Museum reflections

Mystetskyi Arsenal initiated the series of meetings Museum reflections among the museum workers about museum education and interaction tools with different audiences.

Museum reflections look like meetings with discussions of topical issues in the work with museum audiences. During the meetings, first of all, we update the topic of museum education and communication. This is a platform for reflection, for sharing impressions with colleagues and for informal communication.

The first topic of the Museum reflections was The Ukrainian museums’ work during the pandemic namely: what changed and what experience we got, what formats appeared, what worked and what did not, what museum education looked like, who were the online visitors and how we looked for, engaged and counted them.

The second topic was Museum education outside the museum, where such themes were discussed: how to get outside the museum with the educational project and still stay the museum, storytelling in education: how to find a unique museum story and change it into the educational project, how to choose the apt form for the educational project, the way of the educational project from an idea to realization.

The third topic Inclusion in the museum: what educational programs make the museum more accessible touched the question of barrier-free in various manifestations: what an inclusive education was and how to work with it in the museum, possibilities, partnerships and an experience of cooperation: where to find the experts on inclusive education and how to create the partnership projects with public organizations, permanent projects and audience search, how to work with various audience and create long-term inclusive projects, accessible art and available space: how to adapt visual art to the needs of people with disabilities and make the museum safe for visiting.

The last topic for the Reflections Museum education during the war gave us an opportunity to reflect on a difficult experience of today, understood the devastating effects of the war on education, tried to find new ways and decisions for museums how to talk about the war and whether the education could become a platform for this conversation, found out the changes in the interaction formats and whether it was possible to save the connection with the audience during the wartime, rethought what to do with imperial and soviet heritage in museum collections and how to talk about it through education.