mam debate 2024: designing museums, reflecting audiences

design museums, reflect audiences

about

In 2024 the mam debate arrives in its third edition with the title “design museums, reflect audiences". In a society increasingly stimulated by various forms of personalization, what are the challenges for museums and art institutions in effectively relating to their audiences? Programming strategies are often designed to generate identification and representation taking into account society's demands, but they do not always result in the appreciation and recognition of museum institutions by the general public.

The desires of society, in their multiple dimensions, permeate the construction of museum programming and communication. To this end, it is necessary to reflect on the forms of communication and dialogue with the public in both exhibitions, publications, and traditional and digital media, taking into account the particularities of the virtual dimension and the contemporary way of relating.

Consequently, it becomes necessary to deepen the discussion on institutional communication in a comprehensive manner, observing the complex relationship between traditional modalities and the new formats that come from digital channels and social networks, in which the possibilities of engagement are based on personal and no longer collective interests.

This reveals a paradigm of museum action: the ambition of a total representation based on an extremely individualized and fragmented society. If, on the one hand, museums must establish a broad and concrete identification with their audiences in order to achieve the symbolic appreciation of cultural heritage, on the other hand, they must also build interactions relevant to culture through dynamic forms of personalization of virtual environments.

O mam debate 2024 seeks to promote discussions about such contradictions, as well as the challenges faced by museums and art institutions in building audiences that overflow their walls. We will bring together guests from different art institutions and museums in the country, responsible for programmatic and curatorial organization, or cultural communication projects. The debate will be held with a full-day program, consisting of two mediated debate panels, and opening and closing speeches.

About MAM Debate

O MAM Debate is an initiative that, through seminars and publications, seeks to promote reflections, research and debates around issues involving modern and contemporary art and also others directly related to MAM São Paulo, its past and its activities in the present. It is a prospecting platform for possible actions by the museum in the future based on historical and emerging issues.

programming

opening

1 table

public projection: museums and their programs

11:30 - 13:30 PM

Programming strategies are often applied by museums and institutions in order to represent and relate to identities that reflect societal demands, which does not necessarily result in the general public valuing the institutions. The most urgent issues of the contemporary world, however, need to support the museum's actions, which creates a paradigm between significant and symbolic actions and their gaping effect on the vastness of the target audiences. Thus, Table 1, entitled Public projection: museums and their programs, proposes that guests discuss the ways in which different institutions project themselves to their audiences, especially through programmatic and curatorial proposals, and that they analyze the real effects of the propositions.

Participants:
Alex Calheiros (director of the Museum of Inconfidência, MG)
Cintia Maria (director of MUNCAB, BA)
Marília Bonas (technical director of the Football Museum/IDBrasil)

Mediation:
Heloisa Espada (professor and curator at MAC USP)

Alex Calheiros

He holds a degree and a PhD in Philosophy. He is an associate professor in the Philosophy Department of the University of Brasília. He was the director of cultural dissemination at the University of Brasília. He is also the deputy director of the museum processes department at the Brazilian Institute of Museums (Ibram).

Cintia Maria

Journalist, multi-artist, writer and cultural manager. Director of the National Museum of Afro-Brazilian Culture. Anti-racist. Co-founder of Nubas and creator of Cine Janela, she develops and manages innovative, creative and socially impactful projects, focusing on invisible populations and identity cultures. Award-winning filmmaker, she has received more than 30 national and international awards.

Heloisa Espada

Heloisa Espada is a professor of Art History and curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art at the University of São Paulo. She was curator at the Moreira Salles Institute between 2008 and 2022. Among the exhibitions she has recently organized are Rupture and the group (MAM SP, 2022), Modern inside out: photography and the city, Brazil, 1890-1930 (IMS, 2022) and Circumambulatio: Anna Bella Geiger (MAC USP, 2024).

Marília Bonas

Marília Bonas is a historian, specialist in Museology from the University of São Paulo (USP) and master in Social Museology from the Lusófona University of Humanities and Technology, in Lisbon, working in the field for 23 years. A professor, researcher, cultural manager and curator, she was director of the Museu do Café, the Museu da Imigração and coordinated the Memorial da Resistência de São Paulo. She is currently the technical director of the Museu do Futebol and a member of the Executive Board of the International Committee of Museums (ICOM).

2 table

integrated communication: museums and their networks

15:30 - 17:30 PM

The relationship between museums or art institutions and the public should not be considered only in terms of face-to-face interaction today, but also through the particularities of digital media that give a virtual dimension to the ways of relating. The deepening of institutional communication and its authorial productions reveal a complex relationship with new media and social networks, in which engagement is based on personal interests and no longer collective ones. With this, Table 2, entitled Integrated communication: museums and their networks, proposes that guests present the communication and creation strategies employed in order to relate to the public, integrating their respective in-person programs with the digital or virtual dimension in which much of the contact with the public takes place today.

Participants:
Caroline Carrion (Superintendent of Communications at the São Paulo Biennial, SP)
Fernando Bruno (digital projects coordinator at MALBA, Argentina)
Lorena Vicini (executive manager of strategy and transformation at Instituto Inhotim, MG)

Mediation:
Ane Tavares (communications coordinator at MAM São Paulo)

Ane Tavares

She is a journalist and a postgraduate student in Cultural Project Management at the Center for Latin American Studies on Culture and Communication at the University of São Paulo (CELACC-USP). She has been the Communications and Marketing Coordinator at the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo since 2022, and has worked in the area of cultural communication for over ten years, having worked at institutions such as the Inhotim Institute and the Brazilian Museum of Sculpture and Ecology, and on projects such as the 21st Sesc Videobrasil Biennial.

Caroline Carrion

She holds a degree in Journalism and Philosophy from USP – University of São Paulo, studied Management et Communications Interculturales at Université Paris IV – Sorbonne (France) and is currently studying an MBA in Management with an Emphasis in Marketing at FGV – Fundação Getúlio Vargas. Since 2022, she has been the Superintendent of Communications at the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo, an area she previously coordinated for four years. She directed the Broadway 1602 gallery (New York, USA) and coordinated communications at SP-Arte and Galeria Millan.

Fernando Bruno

Fernando Bruno is the digital projects coordinator at the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (Malba) and a professor of communication theories in the undergraduate drawing course at Torcuato Di Tella University.

He holds a degree in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires and completed postgraduate studies at the Center for Contemporary Architecture Studies, UTDT. His work and research revolve around communication and art theory, and more specifically, addresses the impact of technology on contemporary visual culture.

Lorena Vicini

She is currently the Executive Manager of Strategy and Transformation at the Inhotim Institute (Brazil). Previously, she held the position of Communications Manager at the same institution (2019-2024). She was a researcher at Documenta Studies, was part of the SUR vehicle and coordinated the projects “Episódios do Sul” and “Ecos do Atlântico Sul” at the Goethe-Institut São Paulo (2016-2018). She is co-author of “Inspirador: International guidelines for sustainable cultural Management (Ministry of Culture & Goethe-Institut).