CIMAM's 2024 Rapid Response Webinar Program
CIMAM's Rapid Response Webinar (RRW) themes for 2024 aim to address current issues facing modern and contemporary art museums. These include the need for museums to become more climate-sensitive and to question "international norms" of conservation and museum practices established many decades ago, to reimagine more sustainable and ecological ways of conceiving the museum as an institution that embraces and coexists with nature rather than excluding the non-human and slowing down time.
Other topics to be discussed will include the potential advantages and disadvantages of harnessing the power of technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in museums. In addition, the importance of learning from indigenous knowledge systems, different from Western ones, will be emphasized.
Above all, the RRW program aims to present and discuss progressive, experimental, and impactful museum practices from around the world.
CIMAM members have free access to these sessions, where participants can contribute with questions or suggestions after the panelists finish their presentations. If you can't join the sessions live, you can watch the recordings later in the Members Only Section. Additionally, you'll have access to the recommended reading list.
If you are not a CIMAM member, you can still participate in the sessions and view the recommended reading list by paying €10,00 per webinar.
CIMAM Rapid Response Webinars are made possible with the support from the Getty Foundation through its Connecting Professionals/Sharing Expertise initiative.
CIMAM's 2024 Rapid Response Webinar Program
CIMAM organizes Rapid Response Webinars every month. The specific date, time, and invited panelists will be announced beforehand. Stay tuned for updates!
🗓️ Thursday, 2 May 2024, at 11:30 am CEST (Central European Summer Time), Geneva, Switzerland
The Stupid Museum? Museum Practices in the Era of Artificial Intelligence, Development, and Science.
Guest panelists:
- Mónica Bello, Curator and art historian, Head of Arts at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland.
- Yuko Hasegawa, Director, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan.
- Onome Ekeh, Artist and Filmmaker.
Moderated by CIMAM Board members Chus Martínez, Director, Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel, Switzerland, and Malgorzata Ludwisiak, Artistic Director, The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland.
Abstract:
Museum & Science. How art supports and co-creates an awareness of science goals? Consequences of AI.
Discourses dealing –and around– artificial intelligence often takes it as a given, as if AI constitutes new living and social condition that we must assume. But we may frame the question differently: what if the task museums should assume is to discover what the museum can do for artificial intelligence? and how artistic and museum practices can program this tool with new values leading it into different uses and functions for art and culture? Discovering how we can interact with data and create new spheres of study, research and education thanks to digital tools, technology and science should be part of our debate today.
🗓️ June
Celebrating Uniqueness and Excellence in Museum Practices. Unveiling the Significance of the Outstanding Museum Practice Award (OMPA)
Moderated by CIMAM Board members Suzanne Cotter, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia, and Leevi Haapla, Director, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma / The Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland.
Abstract:
This session discusses the project awarded with the last Outstanding Museum Award during the last annual conference in Buenos Aires. Using this as a ground, we would like to go over what this award represents and encourage CIMAM members to serve as ambassadors and nonimators for the future awards. OMPA is one of CIMAM's initiatives, created in 2021 to recognize and give international visibility to exemplary museum practices within the modern and contemporary art museum sector and inspire the community of professionals it serves. Any professional involved in modern and contemporary art museums is encouraged to nominate a museum practice for the OMPA. By participating, you contribute to the identification of museum practices that have the potential to inspire the transformation of museums into more empathic, accessible, inclusive, diverse, flexible, and co-creative institutions.
🗓️ September
Delving into the working methodologies of African Art Museums in Contemporaries Times
Moderated by CIMAM Board member Chus Martínez, Director, Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract:
The last decades have been witnessing the development and improvement of museums in Africa. This development has not only followed an uneven path --reflecting the social, economic, and cultural transformations of a continent but also it raises questions about the models that the different African contexts want to follow and the specific and distinguished methods and languages they want to adopt for their institutions, its audiences and its research and educational environments. As a consequence, we may call into question the very notion of the museum itself, posing a challenge to received ideas that could have profound implications for museums the world over and serving as inspiration for many art institutions around the world. Studying and collecting indigenous traditional art may lead to new paths in conceiving and mediating the contemporary collections, the ways heritage and culture gets transmitted, the co-existance of old and new technologies etc, and the relations with futures less dependant on the colonial ties.
🗓️ October
Learning from others. Museums' Accountability in Fostering Diversity and Social Value Through Visitor Engagement
Moderated by CIMAM Board members Yu Jin Seng, Deputy Director (Curatorial & Research), National Gallery Singapore, Singapore, and Amanda de la Garza, Director, MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico.
Abstract:
Diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion are the pillars of the museum’s present and future social practices. However, the presence of these notions in every communicative tool and public discourse is not a guarantee of deep structural transformations. To identify the problems and to invent new languages to address the challenges every museum face in reaching a ground of social common good is fundamental. Generous listening, learning from specific cases and situations as well as sharing those experiences on a regular basis is key to avoiding the production of empty new good practices.
CIMAM members enjoy exclusive benefits, gaining free access to live sessions, the opportunity to engage with panelists, and access to recorded sessions and a curated reading list.
Non-members can still participate by paying €10,00 per webinar, ensuring everyone can benefit from valuable insights and knowledge.
You can watch previous Rapid Response Webinars at the CIMAM Members Only Section.
🗓️ Thursday, 29 February 2024, 9:30 am CST (Central Standard Time)
Indigenous Perspectives in Curatorial Practice for a Different Future.
Guest panelists:
- John Kenneth Paranada, Curator of Art and Climate Change, Sainsbury Centre For Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.
- Lucía Sanroman, Director, Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City, Mexico.
- Tarah Hogue, Curator (Indigenous Art), Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada.
- Lukretia Booysen, Founder and Artistic Director of Koena Art Institute, Cape Town, South Africa
Moderated by CIMAM Board Member, Amanda de la Garza. Director, MUAC, Mexico City, Mexico.
Abstract:
This panel discussion aims to engage curators and museum directors in a dialogue on fostering sustainable ecosystems within modern and contemporary art museums. Delving into the intersection of curatorial practices and indigenous perspectives, the invited panelists will explore strategies for facing a relevant demand in the museum field nowadays. From ethical curation to incorporating indigenous knowledge, we will reflect on how these elements contribute to shaping a more engaged and diverse environment in the art world.
🗓️ Wednesday, 20 March 2024, 13h CET (Central European Time)
Rewilding the Museum. Exploring the Sensitive Museum Architecture in a Changing Climate.
Guest panelists:
- Graciela Melitsko Thornton, Head of Creative Green Consultancy and Training Programme at Julie’s Bicycle, UK.
- Edson G. Cabalfin, Ph.D., Associate Dean for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in the School of Architecture at Tulane University, New Orleans, USA.
- Daniel Vega, Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Conservation, Guggenheim Bilabo, Spain.
Moderated by CIMAM Board members Joselina Cruz, Director/Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) Manila, Philippines, and Malgorzata Ludwisiak, Artistic Director, The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Poland.
Abstract:
The design and maintenance of a climate-sensitive museum is not an easy task. Architecture and the design of the functions that a museum performs –towards the artworks and also the teams and its audiences–it is still very dependent on modern ideals of representation. To challenge these views implies an imagination of another “climate” inside the museum. Rewilding the museum implies the possibility of the museum becoming nature, embracing different paradigms in conversation and preservation, and also different uses of the spaces. Saying goodbye to global and standard ideas that define spaces and functions in a similar way all over the world is perhaps the first step in that process.
Museums and their architectures may be also diverse in its but from different global perspectives (climate zones). The future for museums is not only visit but doing things inside.