshop hosted at the Vincenzo Vela Museum (Ligornetto, Switzerland), which aims at making the collection of 19th century sculptures and paintings accessible to all. The workshop was guided by the following questions: –– Can blind and partially sighted people exploit other sensory resources such as hearing to create mental images, even without any visual references? –– Is it possible to make a work of art “visible” to people with visual impairments through the use of language and narrative descriptions? –– If the answer is yes, which works are most accessible through language? –– What information and content should be favored in constructing the account? –– Which aids should be used to effectively convey descriptions to people with visual impairments? After exploring the accessibility of the collection from a museological perspective and from existing practices and studies related to the adoption of inclusive design models toward people with visual impairments, this article adopts a socio-psychological perspective to stress the importance of having access to practical indications as a fundamental mechanism for successfully promoting the accessibility of art collections, and therefore fulfilling the museum’s wider mission. The Construal Level Theory5 is used to frame the discussion on how the fruition of artworks could be practically enhanced and, therefore implemented, by the institution. If the link between the accessibility of the collection and social inclusion in more abstract terms is needed, a changing organizational and practice-based perspective make it possible to achieve the expected results.

State of the Art Museum Accessibility In line with recent international recommendation, museums are required to evolve in their role of mediators, extending their tasks and activities in order to make their collection accessible to a wider public and to guarantee equal opportunities to all people.6

5  Yaacoy Trope and Nira Liberman, Construal-Level Theory of Psychological Distance, in: Psychological Review 117 (2) (2010), pp. 440–463. 6  UNESCO, Recommendation concerning the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, their Diversity and their Role in Society, in: General Conference, Paris, France, 2016; ICOM, ICOM announces the alternative museum definition that will be subject to a vote, 2019.

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Making their collection available to humanity and future generations is a key notion in the very definition of museum itself.7 What has changed instead and determined a renegotiation of the meaning of museum is the concept of the public. For years the cultural audience has been categorized as a dominant, wealthy and well-educated class,8 albeit outdated from a conceptual point of view, is still rooted in contemporary Swiss society.9 Nowadays when we talk of the public of culture we refer to the pool of actual and potential visitors the museum addresses.10 It would therefore seem more appropriate that the term should be used in its plural form, and encompass multiple types of visitors with specific needs (children, students, adults, the disabled, foreigners, etc. among them) who are an integral part of society but who may not necessarily take part in museum life. In more extreme instances, when referring e. g. to ecomuseums, the concept of the public refers to the entire population covering the area they refer to.11 The trouble faced by museums nowadays lies precisely in extending their services to the entire community encompassing society, with no exceptions, in accordance with the principle of fairness and equal opportunities12 in order to support intercultural dialogue among peoples, social cohesion, and sustainable development.13 But how can you turn all this into practice for disabled people? What emerges from the literature as the essential ingredient of the inclusive museum is the ability to actively interact with the public focusing one’s activities, methods and approaches on the said attendance. In particular, a changing perspective is suggested at three different levels: –– The role of the museum as a mediator. Communicating and exhibiting past heritage to contemporary society implies an actual mediation activity by itself. The museum as mediator14 is committed to adapting the message of its own collection depending on the public it faces, recalibrating its interpretation and favouring greater interaction. Interacting with visitors is an essential process both as a gateway to understanding the artwork,15 but also so that visitors

7  ICOM Statutes, Vienna, 2007, http://archives.icom.museum/statutes.‌html#2 (accessed June  21, 2019); ICOM 2019 (as fn. 6). 8  Pierre Bourdieu, La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement, in: Revue française de sociologie 21 (3) (1980), pp. 439–444. 9  In 2008, the Federal Statistical Office reported on how the public visiting museums in Switzerland is clearly elitist, made up of individuals under the age of 30, with a high level of education and income and whose parents greatly influence their own cultural practices (Moeschler/Vanhooydonck 2011). 10  André Desvallées and François Mairesse, Key Concepts of Museology, ICOM International Committee for Museology (ICOFOM), 2010, https://icom.museum/en/ressource/key-concepts‑of-museology/ (accessed June 14, 2019). 11  Ibid., p. 72. 12  United Nations 2006 (as fn. 1). 13  UNESCO 2016 (as fn. 6). 14  Gisela Weiß, Inclusive Museum – a Critical View from a Museological Perspective, in: Jörn Berding and Matthias Gather (eds.), Proceedings of the COME‑IN! Thematic Conferences 24 (2018). 15  MarionViollet, Between cultural democratization and the preservation of artistic integrity: Constructing cultural mediation for contemporary art, in: Politiques de la culture, 2015, https://chmcc.hypotheses.org/958 (accessed August 30, 2019).

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may finally find answers to their unfailing so, what?, feeling satisfied as individuals with the experience they have gone through and emerging enriched from it. Access, representation, and participation are therefore the three fundamental issues to consider prevent the museum of becoming an agent of social exclusion.16 –– From universal design to inclusive design methods. Making the museum accessible through the removal of architectural barriers is certainly a first step towards meeting the needs of the public, welcoming it, and putting it at ease. This recalls the idea of Universal Design defined by Holmes as “the design of an environment so that it might be accessed and used in the widest possible range of situations without the need for adaptation”.17 Despite the considerable financial burden which this decision implies, it is important to stress how architectural accessibility is only one step of the way, as this does not necessarily lead to greater interaction with the public, this being an implicit trait of social inclusion. The term inclusive design seems instead more appropriate as it refers to a methodology that the museum intends to pursue. The definition given by the outdoor play designer Susan Goldman explain very clearly this point of view: “Inclusive design doesn’t mean you are designing one thing for all people. You are designing a diversity of ways to participate so that everyone has a sense of belonging”.18 Opting to adapt the collection in accordance with the needs of the public, means observing, assessing and designing solutions on the basis of specific needs. A blind person needs to use a certain kind of design which is manifestly different from that arranged for people with physical disabilities, or even more with cognitive ones. –– The cultural participation approach. The decision to undertake an inclusive design methodology, often goes hand in hand with activities of cultural participation, which seek the active involvement of the people. Such efforts are aimed at, enhancing the process of co‑construction of knowledge, and therefore of a legitimate culture.19 The level of public involvement may be shaped according to the intentionality and willingness of the institution through contributive, collaborative, co‑created, and hosted projects.20 In Switzerland, for instance, the distinction between participative and cultural mediation projects in art museums is subtle. Participative projects are part of the museum’s mediation activities, and the mediator often acts as interface with the public, both for the implementation of specific projects and in leading inclusive guided visits. Museums and Visual Impairments The European Blind Union reports that according to 82.5 % of its national member organisations, the cultural rights of blind and partially sighted people are being poorly or very poorly imple-

16  Milano 2013 (as fn. 3). 17  In Kat Holmes, Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, MIT Press, 2018, p. 55 18  Susan Goldman is an outdoor play designer. Her words have been quoted by Kat Holmes in her book Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, p. 53. 19  Moroni and Bianco (as fn. 3). 20  Nina Simon, The Participatory Museum, Santa Cruz of California: Museum 2.0, 2010.

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mented. In Switzerland visually impaired people represent around 4 % of the population, representing a potential public for museums of around 320'000 people (UCBC). Nowadays there are remarkable experiences around the world that make their own collections accessible to visually impaired people. London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is one of those instances that has best been able to translate the abstract concept of inclusive museum into an actual organizational strategy based on an assessment of the needs of the visually impaired public, intended to improve the visitor’s tangible experience from a multiple point of view: multi-­ sensory experience of the artworks (by providing touchable objects and tactile books, soundtracks and audio descriptions), orientation (by removing architectural barriers), staff training, and the employment of a visually impaired Access Officer to provide assistance and guidance to persons with disabilities in accessing its services21. The standards and the specific procedures that have enabled the implementation of these activities are however not shared. Still in Europe, the National Museum of Prague has experimented the use of Virtual Reality through the development of 3D models of the museum’s most famous sculptures in order to provide an immersive and tactile experience to visually impaired people22. In the US, the project America InSight tours at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D. C. has bet on the capacity of teachers to provide vivid description of American history, training them to lead small groups of blind and visually impaired visitors: the meaning of the artwork is mediated and interpreted by the cognitive and emotional skills of an expert; an interactive experience takes place (visitors can stop, ask questions and clarify points), and the learning process of visitors is enhanced through the memorability of the experience.23 From an academic point of view, studies on the multimodality of access that enhances the aesthetic experience of people with visual disability can be divided in two groups: those focused on tactile experiences and those focused on audio experiences. The first group is explored within the field of museum studies, specifically addressing the theme of cultural participation and inclusive design models.24 The second group of research refers instead to the field of linguistic and translation studies.25 Audio Description (AD) is defined as a specific form of translation of images into words for people with visual disabilities, which received most attention in the field of audiovisual translation studies.26 Bittner, by comparing the audiovisual de21  Barry Ginley, Museums: A whole new world for visually impaired people, in: Disability Studies Quarterly 33 (3) (2013). 22  Touching Masterpieces, https://touchingmasterpieces.‌com (accessed October 20, 2019). 23  America InSight, Verbal Description Tours. Smithsonian American Art Museum website, https://americanart. si.edu/education/adult/verbal-description-tours (accessed on October 20, 2019). 24  Fiona Candlin, The Dubious Inheritance of Touch: Art History and Museum Access, in: Journal of Visual Culture 5 (2) (2006), pp. 137–154; Dirk vom Lehn, Discovering ‘Experience-ables’: Socially including visually impaired people in art museums, in: Journal of Marketing Management, 26 (7–8) (2010), pp. 749–769; Siddhant Shah, Power of Touch, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​ugK0tauYvl8 (accessed October 15, 2019). 25  Sabine Braun, Audiodescription research: State of the art and beyond, in: Translation Studies in the New Millennium (6) (2008), pp. 14–30; Catalina Jiménez Hurtado and Silvia Soler Gallego, Multimodality, translation and accessibility: A corpus-based study of audio description, in: Perspectives 21 (4) (2013), pp. 577–594. 26  Hansjörg Bittner, Audio description guidelines: A comparison, in: New Perspectives in Translation 20 (2012), pp. 41–61.

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scription guidelines from Australia, France, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, points out that, in general, the narrative perspective is not a central issue and that the “style of audio description should be factual, not interpretive”27. In relation to the proper use of the language instead, lexis, syntax, style, and tense, there is a general agreement between guidelines, the major concern lies in the details provided, as recently argued also by Barnés Castaño.28 Only recently ADs have been used also to the description of visual art within museums, but research on that is very limited.29 Gallego points out that “existing audio descriptions of art museum exhibits were shown to comply with existing guidelines regarding the type of visual information conveyed, the level of detail offered, and the point of view used”.30 The limit of the exclusive use of this technique for artwork description is that it does not consider all the interpretative aspects of the work, the story behind it, and the mediation is needed in order to convey not only objective information about the work but also leave a memorable experience to the visitors. Narrative writing therefore is the technique here recommended and discussed, as it includes in the process of writing interpretative features, responding to the visitors’ social interaction need. Unlike audio descriptions, which are mostly used for portable technological audio guides and technologies,31 narrative description is intended also to support the mediation work of a guide, a professional or an artist guiding people through museums spaces. Research Gap and Contribution Despite the existence of policies stressing the importance of providing equal opportunities in accessing culture, and the growing attention of museums toward blind and visually impaired people, measuring progress on cultural accessibility issues is still not possible neither at national, nor at international level nowadays, and many cultural accessibility projects still rely on the personal initiative of dedicated individuals and on short-term funding.32 A more restricted focus on the ways museums can implement inclusive activities is therefore needed. Museums can learn from other experiences by adapting general indications to their 27  Ibid., p. 5. 28  Cecile Barnés Castaño, Audiodescribir con detalle o abstraer, esa es la cuestión, in: The Museum for All People: Art, Accessibility and Social Inclusion, MUSACCES Consortium, Madrid, 2019. 29  Silvia Soler Gallego, Audio descriptive guides in art museums. Translation and Interpreting Studies, in: The Journal of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association 13 (2) (2018), pp. 230–249; Nunes Martins, Claudia Susana and Ingrid Freitas, Imagination Wide Open: Accessibility project in Bragança’s contemporary museum, in: The Museum for All: Art, Accessibility and Social Inclusion, MUSACCES Consortium, Madrid, 2019; Gala Rodríguez Posadas, Silvia Soler Gallego and Olalla Luque, Words to see: On the intersemiotic translation of composition in paintings, in: Interdisciplinarity in Translation Studies Theoretical Models, Creative Approaches and Applied Methods, 2016. 30  Silvia Soler Gallego (as fn. 29), p. 230 31  Silvia Soler Gallego and Antonio Chica, Museos para todos: Evaluación de una guía audiodescriptiva para personas con discapacidad visual en el museo de ciencias, in: Revista Española de Discapacidad 2 (2) (2014), pp. 145–167. 32  Marcus Weisen, International perspectives on the cultural accessibility of people with disabilities, in: Jörn Berding and Matthias Gather (eds.), Proceedings of the COME‑IN! Thematic Conferences 24 (2018).

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own cultural participation experiments. However, to convey efficiently the meaning of artworks to people with visual impairments, museums need to integrate the concept of accessibility and inclusion within their own values and organizational strategy. As a support of that, there is a gap of practical indications and structured tools guiding their decision-making process on how to develop and implement concretely inclusive activities, so that they can enhance the way to relate, listen to and approach the public. By considering the accessibility of the museum’s collection for people with visual impairments as a central construct, this article frames the accessibility of the works in its high-level construct as accessibility of the (whole) museum and social inclusion, as well as in the museum organizational setting (mid-level construct) and in the “here and now” practice (low-level construct). The main contribution of this research is to provide concrete, specific and practice-based indications guiding the museum decision-making process related to the use of the narrative description technique to enhance the fruition of their collection.

The Case Study This paper presents the case study of the Vincenzo Vela Museum (Ligornetto) as representative of how the construct of accessibility in a museum can be conceived both abstractly and concretely if we look at the accessibility from different psychological distances. The Vincenzo Vela Museum The Vincenzo Vela Museum is a federal institution located in Ligornetto, an Italian-speaking Swiss municipality in the district of Mendrisio. It is one of the most important Swiss artists’ houses of the nineteenth century, where the sculptor Vincenzo Vela (1820–1891) lived and who bequeathed it to the Swiss Confederation in 1892 his will was it to be a museum open to the public. The museum, surrounded by a panoramic park, holds a monumental plaster casket of over 5'000 pieces by the artist Vincenzo Vela (1820–1891), including the bequests of his sculptor brother Lorenzo Vela (1812–1897). There is also a nineteenth-century picture gallery of Lombard and Piedmontese paintings, in which the works of his son, Spartaco Vela (1854–1895), stand out; a graphic collection of drawings by Vincenzo and Spartaco Vela; a photographic collection among the oldest private photographic collections in Switzerland, and finally a historical and specialist library. And it is precisely by starting from the residential nature of the museum, that the Vincenzo Vela Museum has centred its philosophy on inclusion since 2001. This philosophy, based on the value of meeting, listening and engaging in dialogue, reflects the issue of museum accessibility in holistic terms. Since 2003 the Vela Museum has started a direct dialogue with disabled people aimed at better understanding their needs and at putting forward interventions intended to satisfy different types and needs of museum visitors, so that its heritage may be enjoyed in equal terms by society as a whole. The principle of museum accessibility has been translated into a real organizational strategy intended to offer a quality welcome by providing a number of different services: a cultural mediation service among the most innovative ones in Ticino; access to indoor and outdoor areas, accessibility of contents pertaining to the museum and its collections based

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on different types of visitors; and finally, a readiness to host in its spaces meetings and training for operators and professionals working in a number of fields, including those of the arts and social sectors. The Workshop: Close your Eyes and Open your Mind This is the context which saw the experimental workshop Close your eyes and open your mind take place in the museum rooms on 10th November 2016. The experiment aimed to make the collection of 19th century sculptures and paintings accessible to all. The workshop was designed around a series of research questions centred on the fruition of the museum works by visitors with a very specific disability: blind and partially-sighed visitors. The workshop, which was part of the larger Mediation Culture Inclusion project, has, on the one hand provided the opportunity to develop experiment and evaluate the effectiveness of a participatory and inclusive methodology and, on the other, to supply Swiss museums with actual indications and instructions on how to act to ensure that their own artworks may be rendered communicable also for those who are unable to use sight to access them. Methodology The workshop involved visually impaired people working together with undergraduate students to experiment the technique of narrative writing and to co‑produce content specifically tailored to allow artwork accessibility and enjoyment through the sole sense of hearing. Participants included eight blind and partially sighted people, three researchers, two university lecturers and seventy-five Bachelor’s students in Social Work. The process of the workshop can be summarized in four phases. During the first phase, students were divided into five groups, so that each group was constituted by fifteen students. Each group was then assigned to a different room of the museum, where one single artwork was selected to be described. Each person in the group produced a detailed description of the same work aimed at making visible a work of art in the collection (pl. 47). A total of seventy-five descriptions were created for a series of five artworks. During the second phase, blind and visually impaired people passed through each group to listen to the work of each student and give individual advice on how the descriptions could be improved (pl. 48). During the third phase, each group of students chose together the best description produced. During the fourth phase, everyone met up in the museum hall and, in turn, the five selected descriptions were read out aloud. All the participants were blindfolded during the descriptions’ reading (pl. 49). Data were collected through participant observation and a focus group at the end of the workshop. The focus group aimed at unveiling participants’ appreciation of the inclusive workshop, arousing critical aspects, personal experiences and general suggestions. The findings of the workshops have subsequently been analyzed and used to create guidelines and specific directions useful to those museums wishing to employ the narrative writing method to have their artworks enjoyed by a blind and partially sighted audience.

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Discussions The Construal Level Theory and the Central Construct for Museums: the Accessibility of the Collection The Construal Level Theory33 is used to frame the results and to show the importance of low level construct as a fundamental mechanism for the accessibility of the collection, and therefore for museums. Construal Level Theory (CLT) claims that the psychological distance from a construct is directly proportional to the way in which objects or events are conceptually represented. Psychological distance is taken to mean the distance perceived mentally in terms of space, time, social distance, or hypotheticality. The more distant an object or event is from a psychological point of view, the more it will be conceptualized in the abstract (high level construct) to be able to answer why such construct is important. Conversely, the closer we get to an object or event, the easier it will be to activate specific real and detailed measures, that will answer as to how to translate it into practice (low-level construct), i. e. which people, tools, skills we need to contribute, albeit minimally, to the central aim. The psychological distance from a construct is a subjective and egocentric experience of something the museum perceives as near or far.34 This does not only depend on when and where the construct (an object or an event) will take place, but also on the social distance the museum perceives on the theme and on the hypothesis we build. So far this theory has mostly been applied to the study of individuals’ behaviour and only recently has its use been explored also from the point of view of organizations, as rigorous conceptual model for exploring how mental representations shape organization behaviours35. The subject on which this article intends to apply this theory is that of the “museum as mediator”. In the field of art, few researches have experimented with the CLT, observing the changing attitudes of visitors towards artworks considered unconventional36 or the changing people’s predictions of emotional rewards for prosocial actions37 when the abstract representation of objects is stimulated. For the Vincenzo Vela Museum making its own collection accessible is a topic connected with the abstract and general objectives of museum accessibility and social inclusion that make it possible to identify alternative and cross-sectional areas of intervention (e. g. mediation, research, training). At organizational level, which is set half-way between abstraction and practice (mid-level construct), this means defining within an area of intervention (e. g. mediation) a strategy for action which includes activities (e. g. guided visits, workshops), methods (inclusive de33  Trope and Liberman (as fn. 5), pp. 440–463. 34 Ibid. 35  Batia M. Wiesenfeld, Jean-Nicolas Reyt, Joel Brockner and Yaacov Trope, Construal Level Theory in Organizational Research, in: Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior 4 (1) (2017), pp. 367–400. 36  Katrin Schimmel and Jens Förster, How temporal distance changes novices’ attitudes towards unconventional arts, in: Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts 2 (1) (2008), p. 53. 37  Lara B. Aknin, Leaf Van Boven and Laura Johnson-Graham, Abstract construals make the emotional rewards of prosocial behavior more salient, in: The Journal of Positive Psychology 10 (5) (2015), pp. 458–462.

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sign) and approaches (cultural participation) to pursue. On a concrete level, this means having at one’s disposal indications that are specific for each kind of public (in our case visually impaired people) and linked to alternative types of fruition (i. e. the use of narrative writing technique), which tell the museum how to intervene in the here and now practice (how to select work, how to describe items, how to use the language), to meet in an effective and timely manner the objectives set out at organizational level and, more generally, the museum’s aims (pl. 50). High Level Accessibility of the Collection: Accessible and Inclusive Museum According to the CLT for a concept to take place in the present it must be linked to an aim which is abstract, wished for and yet unrealized, far from the present, but equally central, essential, decontextualized and which determines and justifies the steps to be followed in order the fruition of object/event (construct).38 For the Vincenzo Vela Museum reflecting on the accessibility to its collection implies focusing on its abstract representation of social inclusion and the overall accessibility of the organization (museum for all, access for all). The highest level of abstract construct is found in the social inclusion philosophy enganged by the museum. Social inclusion is in itself a very different outcome from that of museum accessibility. Each individual behaviour put in motion by the museum aimed at social inclusion is stretched towards an abstract model of society that cannot be quantified, nor made up of a set of strategies, practices and details. The outcome of the puzzle of all efforts made, which answer to the principle of social inclusion, although contributing to define accessibility to the museum, do not determine its meaning (which is made up of multiple interwoven factors of a social, economic, cultural and political nature). The puzzle pieces, in this case the small, individual actions undertaken by museums, portray a different bigger picture, such is an organized, strategic and quantifiable system which determines greater and better accessibility of the organization. Social inclusion, from where the concept of museum for all stems, may in any event be regarded as an abstract construct to pursue, the ultimate reason why of the actions performed daily, but its essence refers to multiple variables, whose sum would however not make up a concrete and measurable reality. Making the collection accessible means enabling all the visitors to enjoy it on fair and equal terms. This is for the Vela Museum an overriding concept and it is linked to that of a welcome typical of the residential nature of homes turned into museums. The motto itself meeting, engaging in dialogue and listening encompasses the key values of the organization, guiding it in future predictions, in short‑to-medium term decision making, in the process of evaluation of pros and cons and in identifying alternative interpretations aimed at social inclusion.39 At this stage details do not matter, and it has been shown how in this process of abstraction, pros appear more significant and thus drive activities, as compared to the difficulties gradually emerging as one gets closer to the practical implementation of a specific event and concept. 38  Trope and Liberman 2010 (as fn. 5), pp. 440–463. 39  This is a literaly translation of the Italian claim: Incontro, Dialogo, Ascolto.

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Reducing the Psychological Distance: Mediation, Participation and Inclusive Design Reducing the physical, temporal, social and hypothetical distance from the abstract representation means developing a clear organizational strategy taking into account alternative interpretations of the abstract representation. Alternative interpretations correspond to the areas of intervention that the museum intends to implement. The Vincenzo Vela Museum has identified four areas of interventions making the museum more accessible to all: cultural mediation, universal design of spaces, content and communication, and the professional training of educators. The Close your eyes and open your mind workshop finds its place among the cultural mediation activities offered by the museum, experimenting a participatory approach which offers organizations the chance to reflect on the strategies to follow should they wish to make artworks accessible to visually impaired people. Making the collection accessible implies the museum's willingness and need to create strong mental representations linked to an object. Their actual creation has to take into account the different perception of the reality, in terms of experiences and cognitive memories, among people who have been blind since birth and those whose impairment appeared later. To overcome this complexity of translating the visual artworks into a complete experience also for those who are deprived of sight, the workshops relied on solutions of an interlinguistic and intersemiotic nature, which entailed an interpretative mediation by a group of sighted people (pl. 50). However, at the base of any cultural mediation activities, the human experience undergone by the participants establishes itself as a key to reading for an efficient mediation work between the object and the beholder. The outcomes of a qualitative survey that took place at the end of the workshop by sighted, blind and partially sighted people have pointed out general indications connected with the participatory approach and the inclusive method which may encompass different kinds of interpretation and implementation depending on the museums. Partially sighted participants greatly appreciated the community dimension that was built up in the event: in particular, they appreciated the role of experts they were allocated in guiding the students towards the best options so as to create texts that would allow access to the works, from the various formal and emotional angles. Great appreciation was shown to the final moment of readings in the dark, where participants, students and researchers took an imaginary walk among the museum artworks, listening to the selection of the best texts created. The activity was viewed favourably also by the students, who were able to grasp some of the problems faced by the blind and partially sighted, and understood how one can create inclusive environments guided not by the limitations of individuals but by the abilities of all. As stated by a student “It is always very difficult to be close to the other, to try to empathize for being resourceful and of support. But the experience of becoming an instrument for others, of reinventing one’s own eyes, has really been special”.40

40  Jean-Pierre Candeloro, Valeria Donnarumma, Luca Morici and Claudio Mustacchi, Rapporto di valutazio­ neâIndagine svolta nell’ambito del progetto Mediazione Cultura Inclusione, 2017.

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Starting from this experience, the study conducted enabled us to assess and report the elements that appear of greater importance in the course of a visit by blind and partially sighted visitors.41 a) The existence of an accomplished, passionate and competent cultural companion, be this a museum guide, cultural mediator or an artist b) The availability of information of a descriptive-objectual nature on the artwork (size, materials, shape, etc), enhanced with information of a cultural and historical kind. c) The chance to go through a multisensorial experience of artworks mediation is important but not essential. What is crucial for the visitor is to understand the perceptive-mental process in the event of a tactile support (duration, sequences, relationship to the descriptive narration), be this when there are artworks or support tools that foster understanding (i. e. tactile diagrams) d) A visit that takes place in an atmosphere with no distractions or disruptions; e) The chance to implement inclusive events where the skills of blind or partially sighted people contribute to social and cultural occasions for sighted people, too. Low Level Construct: Narrative Writing It is not merely a matter of defining the importance of working on museum accessibility, but to focus on how to act, by identifying actual and timely measures that “preserve the object in minute details from immediate use”.42 To cut the psychological distance of a construct right down enables us to define the complexity of actions to undergo. What emerged from the Close your eyes and open your mind workshop is that the most effective solutions that art museums can implement to facilitate access to works of art for people with visual impairments is the creation of specific descriptions that facilitate the creation of mental images using sensory resources such as hearing. To stimulate this process, it is essential that sighted people (a guide, a mediator, an artist) take into account specific narrative supports and exploit the communicative and evocative potential of spoken language.43 For blind and visually impaired people visiting an exhibition can be very tiring: the effort of attention and concentration is high because in addition to listening, the visitor must process the descriptions and transform them into mental images, drawing on their own system of sensory perception and personal processing and for those who have the opportunity, their own visual memory.44 The inclusive Close your eyes and open your mind workshop has allowed the drawing up of accurate guidelines to describe artworks to blind and partially sighted people. Such guidelines do not just refer to the type of information to be conveyed, but support the museum in its decision-making process, which includes the choice of works to be described, the linguistic register, 41  42  43  44 

Ibid., p. 19. Trope and Liberman (as fn. 5), p. 448. Mediazione Cultura Inclusion website, http://www.mci.supsi.‌ch (accessed October 20, 2019). Idid, n. d.

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and of how to chronologically report the information so as to foster a better understanding of the work. How to Select the Work Although potentially every work of art can be linguistically described, making a selection of a limited series of particularly significant artworks is imperative for a more sustainable and effective process, benefitting not only those who elaborate the descriptions but especially those whom the descriptions are intended for. The decision making process of the museum can be facilitated by considering the following criteria: –– Select the works from the museum’s permanent collection. This allows to capitalize the efforts of the museum by promoting access to the artistic and cultural heritage of the territory, by describing an original work which is physically available, by reusing the work done along the years and enjoying greater freedom in reusing the descriptions elaborated. –– Select representative works, especially for temporary exhibitions, which take into account their overall relevance for the museum identity. –– Select works that can be explored with other senses, which can be touched, for example, during multisensory mediation activities that include a direct encounter with the artworks. –– Select works by living artists (if they are present within the collection) that the public could potentially meet in person during specific cultural mediation activities. –– Select interpretable works for a multisensory fruition, those able to offer the public an emotionally enriching experience consistent with the aesthetic and emotional effects that can arise from the artwork. –– Consider the artwork location in space. The artwork should be surrounded by free space, both on the wall (to promote the visibility of the artwork and orientation) and in the space in front of it, dedicated to visitors’ contemplation of the artwork (to promote the stationing and mobility). In addition, chairs could also be arranged to accommodate visitors, as well as other supports (tables, lecterns, etc.) to arrange the different materials in the case of multisensory activities. How to Use the Language The narrative of an artwork addressed to people with visual impairments requires a complex analysis of the artwork as well as an articulated description of its setting in order to facilitate the mental construction of the image. Amit, Trope and Alogom demonstrate that “people better process pictures that represent proximal objects and words that represent distal objects than pictures that represent distal objects and words that represent proximal objects”.45 This means that the memory of an object increases when we increase the proximity to it. Narrow specific categories promote a sense of psychological proximity. At the same time too many details or

45  Elinor Amit, Daniel Algom and Yaacov Trope, Distance-dependent processing of pictures and words, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 138 (3) (2009), p. 400.

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particularly long and complex sentences, make the operation more complicated. Some aspects to be taken into account for a proper use of the language are: –– Language register and terminology. The use of a colloquial register is always preferred and whether specific and technical terms are required they should always be followed by an explanation of the meaning. It is therefore better to mention the element in question first and afterward to mention its correct definition (e. g. it is better to state “… yellow, red and blue, which in the theory of colors are defined as primary colors” rather than “… the primary colors, i. e. yellow, red and blue”). –– Taboo words. Do not avoid common used words, like terms to see, to look or to observe, as such an attitude can be counterproductive, generating a feeling of inadequacy in the audience. Even the definitions of blind and visually impaired are preferred to the cautious nonsighted: the non immediately refers to a negative dimension. It should be noted that these linguistic issues are very fluid, depending from personal subjectivity and from geographical-­ cultural differences. –– Rhetorical figures. Similarities, metaphors and antitheses are effective tools in promoting the construction of mental images, especially when associated with everyday life, the body and sensory perception. However, they are particularly indicated in symbolic and evocative commentary, but they can lead to confusion if associated to the technical description of the artwork (technique, form and composition). –– Adjectives. Adjectives are useful and effective to characterize what is described: they reduce the polysemy of the object and qualify the artistic character of the artwork. However, they should be used sparingly to leave space to the construction of the image in the mind of the audience. –– Orientation. The method of the clock to orient oneself in physical spaces is effective in describing the position of the elements inside the artwork’s space (e. g. “at 12.00 you will find…”) rather than the use of the indications right and left, which requires to specify with respect to who and what. –– The use of voice. The adaptation of the narrator’s voice is not required, however it is possible to make listening more understandable and enjoyable by clearly marking the words and adjusting the tone of voice to the situation. –– Rhythm of reading. It is advisable not to speak or read more slowly than usual, but to extend by a few seconds the normal breaks within the speech, distancing the topics or paragraphs as well as the subject from the rest of the sentence. How to Select Items As it has been reported in Audio Description (AD) guidelines and studies, even for the description of a work of art it is important to limit the information to be transmitted. To encourage the creation of mental images of visual artworks, it is important to dwell on the most significant information in order to allow the display content with a precise order. Content can be classified in the following categories and should be sorted chronologically:

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–– Spatial context. The first information to provide refers to the space in which the artwork is located, and specify their exact location in the exhibition space. –– General information about the artwork: the name of the author, the title of the artwork, the year of production, the origin, the place of preservation, the technique used and its dimensions. –– Biographical hints of the artist: nationality, date of birth and possibly death, education, the artistic movement to which s/he belongs and its particular stylistic characteristics. –– Historical period and cultural context to which the artwork belongs to. –– Primary subject. The figurative or abstract subject should be firstly identified and then briefly described from top to bottom and from the left of the audience to its right. Alternatively, it is also possible to describe the object from outside to inside. To start the description, it is important to begin from the formal aspects (e. g. colors, style) and the physical limits of the artwork (e. g. the frame), followed by the details. –– Technique, form and composition. Summarize the description of the compositional and technical aspects (unless they are particularly emphasized and relevant in the overall impact of the artwork), including shapes, light, colors, proportions, dimensions, space management (pictorial for two-dimensional figurative art), materiality and technique used. –– Symbolic and evocative commentary. Subjective commentary of symbolic and evocative nature is recommended as it is able to convey to visitors the intentions of the artist, the artistic character of the work and its uniqueness, as well as to stimulate possible psycho-emotional effects of the artwork on the audience.

Conclusions Full accessibility to museum collection for people with visual impairments is still very limited. Cultural mediation, participation, and inclusive design methods reveal to be effective ways to improve the artistic experience of a specific typology of audience, and therefore to foster social inclusion. Through the case of a Swiss federal museum which has integrated cultural mediation into its organizational strategy, this article presents the results from a participatory workshop involving sighted, blind and visually impaired people to experiment an inclusive design method of narrative writing. The workshop allows to co‑produce narrative descriptions and provides visually impaired visitors the opportunity to experience the artworks through the sense of hearing. The presented practice-based experiment has made it possible to equip the museums participating in the project with a specific, scalable method for narrative writing production, and concrete professional practices guiding them to enhance and increase the accessibility of their collections toward people with visual impairment. The guidelines provide indications supporting the decision making process of art museums operators in the way artworks can be selected, described and communicated. Artworks that are best suited to being accessible through language are those representative of the museums collections or museums values (in case of a temporary exhibition). Follows those that can be explored with other senses (a sculpture for example), that can be combined with

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different mediation activities (such as works by living artists), that are interpretable for a multi sensory fruition, and that are located in comfortable spaces. In constructing the account of visual artworks and encouraging the creation of mental images, it is important to consider the attention time of visitors, calibrating the use of details, and dwelling on the most significant information in order to allow the display of content with a precise order, even chronological: from the definition of the spatial context to general information about the artwork, biographical hints of the artist, historical period and cultural context, the identification and description of the primary subject (from the formal aspects to the physical limits of the artwork to the details) to the technical aspects (e. g. technique, form and composition), and finally a symbolic and evocative commentary. The proper use of the language appears an effective support to effectively convey descriptions to people with visual impairments and to foster interactions. In particular, the indications suggest the adoption of a colloquial register and a spontaneous terminology; the use of rhetorical figures is indicated just to provide symbolic and evocative commentary, whilst the use of adjectives to qualify objectively the artistic character of the artwork; the method of the clock facilitates people to orientate artworks ’s features in physical spaces; the adaptation of the tone of the voice and the rhythm of reading, marking words and scanning breaks, make the storytelling enjoyable and more understandable. Finally, the participatory approach of the workshop played a main role in making all participants live an inclusive experience and in particular it influenced the learning process of students from blind and visually impaired people, rather than vice versa. The importance of the social interaction from visitors and the guide has also been stressed by people with visual impairment in the evaluation of the museum’s accessibility and in the identification of general suggestions that may be adopted by all museums. These considerations raise new questions about the potentiality of visual art of making new, multiple and richer interpretations and aesthetic experience possible. Future researches may be focused on observing and experimenting the potential role of museum’s guide with visual disabilities as agent of social change that contributes to develop community awareness of equal opportunities and inclusion through a form of artistic exploration and interactive learning.

Acknowledgements The project Museum Culture Inclusion. Art museums and visual disabilities: equal opportunities in the cultural life of Southern Switzerland was developed by the Laboratory of Visual Culture, University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) in collaboration with Unitas46. It was developed and coordinated by Valeria Donnarumma and Dr. Jean-Pierre Candeloro. The workshop Close your eyes and open your mind was conducted with the contribution of Prof. Dr. Michele Amadò and Dr. Claudio Mustacchi. We thank all the social and cultural institutions who participated in the project and our colleagues from SUPSI-DEASS and DFA who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research. 46  For more information visit www.mci.supsi.ch/en.

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This research has been made possible thanks to the support of the Swiss Federal Bureau for the Equality of People with Disabilities and Swisslos Foundation (DECS, Repubblica e Cantone Ticino).

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THE MUSEUM AS A SPACE FOR INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE EXPRESSION An Intervention Involving Individuals with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism Introduction The intervention described in this chapter is a workshop for young people with Asperger syndrome. The workshop was held in the museum facilities of the Fundación Venancio Blanco in Salamanca, Spain, and was an activity within the summer course offered by the University of Salamanca. The activity consisted on accompanying and working with the workshop group as it engaged with contemporary art. The objective is to put into words what happened when the group members were invited to produce artistic responses to artworks, according to their capabilities. Within what they produced, they would make direct links with the art and build, among themselves and with the works, a new elaboration of language, in the broadest sense this allowed to create a new formal vocabulary what they contemplated and made a verb-image materialized in with what they had created. Our starting point is the fact that, without a doubt, and contemporary art in particular, can make patients’ journeys more bearable and improve their quality of life as well as that of the people around them. It provides them with the means to engage with their feelings and feel better about themselves and more at ease with those around them by placing them in a creative and empowering environment that gives them the tools they need to build their self-confidence and personal well-being, these effects which will extend to their personal environment and their physical and mental health. The journey is more important than the destination, and contemporary artistic languages are an ideal vehicle for the people who need it the most, in both social care and health care settings. Taking the Abstractions exhibition of the works of sculptor, painter and Salamanca native Venancio Blanco as a reference point, an intervention involving people who have been placed on the autism spectrum was devised within a museum space. Using a deck of cards containing colours, lines and shapes as a vehicle for inspiration, each participant contributed with several artworks that collectively manifested a joint expression of abstraction, and a collectiveness emerging from the starting point of the individual. The participants’ condition means that the activity had hints of art therapy. Although it was carried out on an ad hoc basis, it allowed participants to experience expression of this kind.

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Asperger Syndrome, High Functioning Autism and the Autism Apectrum Since 1944, when Hans Asperger syndrome described a condition that he called “autistic psychopathy” (he was not aware of the studies conducted by Kanner, who had described an “early infantile autism” a year earlier) few disorders originating during childhood have generated so much controversy.1 The distinctive features of Asperger syndrome (AS) and high functioning autism (HFA) have been evaluated according to two perspectives. Taking quantitative differences into account, these have been categorized as the mildest and most favourable version of autism,2 owing to individuals’ adequate cognitive and linguistic abilities.3 Although the score in both cases is high, patients exhibit different behaviours: a characteristic cognitive indicator for both syndromes is a high verbal IQ, whereas when patients with other disorders within the autism spectrum exhibit a high IQ it is in relation to performance IQ.4 From a qualitative perspective, they have been considered different disorders, despite their presenting symptoms common to conditions on the autism spectrum. According to this latter view, differences centre on communication and language as well as on sensory and motor deficits and special interests.5 People with AS generally exhibit concrete and literal thinking. There are certain topics of interest that they find absorbing; they often have an excellent memory and they present behaviours that are considered to be eccentric by others.6 In the social sphere, they are active people. They wish to interact with others,7 but they lack social competence, not understanding social interaction’s subtle unwritten rules8 and orienting the topic of the interaction toward their restricted interest. The language produced by people with AS appears to be normal and grammatically correct during early development.9 Often they have a rich vocabulary, but there are clearly strange aspects in terms of intonation, volume and/or rhythm. People with AS are more liable to manifest difficulties in fine and gross motor skills,10 and exhibit delays in complex motor skills as

1  Nils Kaland, Brief report: Should Asperger syndrome be excluded from the forthcoming DSM‑V?, in: Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 5 (2011), pp. 984–989, p. 984. 2  Josep Artigas-Pallarés and Isabel Paula-Pérez, Deconstruyendo a Kanner, in: Revista de Neurología 64 (2017), pp. 9–15. 3  American Psychiatric Association (APA), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Mental Disorders (DSM‑IV), Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994, pp. 79–81. 4  Kaland 2011 (as fn. 1), pp. 984–989, p. 986. 5  José Ramón Alonso Peña, Autismo y Síndrome de Asperger. Guía para familiares, amigos y profesionales, Salamanca: Amarú, 2004, pp. 75. 6 Ibid. 7  Mohammad Ghaziuddin, Brief report: Should the DSM V drop Asperger syndrome?, in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 40 (2010), pp. 1146–1148, p. 1146. 8  Lorna Wing, Autistic spectrum disorders, in: British Medical Journal 312 (1996), pp. 327–328, p. 327. 9  Kaland 2011 (as fn. 1). 10  Artigas-Pallarés and Paula-Pérez 2017 (as fn. 5), pp. 9–15, p. 11.

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well as poor coordination between vision and movement,11 though this is not a classificatory criterion. By contrast, people with HFA are socially more passive and distant,12 and their capacity to use expressive language is poor. The delays and difficulties that they experience in this regard begin in their first years of life. Their motor skills are adequate, and sometimes those with HFA even exhibit an interest in doing physical activities.13 AS and HFA are diagnostic categories established in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association, better known as DSM‑IV TR.14 They fall under of the so‑called Pervasive Developmental Disorders. Advances in knowledge, consideration of the certain degree inconsistency within the distinctions made and the presentation of symptoms from various subgroups within the same person led to an update of the criteria for these disorders, from which the current version of the DSM (2014) emerged. Currently, DSM V15 describes the autism spectrum without making distinctions, and the manual characterizes it as persistent disturbances in two areas: (a) communication and social interaction, and (b) restrictive and repetitive patterns in terms of interests, activities and behaviour. Sensory perception becomes important in the latter area of the disorder. Individuals on the spectrum may present patterns of unusual perceptual sensory experiences that are different not only from those of people with typical development but also vary between two people with the same autism condition.16 Between 60 % and 90 % manifest atypical sensory profiles, with problems of sensory modulation, hyper or hyporesponsiveness and/or deficits in the integration of various sensory systems.17 They exhibit a cognitive style, or perceptual bias, in which local or detail-focused processing is predominant and which presents superior skills in visual searching and detecting details between confusing stimuli.18 This style brings with it difficulties in extracting the essence of an image or seeing it globally, something known as “weak central coherence theory,”19 which can be overcome in tasks that explicitly demand global processing. 11  Alonso Peña 2004 (as fn. 5). 12  Kaland 2011 (as fn. 1). 13  Autismo Diario, http://autismodiario.org/2011/02/15/cual‑es-la-diferencia-entre-autismo‑de-alto-funcionamiento‑y‑el-sindrome-asperger/ (accessed January 21, 2019). 14  APA, 1994 (as fn. 3). 15  American Psychiatric Association (APA), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Mental Disorders (DSM V), Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 2014, pp. 51–52. 16  Olga Bogdashina, Percepción sensorial en el autismo y síndrome de Asperger: experiencias sensoriales dife­ rentes, mundos perceptivos diferentes, Ávila: Asociación Autismo Ávila, 2007, p. 27. 17  Sonia Martínez Sanchis, Papel de la corteza prefrontal en los problemas sensoriales de los niños con trastornos del espectro autista y su implicación en los aspectos sociales, in: Revista de neurología 60 (2015), pp. 19–24, p. 20. 18  Michelle O’Riordan, Kate Plaisted, Jon Driver and Simon Baron-Cohen, Superior visual search in autism, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Percepction & Performance 27 (2001), pp. 719–730, p. 728. 19  Francesca Happe and Uta Frith, The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders, in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36 (2006), pp. 5–25.

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Both AS and HFA, regardless of whether or not they are included on the autism spectrum, affect the day‑to-day lives of affected individuals and their families, leading to behavioural difficulties that bring about social isolation, limited participation in community activities and clear deficits in individuals’practical skills for everyday life.20 Despite the new conceptualization of these disorders, the categorization described in DSM IV‑TR led to the creation of specialist AS and HFA associations, which continue to advocate for the preservation of that distinction on the basis that it is the best way to respond and cater to individual needs.21 Because these associations continue to use the same names, and because the summer course within which the intervention was conducted was in its thirteenth year of operation, we have continued to distinguish this group within the population on the autism spectrum.

Art Therapy and Autism Although art therapy is a recent practice whose history dates back only seventy years, it is an area that falls within the caregiving professions. And although it is necessary for more evidence on it to be produced, positive results have been observed among groups whose circumstances make their ability to verbally articulate emotions and internal conflicts difficult,22 as is the case for people on the autism spectrum. In recent years, in many countries and regions (for example, England, Germany, Japan, the United States and North Carolina) research has been conducted on art therapy aimed at people with autism, with very positive results. Doctoral theses on the topic are also being published alongside such research.23 It should be noted that in Spain, major work in relation to artistic expression as an aid for children and adolescents with autism is taking place, with exhibitions of participants’ work, which are of a very high quality. One important source to be highlighted within work in this area is travelling international exhibitions for individuals with autism. These began in 1997 under the initiative of Autism Europe and the Spanish Autism Federation. A large body of literature on the topic, and especially on the link between autism and creativity, has therefore emerged. The silently imposed myth that children and young people with autism lack visual and plastic creativity has been dispelled. It has been demonstrated that not only do they have substantial creative capacities but they are also able, owing to their high levels of intelligence, to create complex works that are full of creative nuances. 20  Roseann Schaaf, SusanToth-Cohen, Stéphanie L. Johnson, Gina Outten and Teal W. Benevides, The everyday routines of families of children with autism: examining the impact of sensory processing difficulties on the family, in: Autism 15 (2011), pp. 373–389, p. 374. 21  Judith Gould, Los cambios del nuevo DSM‑V y sus repercusiones en la actividad diaria de los profesio­ nales sanitarios. XVII Congreso de AETAP, http://aetapi.org/xvii-congreso-nacional‑de-autismo/ (accessed January 15, 2019). 22  Asociación Profesional Española de Erteterapeutas, Arteterapia, www.arteterapia.org.es/que‑es-arteterapia (accessed February 25, 2019). 23  Kathy Evans and Janek Dubowski, Art Therapy and the development of communicative abilities in children with autism, U. K.: University of Hertfordshire, 1997.

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For this group, visual and plastic creativity is also a means of self-expression and communication that multiple studies have recognized as a powerful support in treatment of the condition. Any art-therapy process provides an alternative means of non-verbal communication for these individuals, especially when their use of language is partial or non-existent. We should recall that the most important thing in art therapy is supporting the individual during his or her personal process. According to the proceedings of the twelfth congress of the Spanish Association of Autism Professionals (2009),24 among the benefits that arise from artistic activity offered as therapy to people on the autism spectrum is the artistic medium’s function as a tool for non-verbal communication. These people often have difficulties specifically with the gestural expressions that accompany communication, and this may be an additional, non-verbal way in which they can communicate. Through exploration of materials and the act of drawing itself, the objective is to activate feelings in the individual by providing him or her with a further way of communicating and interacting, at all times taking into account that he or she may have an atypical sensory profile. In such cases, experimentation will be just as pleasurable and shareable. Interaction with the therapist can be fostered or encouraged through materials, objects and images without there being a need to use language. The materials serve as a vehicle for interaction. Artistic processes improve self-esteem and help soothe frustrations, causing a transformation and experience of change in addition to helping to develop the imagination, as might occur with any other person with typical development. Based on our own experience, we would say that the art produced by these individuals is very special. Although in many cases it may be devoid of fiction or alternative realities, it is not devoid of a deep inner expression that connects the individual with his or her immediate environment and mixes it with his or her inner world. We can confirm from our activities in museums and art centres involving direct contact with original works that, supported by specialists and artists, children and young people with autism take on painting and drawing as a means of personal expression, and these creative pursuits are capable of eliciting emotion-laden communicative manifestations from them.

Place The intervention was undertaken in a classroom belonging to the Venancio Blanco Foundation, which, via the Sala de Santo Domingo, is linked to Salamanca city council’s Salamanca Foundation for Knowledge. This museum has rooms for educational workshops that were made available to us, and it also has a hall for temporary exhibitions, where at the time of the intervention an exhibition called Abstractions, focused on the sculptor and Salamanca native Venancio Blanco, was being held.

The Exhibition We worked in a large room where more than two hundred works were being exhibited. Contiguous to the exhibition room is a space for educational workshops that is available to those who 24  Gould 2009 (as fn. 21).

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wish to make use of it. The works exhibited included sculptures, drawings and oil paintings, and the exhibition was intended to introduce the general public to a very little-known aspect of Venancio Blanco’s artistic imagination. It reveals a communion between abstraction and figuration, a constant presence in in Blanco’s long artistic career. In his final years, he showed an increasing interest in purity of forms, not just in his sculpture but also in his painting, where lines are suggested via expanses of colour. This communion between figuration and abstraction seemed appropriate when we were selecting a sample to work on with our group of young people. Abstraction leads to creativity, the subjective and the internal. These are among the specific objectives that the summer course aims to work on. In addition, Venancio Blanco is one of Spain’s best contemporary sculptors, one who brings together many artistic disciplines, as can be seen in his exhibitions. Drawing is one of his creative strong points. Blanco himself said that “drawing teaches you how to look so that you learn to see, feel and love.” Contemporary critics have placed his work under the category of contemporary neofiguration, although abstraction is present as a language in his work, and also in his figurative trajectory when he produced compositions. Abstraction and figuration went hand in hand throughout his career, demonstrating that there are no barriers to the expression. He demonstrated this not just through sculpture, but also through painting, printmaking and drawing. Among his works that were exhibited during the intervention and that the group would work on was his Zabid series (2007). This includes a set of drawings that bring together the first impressions resulting from his beholding a photograph of an ancient door in the city of Zabid, Yemen, that captivated the artist during a visit there. Also exhibited was a series of portraits that Blanco described as coming from “the soul,” a selection of more than a hundred studies in which expanses of colour are the key expressive means. The majority of these were produced in the 2015–2016 Christmas period in tempera and acrylic. For Blanco, Christmas was a time for friendship, and during it he made a series of drawn and painted Christmas greetings that he sent to those closest to him. The starting point of his creativity was always a figurative pretext, and he used strokes and colour to express the feeling of those friendships. Within this series, it is possible to detect an evolution, in which the artist dispenses with initial figurative references and dives into an expressiveness whose strong point is a pure chromaticism that seeks to reveal the meaning of those days and the greatness of friendship. The exhibition also included the first sculptures that Blanco and his brother Juan cast in bronze, under the title Sagrada Familia (Holy Family, 1960). In these, Blanco takes advantage of errors in the arrangement of the channels and some defects that arose after the bronze was poured by incorporating them into the final result as expressive elements.

The Creator and his Show: Venancio Blanco Venancio Blanco was born in 1923, in Matilla de los Caños del Río, a small village located twenty-seven kilometres from Salamanca, the city where he initially received his education before he moved in 1943 to the San Fernando Advanced School of Fine Arts in Madrid. He is considered to

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be part of the group of Seis Escultores (Six Sculptors) who emerged in the sixties in Madrid and who were grouped under neofigurative sculpture. For Blanco, sculpture was more than an element of artistic expression. It was a way of life, and bronze was the main material that he used to convey the identity of his plastic expression. In 1977, he was appointed a member of the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts, and he also belonged to different academies in Spain and Rome. In 1981, he was appointed director of the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. He was awarded various national and international prizes, for example, the National Prize for Sculpture, First Place at the National Fine Arts Exhibition, the Grand Prize for Sculpture at the Fifth Biennale in Alexandria, the Gold Medal in the Fourth Salzburg Biennial of Religious Art, the Castilla y León Arts Award and the Gold Medal of the City of Salamanca (2015). His works can be seen in museums and private collections in Spain and abroad, foremost among which are the Vatican Museum in Rome, the Reina Sofia National Museum of Contemporary Art in Madrid, the Museum of Fine Art of Salamanca, the Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, the National Museum of Cairo, Almudena Cathedral in Madrid and the Museum of Outdoor Sculpture in Alcalá de Henares. They are also held by the Mapfre Foundation’s Venancio Blanco Religious Museum in el Plantío, Madrid.25 In 2009, the Venancio Blanco Foundation was set up. Its purpose is to contribute to giving culture and art a greater presence in society, based on Blanco’s works. The foundation aims to promote and disseminate Blanco’s work and put it to use to serve and enrich society as a whole.

Participants in the Intervention As we discussed above, the intervention was conducted as part of the thirteenth edition of the University of Salamanca summer course “Practical Skills for everyday life: The transition to adult life.” This course takes place annually and is aimed at people with AS or HFA. In parallel with the course there is a version for family members, and sometimes the two join together. This last feature creates a learning environment for parents and one for their children. The course is attended by people from across Spain. Some participants even return year after year, since the content of each edition is different. The course is delivered through discussions, social and communal activities and practical workshops. This methodology is focused on enhancing the practical skills that are useful and necessary for individuals to be able to function independently within the family and community context, skills that this group lacks, creating a barrier to their development of social norms and full participation in the community. Sixteen people with AS or HFA participated in this particular workshop. Twelve were male and four were female, reflecting the gender balance for diagnosis of this syndrome referred to in the scientific literature. Despite the fact that the participants were between sixteen and thirty years of age, the atmosphere was very warm and pleasant. Participants had completed or were undertaking vocational, high school or university studies. The minimum age was set at sixteen because this is an age when individuals subsequently have to decide whether to continue down 25  Diputación de Salamanca, Blanco, Venancio, 1923–2018, Salamanca: Diputación de Salamanca, 2018, pp. 17–22.

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an educational path or begin to work. In this regard, the course is additionally offered as a first experience of coming into contact with the university world, meaning that it serves as a transitional opportunity to dispel fears and encourage this group to become university students in the future.

The Objectives The course’s general objectives are to contribute to helping people on the autism spectrum to develop concepts and skills that are important for joining and participating in the community, increasing social visibility of this group to improve knowledge of its members’ needs and raising awareness among specific groups in society of their presence, as well as providing a meeting place in which these individuals can express needs, desires and interests and share questions, knowledge and experiences. Within the specific activities of the workshop, the main objectives were to bring participants closer to contemporary art in order to experience creative practice in a museum space, ascertain contemporary art’s and museum spaces’ possibilities and potential for this type of public and, finally, to analyse all the possibilities related to sensitivity, imagination, representation and communication that can come about through art for people with autism.

The Work The theme we put forward centred on the “Abstractions” exhibition, which was set up in a museum space. The intervention would begin at the individual level and then develop a collective nature. Using a deck of cards designed for plastic creation as a vehicle for inspiration, each participant contributed with several works of art that together manifested the collective expression of abstraction. The deck was used as a tool to facilitate communication of feelings, providing a means of non-verbal communication. It comprised forty-four palm-sized cards. On one side, these contain paths, drawings, circles, scribbles and so on in black, white, blue, red and yellow, as well as open and abstract geometric shapes. The young people would play with the cards to form their own pictures, and to do so they would need to see their partner’s card and ask the partner to join them in linking the cards together and forming compositions as they pleased (pl. 52). The backs of the cards are simply black and white. The cards are made from a sturdy cardboard, meaning that they can be handled a great deal during this type of activity, and they are also pleasing to the eye. When the cards are put on a table, it is clear that there are many possibilities for playing that will lead to participants’ creation of their own artworks, ones that will be unique each time the deck is used. They allowed construction of a narrative and facilitated the group’s tour around the exhibition.

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Duration The intervention took place in a single session of four hours’ duration, including the preparation time and subsequent clear‑up. The effective duration of the time with the group was approximately two and a half hours. We believe that the space and time within which the intervention took place are an important structuring factor to be taken into account.

The Base Material Selected for Creativity In choosing the materials, the following criteria were prioritized: –– The desire for personal expression –– The consideration of possible limitations –– The goal of not giving priority to the technical over the expressive in order to prevent, from the outset, individuals’ feeling that they had failed or lacked skill. We made available markers, watercolour paint, tempera, wax crayons, papers of different kinds and a white support medium that was the same size for all participants.

Development of the Session The workshop was delivered under the supervision of a local artist who is involved in the summer course and specialists in autism conditions. The specialists were affiliated with the University of Salamanca and played a monitoring role throughout the intervention. The session started with the participants being greeted at entrance to the exhibition, where there is a large garden containing sculptures by Blanco, lawns and small water fountains that run across the garden. We then began to explain the aims of the intervention; we started by introducing the group to the space, its characteristics and the ways in which it can be enjoyed. We slowly passed through the first room, which leads to the museum’s learning workshop and exhibition hall (pl. 53), where participants were presented with the materials that they could work with. All this introductory ritual helped the participants to focus on the space that had been prepared to accommodate their creative process. At all times, the participants were accompanied by members of the team of monitors. After the participants had become familiar with the area where the materials were located, we moved on to the main hall, where the exhibition’s works were located. In the middle of this hall, the creativity deck was laid out on the floor. The tour around the room was conducted in an informal manner, in line with the preferences of the workshop participants, who at all times were able to speak so that they could express themselves and so that communication within the group would develop. At this point, we noticed that some of the participants were disoriented in this new space, but the monitors immediately introduced them to it and lent them support, thereby preventing the participants from retreating or rejecting the activity.

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Once everyone was oriented in an enjoyable manner and made aware that the space was their own, we presented the creativity deck and showed them the playful possibilities for linking the works from the exhibition with the deck, their lines, their colours and their shapes. Little by little, as the participants became aware of how the monitors were interacting, they began to take the initiative on their own, linking elements of the exhibition with the deck and building different compositions by combining the cards and their colours, lines and shapes. Throughout the process each participant was always spoken to by name. Based on the potential for creativity, participants had the option of beginning to create in the exhibition hall or in the workshop area. Each of them was provided with a blank sheet/card. According to their interests, and helped by the monitors, they would recall which works they liked the most and then be led to their favourite one, taking a series of cards that each of them had selected along with them. These were combined with a drawing or painting material so that they could begin creating a card of their own. The artist went through the different spaces and, with the monitors alongside him, made suggestions for visual responses in a spiral-bound notebook that he carried with him. This notebook was later given to the participants so that they could use it in their own creative activities, cutting and pasting bits of the notebook or even work directly over the artists’ responses. Little by little, the activity took shape, and sensory memory, movement, emotion and touch came together. At this point, the transition from the individual to the collective began, encouraged by the monitors as they worked with the participants. In this space of the unexpected there, emerged communication that was driven by the created materials. Links were formed between lines and expanses of colour, and graphical works became journeys with multiple possible destinations. Fleeting reminiscences emerged, and sensitivities often hidden by anguish and personal suffering were possibly even evoked. This symbolic space of painting and play was always distanced from reality so as to avoid anything too disturbing; the monitors supported the participants so that, where necessary, they were guided away from a destructive approach to a playful and creative one. As a product of the surprise effect of the interplay between the creativity and the interest taken by the group, participants gradually came to link their creations with those of other group members, thus encouraging communication and group work. A graphical and emotional patchwork for communication, thoughts and feelings progressively emerged through lines, colours and shapes. And alongside all this, the invited artist to the workshop guided the composition and the relationship between forms and lines, describing it aloud to share it with the participants and explain it to them. At all times the participants were encouraged along in their work, and they were invited to explore and communicate what they were doing and why they were doing it, as well as what they were feeling and thinking. As the session progressed and the group began to get comfortable, drawing and painting become catalysts for words. These words emerged from the creation that brought the participants together and went beyond artist/work and participant/therapist interactions. The group’s presence in the museum space and the spirit of play used as a guiding force enriched communication and made partici-

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pants outwardly express their sensations as they worked with the materials, turning them into creators and communicators. They were creators who looked at each other and at one another’s creations, feeling like one another’s collaborators and cocreators through what they communicated. It must also be stressed that during the workshop session, the room was open to the public, and the visitors who came in could interact with participants. This was a positive extra element that highlighted what we were doing and removed barriers to social participation. With this joint artwork ultimately being displayed in the exhibition, this reinforced their work and reaffirmed their communication with each other and with their families and surroundings, and it was fostered by the participants’ feeling capable and feeling that they were artists.

Discussion and Conclusions Art can serve as a vehicle for communication among people who have difficulties with the skills associated with this area. In the case of people with AS or HFA, conditions that some characterize as having a peculiar sensory profile, it can serve to let these individuals convey inner sensations via creation, where otherwise such displays would be more complex. Throughout the activity, and at the end of it, participants were asked to engage in introspection, something that is difficult for them owing to the abstraction involved and to the need for emotional and even empathetic engagement with the artist, skills that that this group lacks. These considerations meant that the workshop, with its creative nature, had a function of expression of emotion. Remarks made the by participants themselves. For example, that art is “excitement, freedom and pure expression, “a door that can lead to a thousand different worlds,” “a way to express many things in a single thing,” and “[something] that lets us show the world how we feel,” or that through it one can “express musicality and melodic rhythms” or “express your ideas and relax” indicate that the stated objectives were achieved. With the support of the images produced by the artist, and with tools such as the deck, the aim was to facilitate the expression and understanding of emotions not only on an individual basis, but also on a collective one, as well as for participants to feel at ease in themselves, project themselves among others and see that something that they had made was part of a larger whole. As we stated, these individuals often exhibit problems with central coherence. The intervention began as an individual exercise and then turned into group work that obtained a collective result, and so it helped participants to improve their skills in looking at things more broadly. Within the limits of time and the capabilities of each participant, we jointly produced an artwork that we cheerfully celebrated and that the museum hung in the exhibition hall, to the satisfaction and appreciation of all the participants. It remained on show throughout the week in which the course took place (pl. 54). The session ended with big smiles of satisfaction and a group photo. The work was signed as a confirmation and as a gesture of laying claim to it and of personal and collective satisfaction. It can be stated that although specific activities such as the one described here cannot be classed as therapy, they are initiatives that open up a world of possibilities and bring people into contact with new and undiscovered sensations. By extension, because art therapy provides peo-

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ple with autism a means of communication that does not use language, it can be a link between one’s inner thoughts and the surrounding world.26 In addition, the intervention allowed this group not only to have a presence in a museum but also, and more importantly, to enjoy their participation in community spaces, which were open to the public during the activity, raising awareness of and demystifying this group.

REFERENCES Alonso Peña, José Ramón, Autismo y Síndrome de Asperger. Guía para familiares, amigos y profesionales, Salamanca: Amarú, 2004. American Psychiatric Association (APA), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Mental Disorders (DSM‑IV), Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1994. American Psychiatric Association (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual: Mental Disorders (DSM V), Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 2014. Artigas-Pallarés, Josep and Isabel Paula-Pérez, Deconstruyendo a Kanner, in: Revista de Neurología 64, 2017, pp. 9–15. Asociación Profesional Española de Arteterapeutas, Arteterapia, www.arteterapia.org.es/que‑es-arteterapia (accessed February 25, 2019). Autismo Diario, http://autismodiario.org/2011/02/15/cual‑es-la-diferencia-entre-autismo‑de-alto funcionamiento‑y‑el-sindrome-asperger/ (accessed January 21, 2019). Bogdashina, Olga, Percepción sensorial en el autismo y síndrome de Asperger: experiencias sensoriales diferentes, mundos perceptivos diferentes, Ávila: Asociación Autismo Ávila, 2007. Diputación de Salamanca, Blanco, Venancio, 1923–2018, Salamanca: Diputación de Salamanca, 2018. Evans, Kathy, Art Therapy and the development of communicative abilities in children with autism, U. K.: University of Hertfordshire, 1997. Ghaziuddin, Mohammad, Brief report: Should the DSM V drop Asperger syndrome?, in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 40 (2010), pp. 1146–1148. Gómez Juarez, María Remedios, Arteterapia y Autismo: El desarrollo del arte en la escuela, in: Publicaciones Didácticas 69 (2016), pp. 31–48. Gould, Judith, Los cambios del nuevo DSM‑V y sus repercusiones en la actividad diaria de los profesionales sanitarios. XVII Congreso de AETAPI, http://aetapi.org/xvii-congreso-nacional‑de-autismo/ (accessed January 15, 2019). Happe, Francesca and Uta Frith, The weak coherence account: Detail-focused cognitive style in autism spectrum disorders, in: Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 36 (2006), pp. 5–25. Kaland, Nils, Brief report: Should Asperger syndrome be excluded from the forthcoming DSM‑V?, in: Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 5 (2011), pp. 984–989. Martínez Sanchis, Sonia, Papel de la corteza prefrontal en los problemas sensoriales de los niños con trastornos del espectro autista y su implicación en los aspectos sociales, in: Revista de neurología 60 (2015), pp. 19–24. O’Riordan, Michael, Kate Plaisted, Jon Driver and Simon Baron-Cohen, Superior visual search in autism, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Percepction & Performance 27 (2001), pp. 719–730.

26  María Remedios Gómez Juarez, “Arteterapia y Autismo: El desarrollo del arte en la escuela”, in: Publicaciones Didácticas 69 (2016), pp. 31–48, p. 37

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MARÍA VIC TORIA MARTÍN CILLEROS AND MIGUEL ELÍAS SÁNCHEZ SÁNCHEZ Schaaf, Roseann, Susan Toth-Cohen, Stéphanie L. Johnson, Gina Outten and Teal W. Benevides, The everyday routines of families of children with autism: examining the impact of sensory processing difficulties on the family, in: Autism 15 (2011), pp. 373–389. Wing, Lorna, Autistic spectrum disorders, in: British Medical Journal 312 (1996), pp. 327–328. María Victoria Martín Cilleros, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3599-5741 Miguel Elías Sánchez Sánchez, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7379-9509

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ALEXANDRA IRIMIA

MUSEUMS OF THE VOID The Exhibition Space as Empty Signifier

“Passing Planet 8989 on board of Starship Enterprise, Spock tells Captain Kirk that this very planet is made of Nothing, and its inhabitants are artists.” (Star Trek)

An empty exhibition is at once a claustrophobic and an infinite space. In the second half of the 20th century, after the progressive emptying of the canvas and the dematerialization of the work of art, it is the exhibition space itself that becomes an empty signifier. My paper will argue that empty galleries and museums are, however, much less a matter of absence than an instrument able to render visible the codes and conventions ruling the presentation of the artworks. An empty exhibition denies its very exhibitionality and refuses the instrumental logic that characterized it as a functional space. Now an a-functional space, the gallery is no longer a place for art, but it validates itself as an artwork on its own right.1 Exhibiting nothing is not a simple task. On the occasion of such events, invitations are sent, manifestos are published, posters and articles warn the public that nothing is going on at a designated place and at a specific time. The artwork moves from inside the exhibition space towards peripheral elements. This movement of displacement is in itself a process of emptying out a signifier. In the following pages, a set of examples drawn from the conceptual and contemporary art scene will help us investigate how the exhibition space can make use of or be turned into empty signifiers. A first section in this article will present a series of considerations on the aesthetics of absence and voids in the realm of visual arts. Subsequently, the second section seeks to clarify the theoretical development and the critical underpinnings of the concept of empty signifier, instrumental for our present analysis. This brief, yet necessary semiotic introduction will be followed by an inventory of several landmark uses of empty signifiers in the artistic practice of the second half of the 20th century, in the European and American artworld. Then, the 1  A modified version of this article has been previously published in a volume presenting the results of a collective research project conducted at the University of Bucharest by a team investigating contemporary regimes of the figure; for bibliographical reference: Alexandra Irimia, Figural Voids: Empty Signifiers and Other Figures of Absence, in: Laura Marin and Anca Băicoianu (eds.), Working through the Figure: Theory, Practice, Method, Bucharest: Editura Universității din București (Bucharest University Press), 2018, pp. 63–102. Drafted before the presentation of this paper at the international conference the “Limits of the Art in the Museum” in November 2017 in Madrid, my contribution to the volume discusses a wider range of figures of absence. For the present volume, I have selected and revised the sections treating empty signifiers as figures of absence in visual arts and associated curatorial practices.

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fourth section investigates how with Yves Klein’s provocative curatorial gestures in the 1950 s in Paris, the exhibition space becomes a signifier in itself and becomes prone to being emptied out and overemphasized through radical dematerialization.

The Aesthetics of Absence and Void in Visual Arts Most attempts to investigate the scope, practice and methods of representing absence will usually reveal the inherent contradictions that stem from the fact that representation is, implies and demands a certain degree of presence, being it material or immaterial. Our discussion here makes no exception to this general rule. Let us begin by a common paradox, which becomes immediately apparent in the proximity of such works: the representation of absence turns, in its most radical form, into an absence of representation (or, on the contrary, in its excesses, in the mode of overabundance). Referring to multiple aesthetics built around horror vacui (Baroque or Islamic art, to give only two common examples), French critic Jean-Pierre Mourey points out that the awareness of an absence does not necessarily lead to material manifestations of emptiness, silence, void, nothingness and, broadly speaking, to what we have elsewhere called a “figural void”.2 On the contrary, it might just as well trigger an infinite proliferation of figures, a swirl of numbing appearances, a staged yet unstable excess of figuration.3 Perhaps due to these extreme, polarized tendencies, the strongest effects of absence are those created when the central figure of the lack is supplemented by a certain staging, a careful (yet minimal) mise en scène. In his article La tabula rasa ou le vide de la peinture, Maurice Frechuret also validates this view, speaking about “des mises en scène où les figures de l’absence se mettent en place, jamais frontalement, […] mais dans des images progressives et elliptiques où les effets suggestifs sont souvent plus convaincants que la visibilité pure.”4 Let us offer just one example. Yves Klein’s empty exhibition called La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état de matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée opened in Paris in 1958 at Galérie Iris Clert. It was by no means a careless enterprise, even if it consisted of nothing but a white, empty room. The walls had been painted by the artist himself, witty invitations had been 2  Irimia 2018 (as fn. 1), p. 4: “a space of indeterminacy capable of hosting all potentialities while actualizing none. However, just like the typographic blanks separating and inhabiting, even written words, the emptiness implied by the figural void is a pre-requisite condition of representation.” 3  Jean-Pierre Mourey (ed.), Figurations de l’absence. Recherches esthétiques, Saint-Étienne: Université de Saint-Étienne, Travaux LX. Centre Interdisciplinaire d’Études et de Recherches sur l’Expression Contemporaine (CIEREC), 1987, p. 7: “La conscience du manque (manque d’une vérité salvatrice, d’un socle, d’un fondement) n’entraîne pas pour autant le silence, le vide. Elle peut susciter un tourbillonnement de figures, des redoublements vertigineux: la prolifération des arabesques, la spirale des volutes, l’enfilade des masques cachent le vide, le rien. La scénographie de l’excès, la théâtralisation de la mise en abîme, les métamorphoses et les ambivalences déploient leur faste. Dans son Anthologie de la poésie baroque française, Jean Rousset note cette proximité: de la conscience du vide naît le besoin de l’illusion, de l’inconstance des choses, le goût du décor, du déguisement. […] Ainsi, quand l’expérience intérieure est l’intuition de l’inconstance, du peu de poids des choses, d’une vacuité, l’une des attitudes éthiques, esthétiques est de jouer de l’illusion, de redoubler celle‑ci. Une autre stratégie serait le dénuement, le silence, l’effacement de soi.” 4  Maurice Frechuret, La tabula rasa ou le vide de la peinture, in: Mourey (as fn. 3), p. 111.

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sent, blue cocktails had been served at a blue entrance. The immaterial works on display (bits of Klein’s pictorial sensibility, as he insisted to call them) were sold for gold or simply taken away, impregnated in the clothes of visitors who had to pay as much as 1,500 francs to see them. They are all blind!, Klein used to say in disdain about those who complained about having nothing to see in his fully void exhibit.5 But there was more than just nothing to see, for the matter of nothingness is more complex than that. In Gaston Bachelard’s words: “There is an imaginary beyond, a pure beyond, one without a within. First there is nothing, then there is a deep nothing, then there is a blue depth.”6 The reader will recognize more examples of going against the deceiving simplicity of “The Big Nothing”7 in the following sections dedicated to the curatorial potential of the figures of absence. The figurations of absence are, therefore, endowed with a rhetoric and a topology of their own. Nevertheless, the resulting regime of figuration is not to be mistaken for a regime of representation: the difference between the two would be that while figuration refers to the articulation of the figures, representation implies a more or less transparent strategy of mimesis, a certain repetition and reproducibility.8 According to Mourey, the work of figuring absence, namely, articulating figures that signify absence and render it perceptible, is a work of staging, a way of keeping it at a distance through subtle effects that replace, with a stronger impact, the usual inventory of signs explicitly gravitating around the idea of absence (deserted or abandoned places, graves, ruins).9 Mourey’s hypothesis is based on examples drawn from Romantic or modern paintings (Caspar David Friedrich, De Chirico), but its relevance is broader and exceeds the margins of the canvas. One may recognize it in the words of Maurice Blanchot, who refers to the same effect of necessary distancing when exploring the poetic possibilities of grasping absence: “We see clearly, then, why poetic language can revive things and, translating them in space, make them apparent through their distancing and their emptiness: it is because this distance lives in them, this emptiness is already in them; thus it is right to grasp them, and thus

5  “Ils sont tous aveugles!” (Yves Klein, Vers l’immatériel, Paris: Éditions Dilecta. 2006, p. 22). 6  Gaston Bachelard, The Blue Sky, in: Air and Dreams, An Essay on the Imagination of Movement, translated by E. R. and C. F. Farrell, Dallas: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1988 [1943], pp. 167–168. 7  The Big Nothing is the name of a “major group exhibition on exploring themes of nothing and nothingness in contemporary art” curated by Ingrid Schaffner, Bennett Simpson, and Tanya Leighton. The exhibition was open between May 1st and August 1st 2004 at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Arts and it included over sixty artists’ works from the 1970 s to the 2000 s, http://icaphila.org/exhibitions/1770/the-bignothing (accessed May 5, 2018). 8  This distinction between figuration and representation belongs to the same Mourey (as fn. 3), p. 11. 9  Ibid., p. 33: “Tout autrement, certaines peintures mettent en scène l’absence. Elles produisent (pro-ducere) un effet d’éloignement, de défection ou de manque. Celui‑ci ne résulte pas d’une figure, d’un détail nommables, localisables. L’impression d’absence naît d’un je ne sais quoi qui est l’effet de l’ensemble du dispositif pictural, d’une scénographie. La peinture de De Chirico, de Friedrich serait fastidieuse si elle se réduisait à un catalogue de signes de l’absence: places vides, fenêtres fermées, roulottes abandonnées pour le premier, ruines, tombeaux, bateaux échoués, arbres morts pour le second. La désolation et le vertige du vide, chez Friedrich, naissent du télescopage d’un plan proche (avec ou sans personnage) et d’un plan lointain. Les plans intermédiaires sont supprimés.”

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it is the calling of words to extract the invisible center of their actual meaning.”10 Or, several paragraphs earlier: […] that ability to represent by absence, and to manifest by distance, which is at the center of art, an ability that seems to distance things in order to say them, to keep them apart so that they can be illumined, a capability of transformation, translation, in which it is this very apartness (space) that transforms and translates, that makes invisible things visible and visible things transparent, thus makes itself visible in them and is revealed as the luminous he art of invisibility and unreality from which everything comes, and where everything is completed.11

Maurice Blanchot situates the figurations of absence at the crossroads of language and the realm of visibility. In a similar gesture, Mourey acknowledges that this ontologically unstable concept is, quite transparently, as much a matter of writing as it is one of sight.12 Moreover, not only that the figuration of absence transcends the limits of a single medium; it even goes beyond the linguistic and the visual and proves to be a more extensive phenomenon. When speaking about figures of absence and figural voids, this material inconsistency extends to the conceptual realm and contaminates it. The figural escapes the process of signification. So why should we, then, return to semiotics and adopt this (seemingly) new term, the empty signifier? The answer attempted here implies that, in a sense wider than the strictly semiotic one, the empty signifier may be conceived as a birthplace of figures of absence, as the fertile, all-encompassing void and potentially infinite space allowing the existence of free-floating paradoxical manifestations of the figural. Moreover, the figures of absence considered so far are, to a certain extent, either medium-specific or prisoners to a given paradigm (absence is always transitive, an absence of something). The empty signifier, as conceived in the following pages, achieves this infinite potentiality due to its suitability for a transmedial approach, inevitable in modern curatorial practice.

Introducing Empty Signifiers The theoretical history of the empty signifier begins with Claude Lévi-Strauss, who forges the term in his Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss (1950). According to Strauss, an empty (or floating)

10  Maurice Blanchot, The Book to Come, translated by Charlotte Mandell, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003 [1959], p. 58. 11 Ibid., p. 56. 12  Mourey (as fn. 3), pp. 41–42: “La figuration de l’absence dans du visible, sa visualisation, ne sont pas une opération simple dès lors, mais un redoublement entre le dire et le voir. Ce qui se donne à voir dans une peinture a certes son propre ordre spatial, architectonique, mais en même temps, comme telle ou telle description littéraire, ce qui s’y figure est d’ores et déjà du discours (un certain discours sur le sujet humain, sur l’être du monde). […] L’étude des figurations de l’absence permet de repérer des points nodaux, éléments communs au discours philosophique et à l’image littéraire, picturale. […] les éléments qui s’imposent comme déterminants dans les figurations de l’absence appartiennent à la fois à l’ordre du discours et du voir. Dans la dialectique de la présence et de l’absence, ils s’altèrent, s’inversent, se métamorphosent.”

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signifier, he uses the adjectives interchangeably, is “an undetermined quantity of signification, in itself void of meaning and thus apt to receive any meaning.”13 The fact that it has zero symbolic value allows the empty signifier to receive any symbolic value, while preserving none. In a sense, it may be described as an empty screen upon which any image may be projected, but which, at the end of the projections, remains perfectly white. In Semiotics: The Basics, Daniel Chandler defines the term as follows: Many postmodernist theorists postulate a complete disconnection of the signifier and the signified. An empty or floating signifier is variously defined as a signifier with a vague, highly variable, unspecifiable or non-existent signified. Such signifiers mean different things to different people: they may stand for many or even any signifieds; they may mean whatever their interpreters want them to mean. In such a state of radical disconnection between signifier and signified, a sign only means that it means. Such a disconnection is perhaps clearest in literary and aesthetic texts which foreground the act and form of expression and undermine any sense of a natural or transparent connection between a signifier and a referent.14

An empty signifier would be, therefore, a semiotic space upon which any meaning may be projected, but which resists all fixed attribution of meaning, for its signified is either absent or repressed. This definition may rightfully bring to the reader’s mind Roland Barthes’ concept of degree zero,15 the starting point for his more extensive description of the neutral as a category in itself. Or, to put it differently, the empty signifier is a meta-sign, functioning both internally, within the work, as a sign among signs, and externally, outside of it, as an organizing principle of all the other signs of its system. In Brian Rotman’s words, “a meta-sign whose meaning is to indicate, via a syntax which arrives with it, the absence of certain other signs.”16 One important question arises concerning the use of empty signifiers and it is addressed by Ernesto Laclau in his famous essay Why Do Empty Signifiers Matter to Politics. How would it be possible, he asks, that a signifier not attached to any signified may still remain part of a system of signification? In short, his answer is that: We do not have to deal with an excess or deficiency of signification, but with the precise theoretical possibility of something which points, from within the process of signification, to the discursive presence of its own limits. An empty signifier can, consequently, only emerge if there is a structural impossibility in signification as such, and only if this impossibility can signify itself as a distortion of the structure of the sign. That is, the limits of signification can only announce themselves as the impossibility of realizing what is within those limits.17

He continues, explaining how these specific “signifiers of pure cancellation of all differences”18 may exist inside a system of signification which is, by its very nature, differential: “there can be empty signifiers within the field of signification because any system of signification is structured 13  Claude Lévi-Strauss, Introduction à l’œuvre de Marcel Mauss, in: Mauss, Sociologie et Anthropologie, Paris: P. U. F., 1950, p. 43. 14  Daniel Chandler, Semiotics: The Basics, London: Routledge, 2007, p. 78. 15  Roland Barthes, Le Degré zéro de l’écriture, Paris: Seuil, 1972 [1953]. 16  Brian Rotman, Signifying Nothing: The Semiotics of Zero, New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1987, p. 1. 17  Ernesto Laclau, Why Do Empty Signifiers Matter to Politics, in: Emancipation(s), London: Verso Books, 1995, p. 306. 18  Ibid., p. 307.

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around an empty place resulting from the impossibility of producing an object which, nonetheless, is required by the systematicity of the system.”19 We shall give just one example: in his book The Invisible Masterpiece,20 the art critic and historian Hans Belting postulates that, if we think of the system of the arts, this impossible object, at once responsible from the systematicity of the system and absent from it, would be the absolute masterpiece. The eternal and unattainable ideal of the masterpiece and the will to create it are the principles that hold all forms of art together as a system; the masterpiece is, so to speak, their reason to exist, but its very existence is entirely impossible. Why? Because the production of such an absolute work would lead to the end of all work; further artistic effort would be rendered worthless and useless, given that perfection has already been achieved. As such, the masterpiece becomes an empty signifier which, showing itself through the very impossibility of its adequate representation, is perhaps the most radical figure of absence. The invisibility that Hans Belting refers to does not point exclusively to its lack of visual consistency. On the contrary, it is the symptom of a wider absence, a constitutive lack that is central for the existence of any work just as the vanishing point, an infinitesimal space impossible to locate, is both central to and absent from the picture. The experience of the ever vain attempt to fix it is described by Georges Perec in a book written almost entirely in figures of absence, La Disparition (A Void): “Staring at his rug in this way starts grating on Vowl, who, a victim of optical illusions, of sly tricks that his imagination is playing on him, starts to fancy that a focal point is at long last within his grasp, though just as it’s about to solidify it sinks again into a void.”21 In a very insightful comparison of the emergence of the vanishing point in Renaissance art and of zero in mathematics, Brian Rotman remarks: What is exceptional about the vanishing point in relation to other locations within the picture is its dual semiotic character. Like zero it plays a very specific double role. Internally, as a sign among signs, it acts as a depictive sign on the same plane as other such signs. Accordingly, like them it represents a definite location within the real physical scene witnessed through the window frame; a location that by being infinitely far in the distance, however, is unoccupiable by a person or indeed any physical object. Externally, the vanishing point is in a meta-linguistic relation to these signs, since its function is to organize them into a coherent unified image. Its meaning, in other words, can only be retrieved from the process of depiction itself, from the way the original subjective act of witnessing is represented via the rules of perspective as an image addressed to a spectator. One can observe how the vanishing point functions as a visual zero, facilitating the generation of an infinity of perspective images as zero generates an infinity of Hindu numerals.22

This conception of the void attaches it to the principle of a series: the zero quantity in the decimal system, the zero phoneme in linguistics, the mana in cosmologic systems that Lévi-Strauss takes as an example of floating signifiers. They all show how the void appears only inside a system, within which it fulfills a certain (essential) function. The empty set is still a set and, as Lacan put

19  Ibid., p. 306. 20  Hans Belting, The Invisible Masterpiece, translated by Helen Atkins, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. 21  Georges Perec, A Void, translated by Gilbert Adair, London: Harvill, 1994 [1969], p. 6. 22  Rotman (as fn. 16), p. 19.

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it, “un sac vide reste un sac” (“an empty bag is still a bag”).23 No matter how empty, the empty signifier cannot exist outside of a system of signification. This is what differentiates it from the void: “The problem with voids is that they should have no dimension. As soon as you put them into something, whether it’s a bottle or a gallery, a book, a museum, they have a volume and context which defeats their voidness. The true void, the true nothing cannot be conceived, it cannot be seen or imagined or thought about or written about – we don’t even know if it can exist or not. It just is. Or, it just is not.”24 What leads to the emptying of the signifier is the collapse of its system of differences, the identity loss that allows for its absolute mobility and, thus, turns it into a “nonsignifying sign”. As Deleuze and Guattari put it: The deterritorialized flows of content and expression are in a state of conjunction or reciprocal precondition that constitutes figures as the ultimate units of both content and expression. These figures do not derive from a signifier nor are they even signs as minimal elements of the signifier; they are nonsigns, or rather nonsignifying signs […] that form images through their coming together in a whole, but that do not maintain any identity when they pass from one whole to another […].25

Therefore, the empty signifier is an essential prerequisite for the formation of any figure. Most of the time it remains latent and invisible; however, if it may sometimes arise within the field of signification, it is precisely because of the central emptiness both required and implied by the systematicity of any system of signification. We have already mentioned this when discussing Laclau’s essay.26 This empty core stands at the very center of our interest and analysis of the exhibition space. The collapse of all differential identities is fundamental for the paradoxical curatorial figure of empty art galleries and museums. Empty signifiers may take the shape of monochromes and other figures of framed absence, while conceptual artworks staring into the abyss of nothingness and void lead the way to emptying even the most unexpected signifiers, such as the gallery space (exemplified, but not limited to the white cube or the black box models) or museums as a whole.

Framed Absence in the Museum “I paint the impossibility of painting.” (Bram van Velde)27

In 1955, Yves Klein submitted an orange monochrome to the jury of Salon des Réalités Nouvelles. It provoked, indeed, the indignation he had counted on. The jurors asked him to add something to the uninflicted canvas, no matter how little (a form, a shade, a gesture) so that it would meet 23  Jacques Lacan, Le sinthome, in: Le Séminaire, Livre XXIII, Paris: Seuil, 2005, p. 18. 24  Jon Hendricks, Nothing, in: John Armleder, Mathieu Copeland, Gustav Metzger, Mai-Thu Perret and Clive Phillpot (eds.), Vides. Une rétrospective, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, and Bern: Kunsthalle, 2009, p. 514. 25  Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translated by Robert Hutley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000 [1972], p. 241. 26  Laclau (as fn. 17), p. 308. 27  Charles Juliet (ed.), Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde, London: First Dalkey Archive edition, 2009, p. 62.

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the minimum expectation they had as to what a “painting” should look like. He turned down their offer, claiming that the work is in its final form. To produce the same effect, this section might have just as well opened with a reference to Malevitch’s squares, to the monochromes signed by Ad Reinhardt, Frank Stella, Jules Olitski, Robert Rauschenberg, Imi Knoebel, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, or the Gutai artists. The choice would make little difference, even though each artist had its own specific motivation for creating paintings that are neither figurative, not abstract, but simply evade any sense of composition and get as close as possible to the visual representation of a figural void. Some of them put forward an aesthetic of obliteration and vacuity, others think of the void as a space of freedom or, under the influence of Zen Buddhism and its 18 different kinds of void,28 think of emptiness as an empty space full of potential. The contrasting views of their creators put monochromes in a permanent play of identity and non-identity, limitation and transcendence, negativity and positivity. In a letter to Betty Parsons, Robert Rauschenberg writes about his White painting [three panel]: They are not Art because they take you to a place in painting art has not been […]. They are large white (1 white as 1 God) canvases organized and selected with the experience of time and presented with the innocence of a virgin. Dealing with the suspense, excitement and body of an organic silence, the restriction and freedom of absence, the plastic fullness of nothing, the point a circle begins and ends, they are a natural response to the current pressures of the faithless and a promoter of intuitional optimism. It is completely irrelevant that I am making them-Today is their creator.29

Aware of the inner contradictions in his recent works, Rauschenberg’s words are also relevant for having anchored a figure of absence into the present, a present that even takes on the functions of the author. In this respect, his white canvases resemble John Cage’s 4'33, the non-silent silence made up of the surrounding sounds of each of its performances. The work, painted or musical composition, becomes more dependent on its present and on its surroundings than on its author. In contrast, Max Beckmann sees no trace of intuitional optimism in monochromes, but an exposure of the primal vacuum that human nature tries to cover and escape: “[T]his unending void whose foreground we constantly have to fill with stuff of some sort in order not to notice its horrifying depth. Whatever we poor humans do if we did not create some such idea as nation, love, art with which to cover the black hole a little from time to time. This boundless forsaken eternity.”30 It is not our purpose here to rewrite a chronology or to remake an inventory of empty canvases, for that has already been done in several books31 and exhibitions.32 Instead, we mention 28  Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, New York, Toronto: Rider and Company, 1953. 29  Robert Rauschenberg’s letter to Betty Parsons, October 18, 1951, in: Walter Hopps, Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950 s, Houston: Houston Fine Art Press, 1991, p. 230. 30  As quoted in Robert Storr, Burnt Holes and Bloody Holes, Art After Catastrophe, in: Paul Schimmel (ed.), Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void 1949–1962, New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012, p. 241. 31  Schimmel 2012 (as fn. 30); Iwona Blazwick (ed.), Adventures of the Black Square. Abstract Art and Society 1915–2015, London: Prestel Verlag, 2015; Lucy R. Lippard, The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 [1973], California: University of California Press, 1997. 32  We have already mentioned The Big Nothing (ICA Philadelphia, 2004). Other related retrospectives: Nothing Exhibition (signed by Graham Stevens, 1984), Nichts (Nothings, Schirn Kunsthalle, 2006), Cancelled, Erased,

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them in their quality of empty signifiers endowed with figural force, in the sense advanced by Philippe Dubois.33 Monochromes leave the viewer puzzled by the elegance of the naked picture plane, or feeling tricked by its austerity. They designate not only the refusal of representation, but also of spectatorial recognition. According to Dubois, in the figural logic, shock is followed by a rupture, and one may rightfully wonder how and where can there be a rupture in the perfect, uninterrupted homogeneity of the canvas. To find out the answer we go once again back to Blanchot, in Literature and the Original Experience, as interpreted by Dora Vallier,34 subsequently quoted by Thomas McDonough: “The impersonal artwork appeared, in contrast, precisely because of ’a break in the circuit of usage, a gap, an anomaly’ that marked it off from the rationalized world of use and significance. It instead was an event taking place ‘in that anterior region which we cannot designate except under the veil of no’, […] ’a region where impossibility is no longer deprivation, but affirmation’.”35 A pictorial exorcism of figuration, the monochrome is the degree zero of painting, nothingness as a counterpart of representation. There is no exit from and no entry in the canvas; no journey,36 but a blank stare on a surface that may be simultaneously “read” in any way and in no way, that may be a metaphysical statement37 or the lazy work of a dilettante. Borrowing Andy Warhol’s famous statement, the empty canvas says about itself: “I am deeply superficial.” However, empty signifiers in painting may get even more deeply superficial than that. Empty frames, for example, have been around at least since 1883, when Mey-Sonier exposed his Tableau d’à venir at the Salon des Arts Incohérents.38 True to the indeterminacy of the future and anticipating in its and Removed (New York, 2008), Vides. Une rétrospective (Centre Georges Pompidou, Kunsthalle Bern, 2009), Le Musée qui n’existait pas (Centre Georges Pompidou, 2010). Individual exhibitions: Au-delà de signes (Mathieu Grenier); May I help you? (Andrea Fraser); Tomorrow Is Another Fine Day (A Retrospective) – Rirkrit Tiravanjia, 2004–2005; Il Vuoto / The Void (Emilio Prini, Rome, 2007); Air (Fia Backstrom, MoMA, 2009); The Work of Art Is Nothing (Jan Håfström, Galleri Andersson/Sandström, Stockholm, 2015). 33  Philippe Dubois, La question du figural, in: Pierre Taminiaux and Claude Murcia (eds.), Cinéma, Art(s) plastique(s), Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004. 34  Dora Vallier, Abstract Art, translated by Jonathan Griffin, New York: The Orion Press, 1970, p. 138. 35  Tom McDonough, The Mercurial Monochrome, or the Nihilation of Geometric Abstraction, in: Blazwick 2015 (as fn. 31), p. 249. The Blanchot quotations in the text are taken from The Space of Literature, translated by Ann Smock, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982, pp. 222–223. 36  Kenneth White, La Figure du dehors, Paris: Grasset, 1982, p. 230: “Dans le Bouddhisme, personne ne va nulle part, puisque la ‘personne’ n’existe pas, et que le monde étant un tout, on ne peut aller ‘nulle part’. Il s’agit seulement d’être pleinement au monde, un monde vide de distinctions, un monde blanc. Vivre et voyager aussi c’est suivre le chemin du vide.” 37  Michel de Certeau, L’Extase blanche, in: La Faiblesse de croire, Paris: Seuil, 1987, p. 315: “Voir Dieu c’est finalement ne rien voir, c’est ne percevoir aucune chose particulière, c’est participer à une visibilité universelle qui ne comporte plus le découpage de scènes singuliers, multiples, fragmentaires et mobiles dont sont faites nos perceptions.” 38  At the same Salon, a generation before Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square, the French humorist Alphonse Allais presented a series of monochromes, accompanied with brief descriptive texts that entered a witty dialogue with the indeterminacy of the image. In a sense, these associations denounce the arbitrariness with which signifieds may be attributed to empty signifiers, without chasing away their indeterminacy. Some

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title Blanchot’s Book to Come (Le Livre à venir), the frame is a figural void in the sense that it has not been put on display for itself (a wooden, decorative object), but for the emptiness it manages to grasp. This very modern (and very early) gesture of defiance touches upon the furthermost limits authorized by painting as a medium, pointing to the void behind the image (just as many decades afterwards Lucio Fontana’s cuts disclosed the indiscernible void beyond the canvas), to the radical logic of the medium is the message. In Ernesto Laclau’s words: “As, however, all the means of representation are differential in nature, it is only if the differential nature of the signifying units is subverted, only if the signifiers empty themselves of their attachment to particular signifieds and assume the role of representing the pure being of the system – or, rather, the system as pure Being – that such a signification is possible.”39 The gesture has been repeated many times ever since, to the point of becoming a cliché in the imaginary of the modern crisis of representation. There is a famous photograph of Mona Lisa’s empty place on the wall in 1911, after being stolen by Vincenzo Perrugia. Of course, it is not by accident that the photograph now lays on the front cover of Hans Belting’s Invisible Masterpiece. The Louvre hosted many more, but less known artful absences in 1942, when Paul Almàsy had photographed the empty frames of tens of artworks evacuated from the Louvre to prevent war damages. One could hear here the echoes of Anne Cauquelin’s analysis of displacement as a figure of the void.40 Arnulf Rainer exhibits, under the title of Empty painting, another such frame in 1951. Subsequently, multiple variations follow and they are mostly playing with the arrangement of multiple empty frames: Robert Filliou in 1969 (Untitled), Roland Sabatier in 1965 (Ensemble d’oeuvres infinitésimales, 19 wooden frames), Hans Haacke in 2006 (For real), and Jil Weinstock in 2008 (Green Frame Tableau). The next step is deconstructing the frame itself, as Christian Eckart does in 1990 his White Painting no. 617, or Esther Ferrer’s mise en abîme in Cadre qui encadre cadre, qui encadre cadre qui encadre cadre, qui encadre rien, literally “frame framing frame framing frame framing frame framing nothing” (2008). Leaving the exhibition space (but really not quite), Hungarian conceptual artist Endre Tót prints a volume of drawings of empty frames, tableaux à venir (My Unpainted Canvases, 1971). In 1974, he fills some more empty frames with dark monochromes, this time, copying the shape of frames in several rooms of the National Gallery, and gathers them in a volume called Night Visit to the National Gallery.41 In 2010, Swedish artist Klara Lidén covered in white paint piles of street posters, thus canceling their visual charge, yet leaving the messy margins function at some sort of a frame and reminder that figuration is hidden under the paint. On the other hand, a figural void may enter a conventional picture and present itself simultaneously as a more or less violent interruption in the logic of the image, and as a sign among signs. Anna Parkina’s collages in the On series (2006) do just that: they disrupt pre-existing figures

examples of Allais paintings include Récolte de la tomate par des cardinaux apoplectiques au bord de la mer Rouge (red monochrome, 1884), or Première communion de jeunes filles chlorotiques par temps de neige (white monochrome, 1883). 39  Laclau (as fn. 17), p. 308. 40  Anne Cauquelin, Fréquenter les incorporels. Contribution à une théorie de l’art contemporain, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2006. 41  Endre Tót, Night Visit to the National Gallery, Devon: Beau Geste Press, 1974.

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by inserting interstices of impossible figuration. The empty signifier becomes, thus, a meta-sign, in the sense used by Brian Rotman. A figural void may be visually instrumented in other ways, too: in Seven Rotations (1979), Dora Maurer chooses to spin it in a mise en abîme that progressively destroys its unity and, therefore, diminishes its figural power. The artist, whose portrait suffers the same treatment as the small white piece of paper signifying nothing, seems to be teaching a true lesson on “how to disarm a void in seven easy steps”. Brazilian neo-concretist Hélio Oiticica appears to know this lesson. In his 1958 series Metaesquema, he fragments the monochrome void and re‑arranges the pieces freely, building rhythms and patterns out of empty signifiers.

Museums and Galleries as Figures of Absence In 1958, the year of Yves Klein’s exhibition of invisible “stabilized pictorial sensibility in a pure state”, Robert Barry filled an otherwise empty gallery with radio waves. The resulting exhibition was called Carrier Wave. In 1969, he did the same invisible filling of an otherwise empty room with small, imperceptible doses of radiations. The resulting site-specific work was titled 0.5 Microcurie Radiation Installation. Two years before, in a similar vein and following the Art & Language group’s belief that the work of art is not determined by its materiality or visibility, but by its ability of being thought, Terry Atkinson and Michael Baldwin had set up The Air-Conditioning Show at the Visual Arts Gallery in New York. The show consisted, as the title suggests, in the imperceptible flow of air in an empty gallery. Still, in these three examples, the curatorial space was not entirely empty. They were far from perfect vacuums, since the rooms were filled with air, sound waves, and radiations. At this point, a question imposes itself: how permeable is the emptiness of an empty gallery? In 1993, Bethan Huws inaugurates her Haus Ester Piece, an exhibition showing an empty Haus Ester Museum in Krefeld. It is worth mentioning that the museum was built by Mies van der Rohe near his other creation, Haus Lange, which hosts a white empty room exhibited as such by Yves Klein back in the 1950 s. Huws’ belief was that any addition to van der Rohe’s perfect structure would have ruined it, and so, just like Bartleby the Scrivener, she preferred not to. But where is the line, then, that differentiates Huws’ work from van der Rohe’s? Critics wondered again: how far can this gesture of artistic abdication go? In a certain sense, Mathieu Copeland argues, an empty exhibition is the most honest thing an artist can do.42 By this logic, Swiss artist Urs Fischer was more than honest when he did not content himself with simply emptying Gavin Brown’s Enterprise Gallery in Chelsea, and proceeded to jackhammer an 8‑foot deep crater in the floor. The 2007 installation, called You, is yet another play with the limits of emptiness: a sculpture in the white cube, challenging its almost hallucinatory capacity of being absent. Less radical, Maria Eichorn exhibited works such as White room with a view from a window (1990) and Wall without an image (1991). In 1969, American artist Robert Smithson drew the sketch of a true Museum of the Void. The fantasy of a museum of the ultimate, absolute void had paradoxically become materialized, even

42  Copeland (as fn. 24), p. 130.

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if only in pencil on paper. According to the author, such an architectural piece is needed because every other museum is a museum of multiple voids, anyway: Visiting a museum is a matter of going from void to void. Hallways lead the viewer to things once called pictures and statues. Anachronisms hang and protrude from every angle. Themes without meaning press on the eye. Multifarious nothings permute into false windows (frames) that open up into a variety of blanks. Stale images cancel one’s perception and deviate one’s motivation. Blind and senseless, one continues wandering around the remains of Europe, only to end in that massive deception, ‘the art history of the recent past’. Brain drain leads to eye drain, as one’s sight defines emptiness by blankness. Sightings fall like heavy objects from one’s eyes. Sight becomes devoid of sense, or the sight is there, but the sense is unavailable. Many try to hide this perceptual falling out by calling it abstract. Abstraction is everybody’s zero but nobody’s nought. Museums are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum. Painting, sculpture and architecture are finished, but the art habit continues. Art settles into a stupendous inertia. Silence supplies the dominant chord. Bright colors conceal the abyss that holds the museum together. Every solid is a bit of clogged air or space. Things flatten and fade. The museum spreads its surfaces everywhere, and becomes an untitled collection of generalizations that mobilize the eye.43

Exhibiting nothing is not a simple task. On the occasion of such event, invitations are sent,44 manifestos are published,45 posters and articles46 warn the public that nothing is going on at a designated place and at a specific time. Sometimes, all the material proof of the artwork is a sign on the gallery’s door, reading the message “During the exhibition, the gallery will be closed” (Robert Barry, 1969). The artwork moves from inside the exhibition space toward peripheral elements and is sometimes exclusively reduced to paraphernalia and merchandise. This movement of displacement creates and shapes a void at the very heart of the curatorial practice. As stated at the beginning of this essay, an empty exhibition is at once a claustrophobic and infinite space (in the sense that the vanishing point is one such space, too). For this reason, it becomes subject to the same risk of falling into derision we have witnessed when discussing the monochromes: What makes sense in an empty gallery is precisely what doesn’t make sense anywhere else. And mainly for the same reason, this theory does not provide any means to escape from the limits of ‘artistic freedom’ which guarantee the possibility of a critique while also allowing for a compromise; instead, it abolishes the value of art as a function of individuality, by reducing all radical stance to what Adorno called ’a clown’s act’.47

43  Jack Flam (ed.), Robert Smithson: The Collected Works, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996, p. 42. 44  For his 1958 empty exhibition in Paris, Yves Klein sent invitations written in Braille, claiming that the visitors cannot see anything because they are blind. 45  Piero Manzoni, Manifesto Against Nothing for the International Exhibition of Nothing, 1960. 46  Boris Lurie and Sam Goodman advertised their exhibition called No Art promising that this exhibition will “show everything”. It never opened. The Air Conditioning Show also began as a text and drawing circulating in the art world of New York. In 1967 Robert Smithson decided to publish it in the reputed Arts Magazine in the November issue, and it has been enacted multiple times ever since. 47  Buchler (as fn. 24), p. 455: “Ce qui fait sens dans une galerie vide est précisément ce qui ne fait pas sens partout ailleurs. Et largement pour la même raison, cette théorie ne fournit aucun moyen d’échapper aux limites de la ‘liberté artistique’ qui garantit la possibilité d’une critique tout en assurant un compromis, pas plus qu’elle n’abolit l’estimation de la valeur de l’art comme fonction de l’individualité, réduisant toute prise de position radicale à ce qu’Adorno appelait ‘un acte de clown’.” (Translated by the author).

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Let us conclude with a brief observation on this word (act) the implications of which are not without importance here. It points toward the performative dimension of empty signifiers, which is not to be neglected in neither museums filled with various, intermedial forms of voids and absences, nor in empty galleries. Such curatorial forms of empty signifiers are not fixed, stable structures, but events that take place inside a system and create non-conventional experiences for the public which they confront in protest or, on the contrary, side with in order to denounce the old-fashioned conventions of the exhibition space and to engage in institutional critique. Despite its static appearance, the curatorial usage of empty signifiers implies a fold, a self-reflexive gesture, a working of the system (of public art) upon itself.

REFERENCES Armleder, John, Mathieu Copeland et. al. (eds.), Vides. Une retrospective, Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 2009. Bachelard, Gaston, The Blue Sky, in: Air and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Movement, trans. E. R. and C. F. Farrell, Dallas: The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, 1988 [1943], pp. 161–174. Barthes, Roland, Le Degré zéro de l’écriture, Paris: Seuil, 1972 [1953]. Belting, Hans, The Invisible Masterpiece, translated by Helen Atkins, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Blanchot, Maurice, The Book to Come, translated by Charlotte Mandell, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003 [1959]. Blanchot, Maurice, The Space of Literature, translated by Ann Smock, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Blazwick, Iwona (ed.), Adventures of the Black Square. Abstract Art and Society 1915–2015, London: Prestel Verlag, 2015. Cauquelin, Anne, Fréquenter les incorporels. Contribution à une théorie de l’art contemporain, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (P. U. F.), 2006. Certeau, Michel de, L’Extase blanche, in: La Faiblesse de croire, Paris: Seuil, 1987. Chandler, Daniel, Semiotics: The Basics, London: Routledge, 2007. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari, Anti–Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, translated by Robert Hutley, Mark Seem and Helen R. Lane, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000 [1972]. Dubois, Philippe, La question du figural, in: Pierre Taminiaux and Claude Murcia (eds.), Cinéma, Art(s) plastique(s), Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004. Flam, Jack (ed.), Robert Smithson: The Collected Works, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996, p. 42. Hopps, Walter, Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950 s, Houston: Houston Fine Art Press, 1991. Irimia, Alexandra, Figural Voids: Empty Signifiers and Other Figures of Absence, in: Laura Marin and Anca Băicoianu (eds.), Working through the Figure: Theory, Practice, Method, Bucharest: Editura Universității din București (Bucharest University Press), 2018, pp. 63–102. Juliet, Charles (ed.), Conversations with Samuel Beckett and Bram van Velde, London: First Dalkey, 2009. Klein, Yves, Vers l’immatériel, Paris: Dilecta, 2006. Lacan, Jacques, Le sinthome, in: Le Séminaire, Livre XXIII, Paris: Seuil, 2005. Laclau, Ernesto, Why Do Empty Signifiers Matter to Politics, in: Emancipation(s), London: Verso Books, 1995. Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Introduction à l’œuvre de Marcel Mauss, in: Mauss, Sociologie et Anthropologie, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France (P. U. F.), 1950. Lippard, Lucy R., The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1997 [1973].

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ALEXANDRA IRIMIA Mourey, Jean-Pierre, Figurations de l’absence. Recherches esthétiques, Saint-Étienne: Université de Saint-Étienne, Travaux LX. Centre Interdisciplinaire d’Études et de Recherches sur l’Expression Contemporaine (CIEREC), 1987. Perec, Georges, A Void, translated by Gilbert Adair, London: Harvill, 1994 [1969]. Rotman, Brian, Signifying Nothing: The Semiotics of Zero, New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1987. Schimmel, Paul (ed.), Destroy the Picture: Painting the Void 1949–1962, New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012. Suzuki, Daisetz Teitaro, Essays in Zen Buddhism, New York: Rider and Company, 1953. Tót, Endre, Night Visit to the National Gallery, Devon: Beau Geste Press, 1974. Vallier, Dora, Abstract Art, translated by Jonathan Griffin, New York: The Orion Press, 1970. White, Kenneth, La Figure du dehors, Paris: Grasset, 1982. Alexandra Irimia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1903-6607

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THE 3.0 SHOWCASE The Smart Glass as an Interactive Support

Introduction: What is the LIME In March 2016, the LIME training program Laboratory of research and exhibition design experimentation started by the Director General of Cultural Promotion of the community of Madrid. In the 2017/18 edition, the second edition of Lime, six working groups were created in the laboratory, separated by types of exhibition supports, in order to find new ways to use them, according to their needs, new materials and designs. The laboratory was born with the desire of raising awareness to all people working in on other ways of thinking, creating and designing museums or with museums. Our society is changing fast. These changes are reflected in many areas of our lives but, unfortunately, the culture area, and especially in the museum environment, it has been stagnant and they are working in an obsolete way. In this second edition of the laboratory, our team was focused on the search for a new way of understanding the showcase. Starting from a theorical basis we were able to develop a practical case for a new formalization of the vitrine, a project that we will explain in the following chapters.

Strategy Our group understands the vitrine as an exhibition support composed of two main parts. One of them is the pedestal, an element based on the floor and that takes the proper high to allow the work of art to be seen in a precise way by the visitor. It can be fabricated in different materials such as wood, metal or stone. The other part of the showcase is the glass which covers the work of art and protects it. These exhibition supports have developed features to boost and regulate conservation of the pieces. They have been provided with the capacity of controlling the humidity inside them, incorporate a proper illumination and with elements which improve their security. However, they are obsolete in appearance and in the interaction with the visitors.

Research Points The research is divided into four principal parts. The first one, shown on chapter two and three, where we made an analysis of the origin of the vitrine. Starting with the development of the ex-

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hibition design and how it has changed the way of exhibiting the works of art as well as the perception of the visitor on them. The second one, included in chapters four, five and six, where we made a technical analysis about new materials and products. Focused on intelligent glasses, tactile supports and new televisions. In the third one, chapter seven, we explain different examples of our new support used for showing different works of art. The fourth and last one, on chapters eight and nine, presents a conclusion and reflection about the importance of the commitment with sustainability and the application of social networks, in vitrine 3.0. which are current in our society.

Utopia The investigation looks for a better interaction between the visitor and the work of art, with a more current support, closer to our society. The human being, up to now, has used the sense of sight, mainly, to understand how objects are. But, in the last century, with the development of new technologies, we are starting to use the sense of touch in an active way. Therefore, we decided to investigate new materials and technologies which help the visitors to interact with works of art through this sense.

History: Evolution in the Way of Exhibiting In the last 300 years the work of art and the way of exhibiting has change substantially. In the following chapter, we will go deeply into those changes to understand the development of museums through the centuries. 8th and 9th centuries. The museums, as a place, did not exist. Churches conserved and received relics as all valuable thing belonged to god. These relics were exhibited in churches because the ordinary citizen could not observe them freely. 14th century. The social habits started to change, and the contemplation of the relics was appreciated. Wealthy people started their own private collections at their places. The fact of having relics was separated from religion. Churches at this point focused on religion vocation and not on the devotion of precious objects. 15th and 16th centuries. The works of art abandoned the halls of palaces and they were shown in galleries with a new distribution which tended to highlight their appearance. In this way they could be better contemplated new elements as pedestals or niches appeared, as well as the necessity of the proper lighting of the pieces. Collections started to be classified: books, paintings, numismatics, among others. In parallel, curiosity cabinets appeared, completely separated from churches and belonged to intellectuals. These private collections were connected to different fields of science and alchemist among others. 16th century. Felipe II of Spain founded the Royal Library, divided into 3 zones: intellectual activity (books), scientific instruments (magic, science and alchemy) and portrait gallery (heroes and distinguished individuals). On the other hand, Andalusia (a region in the south of Spain) little museums with antiquities of private collections were opened. Technical details started to be considered in exhibit spaces how walls or the ceilings should be, proper lighting or how pieces should be exhibit and organized.

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Paintings were more appreciated because of their low price compared to other relics. Wealthy people began to own large collections. New positions and experts appeared: restorer, assessor, trader, agent, between others. Second half of 18th century. Inhabitants did not have the basic education levels. Intellectuals decided to open the very first science and nature museum in order to educate the nation. Museums were places for students and citizens who could freely access on scheduled days. They also created specialized magazines. Spanish royalty followed the example of European countries and exhibited their private collections. Other royalties started to show their collections for the enjoyment of the society. 19th century. The opening of the Museo del Prado. During the opening, a lot of negative reviews were received because of how paintings were exposed. They were shown chronologically, and authors and pictorial styles were mixed. Afterwards they were exposed by authors and nationalities. In this way it was easier to understand the history of painting through comparison. Prado was the first museum of paintings conceived as a place for instruction and knowledge and not as leisure. The Queen Isabel declared a laic system. Decreed the dissolution of churches, convents and the objects belonging to these places and the buildings themselves were declared as public heritage. They were converted into specialized and permanent museums: National Library, Ethnographic museum, Archaeology museum, among others. She also set up an expenses structure and created new positions as the director of museum and the conservator. At the same time she started to catalogued the works of art of the nation, as there was not register of them.1 On the other hand, universal exhibitions appeared, which would be the precursor to itinerant exhibitions. The main characteristic of those spaces was the use of new construction materials, industrialized and standardized, that allowed a quick construction which would create a new concept of ephemeral spaces. The precursor was the Crystal Palace of London.

Type of Vitrines The classification of the showcases has to be based on the exhibition, exhibition hall and the visitors. The point of view of artists, curators and designers is already shown in the design of the set up, but also in the intention, with a subjective perspective on how they want the visitors interact with the works of art and the showcases themselves. For all of this, The showcases can be classified according to the following parameters:2 –– Form, according to the spatial needs. –– Content, which determines the form and the size.

1  María Bolaños, Historia de los museos en España, Gijón: Trea, 2008. 2  Carolina Ribera Espulgas, Las vitrinas como medio de protección de las obras de arte en las exposiciones, ­Gijón: Trea, 2011.

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–– The relationship that is established with the work of art contained. –– The relationship with the visitor. Based on these criteria and parameters the following classification of vitrines can be established: Vertical Built‑in Showcase They are characterized for being attached to the wall of the exhibition hall. This makes a single and frontal point of view of the work of art it contains. The positive side of it is that it does not occupy space and allows the good circulation of the visitor in the exhibition hall. The shape of the support depends on the pieces exposed, being able to contain small or large pieces. They can be suspended or located on shelves. In addition, a security system or environmental control can be incorporated. Vertical Exempt Showcase The main difference with the vertical built‑in showcase is that the works of art can be surrounded and be seen in 360 degrees. It is always located away from the wall, with enough space around, so that the visitor can surround it. The size of the support varies depending on whether the works of art are small, medium or large. They are usually placed in a pedestal and covered with a urn of glass. It can also incorporate a security system or environmental control. Horizontal Exempt Showcase These types of showcases are also located so that they can be surrounded from different sides. The observation of the pieces is made from above. For this reason, the works of art are placed on tables and covered by a protective glass urn. They usually host pieces of small format that only required the vision of one of their faces. Like previous types, it can also incorporate a security system or environmental control. Horizontal Built‑in Showcase The characteristics of this showcase are similar to the horizontal exempt, with the only difference that they are placed against a wall, with one of their sides based on the wall of the exhibition hall that makes the support more stable. Nowadays, the exhibition design has incorporated protection and environmental controls to different kind of vitrines which make the works of art being better protected and conserved.

Formal Evolution of the Vitrines The functionality of the showcases has developed in favour of the conservation of the collections. They have incorporated a large number of improvements: better stability, better inner accessibility, better hermeticism, better control of humidity, invention of neutral PH elements which prevent works of art from being in contact with adverse elements, lighting improvements with LED system (no UV, lower consume and better chromatic reproduction), security

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and anti-reflective glasses, integrated security lockers or anti-theft alarms connected to central office. In spite of these improvements we do not achieve the interaction with the visitor. In our society, there is no consciousness of culture, general budgets are mostly focused in consumption. The large multinational companies invest in new technologies to promote their new products; however, the museums did not develop in the way of exhibiting their works of art in the last 200 years. The material proposed for the 3.0 showcase pretends to encourage people in charge of museums to imitate the systems used in marketing and advertisement which are closer to the reality of our society.

Perception. The Ocularcentrism and Scenographic Barrier In our society, the sense of sight plays a fundamental role in perceiving what surrounds us. Since ancient Greece, it is the sense that has been better valued and dignified throughout history. This is an error, because the human being has other senses apart from it that can help a better understanding and exploring of the world; for example, the sense of touch. In this chapter, we will go through one of the architectural antecedents of the Spanish culture that have most extolled the sense of sight. In addition, we will expose several case studies within set design that have both supposed a barrier and an aid to the perception of the spectator. The Window. The Antecedent of Ocularcentrism Medieval Spanish architecture, specifically in the Crown of Aragon began to build galleries and terraces on the facades of houses. This kind of spaces took the name of sitis or Festejadors. These new spaces showed the desire of the upper classes to see and dominate the outside, while being seen by pedestrians. They can be resembled to a showcase, in which the sense of sight is emphasized. A place where you can judge and perceive what happened inside and outside the house.3 The intention of making the intimate visible, give us an idea of the role of the window would have in future architecture. Becoming a barrier that separate the inside form the outside but also allows a visual communication between both spaces.4 This example can be seen in Rear window, Alfred Hitchcock’s film, in which the protagonist observes the daily life of their neighbours from the window of his apartment. This behavior is a clear example of the power of sight, but also shows us that we need to go through this barrier to really understand the reality. Occularcentrism. The Hegemony of Sight The view has been one of the main reasons of study throughout history. Different authors such as Maurice Merelau-Ponty have explained the complication of perception as only taken as true 3  The definition of Festejadors can be found in Luis Arciniega García, Los ojos de la arquitectura. Espacios para ver y ser visto, Valencia: Universitat de València, 2015. 4  The communication of the inside and the outside through the architecture can be found in Juhani ­Pallasmaa, The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses, United Kingdom: Willey, 2005.

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what we see.5 It is known that sight, shows a habit of analyzing the elements that surround us in a superficial way, without going deeply into the qualities and information that we can receive from these elements through the rest of the senses. In this way, we can specify that the perception of sight can be imprecise, since it is determined by our preferences and fantasies, which induce us to transform what we are seeing. So, only by using the rest of the senses we can confirm and understand what we see. This creates the necessity to use the sense of touch for a better understanding. However, the spectator is usually prevented from participating and being forced to only use the sight. The Stage Barrier Since the first theatre performance in Italian style, the third wall has been referred to as a barrier between the spectators and the actions that take place on the scene. This symbolic barrier is determined by the level of inclusion or identification felt by the spectators with the theatrical representation they are attending. This situation is common to all areas in which the approach with the spectator is intended. Nowadays we seek the user experience, in which the viewers are transported to a dimension that allows them to connect sensorially and cognitively with what they are seeing. For example, being able to connect with the values of a brand or the artistic discourse of an exhibition. Below we will see several set design examples that have enhanced the inclusion of the spectator. The first example will be a cinema set where an absence of physical barrier between actors. The film we are referring to is Dogville by Lars Von Trier. In this film, barriers or division of places are presented with marks on the floor, so that the surrounding view dominates. In this case, spectators are able to specify the limits but, at the same time, they are able to glimpse what happens during the whole set. Regarding the scenographic elements that generate a barrier with the viewer. In the set design of Jan Pappelbaum for Juan Gabriel de Borkman. The representation on the stage is done inside a white cube and the barrier is generated by the fog that becomes a theatrical curtain that opens and closes, creating a clear or diffuse appreciation of the actions on the stage. On the other hand, Conor Murphy in the Clemencia de Tito placed a rotating glass screen between the actors, which generated different perspectives and depths but, at the same time, reinforced the separation on both sides of the screen. Finally, a scenographic element that allows both the inclusion and exclusion of the spectator in the scene is the theater’s gauze. This gauze is used in theater to make appear or disappear elements of the scene by the use of illumination that affects the gauze and the stage. The possibilities of this theater’s gauze can be seen in the following set designs in which the gauze is located at the beginning of the stage, between the spectators and the performance. First, in the set design of Ezio Antonelli for Macbeth at the Dante Aligheri Theater. This happens when lighting the gauze and the scene elements from the back. Second, in the set design of Edoardo Sanchi for Otelo at the La Fenice Theater: the gauze changes its colour due to the illumination of it with different filters of colour. 5  Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Lo visible y lo invisible, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1970.

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Finally, in the set design of José Tomé for La entretenida at C. N. of Classic Theater, the gauze became opaque by turning off the scene behind it and illuminating the gauze lightly from the front. They also left the gauze almost transparent by lighting only the scene behind it. These visual games determine the moment in which the viewer can appreciate what happens on the scene. Placing a barrier, which also serves as a graphic element that complements the set design. This allows us to see the possibilities that “the barrier” gives us, sometimes as an element that generates a distance, but also allows the approach of the spectator.

Touch Technology In the previous section, we mentioned the presence of a visual barrier between the spectator and the representation. In this chapter, we will focus on the search of touch technologies that fit within the exhibition supports and overcome the barrier that the glass represents in front of the works of art. Resistive. Capacitative There are two main types of touch screens: resistive or capacitive. Both of them use the same model to detect pulsations: changes in electrical current. Despite this, the components that form the touch screen are different and, consequently, the experience for the user is completely different. Capacitive screens are more expensive to manufacture, whereas resistive screens are cheaper and more widespread. The difference between both of them is the following: Resistive Screens A resistive touch screen is formed by several layers, two thin layers of conductive material with a small separation between them. When an object touches the surface of the outer layer, the two conductive layers come into contact at a specific point. At this point a change in electrical current is produced and allows a controller to calculate the position of the point where the screen has been touched by measuring the resistance. Resistive touch screens are more affordable, but have a loss of approximately 25 % of the brightness due to their multiple layers. They have another disadvantage, they can be damaged by sharp objects. In contrast, they are not affected by external elements such as dust or water. This is why they are the most used touch screens nowadays. The response of the screen seems less intuitive and slower, actually this is only apparent. A program with a shorter time can be done, but the response of it can be too quick to be used. The main drawback of resistive screens is that it is impossible to detect several beats, the multitouch, or the gestures. Capacitive Screens A capacitive touch screen is covered with a material, usually indium oxide and tin, that conducts a continuous electrical current through a sensor. The sensor therefore shows an electron field precisely controlled on both axes, vertical and horizontal, this means it acquires capacitance. When the sensor’s normal capacitance field (its reference state) is altered by another capacitance field, such as a finger of a person, the electronic circuits located in each corner of the

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screen measure the resulting ‘distortion’ in the sinusoidal characteristic wave of the reference field and sends the information about this event to the controller for its mathematical processing. The capacitive sensors must be touched with a conductive device in direct contact with the hand or with a finger. On the contrary, the resistive or surface wave screens can be used with any objects. The capacitive touch screens as well as the resistive ones are not affected by external elements; on the other hand, they show a high clarity and a higher cost. The capacitive screens do not work with pencil-type objects, the finger has to be used and gloves can not be worn. In contrast, resistive screens work through the use of objects, but they lose fluidity and speed in the execution. On the other hand, they can detect several simultaneous pulsations, increasing their capacity to be controlled. The pulsations or gestures do not require pressure; just sliding the finger on the screen allows the control of the device. The impression of speed while using is immediacy, as long as the operating system and the program that we are managing are well designed. Ubi, Kinect and Statina. Systems to Turn any Surface into Touch Screen Ubi and Kinect Kinect has a close relationship with Windows. The combination of a Kinect sensor with the technology of a company called Ubi, allow to turn any surface into a touch screen. The development, to which Microsoft has contributed, is in commercial phase and the reservation of the software is already available. Combined with a Kinect sensor for Windows, it allows a touch surface on almost any surface. After having tested the software in several projects, it could be said that it is finished.6 The Ubi software can be purchased in different versions, which vary according to the size of the maximum screen diagonal needed or the distance between the tactile points to be used. The cheapest version, priced at 120 euros, allows a tactile point in an area of up to 45 inches, while the Enterprise model (1,216.32 euros) is able to provide 20 points at the same time in an area of up to 100 inches.7 Statina A new technology developed at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore allows any flat surface to be converted into a touch screen. The name of the project is Statina and it uses an algorithm, vibration sensors and low-cost web cameras to achieve its objective. Afterwards, these sensors are connected to a television or screen to see the effects achieved on the surface. The system manages to detect, by vibration, the position of the object that touches the surface.

6  Kinect for Windows Team, Turn any surface into a touch screen with Ubi Interactive and Kinect for Windows, https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/kinectforwindows/2013/08/13/turn-any-surface-into‑a-touch-screenwith-ubi-interactive-and-kinect-for-windows/ (accessed June 23, 2019). 7  Ubi, Make the world your touchscreen, http://www.‌ubi-interactive.‌com/ (accessed June 22, 2019).

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Even more, Statina can perceive if the object whether is moving or not. Statina is not the first development of its kind in the world, however, it could be the cheapest. Inform Inform is an interface of Sean Follmer’s that generates a three-dimensional physical model, which can be touched and felt to be understood. In addition, it allows the interaction with remote volumes through the movements. In his first proposal, Sean Folmer created a new interface that allowed the development of the abilities of the human body by manipulating objects by the touch. And in his second proposal, he created an intelligent environment that was able to physically adapt to the human being, which allowed a new way of interacting or execute tasks. Nowadays the Inform 3D interface is used to design and visualize cities, so is focused more on the architecture field. But in turn, it shows us new possibilities of understanding through volumes or textures. By the use of materials that react to touch, a sensorial approach is created beyond the sense of sight.8 Altered Touch The altered touch occurs through a device placed at the tip of the finger. It is a miniature screen that responds according to the touch and thermal properties of real objects. While the viewer visualizes the real object through augmented reality, her receives a touch response from this object through the device located on the finger. Its light weight, of 50 grams, allows an easy manipulation and connection to the computer with a micro USB cable.9 The five touch technologies studied above provide different ways in which the viewer can understand the elements that is visualizing. Despite this, its applications within the museum area and, in particular, its adaptation to the support of the showcase, are not the most appropriate. None of them has the needed characteristic of transparency. Some are devices that should be exempt from the support and their operation or delicate finish would require a high budget for their maintenance. In the next chapter, we will see another type of materials or supports equipped with the appropriate technology and which have the characteristic of transparency required.

The Intelligent Glass In previous chapters, we have talked about the need to interact with the works of art through the sense of touch, as we have only done it through the sense of sight until present days. That is why, we studied different touch technologies in the previous episode. In this chapter we want to make a review of some of the smart glasses existing on the market. We will analyze rather they have touch technology or if they could incorporate the ones seen in the previous section. 8  Sean Follmer, Shape-shifting tech will change work as we know it, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​ 8sheoGMsy3Q (accessed March 1, 2016). 9  GravityGrabber – SIGGRAPH 2007 Emerging Technologies, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​ALjnlN_ vosY (accessed January 6, 2008).

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Domoticware In an article of a newspaper we found the first company we will proceed to study: Domoticware, an English company based in Elche (Alicante).10 This company was concerned about the conservation of works of art. So, they started manufacturing showcases with opaque glasses and only if the visitor approaches close enough to them (one meter), they become transparent. In this way works of art are exposed to light for a short period of time and are protected from ultraviolet, visible and infrared light. The Company divide their potential clients into three groups. The first one, would be small museums. Due to the limited economic resources they usually have, they can not afford their own team of conservators. So, this type of showcase helps the proper conservation and maintenance of the works of art with a lower cost. The second one, are the so‑called green museums, which take advantage of natural resources to reduce the carbon footprint. For example, this type of spaces use natural light at the exhibition halls. By using this smart glass, works of art would be protected behind the opaque glass of these showcases. The third corresponds to luxury shops and private collectors. This last group made us think that the cost of this type of devices is not economically accessible. The average price of this furniture is around ten times more than the price of a common vitrine. The glass, these showcases are fabricated with, is made of a special laminated type, called SPD (suspended particle device). The inner layer incorporates a glass which is connected to an electrical signal. The particles of this layer are oriented in a random way and the glass is opaque. At the moment that a small voltage is applied, particles align and the glass becomes transparent. The showcase works with a presence detector. Less than a meter away, it detects presence and becomes transparent. Inside this furniture, a device connected to a computer or tablet can be added in the way that informs about the humidity, temperature, irradiance, and solar exposure of the works of art. These data are registered and they allow the detailed monitoring of the aspects that affect directly to the correct maintenance of the pieces. The company has four models of vitrines. The AX‑1 is an exempt vertical showcase and is placed in the museum of the Spanish guitar of Almeria.11 The second model is the AX‑2, a table-top vitrine with a flat surface. The third model is the AX‑3, which has an inclined surface. They are perfect for displaying small objects or books. Unfortunately, according to the information that appears on their website does not seem to be implemented in any museum. The latest model is the AX‑4, it is a frame-type vitrine, which can be can hung on a wall and can store sheets or pictures of any size. One of its most remarcable features is that it reduces static charges preventing deterioration of paintings and sheets. This showcase is installed in the Royal Engineers Museum of UK where it contains maps of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

10  Smart Glass Display Vitrines For Fragile Arte and Luxury Items, https://www.artratio.co.‌uk/ (accessed June 28, 2019). 11  Spanish Guitar Museum Almeria, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​WJIiI_szLgQ (accessed May 5, 2014).

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Glass App The second company is the Glass App, based in the United States.12 The glass this company works with is the Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystals (PDLC). It is also composed by layers, but these are a little bit different from the previous case, althought the functioning system is almost the same. The particles that are inside the glass are oriented in a random way making the glass opaque. When a small voltage is applied, they align and the glass becomes transparent. They also offer a 98 % of protection against ultraviolet light and help saving heating and cooling costs up to a 40 %. They have a catalogue with different types of finishes, sizes and colours of glass, such as solargray, solarblue, solarbronze and solar greylight. While the glasses remain opaque, they represent a good surface on which to project videos or images with a video projector exempt to the system.13 When looking at the products available in the company, three types of smart glasses are of interest for our research: –– Smart Glass Apps: They commercialize the glass with the PDLC sheet inside –– Glass Apps Adhesive Film: It is a sheet that can be added on existing glasses. Several pieces can be joined together to form a large surface. –– Glass Apps Smart Film: They commercialize PDLC film separately to glass manufacturers, so that they can be installed inside their glasses in their workshops. After analyzing them, we believe that the adhesive film would be the most suitable for our research, since we could take advantage of the existing vitrines in the museums, being a more sustainable system. Thermo Glass Door The last company is called Thermo Glass door. It is an Italian company that mainly sells, commercial, professional and industrial refrigeration chambers.14 Among some of its products we can find refrigerators with glasses on which advertisements can be projected and, moreover, the user can play video games on them. We should not forget that it is within the field of retail, supermarkets and malls where larger budgets are invested in new technologies and tendencies. It is an area in which consumerism forces big companies to investigate and be up to date. For all these reasons, they are a reference to take into account. So far, this is one of the most remarkable examples that we have found. It is a refreshment fridge where the user can directly open and choose the desired product or can spend some time playing various games offered by the fridge on its glass. The images are projected and the games are played using touch technology. This could be very interesting to develop in museums in what refers to the user’s experience with an object.15

12  Glass App, https://www.glass-apps.com/en/ (accessed May 5, 2014). 13  Glass Apps, Audi Store Dramatic Display, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=​3&v=​ ­Z2UHdNuP5OY (accessed December 20, 2016). 14  Termo Glass Door, http://www.tgd.it/es/ (accessed December 20, 2016). 15  TGD – realook, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​67cpU_nSJ5E (accessed April 10, 2017).

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In order to conclude, we believe that the glass that fits best the needs of the material we are looking for is the one manufactured by the company Thermo Glass door. But, at the same time, it also has several disadvantages. On one hand, this type of glass is thicker than the windows of current museums. On the other hand, we can not ensure that the characteristics of this glass obey safety regulations required by museums. Finally, there is not an improvement in terms of sustainability as we could not reuse the existing showcases in the museums, we would have to manufacture new tailor-made showcases, with this type of glass. In terms of sustainability, it is the company Glass app, with the Adhesive film product that favours the sustainability goals mentioned above. Unfortunately, it does not meet the requirements of touch technology. The fact of being able to project on them is a very interesting aspect, but we would need an exempt video projector to the vitrine, which is an obstacle in terms of installation and usability. Therefore, we could conclude that none of the systems meet 100 % what we expect for the glass of our vitrine 3.0.

Transparent Screens The glasses seen in the previous chapter do not incorporate the touch technology for approaching our purpose. The main function of touch screens is to be sensitive to touch. If in addition we incorporate a transparent screen, we will find a new product on which large communication companies have already been investigating in the last years: the transparent television. This product allows interesting applications both in the advertisement and in the field of exhibition design. In the following pages we will study some prototypes of this television belonging to different companies with similar characteristics. Panasonic The first transparent screen shown by Panasonic was at the CES fair in Las Vegas in 2016. Although its first model had an opaquer screen, its evolution in the last two years has reached better transparency on the screen when the device is switched off, creating the possibility of seeing any object that is placed behind the screen. This type of product has already been used in marketing and advertising exhibitors, as we have said before. In its first devices, Panasonic used LEDs to turn on the pixels of the screen by backlighting. Nowadays they have chosen Oled systems, which will be explained in more detail bellow. In summary, this system has better outputs having pixels that light up by themselves. Regarding functionality, this TV can work under any type of lighting, both with light located behind the screen and with ambient light. This product can be presented as a possible substitute of the traditional glass of the showcase. The contents are sent and received through the voice or through the gestures of our hands, with no need of a remote control. Regarding the commercialization of this device, there is not an economical estimation, as it is still in development.

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Samsung Samsung company launched a transparent TV prototype a year before Panasonic, in 2015. This screen is characterized by incorporating Oled technology and has a standard dimension of 55‑inch. In addition, this TV has Intel RealSense technology that give the device a better definition and shorter response time. LG LG also presented at CES’ fair in Las Vegas in 2016, a prototype with similar characteristics to Panasonic and Samsung. This screen also has a standard measurement of 55 inches and a resolution of high-quality Full HD. The interesting thing about LG is that the company tried to adapt this device to electrical household appliances, such as the LG Instaview Signature refrigerators. These appliances continue with their regular functions but showing the elements inside the refrigerator when the screen is touched.16 Studying the characteristics of these televisions, we realized that due to their standard size of 55 inches and their thickness they could not be attached to any smooth surface or adapt to any other dimension. LG OLED Nowadays, in the market, we can easily find LCD screens that use LEDs as a source of lighting. Meanwhile the OLED technology screens have organic light emitting diodes, which are illuminated by themselves without using an additional light source. This means that each diode forms a pixel, so that the surface is completely transparent when they are off. In addition, the LCD screen requires eight layers for proper operation while the OLED is manufactured with only five layers, creating thinner and lighter TVs. These layers are endowed with the following characteristics: on one hand, the Polarizer which absorbs the light emission of the diodes. On the other hand, a glass, the TFT and the OLED. The Thin Film Transistor (TFT) allows to control the illumination, brightness, colour and movement of the images through a transistor, which is located in each pixel and is able to determine which pixels are ignited to form an image. And finally, there is an isolation screen. What is interesting about the OLED material is that offers features that LCD screens can not. We will mention some of them below: –– –– –– –– –– –– ––

“pure black” is possible as it does not use backlighting. Gives a better angle of vision in any position. Makes the surface completely transparent when the diodes are off. Gives flexibility to the product. Possibility of rolling thanks to its flexibility. Thinner and lighter TVs than conventional LCDs. Can acquire a curved shape to propagate the sound in an enveloping way.

16  LG’s Wallpaper OLED Signage Installation Guide (55EJ5C), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​ ­Y8ObgaPPF6Y (accessed November 15, 2016).

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–– Has a matrix of points RGBW that adds a white subpixel and generates a perfect definition of colour. LG OLED Wallpaper LG presents a new emerging product that is still developing, in which OLED technology is incorporated. The LG Wallpaper product is characterized as a sheet of minimum thickness which can be installed on any type of smooth surface, using a magnetic sheet. As this sheet is a television, images and videos can be projected, incorporating touch technology. Its installation is very simple and has the following components: screen, cable, signal box and support/anchor.17

Cases of Study. The Evolution of Vitrine 3.0 Depending of the Typology of the Works of Art The following cases of study arises after examining the visual needs of different works of art according to their typology, the disposition and the circulation of the visitor within the exhibition hall. The most significant change is that we remain the traditional form of the showcase, using glass as a dissuasive element in turn, that serves to the visitor as a large touch screen where one can access to information, videos, games or even social networks related to the piece. We believe in adding new technologies to update the exhibition supports, but we can not forget some of the traditional supports. For example, in our showcase we have two elements of conventional graphics such as the title of the work of art in the upper zone of the showcase and the label in a lower zone. The incorporation of technology supposes an improvement of the user experience to the enjoyment of the work of art, but we can not ignore that not all visitors are attracted by everything that is exposed. For this type of visitors, the basic information must remain always visible. For visitors who want to enjoy the experience and the extension of the information, they will discover an interactive menu on the glass. For example, in some pieces they could find the manufacturing process explained through a video, or the materials each piece is fabricated with. Also, they can access to social networks, such as twitter, where each visitor could comment about their thoughts of the work of art, as a book of visits of the museum. Before enumerating the types of showcases and their characteristics, we will comment on what kind of exhibition we consider the use of these exhibition support is suitable. From the beginning, we have fought the glass barrier, trying to turn it a substantial and dynamic element of the exhibition. For this reason, we have prioritised the proper visualization of the works of art and the standardization of the support, rather than the conservation of the pieces. Due to the high cost of conservation of the works of arts while exhibited, we have decided to use these prototypes only in temporary exhibitions as they are exposed for a shorter period of time. We have looked for the standardization of the support through existing materials in the market, as glass or methacrylate cylinder or the semi-sphere. To all of them, we will incorporate 17  Flexible OLED display by LG, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=​f-cUjblOVq0 (accessed November 20, 2016).

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touch technology through the OLED sticker that can be adapted to any surface, smooth or curved. These will create different supports according to the needs of the work of art. Vitrines Inventory Vertical Built‑in Showcase This showcase keeps one of its face attached to the wall. We add a glass parallel to this wall and in front of the work of art, allowing the frontal appreciation of the piece. An advantage is that it does not occupy space in the middle of the hall and facilitates the circulation of visitors. The works of art that could be exhibited in this type of vitrine would require frontal view, such as goldsmith’s, utensils, weapons, sculptures, among others. We have used a specific example to give form to the vertical built‑in vitrine 3.0. We have taken as reference a work of art from our partner Patricia, which is composed by two pieces of Mutatis Mutandis that are suspended. The showcase, physically, is formed by a laminated safety glass of 4 + 4 mm. It is held by metal anchors to the floor and ceiling to give stability and prevents oscillation when touched by visitors. The oled system consists of three main parts, firstly, the signal box where the application is integrated, secondly, the cable that connects the signal box with the screen, and finally, the Oled screen. In our example, this screen occupies a surface of 80 × 80 cm. and is placed in front side of the glass. Below some of the formal applications of the Vertical built‑in vitrine on a human scale are shown (pl. 55). We can see in the image: 1) Signal box; 2) Dedicated cable; 3) Gripper system; 4) Laminated glass 4+4 mm; 5) Works of art; 6) Traditional label. Vertical Exempt Showcase In this type of showcases we have decided to place a vertical glass on two opposite sides of the piece. By giving them touch technology we allow visitors to interact from two different points, facilitating circulation around the piece. The reason why we have used only two glasses is because we do not want to enclose the piece at all and make it more interesting for the visitor. The works that could be exhibited would be of large format, requiring a 360-degree view. Some examples would be costumes, instruments, armours, sculptures, etc. We have used another specific example to give form to the Exempt Vertical Showcase. We took as a reference a work of art of Alba García González dressmaker. She composed Auriga, a dress from Crystal series. The showcase is physically formed by two security glasses with the same characteristics exposed in the previous case of the Vertical built‑in showcase. The Oled system consists of the same three main parts, on the one hand, the signal box, the dedicated cable that connects the box with the screen and finally the Oled screen placed in front side of both glasses. Below we explain some of the formal applications of the Vertical exempt vitrine on a human scale (pl. 56). We can see in the image: 1) Signal box ; 2) Dedicated cable ; 3) Gripper system ; 4) Laminated glass 4+4 mm.; 5) Work of art ; 6) Traditional label.

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Horizontal Built‑in Vitrine The glass of this showcase is the same as for the vertical built‑in Vitrine 3.0. The only difference is given by the way in which the work of art is exposed. The glass would be placed vertically, frontally to the visitor and the work of art would be placed on a wedge, so that it is slightly raised, allowing the visitor to appreciate it properly. The type of pieces that could be exhibited would be of small format such as jewellery, numismatics, books, documents, etc. Once again, we have used a prototype to give form to the horizontal built‑in Showcase. This time, we took two comic illustrations: Venom vs. Invincible pilot pages and Les vieux dieux ne sont pas page three of Guillermo Galeote Gallego. The showcase is formed physically by a security glass with the same characteristics exposed in the previous cases. The Oled system consists of the same three main parts. Moreover, it also has a pedestal with a little wedge on where to place the works of art. Below, a formal application of the horizontal built‑in vitrine on a human scale (pl. 57). We can see in the image: 1) Laminated glass 4+4 mm; 2) Works of art; 3) Traditional label; 4) Dedicated cable; 5) Signal box. Horizontal Exempt Vitrine This showcase is slightly different compared to the previous ones described. The works of art exhibited in this type of showcases would be of small format and the security of these pieces is priorised over other elements in examples above. Hermetic supports that do not hinder the vision of the work of art will be used. Cylindric and semi-spheric methacrylate. Both are current materials used in exhibition design and do not have edges that difficult the visualization of the piece. The works of art that could be exhibited are the same as in the Horizontal built‑in showcase. In addition, in this showcase pieces could be seen from every angle. We have looked for the standardization of the support through existing materials in the market, as: glass or methacrylate cylindric or semi-spheric. To both of them, we will incorporate touch technology through the OLED sticker that can be adapted to any surface, smooth or curved. The specific example we have used to give form to the horizontal built‑in Showcase. Is a little sculpture of our partner Patricia from Monkeys series. The showcase is physically formed by a methacrylate cylinder of 250 mm. diameter. The Oled system consists of the same three main parts aforementioned and the Oled screen placed in front side of the cylinder. Below some of the formal applications of the horizontal exempt vitrine on a human scale can be found (pl. 58). We can see in the image: 1) Methacrylate Cylinder of 250 mm diameter; 2) Work of art; 3) Dedicated cable; 4) Signal box; 5) Traditional label.

Sustainability Nowadays, and more than ever, we are aware of the preservation of our planet. We are aware that in the years prior to the Spanish crisis, many enviromental unconscious decisions were taken,

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both at the economic and consumption levels in the area of exhibition design. On those days, budgets were not an inconvenience, so society was not worried about making good use or sustainable consumption of the resources used for the construction of our museums and exhibition designs, especially in the itinerant exhibitions. Once the exhibition came to an end, everything was dismantled and thrown away. Years after, and due to lack of budgets, this mentality changed, and the reuse of existing elements and supports has become the most common practice within museums. This is the positive side we can withdraw from this situation, since it has stopped huge unnecessary waste. In our case, when looking for a possible solution to turn the showcases into an updated product that interacts with the visitor, unconsciously, we have looked for a sustainable solution. After an arduous search, we have found a material, the OLED, which can be adapted to any shape and size of existing showcases in museums. So, if a museum wants to modernize its supports, it can do it without investing in the renovation of all of them. This system adapts to new works of art, different formats and different exhibitions.

Cultural Promotion and Marketing Content through the Vitrine 3.0 The traditional model used by museums and exhibition galleries to generate cultural content depends exclusively on the department of cultural promotion of each heritage institution. The management of museums has evolved according to two parameters: the first one, focused on the content of the museum and, the second one, to adopt marketing strategies promoting the works of art and bringing them closer to visitors. Any exhibition centre has been forced to change its way of communication in the last decade, from the emergence of social networks in the 21st century. Communication and marketing strategies have been forced to be adapted to the new era. Sometimes with successful results and some other times, they have been limited by not adapting quickly enough to the area of museums, compared to other sectors.18 We believe that different supports in galleries could help museums to update their communication strategies with their visitors. Social Strategy Model for Museums and Exhibition Halls There must be some basic protocols when dialoguing and interacting with the showcase 3.0. This vitrine acts as a support within the museum or exhibition hall, housing the work of art itself. In addition, this support is a link to the virtual world, becoming a bridge between the reality and the virtual world. Below, we will list the phases of digitization of the pieces: –– Digitalize and document the work of art: the piece as such exists physically. It is a real object. In order to create the digitized version of it. The piece must be digitally documented, through photos, videos, data sheet, 3D model, etc. This is the first step to create a database with the necessary information of the piece. 18  Teresa Pérez Jofre, La Comunicación en los museos de arte: de la crítica de arte al marketing y las ICT. El caso del Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 2011.

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–– Complement the work of art with digital content: with the content of the piece in digital format and classified, it is possible to find this information in blogs or websites and consume it directly from the net. Is very important to emphasize that this content can not replace the proper artwork. We simply are in another field of the game, with other rules, different from those usually played in the museum. This field forces us to have a different language, form and behavior, not as traditional as the one used in exhibition halls. –– Generate a strategy by viralizing the content: one of the most sought actions in a digital marketing strategy is to make the content viral. What causes the algorithms of different social networks to determine if our content interests the other users of the network, is the interaction of these users. The more interaction our content generates, the larger visibility it will get on the net. As we have seen, social networks currently determine the process of communication and marketing in a direct and simple way, although subjective according to the individual. Each user shares their personal experience, creating different perspectives based on shared experience. In any case, it is essential to develop an objective and well-developed digital marketing strategy through which to achieve a determined goal. Two Parallel Realities Forced to Meet Nowadays there are several areas from very diverse nature such as transportation, politics, media, among others that promote, communicate and manage their own businesses in social networks. But the field of culture has kept itself quite distant, as if there was a limitation, two parallel realities that exist but do not interact. On the one hand, social networks have a higher diffusion impact and on the other hand, culture has the historical and social value. Taking into account both realities, a strategy of viralization is sought to fight the algorithms. One aspect that we must take into account is time: virtual time is relative. The viewing time is minimal: apps like Instagram show a picture in the first four hours of being published, once that time has elapsed it will be shown less frequently in the next 24 hours. The particularity of the cultural product is that it thrills the user, making them want to share their experience on their social media. The success of our strategy would be proved if we get the work of art located in the vitrine 3.0. to be viralized. From the Physical to the Virtual. Social Networks Implemented to the Museum Culture and the artworks exist to be enjoyed in person, not being always possible to be understood and experienced virtually. Thus apparently makes its viralization impossible, but we believe that the use of social networks increasingly facilitates dissemination and interaction, thrilling the user the latter will want to achieve more followers, engagement, comments, or become trending-topic by sharing his or her personal experience with the artwork. There are many people that do not understand the value of works of art because of the lack of interaction with them. But through the vitrine 3.0. we can approach the visitors to the artwork through a dynamic content and excite them. Also, we can invite them to post and share their experience in social networks to other netizens, who will be able to share this content or

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even encouraged them to physically go to the cultural space where they can find that work of art. Under this perspective we understand that the showcase 3.0. plays a crucial role in the way of understanding the new exhibition hall that cease to be a mere containers of art.19 They are and they must be spaces where art can reside and in turn the user can have an experience to share and spread, encouraging society to consume more culture.20

REFERENCES Arciniega García, Luis, Los ojos de la arquitectura. Espacios para ver y ser visto, Valencia: Universitat de València, 2015. Bolaños, María, Historia de los museos en España, Gijón: Trea, 2008. Cerezo, Javier, Las marcas del consumo en la web 2.0., Publiteca, 2011, http://www.publiteca.es/2011/09/ las-marcas‑de-consumo‑en-la-web‑20.‌html (accessed May 13, 2018). Hernández Hernández, Francisca, El museo como espacio de comunicación, Gijón: Trea, 1998. Merín, Clara, Museos y redes sociales: de la difusión a la interacción, Ende Comunicación, 2015, http://­ endecomunicacion.com/museos‑y-redes-sociales‑de-la-difusion‑a‑la-interaccion/ (accessed June  10, 2018). Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Lo visible y lo invisible, Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1970. Pallasmaa, Juhani, The eyes of the skin: Architecture and the senses, United Kingdom: Wiley, 2005. Pérez Jofre, Teresa (ed.), La Comunicación en los museos de arte: de la crítica de arte al marketing y las ICT. El caso del Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, 2011. Ponce, Isabel, Monográfico: Redes Sociales, Instituto Nacional de Tecnologías Educativas y Formación del Profesorado, 2012, http://recursostic.educacion.es/observatorio/web/es/internet/web‑20/1043-­redessociales?start=​1 (accessed June 10, 2019). Ribera Espulgas, Carolina, Las vitrinas como medio de protección de las obras de arte en las exposiciones, Gijón: Trea, 2011. Software Ubi, http://www.‌ubi-interactive.‌com/. Spanish Company, Intelligent showcases, https://www.artratio.co.‌uk/ (accessed April 19, 2019). David Gallardo López, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5156-0540 Silbia Idoate Pérez, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2303-1331 Patricia Navarro Cantón, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3648-4428

19  Francisca Hernández Hernández, El museo como espacio de comunicación, Gijón: Trea, 1998. 20  Isabel Ponce, MONOGRÁFICO: Redes Sociales – Definición de redes sociales, http://recursostic.educacion. es/observatorio/web/es/internet/web‑20/1043-redes-sociales?start=​1 (accessed June 10, 2019).

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FINAL REFLECTIONS ON THE LABORATORY FOR MUSEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH AND EXPERIMENTATION Museums: In Search of a New Typology

Introduction: One Year after LIME. The Complex Investigation and Experimentation in Museography I have always insisted to my students on the importance of waiting for a while after a project in order to get a perspective on what we have achieved, forgotten, wronged or learned in any process of life, especially when it focuses on cultural issues, and especially if it is a subject as complex as research and experimentation. The impressions obtained both during the development and in the aftermaths of its completion are usually premature and, therefore, may rise ambiguities, due to their lack of perspective. Since December 2017, when the last call of the Research and Experimentation Laboratory ended, sixteen months have passed by. During this time and for various reasons I will explain, all the work has been very present. I understand that it is time to talk about all of it. But before embarking on all these reflections, it is worth to explain the essence of the project: the personal learning that has involved, the experience acquired after two years of research practice and, finally, the importance of these sixteen months exposing it, in different forums, articles and continuous discussions with different professionals, from different specialties and from very varied cultures and countries. The LIME is the culmination of a whole project that began in 1986, after many previous experiences, especially the twenty-one years of Experimental Assembly Workshop, all explained in detail in the first of the books (LIME 1/2016). I can affirm without any doubt that it has been the most important professional experience I have had by far for its intensity, as for its pedagogy, as well as for all the specialists that have counseled and helped me, with its criticisms and readings throughout both years. None of us were professional researchers and therefore the effort was double.In addition to the process itself, we had to learn to do it. As I always suggest in class, when something is missing, we must seek help from those who can fill the gap of ignorance. In LIME, three main groups have covered this gap, effectively respecting the process, the methodology and the difficult binomial of teaching-learning. Of course, many others have given me a hand. I want to thank all of them here, although words will always remain insufficient to express my gratitude.

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As we will comment later, in museography there are two types of processes depending on the subject, some have to be based on the premises of formal, technical, measurable and calculable research and others are of a character we could call social, in which observation and interpretation are the fundamental basis. I have had continuous contact with the professionals of both fields. Although I have spoken very much about the paths followed by the laboratories in each of their investigations, I have been particularly interested in the reflections that philosophy makes about science and, more specifically, its methodology. I am aware that the former makes and the latter thinks, which gives rise to a lot of friction between the two. They may not seem to be good friends at first sight, but it has often paved the way for me to coordinate their knowledge. In the last years of the Experimental Workshop of the Assembly, I had benefited from the many specialists’ suggestions on education and learning. As I have explained in many texts, their help and effectiveness have meant a lot for me. I owe them many beneficial key changes at the laboratory’s progress. Undoubtedly, the practice itself is the fundamental basis of knowledge and experience. These have been two intense years that have been reflected in the blogs uploaded to social networks. We will talk more about this in the methodology section; about the hardness of the weekly work sessions, the always beneficial discussions, the advances and setbacks, mistakes and the successes, the failures, the euphoria and the disappointment, the continuous doubts. All this has left a great amount of information and knowledge. The third source of learning was as important as the ones previously described. The LIME experience has produced a great impact on the professionals and institutions involved, especially the universities. After two years of follow‑up through networks and publications, two distinct groups have been formed in their relationship with the laboratory: The first one focused on the process. People working here came from different international institutions, but their interest was individual. They wanted to know about the different parts of LIME: initial intentions, structure, methodology and results. These positions are critical in the sense of analyzing in detail the parts that are concerned. They belong to different countries and cultures, which gives the project an added value. I can assure that their diverse points of view, interests and criticisms have been a great influence and have inspired important changes in our conception of museographic research. I hope these contacts continue to grow. I owe them so much. My most sincere gratitude to all of them. Simultaneously, other institutions, especially universities, wanted to apply the LIME format, transferred to their local and particular interests. The way it works is the following: universities take advantage of our experience and methodology. They change and redirect it in each case, according to their intentions which are, understandably, very varied. It has been very interesting for me to see in joint meetings the great possibilities of adaptation and flexibility that LIME has. It must be said as well that, in other cases, different formats can be generated, being more suitable to the variety of professional idiosyncrasies. To make it short, the main goal is to investigate. In order to clearly express how I understand museography, I have thought of a closed circle which has been spinning on itself for many years. The perimeter of the circumference remains

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completely impermeable, so the interior remains isolated from the outside, and therefore, it is impossible to penetrate. I consider it fundamental to make this border permeable in such a way that the interior is ventilated with renewed airs of new specialists, new conceptions of materials, constructions, ideas; to look with no fear at new forms of communication, at the technology in all its potential, at sustainable financing, etc. But it is also essential that we go out and open our methods to beneficial changes, that we discuss with new specialists and that we make a self-reflection about our work The LIME is an attempt to make that frontier permeable through research and experimentation (the only possible way forward) as in any other activity. The museography is a very broad field in which we, professionals from very diverse origins and with many local differences, are involved. This is the reason for its utter flexibility in all aspects: continuous change of topic, responsibilities, participants, development and methodology to be applied. And it is all worth it. It is for this reason that I believe there must be a theoretical protocol with three principles, which I have exposed in relevant forums, particularly in the ICAMT: –– Change every year of research subject and every two years of coordinator. The latter will be related to the previously chosen content. This avoids perpetuating the same points of view and renews both structure and content, as well as form and function, periodically. –– Adaptability: as we have already indicated, flexibility guarantees its effectiveness on different problems and interest’s related to each specific context. –– The LIME simply intends to be a structuring proposal from which to reflect, not a closed paradigmatic model. Therefore, it can then be changed or replaced by other mechanisms of research and experimentation if consensuated by the specialists and interested parties. As I have explained before, in museography, depending on the subject, we will need to work with the parameters of the so‑called formal sciences; that is, through numerical data, calculation, etc. On the other hand, it is evident that some of the times, when addressing social and cultural issues, we cannot establish the same research parameters as we do in physics, since some peoples’ features are not measurable. We will explain how both LIME calls have dealt with this issue. In the first one (working with spatial perception) many of the practical exercises that some groups have proposed within LIME were based on observation and interpretation, although it is also true that it is possible to apply certain methods of the pure sciences, it is not a totally rigid frontier. On the contrary, in the second call, which had as main object to reflect on the expository supports and had, therefore, much more technical content, we can see in the six projects presented a methodology close to the formal sciences, where the information is quantified and subject to variation of the different calculation parameters. When reviewing both books, it is extremely interesting to verify the two different ways of working, insisting, once again, that there is not such a radical separation between the two. In the

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first book we can actually see the “measurable” part of the work while in the second call, we propose interpretations about the results obtained mathematically. In all my talks on this subject, I insist on something that the Laboratory has taught me: the difference between what experience means, compared to research. They mark completely different paths of development and, opposite to the opinion of the majority, they do not always go together. I will try to explain it in the following lines: The experience could be described as the process that leads to do the same thing each time better, in every aspect. This can apply from the result itself to the financial plan. It is a development in which one has a more or less continuous line where all the parameters experienced previously can be corrected and improved. Research, accompanied by experimentation tries, on the contrary, to look for new ways, first theoretically and later with practice. Obviously, the path is different from the experience: in this case, you are alone, you have references (especially data), but they only serve as support. One progresses in the dark, illuminating the way he or she has ventured. This entails a series of properties that we will be commented further. Does the experience involve research? I want to insist on this question that generates, in my opinion, a lot of confusion, since it is considered that the experience involves umbilical research, and it does not have to be that way. It is a topic that I have discussed with professionals of all kinds, especially creators, who do not usually believe in this separation. Reality, however, shows us a number of jobs that are “improving” the basis but that do not generate new points of view (which is fine, there is nothing pejorative about it). The LIME in its two calls clearly shows it. In my first conversations with researchers they continuously told me about two problems that I did not understand well, until I stepped onto them little by little while the lab progressed. It cost me a lot of frustration an, sometimes, they even slowed down the projects. In order to simplify this issue, I will divide the process in three steps. These three parts are normally separated and professionalized in laboratories, which avoids many of the problems we have had because our lack of previous experience as researchers. One of the most serious problems is the accumulation of information. Teams work simultaneously, but this can completely block the process, due to lack of assimilation. Any alteration or addition of new data makes the analysis ineffective. It is a very delicate moment in which it is essential to remain calm. Although we had anticipated this problem, we never thought it could be so difficult to see it applied to reality. The information must be processed little by little, classified and hierarchized, if we do not want to end up buried in it. The second big problem is knowing how to expose hypotheses on which we want to focus our research. Once we have obtained and classified all the information, there are multiple possibilities and it depends on this choice, that the result is significant. I insist again on the enormous difficulties we have had in this regard: we did not have, as in professional laboratories, “a department” that had previously chosen them. These were moments of great doubt. Regarding the subject of the works, the main problem has been time. Nine months, no matter how intense they are, are not enough to develop all the scope: the works have been enunciated incomplete, but still been published so any person interested can follow them up.

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The process of research is not linear, nor continuous. It is an indefinite path in which we have to go back many times, move forward in a vacuum, without knowing where we are going to end up. Another way of representing it is through the emotion phases generated in researchers: –– “Building” could be defined as the most important phase, where the project is really being built. This is the time of work although it does not seem to indicate progress or significant setbacks and we are not aware of what is the backbone of the research. –– “Euphoria”. Comparing to the previous phase, we had extreme moments of growth in which we thought we were making great progress, although in many cases it had no direct relationship with reality. –– “Discouragement”. On the other hand, the opposite happened and we doubted whether what we had had any potential or useful result. As the case before, there is no clear appreciation of the real situation and the scope of the project. This means that some advances may remain unappreciated. From the beginning of LIME, I looked for a transversal type of scheme that could express the different phases of development of the Laboratory. That is, the progress and avatars in a chronological way. I expressed it by means of a wave system, although some researchers do not consider it an adequate representation, since the wavelengths are not all the same neither in height nor in amplitude. Plus, the three periods of euphoria, building and discouragement, do not happen to develop regularly: a state of discouragement can be followed by another one of even greater discouragement. However, it has given me very good results in explanations of the LIME and, if any reader is interested, the scheme can be found in this book. An experience of this type should be able to be followed up throughout its development by all people and institutions interested. Also, at its completion, it should generate a publication with the results to encourage future researches. In the first case, two links have been uploaded to the Internet, giving access the different sessions, including all the parallel activities. The links can be found in the blog of the Community of Madrid and in my personal one. With the name of Bitácoras, the summaries of work sessions were uploaded the following day, so those interested could follow the development in detail. This is very important for the future of the project, as we will comment in further lines. Before I started, I already received emails that expressed a big interest on the evaluation of the results (success?) and, consequently, their publication. Research is a collective and continuous process, which means that it may not reach concrete results in an early phase but still be, nevertheless, a fundamental pillar for the future. My opinion is that regardless of the results, publishing the results always brings up interesting questions (some remaining unsolved) and new research channels opened on the topics discussed. To research is, therefore, not only to reach tangible results, but also to analyze errors and failures and, above all, indicate the paths that should not be followed. In the previous points we have talked about the process of documentation and how important is for each group’s knowledge. This is the reason why, in parallel to the book, we want to mention the summary published by the Community of Madrid. In it, the work reports are added

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to the network, accompanied by the corresponding documentation. This means that the Laboratory study is perfectly defined, both in its development and results. There lies the importance of the first document. Regarding those universities that are thinking of creating their laboratories, with their particular premises, I would suggest they focus precisely on the above mentioned memories, since that is how they will be able to analyze all the problems that they will find more accurately. I believe it is also very important to publish results in English: in a research work, mostly if it is a topic such as museography (full of difficulties and complexities) it is essential that it is analyzed, criticized and discussed as much and by as many people as possible. Only then we can come up with the best solution both in format and method. In order to reach the largest audience possible, it was important that the text, at least the one in this book, was in English. In this way, it becomes accessible to practically all the international scope. Coherently with this way of thinking , the work sessions must be open, so all people interested on the subject can attend, contribute and help with their ideas / critics. Every visit we have received has been of interest, including groups visiting the city which, for various reasons, were involved in the subject of museography. We thank all of them for their comments, interventions and curiosity

A Network of LIMES I have profited every opportunity to present the ultimate purpose of the LIME, a model of museography research and experimentation, in symposiums, seminars, international conferences, etc. organised by or related to ICOM, especially the ICAMT (Committee for Architecture and Museum Techniques). They foster research in museums, heritage and the humanities and configure and interconnect several networks in this field. They have as main objective to work together and promote exchanges. This is how we can advance and continue to work on our eternal theoretical and speculative disquisitions. I am surprised by the number of young professionals who have contacted me, interested in knowing more about the project and discuss the possibilities for future collaborations. When asked, I always tell them that it should be them, the young people, the leaders of innovations and experimentation. It is vital that they assume the responsibility of creating such proposals, since the future of this is all in their hands. We can not expect either institutions or established professionals to be who would bring these changes to reality. This is what I have experienced, at least. From my position, they can, of course, count on my help, experience and advices, but always from the background.

LIME Methodology Although the method is very clearly explained in the theoretical protocol of LIME (see bibliography) I think it is important to review it in these final reflections according to the knowledge acquired in the two calls, since many points require of to be developed and nuanced. The method is, therefore, divided in three main points:

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Topic choice: As important as choosing the appropriate research topic is to clearly delimitate what we are going to investigate, since, as demonstrated in the LIME 2016, lack of precision and ambiguity can make a laboratory fail and make members lose themselves in unexpected ways. Therefore, the content we are going to work with must be very clear.1 The choice of professionals: Tutors’ specialities will be selected according to the project’s structure. This does not imply that specific changes cannot be made in order to adapt to other needs that may arise. In a research project, development it is not linear, as we have said. No matter how much we delimit it, we never know the new paths which are going to arise. So, at a given moment, external help from specialists who were not initially included may be needed at the laboratory. It is important to be open to it. The choice of participants2: As we have seen, research and experimentation have their own characteristics and it is important to have some guidelines for the selection of participants when they are not professional researchers. There are three parameters that have to be assessed separately and properly ranked: their capacity and abilities in terms of training (quality parameter); work, in terms of dedication (quantity and volume of tasks to manage); and the assumption of risk, perhaps the most important aspect in research, and particularly in experimentation (soft skills). I stop at this last point, as the first one usually receives greater attention, followed by the second and. However, in my humble opinion, it is not clear that this should be the most appropriate order for a project of this kind. In the LIME, all through its nine months of continuous work, many alterations had arised due to the movement of the participants: from voluntary resignations when not being able to adapt to the project, absences or new additions following the project development needs. These changes greatly alter the progress of work, which is why they should be as minimized as possible. There must be an immediate substitution for any loss; which is in all cases better than doing without a member of the team. Therefore, there must be a “list” of new possible incorporations, according to the initial scales of election of those interested in participating Need for financing. One of the causes for declining participation in the LIME has been the participants’ need of a remunerated job. This forced them to abandon the project, much to their regret, for purely economic reasons. I insist on advising new LIME projects on the importance of being able to provide an aid or grant, to ensure the stability of the team components. Composition and methodology of the teams: From all the conversations held in the past year with specialists in the subject, I have been able to verify that a laboratory can be organized in very different ways depending on the topic treated and the methodology followed. Each topic seems to require a different team, methodology and structure. We will review the specific items of LIME 2016 and LIME 2017 and how this structure was different according to the two chosen topics:

1  An agreement prior to the involvement in the team must be given. Different proposals should be made throughout the project development. The subject will be defined either by our needs in the project or by suggestion of an institution we collaborate with. Objectifs must be previously defined and will be disseminated along with the call. LIME always works with a pragmatic conception, applying experimentation to reality. 2  According to the subject, specialties, number of components and disciplines. Criteria will be delimited in order to constitute the Laboratory.

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–– Transversal relationship (democratic model) and vertical relationship: Something that experience has taught us is the importance of balance between the transversal and vertical conception of a work group. On the one hand, it is essential that all participants have a voice, as members of a collective project. On the other, main ideas must be strictly prioritized and a scope defined in the most conflictive points of the project to continue working. In short: set some order. In this sense, a successful combination between transversality and verticality is the key to success. –– Organization of time. Work sessions: The LIME consists of two parts. A first one, in which each team works separately (although they can work together if required), and a second one, which we have called the work sessions, of two hours duration (as recommended by learning specialists). In the latter, each group exhibits their work collectively and invite others to reflect, ask questions and discuss. Many of the consulted specialists highlighted the need and importance of these periodic meetings, in which all the departments of the project ‑in their respective laboratories- communicated their progress to others. After the experience accumulated in them, we can now affirm with complete certainty that the research work of LIME has three aspects: –– Research work itself: this refers to when each team works individually and develops its proposal. –– Knowledge sharing of other teams’ proposals: the exchange of ideas positively influences their own work. This is both because of the criticism received as for the presentation of different solutions to similar problems and, also, because of the possibility of collaborating on matching issues. –– Participation in discussions: it is the true pillar of LIME. We have realised that during controversies, very remarkable advances in research are generated. This has been demonstrated by both calls. Assistance and mutual collaboration were essential to the solution of all problems raised. All the work has to be evaluated as objectively and professionally as possible: it is the only way to move forward with certain coherence and security in the next calls. I am aware that an evaluation of a proposal of this type is expensive, since the companies that are dedicated to it have to do a continuous field work, a complex and detailed data collection and, most of the times, the institutions that collaborate with the LIME are not able to finance it. We have carried out a partial evaluation of the two laboratories, since it has only been based on a series of data such as the attendance of the participants or the work done, in relation to time and those easily identifiable parameters. However, surveys and interviews would have given a much more accurate result. Despite the deficiencies mentioned, it has been very effective, as proven by the greater efficiency achieved in the 2017 call. Efficacy is a concept that derives precisely from the aforementioned evaluation and that relates, in a proportion of a hundred, the results obtained. It is interesting to note that, among many other things, it includes mistakes, failures and criticisms, something in which I want to insist because they are three fundamental pillars of knowledge and learning:

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–– Mistakes: in research, recognizing and analyzing mistakes is one of the most important sources for the advancement of work. I insist in pointing them out first, and not keeping them in the drawer, as it is done in many occasions, which is like burying essential information. But mistakes are not useful without the analysis. Without it, there is no efficacy. I have insisted on this ad nauseam in the work sessions. –– Failures: to investigate is not always a story of success after success, although that is what we all look for. Research is also to define ways that future researchers will not follow. In professional laboratories, many failed projects end up indicating, after their final analysis, the correct and good way to achieve success. Let’s understand failure as nothing else but the researcher’s fellow traveler. –– Criticism: it is worth clarifying this term as we use it in its most philosophical meaning: criticism as continuous deliberation. All work has to be subjected to continuous “criticism” and all contrary opinions must be well received, as long as they are well-informed and expressed with knowledge and seriousness. In my personal experience, I owe much more to my mistakes, failures and criticisms than to successes and praises. One of the premises of LIME is the periodic change of the person in charge of each call, at least every two years. There are two reasons for it, as expressed in the theoretical protocol: In the first place, because of the complexity of museography, which includes many different specialties that range from the most theoretical subjects (such as coordination, programming, dissemination) to the most technical ones (such as restoration, exhibition, the use of technology, etc.) as well as knowledge in the mixed media (communication, dissemination, advertising, etc.). It would be very difficult to organize such variety of targets, subjects and methodologies if the person in charge was always the same one. Secondly, because I believe that renewal must be continuous, except for very specific cases. The LIME must remain, as we have said, open and flexible. All the professionals involved must go through the project carrying out their personal ideas and their conception of research.

LIME 2016. An Example of Social Research. A Different Look at the Layout and Installation of Art Spatial Perception I had spent long time considering the idea of starting off the LIME with such a difficult subject. It is a very controversial subject and it implies a wide range of knowledges: philosophy, science, aesthetics, psychology, sociology, communication, education and physics. In short, it is a subject that has raised many controversies throughout history. I already thought that LIME was a risky project (which was probably going to have many problems during its internal development, added to a certain lack of understanding on the outside) so perhaps the choice of the subject was not the most suitable. I am going to try to clarify all the elements of the project so that the reader may judge it with greater knowledge: Perception and Human Knowledge. Perception is one of the most important concepts in order to understand the development of human knowledge. It represents the contact we have with the outside world and, as a consequence, our first relationship with it. It doesn’t matter

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whether we are talking about philosophy, science or art: perception is a part of that first phase which clears the path that leads us from the inside to the outside, from optics to reflection, from sensation to intelligence. Over the years, its influence on museography has been remarkable and has also been the reason for continuous debates and discussions. Some consider it a simple visual glimmer, others, however, see it as a fundamental part of the intellectual process. We may divide the subject of perception into two considerably different parts, which act as a continuous line in the sense of the development of the process. On the one hand, the study of perception itself as a human faculty and, on the other, as the initial element in a very complex process that must be related to later phases. To sum up: perception as a faculty and perception as path. If we take philosophy as first reference, we will understand that perception is not the same for an empiricist than for a rationalist. For the former, perception weighs heavily on the process of knowledge as, for the latter, it is simply the departure point of an obstacle race. We could state the same about science: the valorisation that a physicist grants to perception is not the same for an astronomer. Despite all the new technologies available, the former, sitting in a laboratory, manipulates controlled parameters that he may vary as he pleases, which makes him leave what he sees in the background; however, an astronomer, with his great telescope in Chile, has to observe and observe through the many measurements brought by technology. So what could one say about art, where a conceptual creator can only count on the perception of a mere aesthetic device? At the same time, and opposed to to the former, a visual painter counts on his or her creation in order to capture the spectator and introduce it into the depths of his work. Perception goes from the most insignificant conception to the most relevant one. Perception has also been researched from a purely scientific approach, through the study of light as field of transmission and the eye’s behavior as a receptor organ. This resulted in the laws of spatial perception, which define its measurable and operable part. Regarding the journey from first visual contact until deep and inner assimilation in people’s minds, there is, in fact, a greater unanimity: it is a tremendously confusing process in which different thoughts, researches and experimentations are ventured in a continuous and perpetual dialectic (and it will always be like that). Following a will to clarify this aspect of perception, the LIME has directly become involved in the research on this topic. Psychology analyses it from the point of view of the reception into the brain. In other words, it is the way we interiorize through our senses impressions that come to us from the outside. It is important to recall that these studies have physical laws at their base, working only in a second phase with what we previously referred to as the process of knowledge. The Gestalt (psychology of the form) focuses, as its name indicates, on the study of firstly, the form, configuration or structure of objects; secondly, their relationship with their surroundings and, finally, their impression on our brains. We could say that it is a specialisation of general spatial psychology, which studies physical and optical principles. Although the evolution of the projects themselves indicated it very clearly from the first working sessions, I made the mistake of not including stage designers and experts in education and communication in the organisation. In the Laboratory, the professional assessment showed us the serious mistake we all (and particularly me, as responsible of the coordination) made: we

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worked on fields as ideology, education, social environment and their influence on spatial perception – which is undeniable – but we did not have sufficient training in these fields. We needed psychologists, sociologists, experts in education and other professionals. This means we did not meet one of the premises of LIME: coherence between subject and team. The chosen specialties were specific to the topic of perception exclusively from the point of space and architecture and its relationship with the work, but they did not address issues such as education, psychology and sociology. It is a clear example of how important is to draw the subject very clearly, as well as the parts of the topic that are going to be tackled. Despite all this, I think every error has a positive side, since it led us to take a great leap for the LIME and place the perception of art in its rightful place, including all its parameters. However , all the studies carried out from the psychological point of view have not taken into account, so far, these new parameters. No one doubts of their relevance, since they are essential if we want to fully study the subject of art. But this confronted us in a very broad and unexplored field for we were not trained for. Possibly it was an overly ambitious choice to start with, considering our training and experience. I was able to confirm, through chats with specialists on the subject, that a laboratory can be organised in very different ways depending, of course, on the topic one is dealing with and the methodology to be followed. Each subject seems to demand a team, a methodology and a different structure. LIME 2016, addressed, as we have said, the subject of spatial perception. Seven teams were assembled to work simultaneously, albeit independently, on the same subject. Each team chose its own path and exchanged their results in every working session. I ought to end with an explanation of the composition of LIME: Why these specialities? Why twenty-one components? Other frequently asked questions focused strictly on the participants’ specialities. I will try to explain them. Relating to art and how to exhibit it, there are three priority groups of work: art historians, visual/plastic artists and architects. The first ones put forward a theoretical thesis about how to organise artworks or a collection, but they lack the spatial knowledge to transfer this to the exhibition room. They provide a theoretical approach to the project. Visual/plastic artists are very clear about how their work should be seen (perceived) in a surrounding but they are not at ease dealing with the technical knowledge about the space. They provide a plastic or visual approach to the project. Architects, on the other hand, are the specialists on space and its perception. Unfortunately, they have no knowledge in the two approaches aforementioned. They provide the spatial approach to the project. As a result, (and this is shown on a daily basis in museums and exhibitions) three approaches can be taken onto the same work. Therefore, there are three different spatial solutions. The composition of the Laboratory is divided, therefore, into three groups with an equal number of members, representing the three specialities involved: 1/3 art historians, 1/3 plastic artists and 1/3 architects. The ideal number of participants for the project and to generate a equally forced debate would be a total of twenty-one, in order to form seven mixed teams. This number keeps the balance between the lack of the ideas and the excess of them, making any progress on the subject particularly difficult. This is simply a question of personal experience.

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When I suggested my ideas on this subject for the first time, they were taken like a partial project that would only evolve on the conceptions of the psychology of space and of Gestalt. That is, exclusively on the physical and the representation in our brains. As a consequence, a series of works were chosen from the collection published by the Comunidad de Madrid (in order to avoid copyright problems in future publications) according to parameters of spatial format and composition. A regular complaint by the participants in LIME has been the incoherence of works according to the exhibition parameters. The explanation to this is that when abandoning physical study, the proposal and the works lack of usefulness for research in terms of a unitary collection. Another consequence of not having well delimited the subject was that we lost the opportunity to study the works individually, as initially planned. We could only study them as a whole. This made it all even more confusing. The three phases discussed above – accumulation of information, difficulty in defining the working hypothesis and the development of the projects – were very hard for all the components, especially the first two. They did not know how to structure them properly or, more than anything, they were not able to impose a vertical discipline that would avoid diluting in absurd discussions, leading to nothing but discouragement. The data on each of them accumulated without order or classification, burying the whole development of the project. In this confusion, it was impossible to generate a hypothesis of work or to investigate with certain coherence. This evidently delayed the evolution of the laboratory. Fortunately, this was solved in the next call. After all the description of difficulties and problems listed, the reader will ask him or herself what has been the real scope of the LIME. Despite these circumstances, I can answer that the project has been impressive. In the first place, it is important to specify how its elaboration was configured, according to the composition of the laboratory. The seven teams worked in parallel on the same topic, bringing up different points of view. Therefore, the project was structured by themes and not by groups. Thus, the following sections were established: physical perception, perception and content, perception ideology, culture and society and, finally, life in the Laboratory. Secondly, mistakes often generate very important knowledge. When we commented the problems that the accumulation of information created, we did not realize that, despite its quantity and disorder, there was much important data for a possible investigation on the subject in the future. This applies to the working hypotheses as well. We could state that some of them were followed and some others not, leaving possible work paths for other researchers interested in spatial perception related to art. Finally, the development of some projects had been left incomplete, due to lack of time, but they can be continued by future researches in the future. Therefore, it is evident that the LIME has been very positive, if we consider that research is, or should be, a collective, open and continuous process. The positive results are shown in this book, summed up in four main categories: information, synthesis of information, work hypothesis and projects development. Information: this may have been, perhaps, the most fruitful field of the Laboratory. I would group it into four major fields of knowledge as well:

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–– Optics. We studied applications of the laws of optics to the act of physically see the artwork according to the different positions taken by the observer. Also, types of perceptions and relationships among them. –– Space. We worked on the influence of surroundings on perception, taking into account two different parameters: artworks and architecture. We analysed factors such as rhythm and balance. –– Attendance. The number of people on a visit to an exhibition and their characteristics has effects that go further than a mere lack of comfort or the difficulty in seeing the work. It clearly interferes and manipulates the perception. –– Layout. We aimed to bring out the three previous points to the layout project. We did it, fundamentally, on a theoretical level, given that there was not enough time to develop this in an experimental way. Synthesis of information: most helpful results for those interested in this subject are the different representations of perception, both in the thermographies and the cartographies. These are very efficient ways of getting to know the public’s attitudes3 in an exhibition space. Work hypothesis. I would have liked to have more time in order to develop them. Without any doubt, and despite having remained at the stage of mere statements, these are extremely interesting proposals that could indeed solve some real problems. For instance, the replacing of architecture. Our studies suggest introducing a new space that would adapt to the work of art, going beyond the concept of the layout. It can be achieved through manipulating the rhythm, the imbalance or the light.4 Also, we developed new theses on layout. The perception of the work deserves analysis and experimentation on hypotheses which offered new paths. We wanted to guarantee a close approach between the visitor and the artwork as well as to regulate its circulation in the space. This idea transfers the solution from the viewing problem to the layout of the artwork itself. We sought as well to radicalise the variables of the layout in order to discover new perceptions and set out the work according to guidelines which emphasize its content, such as composition or biography. Development and continuity of projects.5 Although some of them had just started, I would highlight that there are already some formalised proposals on the application of results in rhythm and biography on spaces research. One interesting exemple to look at is, for instance, the Booth, Forest and Re‑Forest project. Conclusions we have drawn for future similar processes are: I consider that those who have come this far in reading this book will understand that the path has been left completely open to all those willing to take it. There are enough paths for everyone. If I was asked on a personal

3  When showing several of these graphs and charts, some professionals said that they were very surprised at the graphics used and by the results, outside of the usual considerations about how the public circulates in the space. 4  I will approach this again in LIME 2017, given that it focuses precisely on exhibition supports 5  Unfortunately, there was not enough time to develop any of the ideas presented in the previous points. It is true that research never ends, and hopefully other interested researchers will continue this in the future.

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level, I would suggest two things. Firstly, to search for other paths for the layout through the superimposition of space with virtual architecture suited to the layout, and, once for all, applying technology to the exhibition. But there is something even much more important than what we have learned in this LIME, although we have paid a high price for it: the complexity of perception. Please allow me to insist once more on it, through a final note on life in a LIME team. I think it is the great lesson from this first call. The Second Group proposed to produce a document that would express, independently from the professional tasks, all personal and emotional impressions that the project raised in all of us. In the document, each of us would have to add images, texts and opinions illustrating their personal feelings in order to make up a subjectif map. This seemed fine to all of us at the beginning, and I personally thought it would complete and close the professional experience perfectly well. Regrettably, this project remained unfinished for various reasons: we had to devote the time we had to the base research project and we did not collaborate all as we were asked to do (including the members of the Second Group itself, who could not work on it as much as they wanted to).

LIME 2017. A Formal Research Example. Exhibition Supports: New Need, Designs and Materials In LIME 2017, many things were improved. We managed to do so simply by analyzing the errors and failures made, as well as taking the helpful information from the evaluation of the whole process to readapt to working scheme. We took special care in delimiting the information phases, avoiding eventual discussions on the sometimes too numerous working hypotheses, and the accumulation and eventual collapse of information. Regarding the content, it was defined more accurately. Nevertheless, we must admit that the subject helped, since it was fundamentally technical. From the spatial point of view, which means architecture and its relationship with the artwork in the museums, I have always stated three major deficiencies. Throughout my professional life I have focussed my research on these three aspects: –– Differences between function and form of exhibition supports: the first surprise I had as member of museums staff was the enormous gap that existed nowadays between them. While over the last decades their form has developed to extremely high levels, the internal organisation and the architectural prototypes are still the same than those from the beginning of the 19th century in Berlin and Munich. But why is it so? I will try to explain it in further paragraphs. –– Gap in the layout: the second point is focussed on the ways of seeking out the relationship between the space and the artwork in order to achieve the maximum efficiency possible. We are currently doing this like two hundred years ago while materials, construction techniques, information and communication have changed remarkably. Not to mention the technology, which deserves an analysis on its own. Why does industrialisation have not found museums’

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doors wide open? Why do we not apply other activities exhibition techniques, such as business, landscape design or the virtual and digital world? There is much we could learn from them. –– Underuse of technology: when writing the book New Museums: Ten Indispensable Changes I asked for the opinions of over two hundred students who had worked with me (coming from different specialties, cultures and countries and with a wide range of ages). My question was what were the changes they thought were urgent to bring up to date in museums nowadays. Most of them coincided on the adequate use of technology as a very efficient tool to bring up these changes. In addition to it, experts in these new technologies guarantee that museums only use minimal possibilities among those available in the market. It is important to point out that the simple introduction of technology only relocates former vices from a printed card to a projection screen, without tackling the depth of the matter. The second and third aspects mentioned above are directly related to the subject we developed in LIME 2017. The first one, differences between function and form, is due to the system in which we continue to set up exhibitions. It has not substantially varied over the last two hundred years, while the lack of application of new materials and techniques remain alien to specialists. I believe it is worth finding out what is the reason behind this. In the second aspect, the study of industrialisation and technology is also absent of this process (at least in their most advanced options and possibilities). In order to try to achieve a systematic work, LIME had to deal with three levels of intervention: new needs, design, and materials and presentation. –– New needs: exhibition works have become more complex and more diverse to unspeakable levels. Modern rooms have issued with large size and heavy works. They also have limitations in terms of the visualization of the woks. Many do not allow formats such as video-creations, not to say electronic art, etc. Traditional supports cannot provide, therefore, an adequate response to rising problems of access, acoustic contamination or to the design of coherent furnishings. On a different line of things, the massive influx of people must be accepted and studied, as we cannot continue on looking the other way. Also, we must analyse the repercussions this has on the supports. –– Design: in my opinion, it is necessary to address five extremely important questions, two regarding aesthetic points of view and three related to the procedure. –– The first one is museographical and exhibition techniques. In a recent intervention at the ICAMT (International Committee for Architecture and Museographical Techniques, belonging to the ICOM) where I was invited to, I explained LIME and stressed on the difference between the terms of museography and exhibition, so frequently used in our research works. For us, exhibition techniques bring together every possible use existing in this field, whether these are commercial, industrial, scientific, landscape or virtual. There is much we can learn from all of them, as our experience has proved it over the years. All along them, we have exchanged with professionals from many different fields.

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–– Static ahead of Aesthetic: one of the recurring concerns in the issue of supports, which even the average visitor has remarked, is the tremendous visibility and consequent pressure some of these supports exert on the perception of the work (sculpture bases, vitrines, etc.). This perception is diminished with the presence of these undeniable essential objects. I would like to mention the work of Kiesler, who is a professional tremendously concerned by this problem, and who has brought up very interesting designs in order to solve it. –– Integration into Architecture: one of the solutions to the previous problem is the possibility of inserting these supports into the architecture itself. It is not always possible, as it depends on the space, the architecture and each work. However, there are more occasions than it would seem at first sight where we could achieve this. It is worth that LIME reflects on it. –– Industrial Layouts: it is surprising that in these times of new technologies, computer science and electronics, we continue on setting up exhibitions in such an artisanal manner. This method involves material and time, added to potential personal mistakes. It is necessary to come up with supports that can be made and replaced easily; that can be combined in order to achieve the greatest museographical possibilities and adaptation to the space; that are storable, light and resistant to movement in transportation and inside the room; and, at last, that can be recovered after each use. As we see it there is no need that a museum room becomes a workshop after every and each exhibition. –– Technology and Supports: our will is to question ourselves on how can all the new technologies be applied when setting out an exhibition. The best demonstration of this section is to get to know the projects developed in the Laboratory: we have just simply taken a glimpse on the enormous possibilities available, but we should be able to lose our fear. –– Finally, it is necessary to widen the scant group (of only two or three materials) which is usually used in setting up exhibitions and to explore the variety provided by the market after studying its viability. In my opinion, we should work on: traditional materials and their many existing uses which are hardly used; new materials that never, or almost never, have been devoted to this work. Some of them, given their characteristics, can actually be very useful. It is necessary to research into their commercialisation and application; industrial materials that provide astounding possibilities in manipulation and which may be very economical and very aesthetically interesting when well used; multiple articulated structures of tubes have a huge potential as well, as they are light, easy to transport and with a great capacity for use; textile elements are complex in their behavior. Specialist must have perfect knowledge of them. Besides this, textiles provide us another interesting and very feasible field. However, at LIME 2017, my inquiries resulted in a totally different structure for the project: there would be six groups also formed with different and transversal specialties, but with a specific subject assigned to each of them. These were conventionally designated as in the first edition: vertical and horizontal supports, vitrines, furniture, protection and safety and graphic design. Although we wanted to make it all very clear, frontiers were totally permeable and transformable.

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Eventually, they would necessarily all have to gather together in order to deal with the composite supports (teams 1 and 2), incorporate vitrines in vertical panels (teams 1 and 3), work on graphics on vitrines (teams 3 and 6), etc. Therefore, each team would be one part of a whole. However, the development of the Laboratory, as it is the case in every research project, leads us to very different paths. In order to undertake this work, we thought of the following formations: architects, industrial designers, artists and graphic designers. Architects contribute to the space and the architecture. He or she will be fundamentally guided by the integration of designed supports. Meanwhile, Industrial Designers can contribute with their knowledge on materials, the making procedures, the commercialisation and the construction of industrial materials. Finally, Artists, as creators of art, incorporate their experience on the corresponding design. They are in charge of verifying that the support meets all the requirements demanded by the work. The importance of graphic designers lies on the fact that they do not simply address matters of formal and traditional design of texts, but they also search for other mechanisms of expression: projections, audiovisuals, etc. They decide as well the exact placement of these media, in order to improve the complexity of information in the exhibitions. The target is to reflect on what to inform, how to do so and where to place the information. The structure of teams and their members resulted as follows: Vertical Supports: An architect/an industrial designer/a flat level artist Horizontal Supports: An architect/an industrial designer/a three-dimension artist. Vitrines: An architect/an industrial designer/an artist or small-scale artisan Furniture and Technology: an architect/ an industrial designer/a video artist Protection and Safety: an architect/an industrial designer/an artist making delicate, kinetic works etc. –– Signage and Information: Three graphic designers. If possible, specialised in traditional formats and audiovisuals. –– –– –– –– ––

Although the evolution of the project itself indicated this very clearly, from the first working sessions I made the mistake of not including stage designers and experts in communication in the organisation. In all my years of work in the exhibition world, the theatre stage has always been present as an example of an element that would suit all our expectations for its use in the museum. It offers the possibility to use the space set aside for this purpose with great efficiency. Unfortunately, it is not viable due to its financial cost. Both in the twenty-one years experience of the Taller Experimental de Montaje [Experimental Layout Workshop] and in the group project La caja de cristal, un nuevo modelo de museo [The Glass Box, a New Model of Museum], it was very clear that there was a need to reflect on a stable piece of equipment in exhibition halls that would allow many possibilities of designs. After an initial investment, it could be recuperated in different layouts, more economic, quicker and easier to assemble. We all looked askance, but a little envy, at theatre staging. For us, it was fundamental for the Laboratory.

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By good fortune, two of the LIME members were, besides architects and artists, also stage designers, so we were able to solve this deficiency more or less. Once the projects were diffused the importance and need of the stage-space was proven. Communication has been, indeed, an essential element of success for our project. As we have already said, this Laboratory focuses on research and, as such, the main objective is to generate new ideas starting from zero. This is the reason why it is inexplicable not to start from the beginning of the project with an expert in communication. In museums we have specialists in diffusion and graphic design for the image of the institution and the exhibitions. Although I am not an expert in the subject, I have the feeling that we are moving with simplicity and pettiness. Paradoxically, communication is one of the fields that has evolved the most, in terms of content and form (both for better and for worse). Also, literature has been very prolific on the subject in past recent years. What is communicating on a museum or an exhibition? How is it done? What does one wish to achieve? What does society wish to receive? Are posters at the entrance, information panels, room texts, text cards and audio-guides etc. the correct tools? What can technology provide us other than computers and projections?

Two Basic Issues: Integration and Walls When we use the term integration in the field of exhibitions, we are, in fact, referring to two different parameters: on the one hand, spatial integration and, on the other, museographical integration. With the former, spatial integration, we mean the attempt to make all the elements put into an exhibition room fit into the architecture. This is particularly relevant for supports and aesthetics. Supports must be designed in a way where there is no dichotomy between the stability necessary to hold the works without any risk of displacement or falling and the aesthetics, meaning the alterations in the perception of the space due to the excessive presence of support elements. With museographical integration, or rather with the full use of the space, we intend to take advantage of maximal possibilities available, so that we are able to place any work of art anywhere. Because, why using only on the walls? When the avant-gardes asked this question, they would not have imagined that a hundred years later many professionals would still be asking themselves the same thing and that within the exhibition world it would stand as an unquestionable subject. The Group 1 Integral proposals. Industrialization and economy, which make up this first part, sought solutions to meet the two previous premises: spatial integration and museographic integration. Main topics developed were: the adaptation of the scenographic equipment to the exhibition and how to solve the chronic absence of furniture in the exhibitions. On the one hand, we always thought that scenarios could teach museums a lot. We offer the evidence in the following lines. On the other, furniture is still always considered as something supplementary. Would it be possible to integrate furniture into the space? Technical floors would allow us to achieve it through a soil structure.

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The Group 2 Individual structures started from another different principle: the individualized analysis of the support under a series of parameters. Among them, its adaptation to the space, but independently from the artwork. The main idea is to obtain multiple supports for many different objects and uses. It is no longer admissible to speak of vertical or horizontal supports, or flat or three-dimensional pieces, we look for a flexible structure that works and adapts to each case. The Group 3 Technological approaches was in charge of Physical reality and virtual reality; Technology, creativity and mediation; and Applied technology. The first one was particularly difficult as raising a project in this conflictive area between two realities is risky and enters into a perceptive debate in full swing. The second tackled subjects from graphic design to communication. To solve communication and graphic design problems, the team started from zero and studied different ways of solving them. Getting inspiration from cinema, theaters or the opera, soils, walls and ceilings are used to project and move information. 3D showcases were one of the answers proposed in applied technology. Maybe it is the most purely technological work of all. We took advantage of the latest experimental proposals from the most advanced companies’ research departments in the commercial world with the intention of finding an intelligent glass for the showcases.

Results I would summarize the achievements of this second laboratory in three fundamental sections: correction of errors, the affirmation of intentionality in the results and the level of development and techniques of the projects: –– Learning from LIME 2016: I will not be long on this point, which has been sufficiently explained in previous pages. I will just make an enumeration of errors corrected from the past edition. Firstly, I would like to highlight the adequate control of information, working hypotheses and the development of projects; secondly, the stability achieved in the structure of the groups, including substitutions and incorporations of new components and, thirdly, the balanced combination between transversal and vertical work in the conflicting points. –– Intentionality. As we have said, the idea was to start from the traditional terminology of the supports in six specific groups. Once they were defined, return to the departure point and start questioning ourselves what is a support in an exhibition. Combinations between teams of work were limitless. The result is clear: throughout the development of LIME, as shown in the book, the terminology (which represents the ideas), has changed completely. We now talk about structures, technical floors, shelving, communication and tactile screens. We must go beyond panels, bases, cartels, etc. Our intentions and believes were and remain crystal clear. –– Projects. In the last place, it seems to me that the content and technical level reached in the works is remarkable, independently of the fact that they remain incomplete, due to lack of time and funding. But here they are presented for future interested researchers. We want them to be taken as a sign that there are good ways to rethink museography.

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All these results have been confirmed by the evaluation of the efficiency of the LIME, which has risen 16 points between 2016 and 2017, from a 40 % to a 56 %. Undoubtedly it is a low result still, but, little by little, we will continue working on order to improve it. We are also encouraged by the the impact on professional terms, both internationally and nationally, as well as the recognition that, despite all the problems and deficiencies, ours is a path that must be taken into account.

A Wish as a Conclusion The LIME is an attempt to get out of the impasse in which museography has been for way too long. We do this through research and experimentation, which are the only possible ways to move forward and to generate new paths of experimentation. The LIME does not pretend to be an ideal paradigm at all. On the contrary, any other model that improves it and gains efficiency will be very welcome. The main objective is that this or another model becomes operative as quickly as possible. We cannot continue waiting indefinitely. In all the different forums I have exposed these ideas at, I have been mainly approached by young professionals who worked in different specialties from many countries. They were all involved in museums and heritage and they shared, as common denominator, their conviction that research and experimentation is the only way to renew them. I always tell them the same thing: “When I was your age and started going to meetings about museography, I listened to practically the same thing you just heard now; if you do not want that to hear it again when you are my age, it is in your hands to avoid it. Put both of them to work, because if you do not do it, nobody is going to do it. It is up to you to speak up and act.

REFERENCES Rico, Juan Carlos, Cómo se cuelga un cuadro virtual, Gijón: Trea, 2009. Rico, Juan Carlos (coord.), Museos del templo al laboratorio. La investigación teórica, Madrid: Silex, 2011. Rico, Juan Carlos, TEM. 1. Procesos de Montaje, Valencia: Alfeizar, 2014. Rico, Juan Carlos, TEM. 2. Lecturas expositivas, Valencia: Ediciones Alfeizar, 2014. Rico, Juan Carlos, TEM 3. Percepción especial, Valencia: Ediciones Alfeizar, 2014. Rico, Juan Carlos, Una experiencia piloto, México: INAH. ENCRyM., 2014. Rico, Juan Carlos, Nuevos Museos. Diez cambios imprescindibles, Valencia: Ediciones Alfeizar, 2014. Rico, Juan Carlos, Museos, la casa… ¿de qué musas?, Valencia: Ediciones Alfeizar, 2014. Rico, Juan Carlos, Museos: en busca de una nueva tipología, Madrid: JCR21officEditions, 2014. Rico, Juan Carlos, LIME MADRID 2016. Otra mirada al montaje y a la instalación del arte: la percepción especial, Comunidad de Madrid, 2017, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1367d2fYOBYuMypHhtnV1wQ_­INPv5ibKw/ view?usp=​sharing Rico, Juan Carlos, LIME MADRID 2016. Bitácoras, Madrid: JCR21officeEditions, 2017, https://drive.google.com/ file/d/0B5pC3YWsM785WG5CeHlYSW1QVUk/view?usp=​sharing Rico, Juan Carlos, LIME MADRID 2016. Memoria de Gestión, Madrid: JCR21officeEditions 2017, https://drive. google.com/file/d/0B5pC3YWsM785VGpMcnFVSEFObkU/view?usp=​sharing Rico, Juan Carlos, LIME MADRID 2017. Soportes expositivos: nuevas necesidades, diseños y materiales, Comunidad de Madrid, 2019, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-wk3HbdlfZaKbC3IJPjPATd4XzUG397p/view?usp=​ sharing

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JUAN CARLOS RICO NIETO Rico, Juan Carlos, La recopilación de la información, Madrid: JCR21officeEditions, 2019, https://jcr21office.­ blogspot.com/2019/01/lime-2017-soportes-expositivos‑la.‌html Rico, Juan Carlos, Las hipótesis de trabajo, Madrid: JCR21officeEditions, 2019, https://jcr21office.blogspot. com/2019/01/lime-2017-soportes-expositivos-las.‌html Rico, Juan Carlos, El desarrollo de los proyectos, Madrid: JCR21officeEditions, 2019, https://jcr21office.blogspot. com/2019/01/lime-2017-soportes-expositivos‑el.‌html Rico, Juan Carlos, The glass box, a new model of museum, Editorial Academia Española, 2019. Juan Carlos Rico Nieto, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4551-1483

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Alejandra Alyyonso Tak Ministère de la Culture, France Graduate in Art History and Master’s in Museum and Heritage Studies from Complutense University of Madrid. She has conducted research about museology and museography in various American and European museums, in addition to a research fellowship at L’École du Louvre in Paris. She is currently developing her studies on accessibility and the opening of the Prado Museum collections to people with special needs (blind, deaf, and inmates). Íñigo Ayala Universidad de Deusto PhD candidate at the Institute of Leisure of the University of Deusto, granted by the Spanish Goverment with a PhD fellowship. Graduate in Humanities and History of Art at the University of Salamanca, Master’s degree in Leisure Management, University of Deusto. His field of research is audience development in museums and other cultural organisations. Member of PUBLICUM research Project. Tamara Bueno Doral Universidad Complutense de Madrid Tamara Bueno Doral is Professor and Researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid since 2008, She has also worked as a filmmaker, producer and exhibition curator. She has developed an intense research activity, focused on the lines of research: RRI and communication applied to groups of special vulnerability. Writer of 24 academic publications, including papers and book chapters, she has participated in a dozen competitive research projects funded as H2020, I+D+I, CAM, among others. Jean-Pierre Candeloro University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland Jean-Pierre Candeloro holds a PhD in Communication Sciences and has extensive expertise in designing and conducting communication projects with a special focus on social innovation and cultural heritage. Since 2010 he is directing the Laboratory of Visual Culture at SUPSI, a centre focusing on design theory and techniques, tools and technologies for enhancing and communicating creative works and cultural heritage. Jean-Pierre Candeloro and his team develop

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innovative communication projects and cultural strategies for public and private bodies on a regional, national and international level. Jaime Cuenca Universidad de Deusto Graduated in Philosophy and earned his Ph.D. in Human and Social Sciences at the University of Deusto. Researcher at the Institute of Leisure Studies, University of Deusto. His most recent interests both in research and teaching deal with the different ways in which museum audiences have been affected by the technologies of visual consumption. Together with Fernando Bayón, is the Principal Investigator of the Project PUBLICUM (HAR2017-86103-P), funded by the Spanish National Program of Excellent Scientific Research. Macarena Cuenca-Amigo Universidad de Deusto PhD in Leisure and Human Development and Professor at Deusto Business School. Her main line of research is cultural audiences development. Member of PUBLICUM, CONNECT (Erasmus+, EC, 2017–2019) and ADESTE+ (Creative Europe, EC, 2018–2022) projects, among others. She teaches in the postgraduate course in Audience Development of the University of Deusto and she is also a regular visiting lecturer on the Master’s degree programme in Cultural Management at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (Tallin, Estonia). David Gallardo López LIME laboratorio de investigación An architect with a degree from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, he began his career working in several studios and subsequently specialized in the field of cultural management, communication and digital marketing. He works in academia coordinating the Master’s in Ephemeral Architecture in the Graphic Design Department at the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid, while contributing to various blogs and communication strategies on social media. He is currently a member of the Research lab for Experimental Museology. Nicole Gesché-Koning Museum education & cultural heritage consultant Holds a degree in Art History and Archaeology as well as Social Sciences from the Free University of Brussels, where she also specialized in education and pedagogy. She has experience both as a profesor at the Royal Art Academy and museum education officer at the Royal Art and History Museums both in Brussels, sharing her work between these two fields. She served as president of the ICOM-CECA (International Council of Museums- Committee for Education and Cultural Action). She is currently still active at the Network of Museums at the Free University of Brussels.

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AUTHORS

Irene González Hernando Universidad Complutense de Madrid Professor in the Art History Department of Complutense University of Madrid, she researches the history of science and medicine through artistic representations in the Middle Ages. She is currently a member of the MUSACCES Consortium, which aims to promote a culture of accessibility in the Prado Museum. In addition, she co-directs a research project that seeks to reflect on potential applications around inclusiveness in the collections and museums of the Complutense University. Silbia Idoate Pérez LIME laboratorio de investigación Industrial and interior designer with a degree from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Salamanca, respectively. She started her career as product designer in Spanish and European studies and later on as an exhibition designer professional, designing and producing exhibition in several companies in addition a collaboration with the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York. She is currently working in ephemeral architecture projects, as designer and project manager. As well as, teaching a subject of exhibition design in a Master’s in Interior Design at the University of Salamanca. Alexandra Irimia University of Western Ontario Alexandra Irimia is a Teaching Assistant and a third-year PhD student in Comparative Literature, with a background in Literary and Image Studies, French Language and Literature, and Political Science. Before moving to London, Ontario, she studied in Bucharest, Prague, and Montreal. Alexandra is currently investigating literary and cinematic narratives on bureaucracy in the second half of the twentieth century, with a focus on the figure of the scrivener and practices of institutional writing. Her work revolves around formal paradoxes of representation, seeking to explore image-text relations, with a particular emphasis on the topics of the figure, the figural, and figurability. Occasionally, she ventures into the troubled waters of translation. Marián López Fernández Cao Universidad Complutense de Madrid Professor of Art Education in the Faculty of Education at Complutense University of Madrid, Doctor in Fine Arts and Master’s in Psychotherapy and Counselling. She is the vice-president of the European Consortium of Art Therapies Education, consortium integrating over thirty-four European universities, and director of the research group “Art as a vehicle for social inclusion”. She has led several R& D projects related to art, inclusion, equality, museums and memory, such as ALETHEIA (Art, Art therapy, trauma and emotional memory) , or MUSYGEN, Gender and museus. This project has been pioneer in hihlighting the absence of Women traces in museums, offering itineraries on gender in cultural settings. She has led also some European projects on Culture and Diversity, working with collectives in risk of exclusion for the right of access to Museums.

359

AUTHORS

Martyna Ewa Majewska University of St Andrews A PhD candidate and tutor in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews, preparing a dissertation entitled “Reclaiming Representation, Resisting Overdetermination: African American Artists Performing for the Camera since 1970,” supervised by Dr Catherine Spencer and funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of St Andrews (2016) and holds an MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute (2017). She has worked in a number of art museums and galleries in Poland, Italy, the UK and the USA, and served as a research assistant in the modern and contemporary department of Poland’s leading auction house. Her doctoral research in the US has been supported by the Terra Foundation, the Russell Trust and the Catherine and Alfred Forrest Bursary. María Victoria Martín Cilleros Universidad de Salamanca Doctor and teaching assistant of Psychology at the University of Salamanca. Her work is based on autism spectrum neurobiological disorders and diversity awareness. She is a member of the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Salamanca and researcher in several national and international projects about autism. Her work covers the functional implications of contemporary art as therapy to improve the quality of life of those affected by these types of disorders. Hans-Martin Hinz International Council of Museums Hans-Martin Hinz was involved in the evaluation of museums and memorial sites in East and West Berlin after the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He was also responsible for the national and international academic events as well as for the preparation of content and organization for the foundation of other museums and monuments in Berlin. He curated several international exhibitions, where he implemented the concept of the Deutsches Historisches Museum, to represent German history in its international context and in a multi-perspectival way. He has contributed more than 200 publications, especially on the topic of museums, and as editor of exhibition catalogues and symposia documentations, articles on history and geography didactics and the work of museum associations. Stéphanie Masuy Museum of Ixelles, Belgium Stéphanie Masuy holds a Master’s degree in History (Free University of Brussels) and in Cultural Management (University of Antwerp). Head of Education of the Museum of Ixelles (Belgium) since 2011, she worked, before that, for nine years for the Brussels Museum Council. She was, among other things, responsible for the organisation of the Museum Night Fever, an event curated by young people. Since 2019, she’s national correspondent for the Comitee of Education and Culturel Action of ICOM (CECA).

360

AUTHORS

Luca Morici University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland Luca Morici has been a lecturer and senior researcher at the Laboratory of Visual Culture at the SUPSI, focusing specifically on research and outreach projects at the cross-road of visual sociology and community building. Rosaura Navajas Seco Universidad Complutense de Madrid Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid and a member of the research group “Art as a vehicle for Social Inclusion: inclusion through art, therapy and arts education.” She is also a member of European projects such as ARIADNE, a project about enhancing migrants’ psychosocial health through art; DIVERSITY, which explores incorporating diversity in museums and the city, or ALETHEIA (Art, Art therapy, trauma and emotional memory). Also, she is the head researcher of the project “Art, accessibility, museography, social inclusion, disability and culture for all” into MUSACCES Consortium. Patricia Navarro Cantón LIME laboratorio de investigación Holds a degree in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid and a Master’s in Scenography and Exhibition Spaces from the European Institute of Design in Madrid. Her interests focus on sculpture and its relationship with space. She is currently combining her research work with teaching as a painting and art professor in addition to working as a scenographer of events and performing arts. Álvaro Notario Sánchez Universidad de Castilla La Mancha Art Historian (UCLM) and Master in Advanced Studies of Museums and Heritage (UCM). He also has studies in Museum Education (UDIMA) and Community Management (UOC). He has done training practices in the National Museum of Decorative Arts and in the Association of activities Educational Talk in Art. In addition, he has enjoyed the Scholarship Museography of the ICO Foundation (2014–6) where he participated in the project Educational Empower Parents and others related to inclusive education (Down Madrid, Plena Inclusión or Cnse) and the BNE Dissemination Grant (2016–7). He has been CM of the ICO Museum and currently of the Department of Art History of the UCLM, where it develops its research activity, focused on museology and wealth management, thanks to an FPU scholarship. Ángel Pazos-López Universidad Complutense de Madrid Research assistant at the Art History Department in the Complutense University of Madrid, and academic project manager of the MUSACCES Consortium. The latter seeks to bring artistic heritage closer to special needs groups. His study fields include the ritual iconography in the Middle Ages, the theories of art and the social aspect of museology. He has taught some lectures in

361

AUTHORS

several universities in Spain, Italy and Argentina. He has also been a member of several research projects and international scientific committees about medieval art, museums and quality assurance. Carolina Peral Jiménez Universidad Complutense de Madrid Holds a degree in Fine Arts, art therapist, PhD student in the Feminist and Gender Studies Programme and predoctoral research associate at the Complutense University of Madrid. She is currently developing her research as part of the project ALETHEIA (Art, Art therapy, Trauma and Emotional Memory). She has participated in several clinical, social and education-oriented art-therapy workshops and collaborated in other projects related to her field. She has also worked as a secondary school teacher and has collaborated with institutions such as the heritage department of BBVA and the Louvre Museum in Paris. Eloísa Pérez Santos Universidad Complutense de Madrid Doctor in Psychology and professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. Her research focuses in the analysis of the characteristics of museum visitors and the study of their behavior and the museum experience in general. She has developed these studies at the National Natural Science Museum, running the Statistics and Evaluations Department and later on, at the university, as director of a number of research projects. She is currently the academic project coordinator of the Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences (Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports), where she provides training, counselling and research in state museums. Marta Pucciarelli University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland Marta Pucciarelli is researcher at the Laboratory of Visual Culture (SUPSI). Her research interests focus on communication, accessibility and inclusion of indoor and outdoor cultural heritage sites. Juan Carlos Rico Nieto Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Doctor in Architecture by the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid, Art Historian with a degree from the Faculty of History at University of Salamanca and Sociologist with a degree from the UNED (National Distance Education University). He is currently completing his studies in Science and Philosophy at this last university. He coordinates a multidisciplinary team dedicated to exploring the relationship between exhibition and space, on which several publications have been written. He carries out workshops in various American and European universities and research institutes such as the ICOM (International Council of Museums) and the Latin-American Museums Institute.

362

AUTHORS

Miguel Elías Sánchez Sánchez Universidad de Salamanca Painter, engraver, artist, activist and professor at the University of Salamanca. He is a member of the Research Institute for Arts and Technology. He has participated in over one hundred group exhibitions and twenty-five international individual exhibitions. Part of his work is preserved in prestigious institutions. He is currently collaborating with other specialists in the field researching contemporary art and its application as part of the therapy for people with neurobiological disorders such as Asperger’s syndrome. Alice Semedo Universidade do Porto Doctor in Museum Studies (University of Leicester, UK) and professor (Museology, Heritage Studies) at the Faculty of Letters, University of Porto. Associate Researcher at CITCEM- Transdisciplinary Research Centre “Culture, Space and Memory”. Her research focuses on museum narratives and discourses and in particular in the museum and heritage experience and the in-between spaces of mediation. Luis Walias Rivera Universidad de Cantabria Postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Cantabria and Professor-tutor at the UNED (National Distance Education Universitiy) in Cantabria. Doctor in History with a degree from the University of Cantabria and Master’s in Cultural Heritage Management with a degree from Complutense University of Madrid. He develops his research on museum marketing management, strategic and operational. Member of ICOM and ICOM-MPR.

363

IMAGE CREDITS

Best Practices in Visitors Studies: The Permanent Laboratory of Museum Audiences. Eloísa Pérez Santos Plate 1: Romanello, Gloria, What we know about our Audiences: Utopian or Cynical Behaviour?, in: Museological Review (17) (2013), p. 63; Plate 2: Eloísa Pérez-Santos, Permanent visitor studies laboratory, in: LEM – Conference, Finland, 2011, p. 14; Plates 3-5: Eloísa Pérez Santos. Transformations in Museums from the Audience’s Perception. Íñigo Ayala , Macarena Cuenca-­ Amigo and Jaime Cuenca Plates 6–8: Íñigo Ayala, Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Jaime Cuenca Seducing Audiences. Empathy Marketing Signs in the Centro Botín. Luis Walias Rivera Plates 9–12: Luis Walias Rivera. Accessible Museums: Vision or Reality? The Impact of Belgian Museum Education on Society. Nicole Gesché-Koning Plates 13–15: Nicole Gesché-Koning; Plate 16: © Clémentine Roche. Museum at Home. Engaging New Audiences through the Sphere of Domesticity. Stéphanie Masuy Plate 17: © Stéphanie Masuy, Museum of Ixelles; Plate 18: © Clémentine Roche, Museum of Ixelles; Plate 19: © Claire Leblanc, Museum of Ixelles; Plate 20: © Bérénice Demaret, Museum of Ixelles. The Museum as a Potential Space. An Approach to Trauma and Emotional Memory in the Museum. Marián López Fernández Cao Plate 21: © Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía; Plate 22, 28: © Vatican Museums; Plate 23: © British Museum; Plate 24: © Ólafur Kr. Ólafsson, in: flickr.‌com; Plate 25: © MoMa Museum; Plate 26: © Louvre Museum; Plate 27: © Museo Nacional del Prado. Museums and Violence Against Women. Raising Awareness of Symbolic Violence. Carolina Peral Jiménez Plate 29: Carolina Peral Jiménez; Plates 30, 31, 33: © Museo Nacional del Prado; Plate 32:­ © Hermitage Museum; Plate 34: © Weissenstein Collection; Plate 35: © The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection.

364

Image Credits

The Inclusion of Vulnerable Groups in University Museums: The Case of the Complutense University of Madrid. Tamara Bueno Doral, Irene González Hernando and Rosaura Navajas Seco Plates 36, 38, 39: Tamara Bueno Doral, Irene González Hernando and Rosaura Navajas Seco; Plate 37: Tamara Bueno Doral, Irene González Hernando and Rosaura Navajas Seco. Research Strategies in Inclusive Museology with the Museo del Prado Collections. Towards Universal Accessibility, Sensoriality and Social Integration. Ángel Pazos-López and Alejandra Alonso Tak Plate 40: © Museo Nacional del Prado; Plates 41, 43, 45, 46: Ángel Pazos-López and Alejandra Alonso Tak; Plate 42: © Musée de Cluny; Plate 44: © The Phillips Collection Close Your Eyes and Open Your Mind. A Practice-Based Experiment of Cultural Mediation for Visually Impaired People. Marta Pucciarelli, Luca Morici and Jean-Pierre Candeloro Plates 47, 48, 49, 51: CC-BY-SA Laboratory of Visual Culture; Plate 50: Marta Pucciarelli. The Museum as a Space for Individual and Collective Expression. An Intervention Involving Individuals with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism. María Victoria Martín Cilleros and Miguel Elías Sánchez Sánchez Plates 52–54: María Victoria Martín Cilleros and Miguel Elías Sánchez Sánchez. The 3.0 Showcase. The Smart Glass as an Interactive Support. David Gallardo López, Silbia Idoate Pérez and Patricia Navarro Cantón Plates 55, 58: Ó Silbia Idoate and Patricia Navarro; Plate 56: Silbia Idoate, Patricia Navarro and Alba García; Plate 57: Ó Silbia Idoate Pérez, Patricia Navarro Cantón and Guillermo Galeote Gallego.

365

PLATES

Plates Internal management and policy makers

2nd level of impact

Data from Visitors Studies

Audience centred workers

1st level of impact

Visitors experience

elaborate

Public-oriented cultural management

needs

produces strategies for

Plate 1 | The double level of influence of Visitor Research.

Training

Training

Networking

Research

Biblio search

Networking

Present results PERMANENT VISITOR STUDIES LABORATORY

Training

Training

Networking

Networking

Objetives and specifics programs

Goals

Training Networking

Plate 2 | The Lab circle of research-training-action.

369

Plates

Plate 3 | LPPM informative roll on in National Archaeological Museum

Plate 4 | LPPM model questionnaire in Reina Sofía National Museum of Art

370

Plates

Plate 5 | Visitor's experience in National Archaelogical Museum

371

Plates

1) Proximity 2) More information 3) New museographies 4) Increase visitors 5) More interactive 6) variety exhibitions 7) More accessibility

8) Technology 9) Communication 10) More activities 11) Others

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Plate 6 | Perceived changes in the management and day‑to-day running of museums.

1) Lack of interest

2) Lack of knowledge and education

3) Prejudices

4) Lack of information

5) The Habit

6) Price

7) Alternative leisure offer 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

Plate 7 | General perceived barriers from a greater presence to a lesser presence in the responses of the interviewees.

372

35%

Plates

1) Price

2) Overcrowding

3) Lack of time

4) Accessibility

5) Others

6) Lack of knowledge

7) Lack of information 0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

Plate 8 | Specific perceived barriers from a greater presence to a lesser presence in the responses of the interviewees.

Plate 9 | Main facade of the Centro Botín, Santander.

373

Plates

Plate 10 | Logo in detail and building west of the Centro Botín, Santander.

Plate 11 | The Pachinko on the bay, Centro Botín, Santander.

374

Plates

Plate 12 | Plaza and access to the east building of the Centro Botín, Santander.

Plate 13 | Works in dialogue at the Museum of Louvain-la-Neuve.

375

Plates

Plate 14 | Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Small Tragic Opera of ­Images and Bodies in the Exhibition ­The Absent Museum, Bruxelles, Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels, 2017.

Plate 15 | KANAL – Centre Pompidou, Brussels.

Plate 16 | George Morren, Lady fixing her hat, 1901, Museum of Ixelles, in: Exposition Musée comme chez soi, 2018, Museum of Ixelles.

376

Plates

Plate 17 | Exhibiting the works of art hidden in their coats and offering them to passers-by in a non-orthodox way, educators immediately make clear that Museum at Home aims to push the museum outside of its normal boundaries.

Plate 19 | Once a year, a barbecue takes place in the closed museum. Participants of all editions are invited as well as one of their neighbors.

Plate 18 | The selection of the artwork is a very intense instant for each host.

377

Plates

Plate 20 | Seduced by the atypical format of their painting, Ronan and Sam invite visitors to enter the frame for a face-to-face encounter with a grieving peasant girl (Victor Hageman, Portrait of a peasant girl).

Plate 21 | Pablo Picasso, El Guernica, 1937, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.

378

Plates

Plate 22 | Agesandro, Polidoro and Atenodoro of Rodes, Laocoön and His Sons, ca. 27, Vatican Museums.

Plate 23 | Käthe Köllwitz, Woman with dead child, 1903, British Museum.

Plate 24 | unknown, Niobe and her Youngest Daughter, early C3 BCE, Uffizi Gallery.

379

Plates

Plate 25 | Louise Bourgeois, The Arch of Hysteria, 1993, MoMa Museum.

Plate 26 | Gericault, The raft of Medusa, 1819, Louvre Museum.

380

Plates

Plate 27 | Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, 1799, Museo Nacional del Prado.

381

Plates

Plate 28 | The Bandini Pietà, Michelangelo, 1499, Vatican Museum.

382

Plates

Plate 29 | Johan Galtung’s triangle of violence.

Plate 30 | Botticelli, Scenes from the Story of Nastagio degli Onesti, 1483, Museo Nacional del Prado.

383

Plates

Plate 31 | Botticelli, The Story of Nastagio degli Onesti, 1483, Museo Nacional del Prado.

Plate 32 | Rubens, Tarquin and Lucretia, 1609, Hermitage Museum.

384

Plates

Plate 33 | Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders, 1555, Museo Nacional del Prado.

385

Plates

Plate 34 | Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders, 1610, Weissenstein Collection.

Plate 35 | Ana Mendieta, Rape Scene, 1973, The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection.

386

Plates

Plate 36 | Workshop to design pictograms, in the research project Art, Accessibility, Museography, Social integration, Disability, Culture for all. Sciences Communication Faculty, UCM.

Plate 37 | Some of the designed pictograms as a result of the workshops in the research project Art, Accessibility, Museography, Social integration, Disability, Culture for all.

387

Plates

Plate 38 | Workshop in the Museum of Education in the research project Art, Accessibility, Museography, Social integration, Disability, Culture for all.

Plate 39 | Clay modelling workshop in the research project Art, Accessibility, Museography, Social integration, Disability, Culture for all.

388

Plates

Plate 40 | Detail of the Central Panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights Triptych, Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1490–1500, Oil on oak panel, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Academic Speakers

Professional Speakers 59%

39%

26% 22% 15% 11% 7% 3%

6% 6%

6%

0% 1

2

3

4

5

DR

Plate 41 | This graphic shows general satisfaction indicators in “The Prado Museum through the Five Senses” compared to those specific for the speakers. We have divided them between professional and academic speakers. This data has been elaborated by individual analysis of each speaker.

389

Plates

Plate 42 | À mon seul désir. The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries, c. 1500, Musée de Cluny, Paris.

100

DR

90

1

2

3

4

5

80 70

59

%

60

48

50

41 40

35 30

30 20

34

31

20 16 10

10 0

32

31

27

0

4

Taste

10 4

13

11

4 6

0 0

Vision

Touch

7

4 4

Hearing

11

7 1 3

Smell

Plate 43 | Graphic shows general satisfaction in “The Five Senses in the Diversity of the Arts” with speakers, gathered by session. Data has been elaborated by individual analysis of each speaker’s satisfaction grades.

390

Plates

Plate 44 | Luncheon of the Boating Party, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Exchanges after conferences Sound in the room Secretary: identification and access Inscription via the website Answering delay when contacted us by email Quality of attention by email Follow up of the activity in the social medial Programme quality General organisation of the seminar 0

1

2

3

4

5

Plate 45 | Graphic showing indicators of satisfaction on general organisation of the seminar “The Art for All through the Five Senses”.

391

Plates

Plate 46 | The participating students in the 2018 Inclusive Campus of the Complutense University, explaining The Surrender of Breda (1634–1635), a work by Diego Velázquez.

Plate 47 | Bottom-up view of a group of undergraduate students contemplating the artwork to be described and performing the first activity of the narrative writing (Phase 1).

392

Plates

Plate 48 | A student reading his narrative description to the whole group wile a mentor of UNITAS intents to listen to it and to provide suggestions (Phase 2).

Plate 49 | A standing student who recounts his description, instead of reading it, to the entire group of students because he too has chosen to wear a mask over his eyes (Phase 4).

393

Plates

Construct: WHAT? Accessibility of the collection for visually impaired people

Psychological distance Distant event/object: WHY?

Close event/object: HOW?

Narrative writing -

Select work Select item Language

Meditation

Accessibility of the museum

Participatory approach Social inclusion Inclusive design

Plate 50 | Visual representation of the abstract, organizational and concrete level of artworks’ accessibility for visually impaired people at the Vincenzo Vela Museum.

Plate 51 | Narrative description of the work by Vincenzo Vela “L’Italia riconoscente alla Francia” (1861–62), Museo Vincenzo Vela, Ligornetto, produced by a student during the workshop.

394

Plates

Plate 52 | Joining process of the deck in the workshop organized within the summer course of the University of Salamanca “Practical Skills for everyday life: The transition to adult life.”.

Plate 53 | The museum’s learning workshop, an activity of the summer course of the University of Salamanca "Practical Skills for everyday life: The transition to adult life.".

395

Plate 54 | Final Creation of the workshop organized within the summer course of the University of Salamanca "Practical Skills for everyday life: The transition to adult life.".

Plates

396

Plates

1 2 3

4 5

6

Plate 55 | Components of the Vertical built-in Vitrine 3.0, 2017.

397

Plates

1 2 3

4

5

6

3

Plate 56 | Components of the Vertical Exempt vitrine, 2019.

1

2

3

4

5

Plate 57 | Components of the horizontal built-in Vitrine, 2019.

398

Plates

1

2

3

4

5

Plate 58 | Components of the horizontal exempt Vitrine, 2019.

399

This publication was financed by MUSACCES Consortium [S2015/HUM-3494], a research network granted by the Community of Madrid and the European Social Fund.

ISBN 978‑3‑11-064632‑0 e-ISBN (PDF) 978‑3‑11-066208‑5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020940231 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.‌de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image: created by Jimena Palacios from a photograph taken by Tomás Ibáñez Palomo at the MoMA (New York). Typesetting: LVD GmbH, Berlin Printing and binding: Beltz Grafische Betriebe GmbH, Bad Langensalza www.degruyter.‌com