No. 20
Mayo -Agosto 2008

The amount, diversity and scope of museums today are outstanding. This article reviews the features and functions that museums fulfill as institutions within specific societies, and which thus respond to an array of specific social needs ranging from the imposition of a single point of view, to those which aim at transforming culture through diverse contents and dialogue with the public. Taking the type and scope of the museums into account, the author analyzes their potential to generate educational processes, and specifically their pertinence for the education of adults and youths.

This article introduces basic and general aspects of museums such as the language specific to museums (the objects, texts, lighting, games…) as well as the types of museums that exist (those dealing with art, archeology and history, science, traditions and economuseums). The author includes several examples of educational programs from different Latin-American museums and a list of museums that have an educational program. A web page address is included for every example.

Youths Voice their
Opinions:
The ‘Teen Talks’ Program of
the Photographers’ Gallery
Museum of London
Brenda Valdés Rosas

In this article the author reflects upon The Photographers’ Gallery of London’s experience with groups of youths aged between 14 and 19.The museum selects a small number of youths for each exhibition who later analyze what is on display and prepare a talk which they later present in front of those who visit the museum. When selecting the participants, a wide range of social and cultural diversity is sought and those with fewer means or less opportunities to visit museums are given priority. This program aims at establishing ties between the museum and the community, in which free speech and group work is encouraged for youths with different cultural backgrounds.

The Gernika Peace Museum
and its Educational Project
Idoia Orbe Narbaiza

The Gernika Peace Museum was created in 2003 with the purpose of promoting a culture of peace and refusal of vengeance. In this article the author describes the way in which an outline of the history of the Spanish Civil War and the review of several possible definitions of the word “peace” incite the public to reflect upon war and peace, human rights and democratic coexistence. The museum strives to maintain close bonds with the people of Gernika of all ages. The museum organizes a number of workshops for youths and adults related to the topics of Peace and Human Rights. It has also designed didactic materials for professors and virtual games to aid and assist history classes for youths.

Museums, Ways of
Learning and Information
and Communication
Technologies
Germán Krebs

Information and communication technologies (ICT) in today’s world aid the population’s access to museums of every kind. The author develops a didactic example in which, through a series of questions that initiate a process of group research -that may occur exclusively through virtual visits to museums-, adults and youths develop a series of abilities concerning reading, writing, research and organization of information and group work. Through this proposal, the participants are expected to understand an event from its historical, geographical, economic, social and cultural context.

The focus of this article is the author’s experience of educational work with youths and adults from the indigenous locality of San Miguel Cuevas, Oaxaca, Mexico, in which museography was used to create ties and encourage dialogue between the population that resides in the United States (mainly in Fresno, California) and that which lives in their place of origin. The project consisted on forming two groups of youths, one in Oaxaca and another in California, which created a photographic record that was later organized and exhibited in both places along with written aid in Spanish, English and Mixtec and audio in Mixtec. Both exhibitions include 36 trilingual texts and 188 photographs. Along with the physical exhibitions themselves, a film was created in dvd format and played on large screens in both places.

Hasta siempre,
JUAN MANUEL
GUTIÉRREZ V.

 

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