Co-museum

THE INCLUSIVE MUSEUM

BROADENING THE ROLE OF MUSEUMS AND CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
IN SOCIETY
​ATHENS, 26 NOV 2015
THESSALONIKI, 27 NOV 2015
Screenshot 2020-09-01 at 3.13.06 PM

Museums are increasingly a space for discussion, reflection, movement, creativity, participation, and personal and professional growth. Ambitious speaker programmes give a cross-disciplinary background to works in their collections. Apps and other digital features help recruit the next generation of museum-goers. Worldwide, museums and other cultural organizations are taking advantage of their often enviable spaces to host studio courses, innovation labs, and even yoga classes.

As museums become more active players in their communities, audiences speak up more. In Manchester, UK, the Whitworth has made the community part of the organization’s artistic and creative mission, handing authority and ownership to visitors —and as a result it received the Artfund Museum of the Year award in 2015. In New York, the New Museum, which is the city’s only dedicated contemporary art museum, has addressed civic and economic issues with the IDEAS CITY festival and the NEW INC entrepreneurship incubator for artists, designers, and technology professionals. The arts program at Bloomberg Philanthropies helps institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History attract new audiences with beautifully designed digital content such as the 82nd and Fifth app for iPad. At the fifth annual Museum Conference, museum and cultural professionals from Greece, the U.S. and the UK will examine how museums and other cultural organisations can engage with diverse audiences and drive changes in society.

SPEAKERS

Ath / Thess
Anita Contini
Arts Program,
Bloomberg Philanthropies
U.S.A
Ath / Thess
Esmé Ward
Head of Engagement,
The Whitworth and Manchester Museum,
The University of Manchester
UK
Ath / Thess
Karen Wong
Deputy Director,
New Museum
U.S.A
Ath
Maria-Thalia Carras
Co-founder,
Locus Athens
GR
Ath
Fotis Flevotomos
Artist-Musician
GR
Ath
Panos Papoulias
Assistant Director of Programs &
Strategic Initiatives,
Stavros Niarchos Foundation
GR
Ath
Elia Vlachou
Archeologist-Museologist,
Head of the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation
GR
Ath
Amalia Zepou
Vice Mayor for Civil Society and Municipality Decentralisation,
City of Athens
GR
Ath
Paul B. Preciado
Curator of Public Programs,
documenta 14
DE
Ath
Adam Szymczyk
Artistic Director,
documenta 14
DE
SCHEDULE ATHENS
SCHEDULE THESSALONIKI
SPEAKER'S VIDEO

GALLERY

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Anita Contini

Arts Program,
Bloomberg Philanthropies
U.S.Α.

Anita Contini joined the Bloomberg Philanthropies Arts Program in 2010. Prior to joining Bloomberg Philanthropies, Anita was Senior Vice President and Director of Corporate Public Affairs and Philanthropy at CIT Group. From 2002 to 2005, she served as Vice President and Director of the WTC Memorial, Cultural, and Civic Programs at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. She developed a process and implementation plan for the 9/11 World Trade Center memorial, including the jury process for selecting its designer.
Previously, Anita served as First Vice President of Global Sponsorships and Client Events Marketing at Merrill Lynch, where she managed the firm’s giving and client program and as Vice President and Artistic Director of World Financial Center Arts and Events/Marketing for Brookfield Properties.
In 1974, Anita founded Creative Time, an award-winning nonprofit arts organization, and was its Director and President until 1987. She has received a number of awards for distinguished public service, including from the Municipal Arts Society, Hofstra University, AIA New York Chapter, ArtTable, and the Downtown Lower Manhattan Business Association.
Anita currently serves on the boards of The Drawing Center, Cultural Data Project, Grantmakers in the Arts, and Publicolor. She is on the Operating Committee for ArtPlace America and a member of ArtTable and the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter.
Email anita@bloomberg.org ​

Esmé Ward

Head of Engagement,
The Whitworth and Manchester Museum,
University of Manchester
UK

Esmé is a key member of the leadership team who developed the new Whitworth. She has led some of its most bold and challenging work around engaging new audiences, handing authority and ownership to visitors, taking creative risks with programmes and making community part of the organisation’s artistic and creative mission. She has worked in museum and galleries for 20 years, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Dulwich Picture Gallery and The National Trust before founding the learning and engagement programme in Manchester. She has overseen the growth of this work to include award-winning programmes and partnerships with formal learning, arts and health, early years, families and age friendly communities. She is also Head of Engagement at Manchester Museum, co-teaches an MA Creative Learning in the Institute for Cultural Practice and is Strategic Lead for Culture for Age Friendly Manchester.
Email esme.ward@manchester.ac.uk

Karen Wong

Deputy Director,
New Museum
U.S.A.

Karen Wong is the Deputy Director of the New Museum, in New York. She cofounded the initiatives IDEAS CITY which explores the future of cities with the belief that art and culture are essential to our metropolises, and NEW INC, the first museum-led incubator for art, technology and design. She was the managing director of David Adjaye Associates from 2000-2006 and supports emerging architects in her role as a board member of Storefront for Art and Architecture and + Pool. In the mid-90’s she founded Hobbamock, a Boston-based design firm committed to nonprofits and social causes. She sits on the boards of Rhizome, a platform for contemporary art engaged with digital culture, and Apex, a mentoring and education program for underserved Asian youth. She is on the advisory board of National Sawdust, a nonprofit venue for new music located Williamsburg. She graduated magna cum laude from Brown University.
Email kwong@newmuseum.org

Maria-Thalia Carras

Co-founder,
Locus Athens
GR

Maria-Thalia Carras studied history of art at the University of Cambridge and the Courtauld Institute in the UK. Returning to Athens, she wrote for several magazine and newspapers, and was responsible for a series of documentaries of prominent Greek artists of the 20th century. The series was aired on National Greek Television. From 2002, she was assistant curator to Christos Joachimides for the international contemporary art exhibition, OUTLOOK. In 2004 she co-founded Locus Athens, a non-profit arts organization with a special interest on the correlation of contemporary art and public space.
Email maria@locusathens.com

Fotis Flevotomos

Artist-Musician
GR

Fotis Flevotomos is a visual artist and musician. His work focuses on narratives and multisensory museum practices that explore the different ways we see things. He has collaborated with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC) for the development of multisensory programs for people with vision loss, and the SNFCC Visitors Center school outreach program. In 2012 he began studying the collections of the Benaki Museum and after two years of work he developed in collaboration with the Department of Education a monthly program for visitors who are blind or partially sighted (the museum launched this program in October 2014). In 2012 Flevotomos received a Fulbright grant and joined the New York Public Library (NYPL) Outreach Department in its efforts to raise awareness on issues around art, low vision and creativity in NYC. He studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts and art and music theory at the University of Essex (MPhil).
Email fotisflev@gmail.com

Panos Papoulias

Assistant Director of Programs & Strategic Initiatives,
Stavros Niarchos Foundation
GR

Panos Papoulias is Assistant Director of Programs & Strategic Initiatives at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. He holds a BA in Politics, Economics and Philosophy (major in Economics) from the University of York, UK, an MSc. in Political Theory from the London School of Economics, UK, and an MBA from the Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece. In 2007, he received his PhD in Governance at the London School of Economics on the subject of the relationship between Ethical Pluralism and Liberal political doctrines. He has taught various undergraduate political theory courses before working as Head of Investment at a leading Greek aluminum company. In 2013, he worked as Management Advisor and then as Operations Manager at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, which will host the National Library of Greece (NLG), the Greek National Opera (GNO) and the 170,000 sq. meters Stavros Niarchos Park.
Email p.papoulias@snf.org

Elia Vlachou

Archeologist-Museologist,
Head of the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation
GR

Elia Vlachou holds a diploma in Archaeology (University of Athens) and three postgraduate degrees -in museology (École du Louvre), Prehistoric Archaeology (Paris I) and Comparative Literature (Paris IV-Sorbonne). She has worked as museologist at art galleries and at the Hellenic Ministry of Culture. In 2003, she joined the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP) and in 2007 she became Head of the Museums Department. Head of the Foundation since 2013, she is coordinating PIOP’s various activities and EU-financed projects aiming at the valorization of Greece’s cultural landscape and history of production. She gives lectures on museology and on cultural management at graduate and postgraduate level. She is Member of ICOM (Greek section), European Museum Academy (pool of experts), TICCIH, ICOMOS and of the judging committee for the prize Heritage in Motion.
Email VlachouE@piraeusbank.gr

Amalia Zepou

Vice Mayor for Civil Society and
Municipality Decentralisation,
City of Athens
GR

Amalia Zepou was elected on the municipal board of Athens and was appointed Vice Mayor for Civil Society and Municipality Decentralization in September 2014. In April 2013, she became the Advisor of Athens Mayor Mr. Yorgos Kaminis for civil society outreach. She created the digital platform “SynAthina,” which was further developed into a project that won one of the five Mayors Challenge awards of 1 million euro from Bloomberg Philanthropies in September 2014.
Previously, Amalia was working as an independent documentary producer. She has a BA in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics and an MA in Media Studies from the New School for Social Research in New York in 1991.
Εmail azep63@gmail.com

Paul B. Preciado

Curator of Public Programs,
documenta 14
DE

Paul B. Preciado is a philosopher, curator, and transgender activist, and one of the leading thinkers in the field of gender and sexual politics. An Honors Graduate and Fulbright Fellow, he earned an M.A. in Philosophy and Gender Theory at the New School for Social Research in New York, where he studied with Agnes Heller and Jacques Derrida. He holds a PhD in Philosophy and Theory of Architecture from Princeton University. His first book, Contra-Sexual Manifesto (forthcoming publication by Columbia University Press in 2015) was acclaimed by French critics as “the red book of queer theory” and became a key reference for European queer and transgender activism. He is the author of Testo Junkie. Sex, Drugs and Biopolitics (The Feminist Press), and Pornotopia (Zone Books), for which he was awarded the Sade Price in France. He has served as Head of Research at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA) and Director of the Independent Studies Program (PEI). He teaches Philosophy of the Body and Transfeminist Theory at Université Paris VIII-Saint Denis and at New York University.
Email preciado@documenta.de

Adam Szymczyk

Artistic Director,
documenta 14
DE

Adam Szymczyk is co-founder of the Foksal Gallery Foundation in Warsaw, where he worked as a curator since 1997. He was appointed as Kunsthalle Basel’s director in 2003, where he organized over 100 exhibitions in the course of a year. Together with Elena Filipovic, he curated the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art under the title When Things Cast No Shadow. He is a member of the board of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. In 2011, he was recipient of the Walter Hopps Award for Curatorial Achievement at the Menil Foundation in Houston. In November 2013, he was appointed Artistic Director of documenta 14 by an independent, international jury.
Email office@documenta.de