Making Worlds. Sixth Session: Complexities and Politics of Mediation in Cultural Institutions

> Introduction
> Core Points and Working Areas
> Methodology and Structure
> Supporting Materials

Introduction

Practices in mediation in art centers bring out politics and relations marked by emotion, open relations and the co-creation of common spaces where one can actively listen to the other. These practices do not only respond to projects with simple content transmission or pedagogies in which the curator or the artist´s discourse is reaffirmed, but can generate new spaces for knowledge, cultural production as well as different cultural politics. Some politics are affective, thus they highlight how one takes care of the other, others are deconstructive as they depend on how the other interprets or translates their peer´s institution, which can generate critical practices and, finally there are “slow politics” based in the timing and spaces generated.

We could affirm that a repolitization of mediation practices is necessary. This should reconsider cultural institutions and think about the type of institutional practices that are generated in the “other” politics.

This panel will be structured around four topics or working areas that have been practiced and thought over during the Transductores project and its diverse dimensions (as a cultural project, as research, as a learning platform and as a project creator). These topics serve as guides or itineraries to reflect on how we generate political practices, relationships and subjectivities in cultural institutions. They are useful to identify the threats and complexities from which a new political scenario can be created based in the potential of mediation and museum education as a political practice.

Core Points and Working Areas

1-Emotional Politics and Contact Pedagogy

The tensions between production and reproduction practices in cultural institutions are developed in this section. What is the role developed by the domestic practices related to mediation? Which are the necessary basic knowledge, skills and epistemologies?

2- Politics of Repetition and Deconstruction

Education/mediation is structured in many occasions through these tasks or invisible reiterative activities, against an ideal of innovative or productive practices normally related to the discourses of curators and artists. Is it possible to generate productive reiterative practices? Could we understand the “unglamorous” tasks in mediation (accompanying groups, offering guided tours, etc.) as spaces for the production of other relations? Can these activities become opportunities for the deconstruction of knowledge?

3- Temporalities and Hetero-normative Spaces for Relationships

Timing and spaces in mediation require temporary, special and subjective parameters different to the ones in cultural management and production, normally confined to the production of objects, exhibitions and other artifacts. From the mediation point of view, it is interesting to highlight that timing and queer spaces, which are not hetero-normatives in terms of a dichotomy, are no longer efficient. An example is a producer-receiver, artist-educator, curator-educator, or educator-audience. Could we rethink other times related to work that are not affected by these dichotomies? Could we learn form other schedules and spaces?

4- The Continuous (Un) learning due to Complexities and Overflows

Educational practices tend to be created with a reflexive practice in constant evaluation: mediators tend to learn, (un)learn and begin from scratch. This process of “overflows” and changes is crucial in order to regenerate mediations. Mediation brings a commitment based on an error, mistake and an overflow that are learning aspects, an opportunity for political change. (Un)learn is to work complexities out.  Could we work with conflicts and overflows as opportunities for an institutional learning? Could we rethink our job in terms of mechanisms that are not pro-development, heroic and discuss the complexities that exist in our working process? Could we learn form the politics in the intangible from our own initiatives and projects?

Methodology and Structure

The day is planned with complex presentation on the projects as case studies in the first part and a participative methodology based in dialog in the second part. This part requires an active implication from the participants, divided in workgroups. Each group will generate various sociograms on the cases presented and will create a collective introduction to maps representing agents and social relations.

First part: 10:00 am-12:00pm

Presentation of core working functions and areas. Presentation of case studies and practical translation of the core topics Medialab-Prado and Intermediæ.

Second part: 12:00pm-2:00pm

Working groups build sociograms based on case studies. Sociogram presentation and final discussion

Supporting Materials

To prepare for this day, supporting materials can be found here