CASADÁGUA INSTITUTE REPORT
CASADÁGUA INSTITUTE REPORT
1.
The declared purpose of “Museo Reimaginando” was to critically reflect on the role of museums as active community partners in facing
a series of social, cultural and environmental challenges. Does participating in Museo Reimaginando have changed your mind about this? If so, how?
The lectures, dialogues and activities organized by the Museo Reimaginado in Medellín provided a high level of ideas, allowing excellent conditions for participants to reflect, gestate and collectively articulate new reflections on the role of museums as active partners for social and environmental transformation. I believe that the organization of the event has been able to choose the city, the place and the receiving institution very well to enable an event where the central theme runs through issues that Medellín and many institutions in the city recognize well.
CASADÁGUA INSTITUTE REPORT
Medellín is an exponent city in what concerns the elaboration of cultural mechanisms for the confrontation of social problems. This can be seen both in projects of immense magnitude and with high resources undertaken, such as the Museo de la Memoria, as well as in those developed by community associations. It can be seen in Medellín that the discussion of the social function of culture centers makes us think about social transformation and it is not reserved for a selected group, but it expands in a generalized way in several sectors of the population.
Something very interesting happened when some questions or reflections came to mind. They were accompanied by possibilities. They emerged as recognized spaces. Perhaps not experienced, but rather as territories of approximation. Being face to face to each other, made us see ourselves better. We were able to recognize what others have been doing and at the same time reflect on our actions. We entered the atmosphere of Creative Imagination that calls for levitation on the dense layer that drowns us daily for a brief overfly on distinct experiences that move dreams in America. Where everything is always wrapped in hope and happiness. Where there are possibilities. Many of them. This is a strong characteristic of Museo Reimaginado: to believe that dreaming is essential, necessary and possible. This dream has neither fair size nor announced dimensions. They are to come with the power that is urgent to present themselves. Slide Apresentação de Brigitte Baptiste
CASADÁGUA INSTITUTE REPORT
The expectation of what would be seen, heard and experienced in Museo Reimaginado was very well achieved. On some occasions surprised and gifted with the diversity, quality and creativity offered. It is very important to find and share accomplishments, processes and dreams with so many good professionals who develop projects throughout America. It was good being together, talking and listening to people there. Being in tune and tuning instruments together is very important for innovations and ideas to emerge and be shared. I was not surprised by the content of the discussions. I knew we would be in a very fine and sensitive contact zone. The surprises were good. They made us realize the real possibility of developing very good projects.
2.
Do you think attending this conference will change the way you approach your daily work? Please explain.
Exposiciรณn Lo visible e el invisible en la fotografia, Museo de Antiรณquia.
I believe that an event like the Reimaginado indicates and exposes a subtle but strong human condition: to dream together. Even in front of a vast landscape that beckons to the difficult challenges that we are facing and we will have to live, in Medellín we had the grace to be accompanied by a select group of visionaries. America lives and strikes. America, even though suffering, with so many disgusts lived, brings a joviality of spirit that always promotes courage and joy. We know this is a process. We are a continent that has always known how to rebuild and rebuild.
We're not ready for this. Not as people, neither as museums nor as humanity. Everything is in process.
Seeing, listening, and finding ideas, thoughts and creations of America gathered in Medellín was important to realize that our actions and ways of working with museum projects are going through paths that do not develop in a solitary way. To reconcile the spaces of museums as spaces that touch the current themes of humanity seems to be the resumption of the perspective of a museum as a cultural center that produces thought and culture. We're not ready for this. Not as people, neither as museums nor as humanity. Everything is in process. Realizing that we will continue to be in the process of development, we will act in our places not only as exhibitors of past process results, but as thinkers of present and future new processes. Bus with social message in the city Medellín
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CASADÁGUA INSTITUTE REPORT
After the Museo Reimaginado, or even during the event, I was able to meditate on the infinite ways of thinking about everyday work. The professional glimmer received a strong injection of spirits. We got to the end of the event with more desire to realize, design, dream, transform, gather and create possibilities for new research, new themes, new exhibitions and new pedagogical methodologies.
The Museo de la Memoria de Medellín is a successful project that refers to the idea of a museum that exposes the past to invite us to think about the present and the future. The visitor crosses the rooms of the museum coming in contact with painful contents and at the same time delicate and well elaborated that provokes a feeling of sadness, commotion and empathy with the stories of so many Colombian families. At the same time, however, my personal experience, as the intermediary of the rooms set up by this museum, made me feel a laudable capacity for reframing and transformation that humans have in their genetic code. I was thrilled. Perhaps this is the great key to change: providing emotions. Much was said about Empathy at the event. We already have projects and results that indicate and provide this glimpse of positive feeling.
Medellín, although having a large population, was known to be small and manageable. The Museo de la Memória de Medellín for its excellent research and curatorial team presents itself as a center of art and technology on civil studies. A visitor can approach a history of the city and realize how a social mechanism generates transformation not the environment. Images of Museo de la Memória
The city belongs to all citizens, and it is important that museums participate in this reflection in an open and active way. Juan Luis MejĂa Arango, from Universidad EAFIT, was able to show us some of the results generated and produced by this thought in MedellĂn. Museums, community centers and many other projects in the city demonstrate who they are. They learned to look at themselves with criticism, tenderness, and compassion. They learn to transform realities with criticality and creativity. Surely the harsh social history lived in this city and in the country created, with difficulty, the need of a thought that exalted the common census. The compulsory investment of private resources for the composition of a social responsibility shows results of the construction of a reality where the various sectors of society think the problems in a less centralized way. The city belongs to all citizens, and it is important that museums participate in this reflection in an open and active way.
Paint of Fernando Botero, Museo de Antiรณquia
3.
Which speaker, session or workshop did you learn most or which one was more interesting to you and why?
Dialogue sesion :Comunidades que crean y agitan museus
The organization of the event before it happens; announcing the programming, themes, times and spaces weekly was very good. Previously we could select some possible routes during the event. They were just predictions. An event of this magnitude opens up a sea of possibilities that are presented at the same time. Which one to choose? Where to go? Among all the possibilities, I found ways that I believe offered me answers, surprises, questions and possibilities for dialogue. It was very important to recognize Deborah Mack, Auntaneshia Staveloz, and Marion McGee of NMAACH. In the same way as also recognize other professionals of the Smithsonian Institution. Luckily we could be sharing discussions that we were both interested in some moments. Especially at the first dialog table (Comunidades que crean y AGITAN museums) that was held on the first day of the event, coordinated by Deborah Mack NMAACH and got together Cesareo Moreno National Museum of Art Mexian / Chicago, Esmeralda Ortiz Cuero- Museo Comunitario de MulalĂł / Colombia), Karima Grant - Imagination Africa / Senegal and Teresa Morales (Network of Community Museums of America / Mexico). Participating in this table made it possible to approach our projects in Brazil with those ones of Teresa Morales in Mexico / America and also with those coordinated by Karima Grant in Senegal. During the three days we were able to talk, exchange ideas and consider future meetings possibilities. It was at this same table that I was able to recognize Myriam Springuel of the Smithsonian Institution, with whom I could also converse and see possibilities for greater contact during the event. Similarly it was also in this same table that I initiated communication with Elena Gomez, from the Museo de Arte Moderno de MedellĂn, who after the event, proposed future dialogues possibilities for 2018. Fellowship Recipients
Another space well used was the second day's dialogue table (AdentroAfuera: Museos y espacio publico) coordinated by Suzanne MacLeod (Leicester University UK) and attended by Nina Simon (Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History / USA), Angela María Perez (Cultural Deputy Manager of the Bank of the Republic of Colombia, Nisa Mackie (Walker Art Center / USA) and María Mercedes González (Modern Art Museum of Medellín). The social question for me has always presented itself with great importance. To see and recognize community museum projects in other parts of America and the world has been a way to find partners who reflect on similar dreams. However, after so many years of researching, and curating exhibitions on themes related to people's stories, I realize that many of these people who are dedicated to listening to, recording and story telling often do not have the opportunity to visit museums or cultural centers . This perception has made me in the last 10 years design itinerant projects, projects that walk, circulate and invite the public to experience and recognize their stories for playful and dynamic spaces that we create and take to their communities. I can say, now, after the Reimaginado, that we have expertise in the Inside / Outside dialogue. Seeing what other institutions have been promoting in this direction has really been an oasis of joy. Slide of Nisa Mackie presentation
Slide of Brigitte Baptiste presentation
4.
What is the idea, tool or strategy that you´ve learned in the conference and you plan to implement immediatly when you retorn to your institution?
I'll list some of them: 1- Narrowing dialogues: surely this was one of the most effective strategies presented at the meeting. Realize that by gathering forces and looks the projects become bigger and more complex and with greater organizational capacity. 2. Trust in the other's gaze: to become humble in order to listen and receive advice from other people on your team, other teams and other universes that do not necessarily act in the same direction. 3 - Participatory management: Being with the director of Explora Park (AndrĂŠs Roldan) was undoubtedly a learning experience that refers to a charismatic spirit of leadership that knows the value of composing a team that dreams together, thinks together and evaluates together the project in question. The joviality of Americo Castilla also exalts this sense of participatory management and opened listening. These two managers coordinate big projects, but the way of weaving ideas and procedures seems to be of old weavers who know the threads at hand. 4- Restructuring of the exhibition space: in the workshop of Prototipado RĂĄpido it was possible to exercise the restructuring of an exhibition space that needs a new face that attracts the best of the public. Sometimes our projects are very good, they have significant contents, but they can be flawed at some point as to how we present it and invite the audience to experience it. The exercise of this workshop allowed us to open our eyes to redefine spaces already conceived. This exercise is also very important to invite the public to visit our actions.
5- Being small: Being small does not mean not being big. This was also an exalted feature in Reimaginado. We can occupy small spaces, but with grandiose designs. 6- Humility, empathy and attention: feelings very enunciated throughout the event. These seem to be the feelings that govern the success of a project (big or small). Giving attention to the other, perceiving life from the perspective of the other and not feeling better than anyone else are necessary ingredients for the successful completion of our proposals. 7- Creativity: It has become clear that one of the most obvious paths to the success of an exhibition is a more careful and audacious conversation with the creative potential offered by the arts. 8 - Deconstruction of truths: It has been clearly announced that we can and should open ourselves to new ways of perceiving life. Our projects can dare in new directions. They can be more critical, more questioning, more innovative, more open to new directions for ourselves and for humanity. 9- Art and Science: The presentation we had the pleasure of experiencing at the closing of the second working day is a clear demonstration that the encounter between art and science is something more than salutary, very well understood by the public. Classical music may well be understood, felt and appreciated by the public when presented in a nice way and introduced by artists and sensitive researchers.
Slide of Brigitte Baptiste presentation
5.
Slide of Nina Simone presentation
What did you value most about your participation in the call?
Surely the most enriching in an event like the Reimaginado are the encounters and exchanges of experiences that we can live. These encounters always reflect our paths and show new horizons. It is as if everything starts again, another cycle, a new moment. For me to have received the support of NMAACH was immediately to start a dive in the actions that the Smithsoniam Institution realizes. After receiving the notification, I began a deep research on the projects that this institution has been coordinating. I identified with some, surprised myself with others, and surely learned from all of them. It was months of research on the Smithsonian sites, which led me to learn about other institutions. That is, a new wide horizon of inspirations. I was anxious to recognize the NMAACH team in Medellin, unfortunately we did not have much time together. But we were able to share common dialogues. The work that Explora Park has been doing has also surprised me a lot. In fact, it is not only the Explora Park, because together with it, it is the Botanical Garden, the other Museums of the City, the many socio cultural projects. I think I was very surprised to have noticed this network of actions that is remarkable in MedellĂn. I realized and heard from the mouths of many citizens that all these initiatives really reveal their realities. This is very striking. We were not hearing proposals for the future, we were walking and living the transformations.
Leaving the Botanical Garden and walking towards Parque Explora and then crossing the avenue and entering a magnificent Planetarium seemed an augmented reality experience. And the most incredible thing was to see all these urban and social equipment being enjoyed by the public. Nature teaches and heals, science investigates, elucidates and drives critical thinking, and art softens, deepens, sweetens and blesses the experience of living. The trinomial Art, Science and Nature provided in the surroundings of the Reimaginado is a dreamlike and visionary experience. Everything seemed to be possible. Even though this feeling is not true. But what matters at the moment of the meeting of visionaries is not whether it is possible or not, but rather we levitate on the impossible to achieve the immensity of a quantum leap into the unknown that we are gradually unraveling within ourselves, in our surroundings and the world. graffiti near the event
6.
Provide other reflections or general notes that you I would like to share about your experience.
Museo de la MemĂłria de MedellĂn
In a few words, what I valued most in the experience of Museo Reimaginado was to enter in this space of the possible imaginary of so many visionary, critical, poetic and dreamy minds. An experience I would also like to emphasize is with regard to the Yo Acuso. The creation of this staging was something magnificent, playful and dynamic. A series of other experiences were very well presented in a very simple and enjoyable format for speakers and audiences. A very salutary experience of experiencing. I also find it convenient and in some ways necessary to point out something that could be re thought in other editions of Reimagined. Obviously, we know that in a meeting of this magnitude, with the presence of good professionals, we want everyone to make the most of the moments and to be able to exchange experiences in the relevant occasions. The organization of the event , even created the “Thematic Lunches� believingthat by doing so they would be creating another conducive atmosphere to these exchanges. The idea is phenomenal, however, since the first edition of the event in Buenos Aires, I feel from my experience that sometimes on these occasions the lightness of the flow of encounters is lost in order to impress a sense of race against time, and by doing so we lose the naturalness of encounters. We know that great meetings begin on a table with a simple coffee. But at the same time we know that important meetings are governed by a confluence that goes beyond personal interests. I do not mean that it is not important that we make the most of contact areas, but it is important that we do not feel compelled to go against the nature of the meeting's sincerity. We know that it is in the instant of concentrated rest that we clear our senses to point our arrows at the right target.
Regarding to the Awards / Coronation, I believe we have had an almost unanimous vote for the Queer Museum Project. If we start the event with Brigitte Baptiste's well elaborated words, we conclude the meeting by recognizing the need to expand awareness of new forms of social and personal / social development. It takes more and more courage to overcome old parameters of reality. It takes more and more creativity to imagine new forms of understanding and socialization. Between humans and non-humans. The steps sometimes seem to be very slow and short, but in Reimaginado, in MedellĂn, we could see that we are able to reconfigure our mental, genetic, cultural and natural programs. Without fear, it is time to go towards this great adventure: the unknown that inhabits in all of us.
MAURÍCIO CAMARGO PANELLA
I´m graduated in Social Sciences from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, with a bachelor's degree in anthropology and sociology. I have a Diploma of Advanced Studies from the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Granada-Spain. I have a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Granada / Spain. I`m an Adjunct coordinator of the research line Encontros de Rua: a cidade as a laboratory of sensory experiences / Department of Architecture and Urbanism / UFRN. I´m a Researcher of the Aesthetics and Semiotics Nucleus of the Post-Graduate Program in Architecture and Urbanism / UNB. Founder of Casadágua Institute Art, Education and Sustainability. I´m a Coordinator of Projects of Art and Patrimonial Education and popularization of science intersection between art, science and technology as a field of knowledge and action. I have developed researches on the interfaces of architecture with knowledge and cultural and artistic production, seeking to discuss topics related to seizure, appropriation, and belonging to the public space. I have a scientific and artistic production in Rio Grande do Norte, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro-Brazil, Veracruz and Oaxaca-Mexico, Granada-Spain.
INSTITUTO CASADĂ GUA www.institutocasadagua.org institutocasadagua@gmail.com 005584 987022784