Symposium

How museums can be interactive toolboxes and socially-relevant spaces in which different themes are explored.

Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn, Estonia
Saturday, 27 August 2016, 10:45 am – 6:00 pm

This one-day international symposium aims to shed light on specific issues concerning the audience development in art museums. Besides looking at different ways how art museums have initiated participatory projects, it also aspires to find tools for efficient bidirectional communication with target audiences, particularly young adults, in addition to other topics. The programme will be divided into three thematic sessions: youth and art museums, socially engaged art and artist interventions in art museums, and communication tools. The vibrant discussions will try to find best answers to the question: how can museums become interactive toolboxes, which go beyond the aura of the object turning the museum into a socially relevant space in which different themes are explored?

The symposium is part of the programme of activities of the project Translocal: Museum as Toolbox, which explores possibilities and paths for communication for museums with the aim of working together with young people (between 15 and 25) to design innovative tools for art museums and to share good practices of artist residencies in museums. Jointly with young people, this project investigates how contemporary art museums can be more relevant to their present-day life and asks how young people themselves envisage a museum of contemporary art.

The project is a co-operation between Kunsthaus Graz (Austria), Kumu Tallinn (Estonia), MSU Zagreb (Croatia), Museion Bozen (Italy) and MS Łódź (Poland) co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

The symposium will be held in English.

The symposium will bring together experts from museums and other cultural institutions across Europe.

Among the invited presenters are
Victoria Walsh (Royal College of Art, London),
Jasper Visser (Museum of the Future),
Sinéad K. Rice (National Gallery of Ireland/Fiosraigh PhD Scholar/Member of the NEMO Working Group „The Learning Museum“),
Michela Perrotta (Palazzo Grassi and Punta Della Dogana, Venice),
Louise Springborg (Interaction Designer & Coordinator in ULK Art Labs at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen) and
Nikolaj Recke (Artist in ULK Art Labs at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen).

10:30 Registration
11:00 Welcome and introduction
Welcome by event chair – Kumu Art Museum
Welcome by Translocal: Museum as Toolbox Project Leader – Katrin Bucher Trantow, Kunsthaus Graz
11:15 First session: Youth and art museums
Super Survey results of the Translocal: Museum as Toolbox project – Alexandra Trost, Kunsthaus Graz
See Hear: Conversation Led Youth Programming at the National Gallery of Ireland – Sinéad Rice, National Gallery of Ireland
How We See It… Our View of a Modern Art Museum  – Kumu Youth Club of Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn
12:30 Lunch 
13:30 Performative Tools of Change in the Art Museum – Keynote speaker Victoria Walsh, Royal College of Art, London
14:00 Second session: Socially engaged art practices and artists’ interventions
The Users Decide – Nikolaj Recke and Louise Springborg, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Round-table with the presentations of the Translocal: Museum as Toolbox artist’s residencies
15:40 Coffee break
16:00 Third session: Communication tools
Storytelling and the Largest Possible Audience – Jasper Visser, Museum of the Future
Palazzo Grassi Teens is the Future! – Michela Perrotta, Palazzo Grassi and Punta Della Dogana, Venice
Museum as Toolbox – Communication Tools – Sarah Greenwood, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Bozen
17:30 Get connected!

Find the full programme including the abstracts from all presenters here.

Early registration for the international symposium “Museum as Toolbox” is now OPEN.

The conference is free of charge, but > registration is compulsory.

Registration is opened until 15 August 2016.
The number of participants is limited, so please remember to cancel your registration in case you are not able to attend.

Kumu Art Museum
Weizenbergi 34/Valge 1
10127 Tallinn
Estonia

Mary-Ann Talvistu
Curator of Public Programmes
Kumu Art Museum
Tel. +372 5684 6001
mary-ann.talvistu@ekm.ee