Gabriela Gil Verenzuela, president of ICOM Mexico, indicated that since 2022, the creation of this space for dialogue among museum professionals has been undertaken.
This Wednesday, the Museum Festival 2024: Plural Museums for Current Audiences was inaugurated. It will run from August 28 to 30 in collaboration with the International Council of Museums (ICOM) Mexico, at the International Baroque Museum (MIB).
In its third edition, this time held in Puebla, the thematic axes will revolve around exhibitions, collections, and public spaces, from a plural and inclusive perspective, with the aim of reflecting on the challenges facing museums and building stronger professional networks.
In her speech, the director of Museums Puebla, Anel Nochebuena, welcomed museum directors from the state and the country, as well as professionals present at the event, detailing that keynote lectures, presentations, debates, and modules will be held for attendees to learn about the cultural offerings in various museums, including state ones.
“The museum must and has ceased to be a merely contemplative space, to become a node where we rethink cultural habits, where we not only reflect on what has happened and what we house, but also what follows, the future,” she mentioned.
She also highlighted that museums are no longer just repositories of artistic, historical, and cultural heritage, as now the collections and archives “gradually become living elements that facilitate dialogue for the construction of identity and collective memories.”
Gabriela Gil Verenzuela, president of ICOM Mexico, indicated that since 2022, the creation of this space for dialogue among museum professionals has been undertaken and thanked the Government of Puebla and the Secretariat of Economy and Tourism of the Puebla City Council, among other event participants. “At ICOM Mexico, museums have no borders, they have a network,” she said.
The inaugural keynote lecture titled “Plural Museums: Museums for Exhibitions or Museums for Audiences” was given by Alejandra Peña Gutiérrez, director of the Weisman Art Museum, who spoke about the decolonization processes of museums, using the example of the repatriation of collections from various museums, specifically the Weisman, in response to requests from various North American tribes, called descendant communities.
In the discussion, Luis Gerardo Morales Moreno, a research professor at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research of UAEM, presented the lecture “Who Do Museums Represent?”, where he spoke about museums as places of memory and “counter-memory,” which is generated through practices such as the removal of colonial sculptures and identity interventions and appropriations of these spaces, affirming that “history is not what we tell about it, but what we remember about it and how we tell it through museums and monuments.”
The first edition of the Museum Festival was held in Mérida, Yucatán, in 2022, and the second in Torreón, Coahuila. This time, some of the presentations will be: “The Importance of Exhibition Management,” “From Guided Tour to Digital Audience,” and “Current Audiences: User, Visitor, Public, Audience, or Community?”
Source: Intolerancias Diario
