Can scholarly research make museums socially relevant?
The relevance of museums is increasingly being questioned, and the number of people who do not see their interests and identities reflected in them continues to grow. This is particularly true for collections of pre-1900 objects.
As Western museums expand their communications, marketing and education departments, their curatorial core – dedicated to research as well as developing temporary exhibitions and permanent displays - often lacks strategies for attracting and retaining increasingly diverse and pluralistic audiences.
To bridge this gap, a new curatorial practice has begun to take root. It combines a deep knowledge of cultural-historical disciplines, a sensitivity to current social realities, and a willingness to communicate the results to the widest possible audience. This is known as 'curatorial academic outreach'.
Curatorial Academic Outreach aims to position the museum as a relevant institution in today's society by integrating social issues into the museum’s narratives, weaving together scholarly research and audience development strategies. The fundamental tool of this curatorial practice is the multidisciplinary research of the museum's collections in order to create emotional and intellectual links between the scholarly work and the interests of the widest public.
In order to anchor and develop this practice in Western museums, a think tank of international museums is being created, the first meeting of which will take place in the form of a congress at the Bode-Museum in Berlin.
Programme:
DAY 1 / 14 NOVEMBER 2024
09:00 Opening of the Museum09:30 Welcome - Dr. Antje Scherner – Director09:35 Introduction - Dr. María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral – Curator, Bode-Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Panel I – Curating Special Exhibitions and Temporary Interventions
09:45 Crossing Cultures, Crossing Time: Transhistorical Projects in the Museum and BeyondDr. Jennifer Sliwka – Keeper of Western Art, The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford10:15 Points of view: the art museum as a place of multiple discoursesDr. Till-Holger Borchert – Director, Suermondt-Ludwig Museum Aachen10:45 Out of the Box! Challenges and Strategies of Curatorial Academic Outreach in Museums of Prints and DrawingsDr. Dagmar Korbacher – Director, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin11:15 – 11:45 Coffee break11:45 Curating and Outreach: Observations from the MinefieldDr. Jonathan Fine – Director, Weltmuseum Vienna12:15 – 12:45 Discussion
12:45 - 14:00 Lunch Break
Panel II – New Perspectives on Theory and Practice
14:00 Emotive Spaces for “Old Masters”? Some considerations on AtmospheresDr. Christine Seidel – Associate Curator, The National Gallery, London14:30 Museums, Knowledge and EngagementDr. Pablo Pérez d’Ors – Director, Museu Fundación Juan March, Palma15:00 Curatorial Academic Outreach: first reflections on a methodologyDr. des. Lilla Mátyók-Engel – Assistant Curator, Bode-Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin15:30 - 16:00 Discussion
DAY 2 / 15 NOVEMBER 2024
10:00 Opening of the Museum
Panel III – Curating the Permanent Collection10:15 Feminist Curating? Reframing Women Artists and SittersDr. Flavia Frigeri – Curator, National Portrait Gallery, London10:45 Academic Outreach in Practice at London’s National Gallery: Its Women and the Arts Forum: context and origins, outputs to date and reflections on future growthDr. Susanna Avery-Quash – Lead Curator, The National Gallery, London11:15-11:45 Coffee break
11:45 Transformation through Access: University Collections in TransitionDr. Jennifer Moldenhauer – Curator, Universität Heidelberg12:15 What history does(n’t) teach us: the National Gallery of Ireland and living memoryDr. Caroline Campbell – Director, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin12:45 – 13:45 Discussion and end of the Congress
Free admission and participation
Die Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt, daher finden Sie das Programm ausschließlich auf englisch.
