14 and 15 October 2021
At its meeting 139a (Paris, 2019), the Executive Committee of the ICOM proposed that museums should be defined as “democratised, inclusive and polyphonic spaces”. The Committee also considered that in the light of today’s conflicts and challenges, museums should “care for artefacts and specimens for society, safeguard multiple memories for future generations and guarantee equality of rights and access to cultural heritage for all peoples.” In the light of these future challenges defined by an international organisation, rethinking the museum today means providing tools that make it possible to respond with the highest degree of democratic commitment to the societal challenges of contemporary culture, manifested both in the immediate community and on a much larger scale, through transnational projection and digital innovation. It is precisely here in the present day that the limits of museums - represented by the physical limits of their display spaces - lose significance in order to necessarily open themselves out towards their urban, social and, in a latent sense, human surroundings with the intention of assuming a more actively participative role in the life of their communities and of society in general. Present-day museology is thus working to redefine its disciplinary limits, respond to demands such as those of “transparency” and “sustainability”, for example, and strengthen the participation and inclusion of all members of society. This transformative process will also be accompanied by new museographical narratives.
The International Conference Cultural Coordinates in present-day museology: Five neologisms is aimed at research that focuses on analysing the contemporary museological discourse and its effects on cultural communication. Numerous questions arise, for example, regarding curatorial practices, the new formulas of knowledge transmission, museology’s potential contributions to social cohesion, the mediation made possible by the new technologies and the critical contribution to be expected concerning issues such as gender demands, environmental sustainability and others. The sections are headed by the corresponding neologisms into which the themes that are the subject of debate and analysis are divided: Demomuseum, Exomuseum, E-museum, Museosophy and Hypermuseum.
Miguel Falomir (Museo Nacional del Prado)
María Bolaños (Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid): El museo y el pasado [The museum and the past]
Break
Marina Chinchilla (Museo Nacional del Prado): Un sinfín de compromisos. El museo del siglo XXI [Endless compromises. The 21st century museum]
Fabienne Brugère (Université Paris 8, Université Paris Lumières): Du musée-sanctuaire au musée-vie. Quelle démocratisation de la culture? [Del museo-santuario al museo-vida. ¿Qué democratización de a cultura?]
Rocío Gracia Ipiña (Universidad de Navarra): El salón de los amigos: sobre la participación en el museo [The Friends’ Room: on participation in museums]
Irene Pérez López (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): El giro hacia el visitante. Construcción de significados, participación y bienestar en el museo [The shift towards the visitor. Construction of meanings, participation and well-being in the museum]
Ute Marxreiter & Cristina Navarro (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin): Blending Curatorial, Educational and Collaborative Practices: The “Family Spaces” in the Ethnological Museum in the Humboldt Forum Berlin [La mezcla de prácticas curatoriales, educativas y colaborativas: los “espacios familiares” en el Museo Etnológico del Humboldt Forum, Berlín]
Ariadna Ruiz Gómez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): En la redefinición del concepto “museo”. ¿Reformulación del museo tras la pandemia? [On the redefinition of the concept of “museum”. Reformulating the museum after the pandemic?]
Moderator: Marina Chinchilla
Break
Carlos Jiménez Cuenca (Museo Nacional del Prado): Arquitectura, sociabilidad y sostenibilidad en el Museo del Prado [Architecture, sociability and sustainability at the Museo del Prado]
Modesta Di Paola (Atlas Museo): Exomuseo. Repensar la sociabilidad y la sostenibilidad en la museología del presente [Exomuseum. Rethinking sociability and sustainability in present-day museology]
Daniel Lesmes (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): El museo y lo vivo [The museum and life]
Break
Javier Pantoja Ferrari (Museo Nacional del Prado): ¿Hacia un museo posthumano? Reflexiones sobre posthumanismo, transhumanismo y museología [Towards a post-human museum? Reflections on post-humanism, trans-humanism and museology]
Manuel Fontán del Junco (Fundación Juan March): En el museo global: subjetividades, conocimiento y colonización [In the global museum: subjectivities, knowledge and colonisation]
Irene Di Pietro (Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna): I musei italiani e l’esperienza digitale: meditazione e apprendimento tra online e offline [Los museos italianos y la experiencia digital: mediación y aprendizaje entre online y offline]
Moderators: Carlos Jiménez Cuenca y Javier Pantoja
Celia Guilarte (Museo Nacional del Prado): La invención del Prado [The invention of the Prado]
Irene Baldriga (Sapienza Università di Roma): Il museo e le politiche del ricordo: patrimonio negato e condiviso [El museo y las políticas del recuerdo: patrimonio negado y compartido]
Orietta Lanzarini (Università degli Studi di Udine): Les Liaisons dangereuses. Le Mostre degli anni Trenta e la museografia postbellica in Italia [Les Liaisons dangereuses. Las exposiciones de los años treinta y la museografía postbética en Italia]
Beatriz Martínez Sosa (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour): Revisión y reflexibilidad: cuando el museo se expone [Revision and reflexibility: when the museum displays itself]
Sol Izquierdo de la Viña (Brücke-Museum Berlin): Prácticas curatoriales en el escenario postcolonial: Repensar la herencia del expresionismo alemán en el espacio expositivo [Curatorial practices in the post-colonial context: rethinking the legacy of German Expressionism in the display space]
Break
Javier Arnaldo (Museo Nacional del Prado): Expografía: ensayo y ficción [Expographia: essay and fiction]
Selina Blasco (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): Espacios, vida, museo [Spaces, life, museum]
Henar Rivière (Archivo Lafuente): Archivo activo como institución viva. La redefinición de la práctica archivística desde el activismo underground [The active archive as living institution. The redefinition of archival practice from the standpoint of underground activism]
Moderators: Celia Guilarte and Javier Arnaldo
Break
Recapitulations: Fabienne Brugère, Modesta Di Paola and Javier Arnaldo
Dominique Poulot (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne): Les musées et leurs amis: un amour inquiet [Los museos y sus amigos: un amor sin sosiego]
The themes of the conference are organised into the five sections headed by the titles of the panels, which are proceeded and followed by the opening and closing lectures. The talks alternate between reflections on museum practice and those formulated from the standpoint of the theory of the museum and art-historical research. The conference aims to encourage an encounter between these two museological experiences and to include inter-generational debates on the new functional paradigms that affect museum institutions in an international context today. Ten of the scheduled interventions are envisaged as framework talks, each lasting 30 minutes. A further ten are proposals selected by the academic Committee, each lasting 20 minutes. The speakers’ academic affiliations are listed below in alphabetical order.