Congress 2021 - Museums relevant to the community. Tools for citizen participation

Coordination: Antoni Laporte, Joaquina Bobes, Xavier Ulled

Conference dedicated to the work of museums with their closest communities. The objective is to provide, on the one hand, a vision of the future and strategic positioning and, on the other hand, some tools that are useful for initiating participatory processes in those museums that are just starting this path. During the conference, the work processes and tools used by several museums that develop projects with the community will be presented, as well as the contributions of international academic experts on the subject.

November 30 and December 1

Webinars

The Observatory wants to dedicate this year's Conference to the work of museums with their closest communities. Given the mission of the OPPCC, which consists of supporting museums in their relations with the public, we consider that working with the community is the first stage of the relationship that museums must establish with their publics, to the point that they are no longer publics distant from the museum, but people and interest groups who work together in the planning and projects that museums develop.

We have selected 6 cases and we are very aware that there are many other experiences in Catalonia of museums that develop projects with the community.

We have asked the heads of the participating museums to emphasize the work process, the tools to connect with people, as one of the objectives of the Conference is to provide tools to initiate processes, examples of HOW TO START, develop and evaluate participation processes in museums.

For the first time, the annual OPPCC Conference will give a voice to the community, with the participation, in some cases, of members of the communities of the participating museums and, in other cases, of mediators who collaborate in the projects. Thus, the interventions of the museum managers will be complemented by the participation of a member of one of the interest groups with which the museum is working. For the first time in these conferences we will be able to hear the opinions and perceptions of both the public and the collaborators in the projects, in the first person.

The cases that will be presented at the Conference focus mainly on local museums, rooted in the territory and population of their municipality. Museums dependent on the local administration account for more than 60% of the registered museums in Catalonia. The majority are museums of small size both in terms of staff and budget. However, they constitute the fabric of cultural heritage management in Catalonia. In some cases, local museums have adopted participatory processes to achieve greater involvement of their community in the life of the museum. In other cases, they have not yet started this path. We hope that the Conference will serve to encourage those museum managers who wish to introduce new social dynamics and have not yet had the opportunity.

The Conference also features two more academic conferences. The opening conference will be given by Sharon Heal, director of the Museums Association, a British association founded in 1889 and which remains a beacon, an inescapable reference in leadership and innovation in the field of museums internationally. Sharon Heal will speak about the reasons and foundations of the work of museums with the community, as social agents of change.

The second presentation will be given by Macarena Cuenca, a professor at the University of Deusto, with an extensive background in the field of audience development. She will talk about the need to introduce changes in the organizational model of museums to connect and work with local communities.

We hope that this year's Conference will be inspiring and provide, on the one hand, a vision of the future and strategic positioning and, on the other hand, some tools that will be useful for initiating participatory processes in those museums that are just starting this path. A path that does not require large budgets, but rather will and attitude on the part of the professional teams of the museums.