Finite Sets. On Education in the Museum
Paraphrasing the title of the exhibition: Infinite Territory, to discuss the Education Department as a teaching device, which projects an idea of the museum as such and cultural management model, situated in a territory. The dynamics generated in this place can be infinite since, just as there are different types of visitors to the museum, there are also an infinite number of issues that can be addressed when working with the art pieces. However, we define the issues, outline a discourse and only have a few weeks to work with an exhibition; so in that sense the infinite becomes finite. “Finite set” is a mathematical term applied to a set of different numbers or elements that can be counted. In art museums we also do math, we count people, exhibitions, activities... but how does one measure the symbolic and political significance of a discourse? Museum educators are known for their accurate translations of the discourse of an exhibition. However, in this museum, we have been expanding activities in the search for a more dynamic, lively learning process and in the search for our own unique profile. Is this the right path? We try to constantly rethink our actions, seeking to generate a positive impact on visitors in the attempt to encourage the questionning of society and human nature through art in order that those involved leave the museum teeming with questions, including the facilitators of the educational activities.
Antonieta Sibaja Hidalgo Education Department Museum of Contemporary Art and Design
This means greater demands such as continual research, creative assessment methodologies for all those involved and creating interdisciplinary teams for thoughtprovoking activities related to the exhibits. These constant challenges keep alive the ideal of thinking through art, development through art, of impacting more people through art. Within the framework of the exhibition Infinite Territory we attempt to develop educational activities for people who have not really approached the issues addressed by the artist Léster Rodríguez. These include identities, power, force, repression, submission, geography, politics, the nation-state, the labour force, the symbolic value of the wage (asymmetry), security, distribution of wealth, economic enclaves, violence, doctrines, communications technology based on creating weapons. At the same time, we approach people whose daily lives are immersed in these issues due to the work they carry out within society. Such is the case of the invitation extended to officers of the security forces to visit the museum. We worked on raising the awareness of these officers -who had not had the opportunity to visit the museum -in a performance workshop in which they reflected on the themes the works are based on, which were addressed from the perspective of the corporeality of the participants. The police force underwent a change on connecting with the art. The participants, who turned up in uniform and armed,
shared some of their experiences on discussing and identifying with the works. Their bulletproof vests, which they themselves decided to place on the floor in order to be able to move more freely, mimicked the artwork and this action showed they felt safe and open to experiencing art. Can the awareness of these groups of people create changes in society? We could use this tool further. Our efforts also focused on attracting other groups of visitors such as the elderly, who participated in work on topics such as landscape, maps, and the geographical and political boundaries that shape the countries we know today. To this effect, maps of life were created, in which participants’ memory played a key role as the collective memory of a territory. We also sought the involvement of the artist himself by inviting him to hold a workshop on landscape designed for university students from different fields with an interest in art. It consisted of an introductory talk on two of the exhibition’s topics: identity and the nation state. Following this, examples of videoworks by artists from different contexts that address these same issues were shown. Finally, an exercise in reconstructing maps based on existing ones was carried out. These are just some examples of a series of educational activities that were developed for the exhibition. The guided tours and guided tours
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