General Information on - "V and A"
V and A is my favourite museum in London. I appreciate the their collection of renaissance sculptures and the way they are presented. It is not clustered, so I can always find a place to sit and draw. Epochs and Cultures are divided on sections, I always know where to go. The building itself is like a big box of beauty and curiosities. In many rooms the day light is not blocked. The public Garden with a fountain is very enjoyable. I already talked about the importance of the public spaces for museums.
I love the museum's approach towards contemporary art and design. It perpetually work with new ides and materials. For example, The power of Making exhibition was just brilliant, very open minded and innovative.
The Design Festival was curated in a very clever way. "V and A" located all the objects from the design Festival in different rooms of the building, encouraging people to walk through the gallery space, and discover something new to themselves.The fact that I am positive about it, does not mean that other people feel the same way. I remember, some of the visitors were very upset because they had to walk through the whole gallery, while they came specifically for the Design Festival. Well, this is how "V and A" deals with new design, inviting it, blending it to the existing collection.
The Lectures
It was a tiring day, 7 speakers were invited to the lecture, they rose and answered many interesting sand important questions, but the amount of information was overwhelming. Here is my attempt to rethink and underline the ideas that appeared to be the most exiting and useful for me.
The first Speaker talked a lot about Foucault's practice. Technologies of the self. Foucault believes that it is very important for individuals to find themselves, find their limits, their aims. He sees a museum space as a resource for personal development, from where information and knowledge can be received. Every person see the museum differently, they are interested in objects that somehow reflect themselves. The lecturer, in a private talk, pointed out that from Foucault/s perspective, museum's future should not be artificially build and colonised. Museum can be compared to a child. The child should not be told what he likes and what should he do with his life, a child should be listened to and supported. His future should not be colonised but given a freedom to evolve in its own way A child should explore what he likes to do, etc. Museum should also be set free, and develop through experiments and innovative ideas, I will repeat myself, without predicting of how it MUST look like.
The word MUSEUM appeared from the word Muse. (a place where the inspiration lives) Museums changed their focus, they used to be for objects, now they are for people. Museums think of the best ways for visitors to walk through their space so the information unfolds clearly and comfortably in front of people's eyes. Comfortable cafes, public spaces, enough space between the artefacts, seating, toilets, helpful staff. The designers even create the line of drama for a gallery or museum space.
Museums try to attract people with the help of Tv adverts and posters in the street and even in the tube. Museums changed their policies, majority of them are free of charge. But the cafes inside galleries and museum are focused on the middle class, the prices are not affordable.
Museum's biggest complain is the lack of space, so biggest part of the collection is stored in the basement, in closed rooms, with no public access. From my point of view there are 3 solutions for this problem. My solutions are bold, but worth to considering.
1. Revalue all the items, museums and galleries are prone to hoarding unneeded stuff. Very likely that some of the objects in their collections are not worth of keeping. So it should be given to people through auctions (for example) or returned to the place where it was taken from (Greece, Egypt, Africa). Otherwise there will never be enough galleries' and museums space for them.
2. Create an online catalogue, provide better access for the community. (Make better cabinets and storages, so they will be efficient and take a reasonable amount of space.) - this is a good idea for a project, especially for DRS 2 (they are working with the display of collections)
3. Collection can travel around the world. Collections can be exchanged. A building for permanent collections should be built in every country. They will provide a safe place for "Art Migration"
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