What Should a Museum in Latin America Look Like?
In Latin America, museums are in charge of preserving and dispersing the heritage, culture, and history of the region, the different countries, and/or the diversity of indigenous groups. A museum succeeds at its job when it considers the groups in question and allows them to be the ones that determine and dictate how their heritage is to be represented. Since museums are concepts originally from dominant Western cultures, museums in Latin America must keep five key concepts in mind to ensure they do not fall into the traps of colonialism. These concepts are integration with pedagogy, a tool for deconstruction, constant innovation, accessibility, and good archiving.
Regarding pedagogy, a good museum should not think about this concept in a schematic and compartmentalized way. [1] This, frankly, leads to empty results since they are never really integrated. Luis Camnitzer, professor emeritus at SUNY Old Westbury and frequent contributor to ArtNexus, proposes that integrating art and education reinforces creativity, conceptualization, and questioning outside of a more traditional setting. This integration also combines critical thinking in the pedagogical process within a community and helps fight against regressive ideas such as that creating art is only for those who are born knowing how to draw.
However, unlike Camnitzer, I do believe that through this integration, museums can begin to regard art as something that can be appreciated by more than an elite public. These spaces work better when they are accessible and welcome members of different communities into these cultural exchanges.
This brings me to my next point: the museum must always be a tool for deconstruction. Art museums, for instance, open doors to educational programs and art exhibitions that repeatedly react to history by criticizing the Eurocentric and colonial perspectives that shaped postcolonial regions, such as, Latin America. The artist, Voluspa Jarpa, expands on this topic by mentioning how her art deals with the colonial concepts of race, gender, class, government systems, among others, and invites her audience to think critically about which of these concepts of subordination are ignored as signs of colonization. [2] In addition to Jarpa’s previously mentioned work, Altered Views (2019), various activities such as conversations, guided tours, round tables and talks such as those offered by the Biomuseo in Panama and the Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama (MAC Panama) seek to promote dialogue to denormalize certain inherited divisions and deconstruct concepts that we usually take for granted.
Concerning innovation, for museums to continue being proper places of cultural exchanges, it is important to continue innovating through art exhibitions, training sessions, events, and other exhibits. With this pandemic, we have seen galleries, cultural centers, and museums being forced to incorporate technology and plan their calendars accordingly due to all these unforeseen events. And although this innovation has helped them, I agree with Gladys Turner, architect, and independent curator, who mentions how you have to be careful not to confuse just any incorporation of technology with innovation because the true innovation is intimately linked to the creative process. [3] Innovation must take different forms and be constantly changing and questioned not only by new technologies and digital trends but also by the effect that these have on the culture around museums.
In terms of accessibility, I agree with Nolis Poveda, development coordinator for MAC Panama, when she mentions that one way to ensure that art is accessible to all is through voluntary donations instead of having an entry cost. [4] Poveda gives the example of MAC Panama, but it is a practice that I consider should be expanded to many more museums. MAC Panama seems to me that it manages to give more examples of accessibility also through partnerships and alliances with other cultural institutions, the media, festivals, and cultural events, as well as with private and government companies. [5]
Also, I would like to mention a particular initiative, El Contenedor MAC. This project managed to bring contemporary art to a wider audience from the less developed and more populated areas in Panama outside of the country’s capital. [6] Increasing accessibility is taking measures against classicism and the polarization of cultural resources in Latin America. All of which results in the active promotion of inclusion, education, tolerance, and community participation.
Finally, I want to mention the need to do a better job at creating a record and how this should not bly be a responsibility, but a priority, for a museum. This documentation should go beyond research files and should incorporate professional documentation from catalogs, didactic materials, labels, and other files to expand the database and facilitate the review of this material in future times. Here I agree with the curator and author, Gerardo Mosquera, who in the seminar “Curaduría Global Desde Aquí II” (or Global Curation From Here II, in English) mentioned how this is such a big problem in Latin American museums that it almost discredits the efforts when there is no documentation left behind.
[1] Camnitzer, Luis. 2013.Visiting Minds 2013: Pedagogía Radical: El Arte Como Educación. 1st ed. Sarigua, Panamá: 28. Adrienne Samos.
[2] “Voluspa Jarpa, La artista que representará a Chile en la Bienal de Venecia: «Que la sociedad entienda que el fenómeno del arte lo hace una sociedad completa».” Interview by Magdalena Olea. El Líbero. Jan 6 2019.
[3]Visiting Minds 2013: Pedagogía Radical: Los Dialogos. 1st ed. Sarigua, Panamá: 72. Adrienne Turner, Gladys. 2013. Samos.
[4]Poveda, Nolis X. Memoria Anual 2018. MAC Panamá , 2018, Memoria Anual 2018. 4.
[5] Poveda, Nolis X. Memoria Anual 2018. MAC Panamá , 2018, Memoria Anual 2018. 23.
[6] “El MAC Busca Promover El Arte En El Interior Del País.” El Capital Financiero, 22 Feb 2019, elcapitalfinanciero.com/el-mac-busca-promover-el-arte-en-el-interior-del-pais/.
