In the framework of ARTABILITY project, ANTIGONE had created a virtual museum, exhibiting the works of the participants.
ARTS project continues the experience of the previous workshops, providing the opportunity to people watch the improvement of the participants’ work, their willing to continue creating and their attempt to come out.
Download the application and follow the instructions:
http://www.artability.eu/news/post.php?id=7
In order to evaluate our work and experience of Spain learning activity, we arranged the “5 Questions” exercise for our participants. Here is what they had to say about:
WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP THE LEARNER RECOGNISE WHAT THEY HAVE LEARNED?
WHAT ARE WE LEARNING?
WHAT CONDITIONS NEED TO BE PUT IN PLACE FOR PEOPLE TO PROGRESS IN THEIR LEARNING?
HOW WE CAN BEST APPLY WHAT WE ARE LEARNING TO OUR ORGANISATION?
HOW WE CAN BEST ORGANIZE AND INTERPRET THE CREATIVE IDEAS THAT COME FROM THE PROCESS?
During the meeting of this Wednesday, Nikos, was inspired by cubism. After finishing his painting, he wanted to create a challenge for the group; he asked from us to find the connection among the 3 figures and we could manage to keep the painting for us!
It was his way to start thinking about others point of view and different techniques.
Can you?
Solution: All the figures are the same, just in different order!
The mask session that took place in the TLA of Thessaloniki is still alive, decorating ANTIGONE’s corridor! The same day, after collecting all the masterpieces, we directly used them to keep this partnership strong and vivid.
Everyday we can face the combination of CHROMATODROMO’s paintings with our partners’ artistic gifts!
The group of CHROMATODROMOS continues to paint and evaluate it’s work. Carbon is the technique that was decided to be learned for September and October.
The participants are totally in the philosophy of assessment and sharing. Nikos wanted to describe the way he worked, what he wanted to express through his portrait and discuss with the group their point of view. Giving more details about the methodology and the techniques that a painter uses, put him/her in the position of thinking why/how/if… ANTIGONE decided to keep open the self-assessment, for this session. We managed to see that the group was self-organized by speaking without being asked and talking without being afraid to be judged.
The cultural resources of the museums should be in reach of all citizens, including training and exchange of knowledge created from the art. In network of museums we hope that the museum pieces are accessible, and the different codes of interpretation don’t represent a barrier. “Museums for all among all of us”.
At the Department of Differently-abled and Accessibility of network of museums, attached to the management, we are working on a project about elimination of barriers, in which the staff with differently-abled has a leading role.
We are working to achieve accessible centres for everyone. We take appropriate measures to remove barriers for visitors as much as for workers.
At the same time we adapted the workplace of our workmate Ángeles Miguélez, a blind museum guide, we were forced to create strategies to bring the collections for all audiences.
From then on, we make the decision to harness her abilities to strengthen that the visitors can enjoy the museums through the other senses. For each museum piece, for each collection, were incorporated new resources and adaptations. This enables to obtain a mutual understanding, between the guide of museums and the visitor, establishing a close and intense relationship.
The predominant consumption of visual culture in the museums through the history is a reality that supposed a barrier to blind people and the museum institutions. This model of consumption is a very limited way to engage with the museum objects and to extract its meaning.
Our way of “looking” determines how we understand, interpret and give meaning to everything. We were “blind” to interpret and to give meaning to the different collections, and be able to transmit the suitable information to our blind workmate.
Our help was necessary so that our workmate could offer new options to the visitors, and these ones can enjoy the museum in a different way. Nelson Goodman said «changing the way of looking involves to change the meanings and build with them a new world».
The gaze is not only a physical process captured by the eyes, but an active process which organizes what it’s seen outside according to an internal schema.
This project was born from these premises, and it pursues a clear aim: to approach the collections of the four museums of the network through the photography, in a dialogued, mental and a team activity (the blind, the museum staff and the photographers).
We started investigating what had been done, and what we could do in this particular subject, and we found examples in other countries. In Argentina, there was a photography workshop for the blind, but the main references were the exhibitions in California and in Mexico with the movement “The Blind with Carrera School”. This movement understands the photography for the blind as a salutary lesson to think about the image, the light and the darkness.
Once we found the references, we adapted them to our own reality. We valued them with Ángeles Miguélez, Pilar Yáñez (both blind) and Juan Ignacio Márquez, and decided to give shape to the project. In the beginning, this idea seemed a fantasy, but now we can assess it as a success.
The next step was to present the initiative to the artist Iago Eireos, who developed a research and formed a team of photographers from Lugo to be docents at the workshop Blindly photography. The teaching team was formed by: Xosé Reigosa, Germán Limeres, Antonio López, Henrique and Iago de Sant.
Our aim was that the participants understood that the mind gives shape to the photography; the sight perceives the image, but the brain creates it. All of them received in their minds the information about the collections of our museums: San Paio de Narla Fortress Museum, Pazo de Tor Museum, Provincial Museum of the Sea and Lugo Provincial Museum.
The project was recorded in a documentary carried out by Enrique Lamas and the students of Image and Sound School.
Three years have already passed since the beginning of one of the most innovative and productive initiatives of the museums network, and year by year, we try to enrich it.
In this third edition, with previously learned skills, we were able to confront the challenge of new visual disciplines. We incorporated two new aspects: the work with the visual language, not only from the photography, but also from the video; and the reflection about the landscape, not only as the expression of a place to photograph or recording, also as a cultural and social place.
The participants of previous editions knew the devices and some techniques of the photographic language, also applicable to video. Even though, it was necessary to work with new techniques.
This year, the ICOM invited to all museums to think about Museums and Cultural Landscapes, subject in which the network of museums has been working since its creation, ten years ago. This reflection leads to the relationship of the museum with the landscape that surrounds it.
This relationship is essential in the network of museums, because this landscape, this context, gives to each museum its own identity. The tangible and intangible heritage of each museum is linked to the landscape in which it’s located, and this landscape defines its essence.
The Blindly photography project also gave rise to an one-hour documentary, an exhibition and a catalogue of the ENREDADOS collective (blind photographers, teachers and staff of the network of museums); all of them, interested in the sensory experimentation, new schemes of perception, and other related areas, not only visual ones, to interact with art in a more global way.
We take profit to the way blind people relate with the environment to enrich the museums, and give a new “look” to visitors. “Only with the heart, we can see in a right way. The essential is invisible to the eyes…” The Little Prince.
Encarna Lago González
Management of Lugo Provincial Network of Museums
Our new member, Kawa from Syria, wanted to motivate the group and encouraged us to talk about ARTS project, during his exhibition of paintings in the framework of Small Room Project. His paintings are a part of an experiential audiovisual exhibition about the critical refugee issue.
The impact of his success into the group is great; bilateral advantages for inclusion and tolerance. ARTS project proves that people can transform their pain in a creative and positive way. And of course, accept diversity.
For those who are interested to the Small Room project: http://www.asklepeion.gr/en/small-room-project/
