What are the new challenges for museography in the COVID-19 Era? What aspects of the discipline and its practices were being questioned since before the pandemic and will now be exacerbated? Who is involved in the design process? Who benefits and who is harmed? What can we imagine for the future of the discipline? These are just some of the questions that the independent forum behind the scenes. Conversations around museography in the COVID-19 Era: changing the narrative seeks to generate around the museographic practice in museums and cultural venues in times of austerity and pandemic. The four sessions can be consulted at: YouTube Taller de Museografía
We have to recognize that most of the current problems in which we live are part of a systemic problem and this crisis was already here long before we heard the word coronavirus. It is not only a global health problem, but also a social, economic, environmental, energy, food, ethical and, of course, cultural problem. COVID-19 is the straw that broke the camel’s back. “We cannot return to normality, because the problem was precisely the normality that we had,” was read since the end of last year in a graffiti on the streets of Hong Kong.
Within this total rethinking, much has been said about the challenges that museums face in the COVID-19 Era but little has been reflected on the challenges and impacts that the pandemic and austerity policies are facing in the matter of museography and exhibition design.
This is a time of crisis. However, historically crises have been the great turning points to rethink practices, to counteract inertia and to rebuild based on new paradigms.
We are living in times of change and the world of exhibitions and museography should not be oblivious to these changes. In addition to the review of the impact that the pandemic has had on this discipline, it is also time to review the practices that have been developed in recent years and question the reactive, fragmented and unsustainable way in which it has developed . These are times to assume a more active and critical stance, with a comprehensive vision that allows us to rethink the design and management processes and put the environmental, social and economic dimension of our practice at the center of the conversation.
