The Festival, resonances for Arts Education practice beyond the Museum walls— Joana Correia
Abstract
This presentation presents an approach to Festivals as an amplifying structure of Museums’ intervention of Arts Education practice. Firstly, we approach the Museums’ interventions as single events in time, which induce low resonances in the participants’ lives and low resonances into the city or region’s in which the Museum exists. We reflect upon the compartmentalization of society and how the museum plays an important role in the reception of culture, and finally, how the Festival brings a wider structure which allows wider resonances of Arts Education practice (of Museum and other Cultural Institutions) and modes of thinking into the society. Finally, we reflect upon the way the Festival structure brings a wider public for cultural participation, we approach the integration process of disadvantaged communities that have access issues to the region’s cultural life.
Presentation Proposal
The interactive sessions of young groups with the installations and programs offered by Education departments within Museums appear as isolated events compared to daily common spaces of interaction. The resonances are drowned out by the Institution’s walls, and there exist rare connections between the internal Museum practices and daily life. The programs offered by Museum Education departments consist mainly in single and one-off actions, and the participants change at every session. Therefore there is no continual participation in time, limiting a consistent reflexion and development of critical thinking. Beyond the Museum’s doors and walls, the participants disperse and despite the fact they embed some of Art Education themes, the rare participation into cultural activities diminish the intensity of resonances, which dissipate rapidly.
In this perspective, Education programs promoted by the Museum are limited to the space known as «secure» for the Arts Education practice. By limiting their space of action, it is implicitly told to the participants and to other members of society that reflexion around art, culture, the critical questioning of political and social life (which is indeed the purpose of Art), as well as the intellectualization of the practice, is confined to a specific space that limits in itself critical repercussions to other contexts and sectors of society.
It is important to refer as well that Museums have their own thematic, and their educational activity turn around specific ideas that cannot be discussed in its totality in the absence of concrete connexions to other sectors of society. Therefore, even if the approaches are valuable and useful for certain contexts of study, there exist collective codes about art and culture around modes of being approached, which then influence social interactions and continue to perpetuate a compartmented society.
The Museum’s educational activity has in fact, many advantages because it allows the population to have an approach which is close to the historical context in which the society has developed, but the compartmentalization of areas of expertise in specific spaces without important activity in other spaces makes difficult to «reflect upon perspectives, understanding and interactions» (Museu do Oriente, 2018), «motivate observation and reflexion, orientating and stimulating individual participation» (MNAA, 2018), «incentivise the creative thought and new forms of appropriation and construction of knowledge (...) to democratize the access to culture.» (MAAT, 2018)
The Festival proposes a amplified structure of resonances for the Museums’ practice, and amplifies their role and position within society. The Festival offers a model which promotes resonances during the days of Festival, but not only. It offers a real continuity and consistency of participation from artists but also the community, who engages for several months in a process of preparation, through rehearsals and continual involvement. The Festival allows an important role in terms of cultural and artistic mediation, which allow resonances for Education in the Arts as well as, diversifies the set of spaces and practices. Parallelly, it allows several Museums to cross themes and specialities, and therefore possibilities for a wider participation of the youth, helping deepening modes of reflexion about the society, city, or region, in which they are inserted in. As such, the Festival offers possibilities for reinforcing young people’s affirmation as active citizens.