Divercity – diving into diversity in museums and the city Erasmus Project

Project Title

Divercity – diving into diversity in museums and the city

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Creativity and culture; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

The DiverCity project focuses on the development of methodologies, the implementation and design of artistic pedagogies as innovative sources of learning in diversity and social inclusion, as well as the development of tools to support the use of art in museums and in the cities in order to address diversity as the main characteristic of our societies. The project aims to adapt museums and cities to the reception and the commitment of new audiences, in particular, adults in a disadvantaged situation, and in general, non-habitual or invisible/invisibilized audiences of museums. It also seeks to value cultural diversity as a common European resource, focusing on artistic mediation as a method of re-appropriation of the city, the district, as well as the approach and visibility of invisible slums and audiences. Our main target audience is young adults in a disadvantaged situation.
From these premises, the consortium is integrated with the following entities: Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), Elán Interculturel (Paris), Artemiszio Foundation (Budapest), Ethnographic Museum (Budapest), Stand 129, Caritas Of Helsinky (Helsinky), REDE (Lisbon).
Firstly, a set of good practices (IO1) were documented, which included those that had been developed mainly in the European field, that can be used as case studies to address the second phase of the project, Foundation Bricks. Over one hundred good practices were collected in different areas of action and always focused on invisible groups or at risk of exclusion, and through participatory art practices.
From the reflection on these practices, a documentary compilation and a commented thesaurus (IO2) was made to bring information on inclusive art, diversity, gender, participatory art and evaluation of the arts at the service of society useful for consultation and planning. From this point, and very closed to the experts involved in the aforementioned good practices, a grounded methodologies for diversity in museums and cities through art was developed, using qualitative tools, such as in-depth interviews with experts and “focus group”.
As a consequence, the theoretical bases were developed to give support to pilot workshops in the different places of the partners. The pilot workshops, which consisted of a minimum of 30 hours long, were carried out in relation to museum diversity and addressed cross-cutting issues such as gender, trans-generational relationship or migration, as factors that could exacerbate the vulnerability of groups. On the basis of these practical experiences, a report was produced in which experiences were collected and, as a result, useful methodologies were proposed able to replicate them in museums (IO3).
After that, guidelines were established to address the work of diversity in the city (I04, I05, I06). Similarly to IO3, each group held workshops of at least 30 hours long where the idea of the city was worked as a living organism, proposing strategies to re-inhabit and appropriate the city, and in the same way, transversal aspects (intergenerational relationship, gender, migration) were introduced as variables that may increase the isolation of vulnerable groups. As a result, three documents were made showing effective methodologies that can be applied, as well as paths to broad them and possible limitations that can be found.
In order to have an educational correlation, derived from the aforementioned IO4, IO5 and IO6, the IO7 and IO8 products were made to offer a curriculum for a possible training program, so that, beyond the methodologies, there could be an effective transferability of contents.
All these products have been accompanied by different events related to the dissemination of the products and their discussion with participants and experts in the different cities involved (Paris, Budapest, Vienna, Helsinky, Lisbon and Madrid) as well as a final multiplier event of the project in the form of an International Conference in Madrid, which was replicated in Spanish language in different educational settings of the Madrid community reaching different audiences.
The project has brought together not only a large part of existing practices in art, inclusion, diversity in museums and in the cities, but has also brought together the voices of experts who have helped to refine the terms diversity and inclusion through art. Through all the practices carried out, useful methodologies have been obtained to make museums a living agent of inclusion and a space to fight against stigma. Also it has helped to conceive cities in a more inclusive way re-conceptualizing the idea of “itinerary”. The project has had great repercussion in cultural, social and educational settings.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 221673 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Rede Portuguesa de Jovens para a Igualdade de Oportunidades entre Mulheres e Homens
• Caritas der Erzdiözese Wien – Hilfe in Not
• Néprajzi Múzeum
• Elan Interculturel
• ARTEMISSZIO ALAPITVANY
• HELSINGIN KAUPUNKI