Museums and monuments are deeply interested in augmenting and improving the diversity of their audiences. Developing their social role implies properly identifying the complexity of a society in a state of flux and addressing its needs. Young people should therefore make up an important segment of museum and monument audiences, although it is often not easy to reach this group.
But can we afford a cultural heritage without young people? Who are they, what do they need and how do we relate to them from the field of heritage? Do we really listen to and address their needs and demands? Is there a master formula that can be unfailingly applied? Or are there interesting cases to learn about that may provide inspiration?
The sixth Cultural Heritage Seminar will tackle the issue of the relationship between young people, museums and monuments from a variety of angles and approaches. On the one hand, experts and representatives of leading museum and heritage institutions from cities such as London, Amsterdam and Berlin have been invited to present their projects and lines of action with their young communities. On the other hand, local projects and initiatives will be presented, although young people will also be allowed to speak and their opinions heard.
Agenda
MORNING
9.00 h | REGISTRATION
9.30 h - 9.45 h | Institutional welcome. Marta Lacambra, Director of the Fundació Catalunya La Pedrera. Sònia Hernández, Managing Director of Cultural Heritage in Catalonia’s Culture Department
9.45 h - 10.15 h | Diverse, complex, dynamic young people. Roger Soler-i-Martí, sociologist, lecturer and researcher at the Institute of Government and Public Policy of the Autonomous University of Barcelona
We live in diverse, complex and constantly changing societies. If these features by and large explain our societies, they are even more necessary in order to understand young people in particular. The need to understand young people often makes us forget that this group is as heterogeneous and diverse as all other age groups, or even more so, since it is during this period that a major part of the changes related to the life cycle occur. This also makes it a particularly complex group that responds to very different patterns. The paths of young people in recent decades have multiplied and become more vulnerable and precarious, making the experience of youth more uncertain and individualised. Finally, young generations are experiencing first-hand a process of social acceleration in which everything is happening and changing at great speed. Technologies facilitate and accelerate information and exchange, and social relations and experiences are likewise accelerated. This diversity, complexity and dynamism can also be observed in their cultural practices, consumption and tastes
10.15 h - 10.30 h | On young people and cultural heritage in Catalonia today: background data and references. Gisela Pau, Public Programme Department of the Catalan Agency of Cultural Heritage
Presentation of the main ideas drawn from some participatory dynamics with young people carried out by the Catalan Agency of Cultural Heritage in order to learn more about how young people relate to cultural heritage.
10.30 h - 11.00 h | COFFEE BREAK (Sala Gaudí)
11.00 h - 11.45 h | Collective strategies: co-producing with and for young people in the art museum. Rachel Noel, Head of Programmes, Partnerships and Learning at the Tate Modern (London)
How can we go beyond enabling access or creating a platform for young people and truly embed young people’s voices into our wider museum practices? What are the conditions for authentic co-production with and for young people in response to our collections? What are the collective strategies emerging from working with young people, artists and cultural practitioners today? The Young People’s Programme at Tate Britain and Tate Modern creates space for young people from all backgrounds to navigate the world around them through art, culture and ideas. The programme is devised collaboratively with young people, artists and a range of partners to create inclusive experiences, opportunities and events for young people aged 15-25. It also actively supports those from global ethnic majority, LGBTQIA+, working class, disabled and neurodiverse communities to take up space in Tate’s galleries and in the local community.
11.45 h - 12.30 h | About Van Gogh Connects: learning to reach young people with a bicultural background. Amanda Vollenweider, Head of Education and Presentation at the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam)
This programme has spent the past four years investigating how the Van Gogh Museum can offer lasting relevance to young Dutch adults with a bicultural background. Society is changing and new groups are emerging within the public for whom visiting the museum is not always a reflex. To remain relevant to a wide audience, the museum’s inclusiveness policy focuses on young people from Amsterdam, as well as people with physical disabilities and vulnerable elderly citizens. The Van Gogh Museum has worked with Amsterdam residents in the 18–30 age group to develop forty activities that explore how the museum can be relevant to young people with a bicultural background. Amanda Vollenweider will present the results of this study and the advantage of working with the Beeldbrekers (ReFramers) age group. The Beeldbrekers are a group of young adults with a bicultural background aged 18-30 who draw on their own perspectives and expertise to help the Van Gogh Museum become more inclusive. They all have affinity with the cultural sector and are intrinsically motivated to make the sector as a whole more diverse, so that art can also touch other young adults and vice versa.
12.30 h - 13.15 h | Relating cultural heritage to young people. Paul Spies, Director of the Stiftung Stadtmuseum in Berlin and Chief Curator of the Berlin Globalexhibition at the Humboldt Forum
The main target group of the Berlin Globalexhibition at the Humboldt Forum is young people – and in fact 60% of them are young people. Our focus for developing the concept of Berlin Global was to create emotional spaces, so we renounced chronologic narratives and reduced the amount of text as well as the number of objects. Instead, we created spaces with urban art, multimedia and sound. We also developed an interactive digital journey through the exhibition that enables visitors to interact with it and with each other. As museums, we are in transition from “sacred” to easy-accessible, participative and immersive spaces.
13.15 h - 13.30 h | Open question time for the speakers
13.30 h - 15.30 h | LUNCH BREAK (Free time)
AFTERNOON
15.30 h - 16.30 h | What should heritage centres do to attract young people? Roundtable discussion with Canal Malaia: Gal·la Martí, Maria Bouabdellah and Laura Grau. Chaired by Guillem Estadella.
Why is it difficult to make young people go to museums? Why is it even more difficult to make them go to museums in Catalonia? What activities could cultural spaces carry out to encourage them to go? This roundtable discussion will address the issue of cultural heritage and young people in an attempt to find answers to what museums and other cultural attractions should do to encourage and involve a group that often feels alienated. The creators will address the relationship between museums, monuments and young people in a relaxed discussion format, and they will put forward proposals to bridge the gap between young people and cultural heritage.
The Buchenwald project began in 2012 with the support of Amical de Mauthausen. Its goal is recover the historical memory of Catalan deportees in the Nazi camps in order to prevent totalitarianism and fascism. The project is aimed at young people in secondary schools with the idea that they can assimilate this objective based on their own experiences and then share and disseminate it. The Francesc Xavier Lluch i Rafecas secondary school was a pioneer in developing this idea in the form of a week-long trip to the city of Weimar and the Buchenwald concentration camp (Germany). The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, the public entity that manages this concentration camp, has an educational service that helps to interpret the camp and the city through visits, activities, workshops, and the like.
17.05 h - 17.25 h | In good company. Susana Arias, Head of Mediation at the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB)
The supposed lack of interest of young people in culture is a commonplace. But the fact remains that a large number of young people actively make and consume culture: the statistics prove this (and they also indicate that some cultural uses are changing) and we as promoters and programmers observe this every time that we open the door to their participation. Cultural institutions and companies have long been interested in young people as an audience, but the real paradigm shift consists in viewing them as creators, content producers and active participants in defining programmes. This means creating opportunities for participation, opening up processes of dialogue and working with often uncertain results, as well as designing programmes that also incorporate training and accompaniment. The CCCB has embarked on this path over the past few years by supporting and promoting a variety of projects focusing on young people.
17.25 h - 17.45 h | Museofònics: the voices of young heritage professionals.Damià Amorós, Museofònics editor on Espluga FM Ràdio
We have countless times set out to attract young people to theatres, concert halls, auditoriums, archives, libraries, cinematheques, monuments, heritage centres, museums, and so on. But rarely have we involved or simply listened to these young people – under 40 – who have been trained to work and are working in these spaces. Museofònics was born to address the invisibility of young professionals in heritage, the arts and museums. A project created by Espluga FM Ràdio that has already interviewed more than fifty professionals from museums and cultural facilities over four seasons. A product produced in Conca de Barberà committed to reaching the whole country.
17.45 h - 18.00 h | Question time
The seminar will be chaired by the journalist Edgar Sapiña.
