TIME TO GO AGAIN AT THE ZONE!

(Photo; Wuertele, Museum in San Jose)

Hi everyone!
First I want to say that I´m sorry for being silent since a year back. I found it hard to blog until I had a firm grip on our new mission, but also the fact that I have been very busy at work with very little time to blog has been a factor. But with spring aproaching everything looks literally brighter. I hope you want to continue following the blog and also to be active with comments and dialogues.
Lets go!

Yesterday I gave an account of an evaluation I´ve done for the Maritime Museum & Aquarium in Gothenburg on their work with renewal. Exciting to be able to get under the skin of an institution this way. At the same time they´ve been evaluated by the audience with a large increase of visitors during 2011. And also nominated to be Museum of the Year.
Good luck I say!

When it comes to method development and exhibitions there´s a lot happening at the moment. We at Swedish Exhibition Agency (Riksutställningar) are looking at how we can contribute to develop Generic Learning Outcomes (GLO) as a method being used in Swedish museums. We´re also in the starting blocks to co-ordinate a couple of national networks in order to co-operate with the sector on method development. We are also turning our mobile room into a edicational platform for technology and pedagogy in exhibitions. Lots of exciting thing to come and many reasons to follow us in the near future. Hopefully this will contribute to raise the standard on exhibitions in Sweden.

Internationally we are cooperating with Hands On! International and in 2 weeks time we will present the winner of 2012 Children´s Museum Award at the international children´s book fair in Bologna. The price is given in cooperation with European Museum Academy and is instigated to strengthen the development of exhibition practice for children in museums and children´s museums. Please follow Hands On! on facebook. Here´s a link to our facebook page Hands On!

This blog post is rather general to start off with. Spread the word to others who might want to follow, cause
Here we go again!

Göran Björnberg
Riksutställningar

THE ART OF INFLUENCING CHANGE

Photographer: Leonard Gren

Hello everyone!

THURSDAY 4 NOV. 10:00
Today and tomorrow Engage is arranging their annual, international conference in Nottingham under the title "The Art of Influencing Change". I´ll be blogging continously under this headline both today and tomorrow. Welcome in to follow the reflections and watch out.

11:00
I´ve just heard a fantastic lecture from Phyllida Hancock, participating in the project Contender Charlie. With a starting point in Shakespeare´s plays she uses his language and text in order to develop a leadership.
Using fantastic empathy, charisma and humor, she used Shakespere´s play, Henry V to show how different roles and strategies build leadership. It was really a superb lecture! To learn more about Contender Charlie follow the link.
http://www.contendercharlie.com

15:30
Since before lunch the conference has focused on how the Internet can be used in order to build networks in different types of art projects. The objective being to use the net to build sustainable, social models based on a thought that the Internet will change peoples behaviour in connection with a global, ecological perspective.
Ruth Catlow from Furtherfield presented their Zero Dollar Laptop Project. ZDLP is based upon a thought that people through creative and critical thinking can become active creators within thier culture and society.
Sam Bower presented the project greenmuseum.org which wants to inspire people to contribute to the creation of a sustainable society where ever they live. Greenmuseum.org contributes to that by offering access to information, possibility to interconnect with people and ideas and making resources and tools available.
Jonette Middleton presented her art project "Unity Panda" where she with the aid of Facebook and a shop in Coventry and 1 knitting pattern how to knit a Unity Panda got over 500 people to knit parts making up 130 Unity Pandas. These Pandas are going to be used in Panda diplomacy with China.
Länkar
Zero Dollar Laptop Project
greenmuseum.org
Unity Panda

FRIDAY 5TH 09:00
Yet another day at the conference. To summarize my impressions so far there are 2 themes dominating the conference. (But that should not be taken as a sign where all practice is going, it could also be put down to choices made by the organizing committee for the conference). The themes are that social media is used in order to create networks using art and art practice as a tool for people the change and influence their every day life. The other theme is that art and art practice is seen as a tool to create a sustainable way of living. There has been several speakers presenting projects where the framework is the global ecological challenge and art as a tool for a sustainable way of living. I´ll be back with more reflections during the day.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Fotograf: shannonkringen

Lately I´ve been on the arranging committee for 2 conferences in Sweden which has highlighted the importance of a professional discussion.

The first conference was arranged by the society for Swedish museum teachers and an organization called ”Forum for exhibitioners”, where we dissected the topic how technology is used and can be used in exhibitions today. The second conference was arranged together with the faculty for museum studies at Gothenburg University and highlighted the issue of norm critical perspectives from a curatorial and pedagogical point of view.

Both seminars received very good reviews in the evaluations, which in itself is enough to understand that they matter, but I also want to make a personal reflection about why I think a professional dialogue is essential for professional development
The exhibition medium is moving towards a more audience practice. This makes pedagogy a more and more important part of both the creation and the communication of exhibition content. This also means that the profession becomes more complex and complicated. It´s no longer about fitting an exhibition to a target group or a school class.

- It´s about having the target group in sight from the start in order to adapt the content, to have knowledge about different cognitive stages of development and learning capabilities.
- It´s about a knowledge of how methods and tools can be used based on the exhibition´s objectives and aims connected to target group.
- It´s about having knowledge of a spectra of accessibility aspects, both when it comes to function disabilities, both also for people without these.
- It´s about having knowledge of norm critical aspects in order not to maintain or amplify norms which discriminate.

All these perspectives are pedagogical and have to be on the table from the start in the process which will end in an exhibition. That´s why a pedagogical knowledge and expertise and a pedagogical eye who can guard over these issues in the process.
Because, how we twist and turn it is the audience who are our principals and recipients of exhibitions. An exhibition which doesn´t reach the recipient is not a good exhibition!

GUIDE BOOK ON MOVING IMAGES

Photographer: Darwin Bell

My work at Swedish Travelling Exhibitions (STE) means that I shift beween discussions about culture politics on an international level to hands-on method development for visitors in exhibitions.

Last Friday we published a "Pedagogical guide book on moving images" which has been produced by my unit in STE, Tour production and Pedagogy.

The Gudie book is meant as an aid for everyone working pedagogically with moving images or art videos and who is in need of a guide about how to work pedagogically with these things. The Guide book contains a theoretical cheatsheet for workshops about art videos, but also how to use the mobile phone as a multimedia tool to make your own art video. In the Guide book we open up for some of Sweden´s art pedagogues and artists who have been doing this for a long time.

Ann- Sofie Roxhage and Elenor Noble have through their work as gallery teachers at Gothenburg Art Gallery, Röda Sten and other art institutions in the Gothenburg area, over a period of 5 years developed their "Cheatsheet on how to view and experience contemporary art". The cheatsheet was part of the pedagogical material that was produced for the 2009 Gothenburg Biennale.

Anders Weberg is an artist working with video, sound and installations where he, above all, uses the mobile phone as a tool. In the Guide book he provides tips and ideas on how to use this multimedia tool, now in everyone´s pockets, to create your own art.

Johanna Sjöström, curator at the Art museum in Gothenburg, provides a summary of the history of moving images and Karolina Westling, film pedagogue and media scientist at The University of Gothenburg, provides an entrance to the moving image as a pedagogical tool.

For those interested the Guide book can be ordered from STE, though it only exists in Swedish. The purpose of the book is to make it easier and improve practice for everyone working with moving images and art movies.

To me, being responsible for the pedagogical development at STE, the Guide book serves several aspects;
- It meets a pronounced need in the exhibition sector.
- It provides space for external voices to present their knowledge and line of work.
- It is produced by persons in my unit and others at STE without my contribution which will give them a boost.
- It turns our pedagogical policy document into practice.

The Guide book was released in connection with a seminar and workshop in Landskrona, in the south of Sweden. The seminar attracted som 50 people working with moving images and art videos, in art galleries, museums, schools, youth clubs and so on. A great mix of people which also showed that this type of pedagogical material is wanted far beyond the exhibition sector. More of this!

Hugs!
Göran

10 COMMANDMENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL EXHIBITION!

Photographer: Baloulumix

Hello everyone!
I hope that you all got back to work after a long and peaceful holiday. I´m starting my blogging this autumn with a report written by Swedish pedagogue and author Pia Cederholm, originally published on Exhibition Aesthetical Forum, a Swedish website consigned to articles on the exhibition media.

Her report is about a lecture at École du Louvre in Paris given by Colette Dufresne-Tassé this spring.

Colette Dufresne-Tassé is a Canadian professor and resigning chairman of the international ICOM committe CECA. She heads a research team at the University in Montréal which with different methods are trying to find out what happens in the meeting between the visitor and the exhibition. The purpose being to use the results of their research to develop the exhibition media.In her lecture Mrs Dufresne-Tassé gave a lot of advice. From these Pia Cederholm has put together "10 commandments for a successful exhibition". Unfortunately her blog is in Swedish so I have translated her report and also shortened it a bit.

1. Thou shall only have one message.
Coherence is the lead word. Choose a theme and stick to it no matter how tempting it is to add less relevant side tracks.

2. Thou shall find your angel between the familiar and the new.
You do this by adressing both the visitor´s prior knowledge and their curiosity at the same time.

3. Thou shall create opportunities for meaningful experiences.
Have the visitor´s perspective for your eyes so that your lust to experiment with exhibition design or researching a complex area doesn´t make the final result incomprehensible to amateurs.

4. Thou shall do everything in your power in order to make it easy for the visitor to learn.
This is done by approaching the exhibition like a puzzle: Start with the frame and the corner pieces. Use artefacts to help the visitor to fill in the missing pieces, to draw their own conclusions. Remind yourself that the visitors aren´t there to read, that can be done in a book.

5. Thou shall create environments that captures the interest of the visitor.
The scenography, or in french "la muséographie", determines how the visitor will understand the artefacts. This is why you have to think through how settings and cabinets correspond and that in three different layers: practically, aesthetically and semantically.

6. Thou shall not begrudge the visitor to be physically active.
Place and present the artefacts in order for the visitor to be lured into freeing their fantasy to reach further in their meaning making.

7. Thou shall not demand the visitor to be physically active.
The intellectual effort is enough. If the exhibition requires the visitor to climb around pulling ropes in order to get to knowledge they will give up.

8.Thou shall lead the visitor´s thoughts towards the object.
When you have made the visitor to stop, seriously widening her or his senses, observing, reading and reflecting, you must see to that there is more to find out. This way the visitor gets paid for the effort and won´t float away in other thoughts.

9. Thou shall understand the difference betwen permanent and temporary exhibitions.
Then you can make use of their different prerequisites. The temporary exhibition attracts the audience by it´s uniqueness, a "on-time-only" opportunity and a whole context to dive into. The permanent exhibition attracts with order and being systematically arranged.

10. Thou shall not be boring.
To visit a museum shall be an experience beyond the ordinary. Therefor you have to pull the visitor out of her or his normal reality. Open the gate to an unknown world which is unknown and different.

What do you think? Please comment!

Greetings
Göran

The "10 commandments for a succesful exhibition" was translated by Göran Björnberg from Pia Cederholm´s original text which can be found here http://www.ueforum.se/

ART MEETS SCIENCE!

"Technothreads" Science Gallery, Dubin, Photographer: prizepony

Hi everyone!

A few weeks ago I was in Tampere, Finland, participating in something called European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA). It is a conference arranged by European Museum Forum, where the climax is to deliver the prize for this Year´s museum in Europe. This year the prize, the 32nd since the start, went to Ozeanum in Stralsund, Germany.

A conference as this one presents an opportunity to follow a general discourse regarding European museums and the development of their practice, if there is one. It also presents a great opportunity to network since some 150 people from the European museums are gathered in the same place for three days.

One exciting meeting I had, out of severel, was with Michael John Gorman, head of Science Gallery in Dublin. Science Gallery is an interdisciplinary meeting place for art and science. Exhibitions, events, happenings, workshops and projects are thrown into a mix with speed-dating between artists and scientists and Open calls on different themes. The last theme was "Music and the body".

What made it extra exciting this year was that Science Gallery received a Commendation, together with two other museums, during the ceremony. Is it a museum? That was frequently discussed during the dinner.

The definition of a museum is usually that it holds a collection. Has Science Gallery a collection? Yes, but it is to a great extent made up of ideas and experiences, rather than artefacts. Thus they are a great example of a discourse under debate. I know from my conversations with Michael John Gorman that Science Gallery is thinking about how to make their collection accessible. Is it possible to create systems where ideas can be presented in an attractive way? It is going to be exciting to see the result.

Here is a link to Science Gallery and if you are in Dublin, make a visit. That´s what I aim to do!

http://sciencegallery.com/

NARRATIVE SPACES

"Interactive wall" Te Papa Museum, Nya Zeeland, Photographer: Samuel Mann

”The world is made of stories, not atoms.”

Hi friends!
Today´s blog derives it´s theme from a conference I went to in Leicester two weeks ago labelled ”Narrative spaces”. As a starting point I am using a quote from American poet Muriel Rukeyser.

The Narrative doesn´t just exist in a piece of art but also inside ourselves. When meeting art we create our own narrative based on the impressions we get and the experiences we bring with us. The narrative is also affected by the room and time we exist in. Therefor the narrative space is more than just the piece of art and the viewer. The exhibition room, the museum and contemporary topics are also part of forming my narrative.

As a pedagogue I am looking for the challenge in finding methods which will trig these open processes giving space to the visitor to find their own narratives. As another key note speaker, Lee Skolnick, said when quoting Jerome Bruner;

”Good art embodies our story, it does not remind us of our story”

The issue for the pedagogue is to liberate each and every visitor´s narrative which lies embodied in a work of art or an exhibition. Thus art and the exhibition become part of a dialogue, a making of meaning which in its best moments will make me look upon the world with new eyes. Bruner stated that the narrative and the dialogue are important for the making of meaning. Learning involves the "construction" of meaning. There is no reality, truth, right or wrong existing in the world waiting to be discovered. Each person in conjunction with the communities in which they operate construct reality, truth, right and wrong. Therefor the narrative is part of a social process. I´ll finish with another quote from Bruner and Lee Skolnick;

”Narratives constitute reality”

Is it necessary to add that it was a good conference!

THE MUSEUM WITHOUT A MANUAL

Photographer: Ricardo Martins

Last week I moderated a seminar which FUISM (The Swedish Association for Museum Educators) arranged in connection with the Spring Meeting, the annual meeting for the Swedish museum sector. The theme for the seminar was “Tomorrow´s audience – a challenge for the whole organization?” In the panel discussing the issue was Lars Amréus, director of The Museum of National Antiquities and chairman for the Association of Swedish Museums, Eric Åström, Swedish Arts Council, Maria Jansén, director, Östergötland County Museum and Eriqa Lindsten, Head of audience activities, Bohuslän County Museum. In today´s blog I am going to discuss an issue Maria Jansén addressed in her key note, The Museum without a manual.

An increasing number of present-day museums are open institutions where visitors are welcomed to take part in exhibition work and collecting activities. New media, mobile phones, Flickr and Facebook are tools for interactive methods using synchronic communicative and feedback possibilities to activate the visitor. This development is in line with the thoughts of the English sociologist Tony Bennet in his book ”The Birth of the Museum” where he discussed and clarified the museums´ role in the development of society and how new museums are formed from this function. Museums have become active meeting places, arenas for a dialogue on today´s and tomorrow´s topics.

This addresses new demands on how the exhibition communicates with the visitor. I see the exhibitions as a social meeting place – a media for meaning making. The exhibition offers a framework for meaning making processes through the way artifacts and ideas are shaped and presented. When signs, symbols, pictures and objects are put together to unities meaning is formed which builds on previous experiences and knowledge. The exhibition carries a pedagogical dimension as is, a dimension which has to communicate with the visitor without a guide explaining or interpreting. In the same way the Museum hold a pedagogical dimension where exhibitions, collections, archives and the Web must be accessible. A Museum without a Manual.

I mean that this pedagogical dimension to a high degree requires a pedagogical competence regarding the form, design and presentation of exhibitions and the museum. Sure, in the present-day museum everyone has a pedagogical mission, but this must not be mixed with pedagogical competence. The pedagogical competence is important when content is made accessible to the visitor. That is why I see the pedagogical competence as the single most important competence in the present-day museum which wants to reach and engage its visitors, the museums which want to make a difference. This “post-museum” builds on an understanding of the complex relationship between culture, identity, learning and communication, which is at the heart of tomorrow´s museum. A communication and pedagogy building on a Museum without a manual.

IS IT TIME TO TALK ABOUT INREACH?

Photographer; Pink Sherbet

A few weeks ago I was part of arranging a seminar at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg. The seminar was a co-arrangement between Swedish Travelling Exhibitions and the School of Global Studies at Gothenburg University. The theme for the seminar was "The Museum and the audience".

In the programme The Museum of World Culture told about their audience work. The Museum has young adults as their main target group and are very successful with their work towards this target group. During 2009 the museum had over 200 000 visitors, out of these 60% were younger than 30 years.

One perspective Katarina Bergil (acting director) and Klas Grinell (curator) adressed in their speech was the museum´s view on the audience. The starting point for their discussion was that the visitors possess knowledge and abilities which are relevant to the museum. Museums need to develop new methods in order to capture these capacities and to involve them in their activities.

A common expression when working with certain target groups and especially those which are socially underprivileged is "outreach". At the Museum of World Culture they are thinking in the opposite direction, should the museum talk about "INREACH"?

The ”outreach” expression often has an interpretation precedence embedded into it. We are aiming at groups who are underrepresented and underprivliged, but we do it with our culture and our views on culture, with our codes and language, with our methods. A form of cultural colonialism.

INREACH is about viewing the visitor as an active player, a carrier of knowledge and experiences, who can contribute and develop our perspectives and activities. It is a perspective which creates relevance for the visitor by us valueing their participation and by us looking for an equal meeting where both parties learn from each other.

INREACH becomes a turn of thoughts where we look upon an internal needs for development as something which is in the interest of both parties, as a common, socio-cultural process where we meet in a dialogue and where we interact with the surrounding world in order to learn from each other.

HAPPY 2010!

Photographer; dElay

Time to move forward into a new year. The picture above also depicts a new position for this blog. I got it from Flickr, a social media, where producers and consumers (aka procumers) of photography meet. Pictures, posted under the creative commons segment, made available for anyone to use, under certain given circumstances..

A new year also means news for this blog. During 2010 I´m going to blog once a month. 2009 tought me that once a week doesn´t work. It is too often. It is still going to be a professional blog aimed at people interested in learning and meaningmaking in connction with exhibitions and museums. During this year I will also present guest bloggers. All the blogs are going to be illustrated with pictures from flickr. Why is that?

There are 2 main reasons. At first I want to contribute to the use and development of social media by blogging, twittering and using flickr. Hereby I combine 3 social media. Secondly it is a standpoint against a control of intellectual property rights (IPR), It is my opinion that thoughts, ideas and views shouldn´t be a commodity, they should be "free of charge" thus creating a creative commons. We all need to contribute to a collective memory if we are going to solve the big issues of today and tomorrow, the environment, starvation and a global economical and social injustice.

On Friday I´m going to visit the newly opened Modern museum in Malmo, in the south of Sweden to see what it is like and how they work with meaningmaking in this newly opened museum. It is going to be exciting. Don´t forget to register as followers. This means you will get a message every time I post a new blog. You can also add me on Twitter. My Twitter alias is Goranzone.


We´ll be in touch!
Göran

THE EXPERT, THE AMATEUR AND CREATIVE COMMONS

Photograph: Leonard Gren

One thing that cultural institutions have to regard when entering the world of social media is the change of roles and relations between institutional experts and the surrounding world.

When using interfaces like Flickr, collections, information and knowledge are made accessible to a larger audience. Places, subjects and people, connected with and buried deep in different collections, are easily searched through a few clicks on your PC. Driven by a special interest a person can go scavenging through cultural layers searching for new information and knowledge on a topic of special interst. Often an interactive moment has been built in to the interface. As a novice I can contribute to information by telling where a photo is taken or who is depicted on it. The accessibility makes it possible for me to become an “expert” and add to the collective memory.

This goes for all the ”experts” in the world who has spent an entire life learning everything there is to know about majolica, butterflies or old houses. For these “experts” the Internet offers a new arena where information and knowledge can interchange and instead of a hierarchical relationship between the institutional expert and the common novice we get a more equal relationship where they meet on a digital, creative common.

This is a very interesting development where roles take on new meanings and where the communicative landscape is re-written.

HI EVERYONE .... DESPAIR!

I´LL POST SOME NEW BLOGS THIS WEEK ... THE LAST MONTHS HAVE BEEN ALL WORK AND TRAVELLING. GORAN

PEDAGOGY AND THE EXHIBITION

Photographer: Leonard Gren

”…you don´t need much to educate, but to lead the student to his own knowledge you need a lot more.”

”…L. Vygotsky (my translation)

A person´s meeting with art, whether it´s a painting or an installation, a piece of music or theatre, often gives rise to an emotional experience where we learn something about ourselves or about the society around us. The meeting may also provide us with knowledge about the artist behind this piece of art. A pedagogical process has taken place.

This means that the communication of the content in a piece of art or an exhibition fundamentally is a matter of pedagogy. How we design the logotype and the image which is going to carry the exhibition and attract an audience is about pedagogy, because if we pick the wrong font or the wrong picture we may not reach our targeted audience. How pictures are hanged and objects are placed in the gallery will affect how the audience moves through the exhibition and these kinetic patterns will affect our experience and what we get out of an exhibition. This means that this is about pedagogy as well.

So pedagogy is communicative by character. It exists in a social and a cultural interaction between people and artifacts. Since I work in a context where exhibitions are produced I will from now on call this perspective exhibition pedagogy

Why is it important to discuss pedagogy in context with art and exhibitions?

I mean that we need to understand the exhibition as a meeting place, a social arena for meaning making. To the child the exhibition offers a possibility to explore the world around their own self. Through concrete experiences, objects filled with narrations, through playing and exploring, the museum is turned into a perpetual source of events where the child can learn about colors, forms, animals, objects etc. Experiences and narrations which will contribute to a cognitive experience of the self and the world.

To youth the seeking of an identity and the construction if the own self, I-Topia, is a contemporary and a future project at the same time. Contemporary art offers through its multimodality fantastic possibilities for reflection and meaning making on the own self. The exhibition as a medium can function as an arena for youth participation and influence, a social meeting place for dialogue and reflection. I see it as an obligation to society to create these arenas, where also museums have to open their doors for youth and allow for their thoughts and perspectives to be heard.

To many pedagogy is about learning. Others equate learning and education. To me pedagogy is communication and dialogue where we learn in collaboration with others and the world around us. The opening quotation from Vygotsky is interesting from several views. Above all because ha already in 1930 did put the individual at the centre of the learning process. This paradigm shift, where we have moved from teaching to learning, has been accentuated by the web and new media. The process of learning is no longer teacher centered but student centered. For a museum or a gallery this puts the visitor at the centre if things. This means we have to understand exhibition pedagogy from the broad perspective I laid out at the beginning of this blog and not as applied pedagogy. Applied pedagogy is about methods how we work with the audience in an exhibition, school programmes and guides. This is only part of exhibition pedagogy.

To Vygotsky fantasy, play and creativity were key words when discussing learning. Let us understand pedagogy as the process where we in social collaboration develop knowledge and creativity.

PARTICIPATION & RELEVANCE

Photographer: Leonard Gren

One of the questions we currently try to focus on at the Swedish Travelling Exhibitions is how to view the audience. The significance of how it will affect the activity at a museum or a gallery and the consequences that will emerge if you move the visitor to the centre of target and policy documents.

We also mean that tomorrow´s audiences i.e. the Young, which naturally also are today´s audience, carry with them new demands on how exhibitions are produced and how they are presented. Communication scientists, sociologists and pedagogues agree on that the technical development, which means unlimited possibilities to look for information and to communicate, has created a paradigm shift. This is a development which we who work with the production of exhibitions have to address.

It is about a view on the visitor where he or she is transformed from a statistical neuter to a face and a name. It is about offering processes and participation instead of passive spectatorship. It is about being relevant through both content and ways of communication.

The challenge is big and it is easy to dismiss it and settle with the old middle class audience which is already there. But a lot of institutions in Europe have recognized the danger and taken action on it. I have earlier in this blog mentioned projects at Gulbenkian in Portugal, Musée Bargoin in Clermont-Ferrand in France and Zeeuws museum in Holland. Another interesting project is “Hot spot” in Malmoe, Sweden. To this list I can add mambo in Bologna and their ”City-telling” project, Tate Modern in London, the latter presented in our publication Future exhibitions which can be bought from our web-site.

As I am writing this I´m on my way home from the Venice Biennale and several great experiences of art, many which could serve as a starting point for a process of art-based learning. At the same time Almedalsveckan has started back in Sweden. It´s a week where people from all over Sweden gather in Gotland, the island in the Baltic Sea where our organization is placed, to present seminars on all sorts of topical subjects. More than 900 seminars are presented during the week, all free of charge and all open to anyone who wants to participate. It´s a gigantic Open source event with almost endless opportunities to informal education and discussions.

I believe that events as large as Almedalsveckan, or the Venice Biennale, are important as collective manifestations where views, thoughts and knowledge can be communicated from person to person. As Internet has developed and the globalization has rolled over of the World, immaterial property rights as a construction has to be challenged. I believe we need to understand that collective access to knowledge and information is important for a sustainable future. In this also museums and exhibitions have to contribute!

BLOGGING

Photographer: Leonard Gren

"- Photography is an activity I have strong feelings about and burn for and it´s truly with joy I go hunting for preys of light and motive. At the same time I must admit that behind the curtain there are equal amounts of fear, stress and anxiety not to succeed. But despite my trembling legs when facing these challenges there is always the will to do the outmost to prove and give everything I´ve got.

I rarely stand without my own dreams and ideas about what I personally wish to fulfill in my projects, but limited time and resources makes it easier said than done to go the full length. Often, for bad and worse, you´re forced to scale down to reach your targets and expectations. But this can also be positive since it means there is a framework to hold on to.

The mission to collaborate with Göran in taking pictures for this blog is incredibly stimulating and exciting in many ways. With my hands untied I, as a photographer, is given the chance to work with varying subjects, thoughts and concepts, where my creativity is let loose to mirror whatever is the topic. This way the visualization becomes more personal which to me as the creator is very fulfilling."

Leonard Gren

Här kommer också en bild av en bloggare i farten, tagen av Louise Andersson.

When writing this I´m literally and symbolically flying over Europe on my way to a seminar in Italy. At the same time there is a blog to be written. This time I share the bourdon with Leonard, the young photographer, so the theme for this blog will be a meta-perspective. How do you face blogging? Which thoughts have to be thought and which considerations do you have to take into account?

In my blogging I have tried to combine the two legs I´m standing on. One which is deeply rooted in a socio-cultural perspective on learning, which I carry with me when I observe, report and try to think new thoughts. Another which takes its stand in the Swedish Travelling Exhibition´s mission to develop the exhibition media which I interpret as been given a ”free letter” to come up with new thoughts.

My perspective on learning focuses on a view upon the museum and the exhibition as a social arena where the visitor is placed in the center and where the exhibition should offer possibilities for collective and active participation. This to become part of a structure for lifelong learning where meaning making gives the visitor new tools to face every day life with.

The mission to think new thoughts draws my eyes to the fringes of development of methodology and tools for learning and communication. What is going on in Europe and in the world? How can social media become part of an exhibition? How do we design an exhibition in order to reach the visitor? How is the role of the museum and the exhibition interpreted around the world?

This is what I try to write about, partly to create transparence in the development of a pedagogical strategy, partly as distributed learning where the written word helps me to sort out my thoughts.

I hope that Italy will offer me some new things that I can share with you next week. Also read Leo´s thoughts of how you as a young photographer close in on a rather abstract mission to deliver pictures to a blog on learning, the museum and the exhibition. See you in a week. Ciao!
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LET´S GO!

Photographer: Leonard Gren

One of the tendencies I see at the moment within the exhibition media is the development of a culture of participation. Art as a process and artbased learning as a tool to increase the relevance and to reach new groups and targets are parts of this process.

Another development, which also exhibition media has to relate to, is the fast development of the web and social media. Today´s blog adresses a few thoughts I have on the web and how new technology can be part of a participation culture and a tool for communication with the audience.

The central part in an exhibition is the physical meeting between an interpretation, a content and the visitor. The web becomes an interesting tool when we start to think about how we communicate with the visitor and how we want to make him or her involved in the exhibition. At the same time we know that the web forever has changed the conditions for learning. We have entered a new paradigm. Above all this has to do with 2 things;

- Firstly, the new technology makes new forms of interactivity between man and machine possible.
- Secondly, the new technology opens up for new ways of visualisation.

Both these conditions holds possibilities for exhibition media.

Interactivity opens up for new possibilities for the exhibition to keep in contact with the visitor. Facebook, chats and blogs and other social media can work as extensions of the exhibition in time and in room and function both as a way to work in depth with content and as social networks. Interactivity is built on a dialogue and today´s technology offers possibilities for dialogue where only fantasy sets limits. We can offer visually supported discussions where artists, curators, pedagogs and audience can meet in borderless discussions in real time. And remeber, we´ve only seen the beginning of this development of technology.

Visualisation also opens up for a two-way visually supported communication. The exhibition can be presented and thus create a prerequisite for the visitor. It is possible to create virtual visits in the exhibition. Visualisation also opens up for communicative formats as podcasting, rss-feeds and streaming. Packaged technology which makes it possible to offer guided tours in different languages, communication with cell-phones, interviews with the artist presented on the Internet, a presentation of how the exhibition was made and so on. Here it´s possible that economy and resources sets the limit before fantasy.

But, and this is my point, if we want to be relevant for tomorrow´s visitors we have to make this a development of ours. We need to develop methods and interfaces, discuss webetics and didactics and to a larger degree make the visitor a participator in the process which leads up to and surrounds an exhibition. Blow up the room and open up for a greater reality!

Let´s go!

LIFELONG LEARNING

Photographer: Leonard Gren

One of the cornerstones from which I build my perspectives on learning, the museum and the exhibition, is that museums fully have to see themselves as part of a structure for lifelong learning.

Roughly speaking learning is organized in 3 ways;
Formal learning is publicly organized education which will lead to an exam. For the individual this type of learning is a mix between voluntary and optional learning.
Non-formal learning takes place parallel to the publicly organized educational system. It doesn´t automatically lead to an exam or a grade. It is optional for the individual and contains learning through organizations, associations, work etc.
Informal learning is semi-structured and a natural part of every day life. It is not intentional and does normally take place subconsiously to the individual.

The starting point for the museum is that of a mixture between non-formal and informal learning, but it can also function as a resource to school and the formal educational system and then become a part of a structure which supports formal learning.

The Lisbon declaration has been the momentum force forward for the development of a structure for Lifelong learning. Lifelong learning is the strategy for turning Europe into the world´strongest knowledge based economy by 2010. So there is strong political support for this perspective.

As I see it museums and exhibitions play an important part in a structure for Lifelong learning. Firstly as carriers of large amounts of embedded information and knowledge, especially about heritage. Secondly because museums and exhibitions can offer a learning environment which is different to the one offered by schools, an environment building on multimodality. But to fully take this part I think we have to look upon a few things;

• The Museum has to define itself as an environment for learning. A social arena for meaningmaking.
• The Museum has to upgrade their pedagogical activities regarding status, education, competence and resources.
• The Museum has to organize learning by developing and implementing pedagogical policy documents, curriculums and strategic plans.
• The Museum, and the sector, must develop methods that support a learning process which focus on collaboration and where the visitor takes an active part in the learning process.

But it is important that the museum and the exhibition develops their distinctive character as an alternative to the learning methods used at school and instead focus on multimodality and designtheoretical perspectives on learning.

FUTURE EXHIBITIONS

Photographer: Leonard Gren

Are there museums in 50 years time?

Of course there is! But the time for the large narratives is gone by. It is time to tell of new things, put our time into a historical context based on today´s perspectives and subjects. We also have to tear down the museum walls and understand that tomorrow´s exhibitions communicate through more ways than just the direct physical meeting with the visitor. The Museum becomes a starting point for a transborder conversation which contributes to making tomorrow´s exhibitions relevant. Speaking to the girl in the picture.

Relevance seems to be the word of the day. Something you hear more and more often people talking about in Europe. How to make exhibitions relevant to a larger audience. The stories told have to be more up to date, social media has to be woven into the exhibition warp in order to increase the interface towards the audience. Interactivity has to be just that and museums have to become popular meeting places. By putting the audience in the centre, and not just as a confession of lips, the museum educator is turned into the most valuable person in the museum.

One way is to use the collections for new narratives and to give the space a new meaning. To look at artefacts from a new perspective and let a new narrative come forward like that of the Historical museum in Stockholm in “Maria – pictures of woman”. Old artefacts dug out of the collections mixed with new media, adding a deeper context to the old Madonna figures by surrounding them with contemporary expressions and narratives. “Hot spot” in Malmo is another way of giving the museum a new meaning. The latter a way to increase the relevance of the museum and turn it into a meeting place, a place where people can meet. The subjects based on the wishes of the audience. A social grinding of thresholds. K21 in Düsseldorf arranges a nightclub in the gallery every now and then. Is this a way to go? A fourth way is to make the exhibition larger than just the physical expression in the museum or the gallery. Weave a web with social media for a continuing discussion about the exhibition´s questions, offer the web as a possibility for a deepened conversation and reflection. Only fantasy sets the limits!

Future Exhibitions is also the name of a magazine Swedish Travelling Exhibitions published some weeks ago. It´s a publication in English and Swedish where we are searching our contemporary world looking for signs what is to come. Participation and relevance summarizes the first edition where visionary persons are interviewed, people of power, artists and people working with exhibitions from different perspectives are given a platform from which they can whisper or shout in the megaphone. It can be ordered through our website.

Of course there will be museums in 50 years, but in order to be relevant to the girl in the picture a new story has to be told.
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Exhibition 2.0

Photographer: Leonard Gren

Today´s blog is about the exhibition as a learning environment and a few thoughts I have on developing the interface towards the visitor.

The other day I heard a debate on the radio where the ”museum crisis” in Gothenburg was discussed. The debate led to a discussion about the role of museums. Executives from 2 different museums and one culture journalist was debating. They all agreed upon the great potential of museums as places for informal learning and the fact that since museums are financed through tax money, the tax payers should be in focus. I have heard that discussion over and over again for a year and a half during my time at Riksutställningar, but is it really so? Isn´t this a confession of lips?

IF THIS IS THE FACT THAT SWEDISH MUSEUMS PUT THE AUDIENCE IN THE CENTER

- Why do museum teachers find themselves at the bottom of the museum hierarchy?
- Why isn´t learning and the meeting with the audience looked upon as the museum´s most central and important process?
- Why can´t you get a doctor´s hat in museum or art pedagogy in Sweden?
- Why doesn´t the governmental investigation into future museums put questions about the visitors and learning in the centre?

If we accept the museum as a place for lifelong learning and a learning environment, we also have to understand that the view on learning has changed since we went to school, acquiring knowledge has moved from teaching to learning. The visitor (”pupil”) is the focal point of the learning process not the teacher/guide. This means that museums must open up for new practices and methods in their contact with visitors. I also want to stress that the museum isn´t a school and therefore shouldn´t work with methods used at school. But more about that in another blog.

An exhibition and a museum carry an eternal amount of information and embedded knowledge. In contact with the visitor and her experiences will some of this information, if properly communicated, turn into knowledge. That´s the process we call learning. If we in this process put the visitor in the centre, and this we have to, the visitor becomes the leader in the process of meaningmaking. We have to find methods for this. If we then, on top of everything, manage to relate to an interactive process, i.e. a two-way communication, a dialogue, the visitor becomes a producer and a consumer. We have reached Exhibition 2.0.

One such brave exhibition is ”Jag vill ju bara ha respekt” (I only want respect!) at the Police museum in Stockholm. Here youth statements and experiences are the basis for an exhibition on violence among youth. By creating a group on Facebook the museum invites, parallel to the exhibition, to a continuing discussion about the exhibition and its theme. Those who want can this way continue to work on experiences the exhibition has brought to mind and learn new thing about themselves. Through the museum and Facebook new statements are gathered which can be added to the exhibition. The exhibition develops as visitors are touched by it and feebacks personal experiences. The consumer becomes a producer and the exhibition becomes a living documentation which is altered and developed over time.

Exhibition 2.0!

I would like the end with a quotation from Bodil Jönsson and her book ”We learn as we live” about the importance of offering fora for reflection.

”When I in this way get something out of myself and puts it outside me, distribute it, beyond my inner mix of knowledge and feelings, it sort of gives me a new fixation point. In its turn, this steady point helps me to hold on to the thought and spur it further. If everything, on the other hand, had been left inside pell-mell among everything else, I probably only would have come a short way – but after that no further.” (my transl.)

Everyone out there with examples of exhibitions according to the concept of Exhibition 2.0 or have ideas about how an exhibition like that could look like, COMMENT!

I-TOPIA

Photographer: Leonard Gren

The creation of the own self, the identity, is central in all people´s development. For the youth of today this process seem more complicated than ever. Medial and commercial stereotypes creates a pressure about how to look and what to work with which is hard to shake off. This blog focuses on how the exhibition media can work as a tool in this process of construction – the construction of I-TOPIA.

I mean that contemporary art and the exhibition have a unique possibility to contribute to reflections and discussions on themes and subjects which in their turn contributes to the construction of I-TOPIA. By understanding the exhibition as a meeting place for learning, a social arena for meaning making through active participation and collaboration, we´ve taken a giant leap.

The leap gets even greater if we understand that the learning process, the very meaning making, has shifted from teaching to learning. That the learning process no longer is centered around the teacher but focuses on the pupil. In an exhibitional context this puts the visitor in the centre. To become relevant we also have to turn the visitor into a participant. The visitor as producer and consumer. We have then taken the leap into "Exhibition 2.0".

When I write this I´m participating in an European conference in Bucharest on the theme ”Youth and the Museum”. Here I get reports from fantastic youth projects at the Gulbenkian i Portugal, Musée Bargoin in Clermont-Ferrand in France and at Tropenmuseum och Zeeuws museum in Holland. Listen to stories how framsynta pedagogical perspectives creates space for wonderful activities at the Jerusalem museum and at Tate modern. Projects which puts children and youth in the centre offering new entrances to the museum as a meeting place for learning and meaning making and thus providing new tools for the creation of I-TOPIA.

The creation of the own self is both a project for present times and the future. To create arenas for youth participation and agency, meeting places for dialogue and reflection, is an obligation to the whole society. Even museums must dare to open the doors for youth and let their thoughts and perspectives be heard. More must do as the Police museum in Stockholm and the exhibition “I only wanted respect” or as we have done in “Living in two worlds” or “4U”, offer the exhibition as a tool for juvenile thoughts and expressions. This creates inclusion and will provide the exhibition with a direct speech and relevance for the target group which we, the adults, never can formulate.

I mean, with my 15 years of experience as i grammar school teacher, that the exhibition is an unbeatable forum when it comes to formulating questions about present times and to provide space for reflections, central cornerstones in I-TOPIA.

The question is if we dare!

What do you say, do we dare? Can we?