How Can Museums and Art Universities Take an Active Approach to Living and Learning Diversity?

The online symposium is hosted by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in cooperation with the Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK), Germany. The symposium will take place online in German and English.

 

What knowledge do art universities and museums communicate, and by what methods? What can and must institutions themselves learn, or even unlearn, from other cultures, countries and disci-plines in terms of education and outreach? The online symposium "Museums and Universities of Diversity: How Can Museums and Art Universities Take an Active Approach to Living and Learning Diversity?” focuses on the conception and implementation of participatory and democratic pro-cesses in museums and art institutions, as well as on expanding diversity and inclusion through innovative and transcultural educational formats that leave room for new processes and develop-ments.

 

The first day of the symposium will focus on educational concepts from different cultural and historical contexts that offer stimulating ideas for the working and teaching activities of museums and art universities. The open call for this first day of the symposium is explicitly seeking innovative methods that take account of transcultural and/or migration-related educational issues. The focus of this section will be on methods and formats that speakers’ perspectives will critically interrogate, making various facets of objects and narratives visible to a broad audience, and also demonstrating how culture and cultural artefacts are subject to constant change, interaction and blurring of boundaries.

 

The second day of the symposium will focus on innovative concepts regarding the use of space and materials. The main priorities in this connection are the development and implementation of educational formats which include participative or active engagement, or which involve the public in research and the planning of exhibitions. How learning processes are addressed and influenced through spaces and materials will be analysed, discussed and examined from a wide variety of perspectives. The first panel, on the topic of space, will deal with questions regarding the design and atmosphere of an ideal learning environment, including room layout, architecture, exhibition design and content presentation. The question of what and how learning can occur through creating materials and by means of haptic experiences will be the focus of the second panel on materials. In addition, the two panels will offer the opportunity to try out digital educational formats in order to explore the topics discussed more thoroughly.

 

By issuing an open call, the conference organisers are specifically inviting diverse projects and networks with a wide range of novel perspectives to participate in the symposium and contribute to an inspiring and interdisciplinary exchange of ideas. They are interested in real-life practical examples as well as historical investigations of various learning concepts, current learning methods utilising transcultural or migration-informed approaches, or with a focus on active engagement. They look forward to receiving abstracts on ideas or educational formats that consider or engage critically with the topics and the general theme of "Museums and Universities of Diversity: How Can Museums and Art Uni-versities Take an Active Approach to Living and Learning Diversity?”

 

You are invited to submit an abstract in German or English by 15 September 2020 to: Anja Skowronski, outreach@skd.museum. Please include information about the project or lecture, as well as about the individual or group who will conduct or present it. The abstracts should consist of two pages explaining the most important aspects of the projects or ideas and briefly stating who will give the presentation.

 

The symposium will take place in cooperation with Dresden University of Fine Arts (HfBK) as part of the EU4ART project and is thematically related to the symposium "How Can Decentralised Education Succeed?”, which will be organised by the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden in 2021.