As you may have noticed, I was finally not at the Museum Next conference last 22 -23 October, but present and thus giving us the opportunity of a second guest post was Alice Lebredonchel, French consultant in cultural communication and owner of Innovart, a blog specialising in innovations in culture, particularly dedicated to the theme of growing audiences through marketing. She provided us with a full account of her experience at Museum Next that you can only read with profit. The layout slightly differ, so you can find the original post at Innovart.
"Back from Newcastle, here is my report on Museum Next, a conference for worldwide museum professionals based on a great interaction between its participants through workshops, “unconference” sessions and other debates, that is to say two intense days of sharing, exchanging and brainstorming among the participants. Approximately 70 professionals of the museum world were there among whom artists, curators, institutions directors, members of education departments or consultants, an eclectic mix to think together about tools and strategies for involving audiences in museums in order to make them more lively and interactive.
This event was held at the Great North Museum for the first day and at the Center for Life for the second day
Day One :
For the first moments of exchange between participants of Museum Next we went to a space specifically aimed for the young audiences of the museum imagined by the collective [re] design , a sustainable exhibition designer group. Each participant was asked to test the scenery in groups, from the design of a monster with a sock or a sculpture with paper cups.
After these first moments of chatting and “creative stimulation”, we got to work with a presentation of every "wild ideas" submitted by some participants
Once these presentations were made, work could begin and groups were formed each treating on one of the 6 “wild ideas”
Day two :
The second day began with a fascinating presentation by Nina Simon (slides available here ). The content of her inspiring remarks , relevant examples that she has contributed to, and the conceptualisation of ideas she presented - and the quality of the layout of her power point presentation:)- have been, I think, an inspiration for all participants until the end of the conference.
Then followed 8 “unconferences” submitted by participants during the previous evening, two sessions of approximately 45 minutes held on topics as diverse as:
- How can we measure success?
- How to manage visitors who came because they had to?
- How can social interactions be facilitated by digital devices in museums and so on and so forth
Then we got back to our “wild ideas”.
During lunch break I had the chance to visit the exhibition “Democracy” with some attendees accompanied by its designer Jim Richardson. This exhibition aims at being as democratic as possible, with works chosen through a voting system which is continuously updated. You can visit the website of this incredible exhibition here or listen to Jim himself :
Back to the Center for Life, we had the opportunity to finalise our proposals before presenting them to the rest of the participants.
All the videos are available here.Congratulations to Jim Richardson and Nina Simon for giving us the opportunity to think and create together and to leave Newcastle with our head full of ideas!"
