The summer school will conjugate two different goals: on the one hand it will offer its students and teachers the best possible professional education we can imagine on the basis of the international literature and of the most significant results in the field; on the other it will have an experimental character. All stages of the project will be an occasions for reflexion.
The lines of the school structure: Timing and outcome
The school will offer professionals, teachers and students alike the possibility of working together in a concentrated way, sharing the time of teaching/learning and that of producing. Three weeks (5 days per week) is a reasonable time for students to concentrate on this area of learning, and for the scholars and teachers to concentrate on this experiment.
Since the first week the school the participants will be subdivided into classes pertaining to the single international profiles, but from the beginning to the end they will also be involved in shared meetings on themes of general interest. Also since the first week the participants will work on a joint exhibition project, which will be presented to the public in the final day.
The lines of the school structure: Professional profiles
Coordinated by Peppino Ortoleva (museum and exhibition creator, and professor of communication, University of Torino) with the School of Design of the Universidad de Los Andes, the school will be addressed to the following professional profiles:
- Content Creators: the role of the content creators in our conception is on the one hand that of projecting the contents and itineraries for visit, on the other hand that of directing and coordinating a variety of skills to obtain a unitary result; the content creator will also have to know the essentials of cultural policy making, because museums, and also exhibitions are assuming a growing role in the cultural life of cities and countries in general (note: the school will concentrate on these abilities more than on “curatorship”, a profession that encompasses many different skills, including the management of existing collections, and that prevailingly concentrates on art and archaeology collections);
- Space Designers: projecting the setup of an exhibition or museum is a form of communication through the space, the lights, the objects: for architects/designers it requires a narrative attitude, for scenographers a tridimensional and interactive attitude, for both an ability to adapt to the point of view of the other professions;
- Visual and Multi-Sensorial Creators: the electronic and digital revolutions have introduced important changes in the language of museums and exhibitions: on the one hand the ubiquity of videos and the growing presence of interactive and immersive experiences; on the other hand the role of the web not only in promoting the visits but also in preparing and prolonging the visitors’ experience; this requires a variety of professional skills, from graphicists to visual and sound designers;
- Managers/Agents: to manage a museum means managing an institution but also something more: negotiating all the time with other institutions and with sponsors, to support the innovations that are continuously required, and more in general participating in the cultural policies of the state and country where the museum is located; for temporary exhibitions the emerging profession is rather that of an agent who is able to “sell” them in a way more similar to that of literary agents than to that of classic managers. These two figures have much to learn from each other.
Direction of the school and selection of the teachers and participants
Peppino Ortoleva will work in strict cooperation with a supervisor/manager designated by the Universidad de Los Andes; they will be aided by an assistant, and by administrative personnel.
There will be a sub-coordinator for each professional orientation, who will work full time with the school during the three weeks. The regular teachers will be recruited for lectures and seminars in the Universidad de Los Andes and other Bogota universities. Other lecturerers can be asked to participate in seminars, particularly via skype or other on line techniques.
