WORKSHOPS & MASTERCLASSES
Thursday 8 December 2022
10:00 – 18:00 (Eastern European Time)
10:00 – 11:00
Masterclass | ONLINE
Diving deep into optimizing employee experience
with
Catherine Devine, Global Director, Business Strategy – Libraries & Museums, Microsoft Tech for Social Impact (U.S.)
Description
The pandemic has seen a fundamental shift in how we work – for good and bad. This masterclass will explore the latest technology developments, best practices and case studies, to support optimal employee experience with a focus on wellbeing of employees. Microsoft recognizes that employee experience is not only productivity but also taking a holistic approach to the individual. This masterclass is an ideal followup to the “Balancing productivity and wellbeing” keynote on December 7th.
10:00 – 11:30
Masterclass | IN-PERSON | Benaki Museum/Pireos 138
The Art Library: Commissioning art with and for communities
with
Prof Fiona Kearney, Director, the Glucksman, University College Cork (IE)
Description
As a response to the pandemic, the Glucksman has developed a loan collection, primarily comprised of specially commissioned artworks that allow for the considered exploration of contemporary research themes and societal challenges. These new commissions have been developed in partnership with diverse communities of interest and place, including the LGBT+ community, older people, and healthcare workers. These stimulating works of art are made available to schools, libraries, hospitals, accommodation centres and local hubs across Ireland to promote engagement with contemporary art practice within community settings. This masterclass will share the learning journey of developing such commissions and the ways in which the artists and the communities collaborated together to create belonging as well as art.
10:30 – 12:00
Masterclass | IN-PERSON | Benaki Museum/Pireos 138
Objects of Life and Health
with
Professor Brenda Cowan, Exhibition & Experience Design, Fashion Institute of Technology/SUNY (U.S.)
Description
Objects of Life and Health shares how objects and exhibitions enhance people’s healing and well-being. Illustrations from everyday life and five international museums will showcase how object experiences foster healing and well-being in a diversity of participants, including general audiences, refugees and immigrants, survivors of war, and communities impacted by socioeconomic challenges. Attendees will help shape this session with examples of their own, while learning the mechanics of the Psychotherapeutic Object Dynamics tool used in the studies. Discussion will include the role of mental health experts, safe and mindful practices, and advocates in exhibition and programming processes.
11:30 – 12:30
Masterclass | IN-PERSON | Benaki Museum/Pireos 138
“Many considerations to make – many needs to balance”. Moral challenges professionals could face when working with contested or sensitive histories and how to address them
with Kathrin Pabst, Project Leader Identity on the Line (I-ON), Head of the Scientific Department, Vest-Agder-museet IKS (ΝΟ)
Description
What are the moral challenges professionals working with contested history face in dealing with sensitive, taboo-related topics that include personal narratives? What to have in mind when interacting with the informants who might not have shared their often traumatic experiences before, and what to consider when disseminating these narratives to a broader public? And how to take care of yourself when feelings of recognition, helplessness or exhaustion are triggered during the collecting and dissemination process? These questions will be addressed during a workshop from practical and theoretical points of view.
16:00 – 17:00
Masterclass | ONLINE
Ethics of care in the museum
with
Hans Looijen, Director, Museum van de Geest (NL)
Description
The Museum of the Mind is fascinated by the artwork between your ears. We give voice, a stage and make room for people and the community with lived experiences. With our art and culture programs we make mental health a subject of discussion, also for people who think they are normal. The number of people with psychological problems is staggering. The impact on life, education, training, study or work is evident and social exclusion increases this suffering. Mental health care can do something that a museum cannot. That is, actually providing care. A museum can do something that mental health care cannot. Namely, to make mental health negotiable and familiar to a large new audience in a different way. The museum reopened in 2020, performed by Queen Máxima, who speaks out more and more on favor of mental health. With the complete renewal came a strong change of direction, the museum entered new territory. It takes position enlarging the space between the classic museum function and a new, social position on neurodiversity and ‘the mind’. Also important is our emphasis on broadening the cultural canon with outsider art at the second location of Museum of the Mind / Outsiderart, Amsterdam (also opened by Queen Máxima in 2016). Here, in the heart of the Dutch cultural offering by international art institutions we present our collection of outsider art in which artists show their inner world. At both locations we give voice and provide a stage to people who tell there untold stories and experiences and who were not represented in museums for a very long time.
16:00 – 17:00
Masterclass | ONLINE
Locally Rooted, Globally Connected: In support of the arts through the Outset Contemporary Art Fund Perspective
with
Artemis Stamatiadis, Director of Outset Greece and Nicolette Cavaleros, Co-Director and Trustee of Outset UK
Description
Outset Contemporary Art Fund is the leading international, independent charity supporting innovative art projects that engage the widest possible audiences. This masterclass will focus on the guiding principles of Outset and on the importance of offering crucial funding support but also activating networks and initiating new relationships and partnerships. Our commitment is to be there at the outset of impactful change.
16:30 – 18:00
Masterclass | IN-PERSON | Benaki Museum/Pireos 138
Museology and Neuropsychology: New interdisciplinary synapses*
with
Dr Helen Anyfandi, Psychologist, BSc, Clinical Neuropsychologist, MSc, PhD (GR) & Dr Marlen Mouliou, Assistant Professor of Museology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) (GR)
Description
This masterclass will put forward in an interdisciplinary way a key question: how can we assess different museum experiences as well as the personal meaning-making processes that museum visitors structure during their museum visits through the functions of the brain? If we consider museum experiences as potentially spiritual experiences that have the power to “move” us intellectually and emotionally, how can we trace such experiences in the brain? The moderators of the masterclass will share ideas and challenge ways of thinking about the cognitive and emotional experiences we have in our interactions with museum objects. The masterclass will be structured around short presentations by the moderators, experiential exercises with the participants and lots of discussion within the group.
*This workshop will be held in Greek.
17:00– 18:00
Masterclass | IN-PERSON | Benaki Museum/Pireos 138
Expressions of Community Care in the Museum
with
Angela Lombardi, Director of Outreach and Audience Engagement at North Carolina Museum of Art (U.S.)
Description
What are your true, actionable goals for making your museum a place where diverse communities feel a genuine sense of belonging? In this workshop, we will examine practices that have been put into place recently at the North Carolina Museum of Art, a state funded institution in the Southern US that has the mandate to serve all citizens of the state through free admission, educational initiatives, and free programming for all ages and abilities. How do we work to fulfill our mission and commit ourselves to the well-being of our communities through art? We’ll take a close look at the opportunities available to us to increase visibility, the involvement of teens and university students, work with unlikely partners, and efforts to become a vital hub of mindfulness in an age of anxiety.