HearMe – How can museums and galleries reach young audiences

How can museums and galleries reach young audiences, and make them gain insights and develop empathy?

To change the museum’s way of working, means to disturb their business as usual, and have them interact with their audiences – making especially the young visitors part of the experience across their collections. To do this we need to train the trainers, speak daringly and focus on emerging global topics. By choosing works of migrants in national galleries and museums we demonstrate that migrations are not a new phenomenon: some migrants from previous centuries were artists whose works became national treasures. In the course of time also art works migrate from an author to an owner and to a museum, and from there between museums, audiences and collectors.

Culture has the power to expose what is happening around us and nourish critical thinking by supporting social values and rights.  Only deep experienced culture can bring to life artworks, reveal their inherent values and provoke the dynamic interactivity of the contents and topics connecting, in our case, to the present situation with migrations and migrants.

This is the thread of this project. To let strong emotions emerge by actively engaging young audiences with societal values and create a virtual collection of their reflections about the world around them. Brick them. Make them change their viewpoint. Initiate dialogue. Augment the cultural capital. Create responsible citizens.

What the goals are:

·          To build deeper relationships between youth and partner museums;

·          To develop skills of museum educators for open concepts and programmes based on audience participation and involvement, most particularly the youth, considering their expectations, wishes, and needs;

·          To incorporate advanced methodologies into museum training and educational programmes towards the inclusion and participation of the audience

The HearMe workshop blends several methodologies (BRICKme, Design Thinking, Gamification, Open Art Dialogue, Agile, Kanban, LEGO SERIOUS PLAY and Business Model You) and adapts them to the museum environment. In the workshop, we construct out of the physical material our own statements. Although everybody uses the same material, each model looks different. We explore the differences and similarities through critical thinking. We contextualize our positions. Everything becomes more complex and multifaceted: connections are made, relations between models are built. Our absolutist view becomes part of an intricate web. Then, a hypothetical situation arises and we have to solve it.

Who moves where? What does that mean? Who does it affect? Through teamwork we develop ingenuity and improve social skills that lead to problem solving and co-creative solutions.

Assisted by technology and mobile telephony we achieve the viral communication of processes and benefits. We connect our realizations with works of art. In the permanent collections of museums, we explore art made by migrant artists, migrant motifs and works that moved between countries, regions and peoples. Why did they move? What did they leave behind? How did they change? How would we act in a similar situation? Thus, through a series of exercises, art leaves the frame and comes to life becoming an integral part of the everyday experience, observation and open dialogue.  We experience art as the catalyst for solutions to pressing social issues.

Now, we understand.

Now, we work together. Now, we hear.