Open Museum organized an open call to people working on anti-discrimination projects in the city to develop a set of axes on which museums could concentrate on as they become more inclusive spaces. With the help of these people, five central themes were developed: Personnel, Public, Partnerships, Place, and Programming. For each theme, a meeting with the activists is organized where the attendees can express themselves freely and give their proposals for more representation museums. Afterwards, museums are invited to participate in a co-reflection meeting on the same topic.
Following these sessions, recommendations are formed from the concerns and solutions presented by both parties. These recommendations are meant as a starting point for museums – a safe place to question their practices and adjust their vision of the future. They are intended to provoke thought and to aid in the deconstruction of exclusionary practices.
In September and October 2021, Open Museum organized brainstorming sessions around the second of the five P’s: Publics. The Think Tank met at the MigratieMuseumMigration on September 9th where they discussed problems and potential solutions they see in museums when it comes to how museums interact with their publics. What kind of activities are proposed? Who does the mediation serve? What audiences can be better served and how? The MigratieMuseumMigration was chosen as a backdrop to this conversation because of their approach to participatory heritage.
The co-reflection session with the museum participants took place online on October 14th. The following people were present at this meeting. The discussion revolved around which publics museums already serve, which groups they would like to better serve and what they could do to better serve their publics.
If you’d like to know the results of our discussions on the “P” of Publics, please download the pdf below.