Pisa, 4 December (3 pm - 7 pm) - 5 December (9 am - 5:30 pm) 2014
Presentation of co-creation activities
The focus of 5 December’s afternoon is on the co-creation sessions that have been executed as part of the RICHES project in the Netherlands.
Co-creation sessions are experimental activities aimed at demonstrating how the public can be creator (and so co-creator, together with the heritage professionals) as well as user of cultural contents.
Central question underlying the Netherlands’ activities is how young people relate to heritage and heritage practices; the method to direct this conversation gets through design thinking and co-creation with young adults, museum staff and designers from Waag Society. The aim of the co-creation activities is to contribute to identify novel strategic directions for museums. The results of the activities will contribute to (re-)think what it means for a museum to relate to contemporary society, fostering recognition of identity, history and contemporary life of young adults with multicultural backgrounds.
This part of the conference will provide an overview of the co-creative processes held in the Netherlands and will spotlight two topics that were central to the participants.
Presenters:
Dick van Dijk – Dick van Dijk is Creative Director at Waag Society. Van Dijk has particular responsibilities for creating interactive concepts, strategising (and realising) user involvement and monitoring the development of Waag’s prototypes and products. He is interested and experienced in the crossover between virtual and physical interactions, in creating a narrative space, a place for imagination. Van Dijk will moderate the afternoon session of the conference.
Janine Prins, presenting “The power of diversity” – Janine Prins is researcher in residence at Waag Society. Prins is filmmaker and teaches Visual Anthropology at Leiden University. She has a personal and professional affinity and experience with the subject of cultural diversity. Prins will talk about the motivation for the co-creative approach advocated with young adults with a multicultural background and the recruitment of participants for the sessions.
Douwe-Sjoerd Boschman, presenting “The co-creative process” – Douwe-Sjoerd Boschman works as concept developer for Waag Society. In addition Boschman is a freelance concept designer for interactive media and writer of the illustrated album series called Mijn naam is Haas. In 2007 he graduated at HKU University of the Arts Utrecht. Boschman will present the co-creation process and methodology used.
Ilias Zian and Emma Waslander, presenting “In search of identity” – Ilias Zian and Emma Waslander both graduated from Cultural Heritage studies in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Since then Emma works as a freelancer in the education department at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. Ilias Zian is heritage specialist and cultural advisor, his focus lies on education, communication and diversity. As part of the RICHES project Zian works as a researcher at the National Museum of World cultures.
Ilias and Emma want to think about new ways of letting the museum and its objects tell their stories and show their identity. Their presentation aims to analyse the ethnological museum settings in contemporary society. Trough the eyes of a youngster, they will discuss themes such as truth, responsibility, questioning, renewal, storytelling and identity. They will conclude with exploring new possibilities of presentation and representation to find connections to a younger audience.
Hodan Warsame, Simone Zeefuik and Tirza Balk, presenting “Decolonising the Museum” – Tirza Balk & Hodan Warsame are members of the intersectional feminist collective Redmond Amsterdam, which aims to offer an alternative, witty and decolonial response to hegemonic ideas of race, gender, class, sexuality and ability in popular culture. As part of the RICHES project Warsame works as a researcher at the National Museum of World cultures. Simone Zeefuik is an Amsterdam based writer and organiser, whose work focuses on imagery, representation, anti-Black racism and the undocumented communities in Western Europe. She’s the founder of literary platform RE:Definition, initiator of digital archive #UndocumentedEU plus co-initiator of #UndocumentedNL and #DecolonizeTheMuseum .
They will present another prominent topic in the context of an Ethnographic Museum: de-colonisation. Their presentation aims to provide tools to both identify the elements of coloniality that ethnographic museums continue to reinforce (e.g. cultural erasure, appropriation and dehumanisation) and to re-imagine the ethnographic museum as a space for postcolonial healing.
Laura van Broekhoven, presenting “Impact at the museum” – Dr. Laura Van Broekhoven is Chief and Senior Curator at the National Museum of World cultures in Leiden and Associate Professor of Archaeology at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her current museological research interests include the Postcolonial Praxis, Sharing Curatorial Authority and Museum Futures, while her academic research topics focus on Maya oral history, Mixtec indigenous market systems and Nicaraguan cultural heritage. She is an active member of diverse national and international committees and networks and over the course of her career she has curated several exhibitions and authored numerous books and articles. Van Broekhoven will present the next steps that the museum will take from the co-creation sessions.
The afternoon session will include a preliminary video registration that shows the dynamics and results of the Dutch sessions held at the National Museum of World Cultures in Leiden.
