Museum Strategy

Engaging Audiences Offline and Online at Monumenta, France

Last Tuesday I  was at the normally closed Grand Palais for a bloggers meeting I helped organise along with indie music reference French blogger Charles Dufresne.

 The meeting gathered a panel of bloggers from different backgrounds but with a shared interest in contemporary art around Marc Sanchez Artistic Director of the CNAP –the National Center for Fine Arts which organisesmajor cultural events for the Ministry of Culture - and Aurélie Lesous, who is in charge of mediation and educational programmes for Monumenta.

  On at the moment is a piece much talked of : Christian Boltanski’s installation entitled « Personnes » for Monumenta, a widely acclaimed yearly artistic confrontation between the 13,500 squ. meters of the Nave of the Grand Palais and a internationally renowned artist creating a piece for the occasion.

 

Monumenta’s main focus is to promote contemporary art beyond its usual fanbase, reaching out to wider audiences to fullfill the gap in understanding that  exists between audiences and contemporary art, changing typical reactions such as  « How should I interpret this ?», or « I could do that myself ! » into a dialogue.

 We were all gathered to discuss the reception of contemporary art amongst audiences and the work Monumenta achieves in this respect and had a very thought-provoking exchange on the conditions required to engage audiences online as well. 

 We first discussed the philosophy of cultural mediation, Aurelie insisted that the first goal of mediation is to propose and not to impose. The interesting thing about initiatives like that is that the Grand Palais is not filled with guards at the moment but with mediation-trained agents, not a familiar sight in a usual museum in France. If the visitor wishses to, he can then engage in a dialogue with mediators about the particulars of the work presented and thus start to work on his own impressions. 

 With that in mind, a discussion about the online translation of  this belief in dialogue started.

 Why not extending these precisous dialogues and personal impressions beyond Monumenta ? Why not having a blog to communicate on this, or more genrally a job done with participation of staff to enhance Monumenta?

 The reason why Monumenta has chosen not to engage in a full online development says Marc Sanchez is because he does not necessarily feel comfortable with talking  about an arts event while organising it. What is the role the staff would endorse ? Could it be perceived as mere advertising ? In this regard,  Marc Sanchez discussed some past experiences, some of them when he was a manager of the Palais de Tokyo which spoke in favour of his doubts, typically some mediators who took part to the dialogue being quite violently bashed for being bound to  be biased and do sheer promotion of the work. The way I personnaly see this issue is about finding your own voice. If staff engages in a conversation about Monumenta and are criticised for that, it can be because they haven’t yet their own space of expression where they would be asolutely legitimate in launching and framing debates and collecting some testimonies. In Monumenta's case, creating a space where the mediation-trained staff can interact with audiences seems more relevant.

 What are your thoughts on the subject ? Are those fears legitimate  and how do you swiftly accompany the change in the way staff and audiences interact ?

You can follow Monumenta on The Monumenta Twitter thread as well as on the dynamic Monumenta Facebook group.

Thanks to the Cnap for receiving us and for being open to discussion, this is much appreciated.

Photo credit : Alexandra Rigaud

 

Save your Date for MuseumNext 2

Let me first wish you a happy and eventful new year full of arts, visits and discoveries, experiences and learnings from your fellow workers, students, journalists or institutions.

Museum Strategy has been sleeping a bit after CultureBusiness and will be back with a detailed account of our forum, a new focus on a French museums and much more.

 For now on, the news I want to share with you is about the second installment of the conference initiated by leading consultant and lecturer Jim Richardson: MuseumNext.  

Unlike the first successful edition which took place in Newcastle, it will be set in London this time around.  The foundations of Museum Next lay in the sharp analysis of how technological progress reshapes the way the audiences want to experience their museums today and tomorrow. Jim, founder and Director of Newcastle-based design company SUMO has lectured across Europe to encourage arts organisations to embrace this radical shift in the way an institution communicate with their public.

 At Agenda we are convinced that being able to bring about this change is key and will make not only a difference between organisations but that developing a  knowledge, a taste and an adapted practice of Web 2.0 tools is a crucial point for their development.

                                                                                       

At the end of 2009, I wrote a post on the first edition of MuseumNext and later had a guest post by  AliceLebredonchel reporting on her experience of  MuseumNext original and forward thinking format.

Staged at the Wellcome Collection conference center, MuseumNext 2 will explore story sharing of successful Web 2.0 campaigns thanks to an impressive line-up : Gail Durban from the V&A, Victor Samra from the MoMA,  John Stack from the Tate, Elyse Topalian from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that we had the pleasure to hear this summer at Communicating the Museum and freshly announced Jan Willem Sieburgh from the Rijksmuseum to talk about Iphone apps devices. Museumnext will also greet Diane Drubay from France, which we are very happy about as it seems that our country is going international in this field.

To attend, all the information is on Museum Next website. Don’t forget to visit it, as well as the blog and Twitter thread.

See you there!