Art Archives Exchange - Educational Strategies for Contemporary Art Archives Through contributing objects and knowledge to museum exhibitions, involving researchers, universities, schools and their students in workshops and projects, art archives contribute actively in the education on the social value of art and culture and stimulate critical thinking about different cultural and historical perspectives. Making their sources available to researchers worldwide all participating archives foster and initiate intercultural dialogue and learning, often pursuing participatory and intercultural approaches to heritage, involving a wide range of target groups. Utilizing digital means enables art archives to preserve, contextualize and share their sources and research project worldwide. In order to be able to do so, professionals working in contemporary art archives have to be digitally competent and up to date with current developments. They have to continually learn new skills and integrate them into their work, alongside with educating their users on information and digital literacy. Especially for smaller institutions this can only be realized as a common effort, in cooperation with other organizations. In the absence of specialized trainings and education opportunities for contemporary art archivists, work based and peer learning through professional exchange with similar institutions are integral ways for professionals in our field to improve their skills and learn new competencies. The aim of this project is to focus on the educational role of contemporary art archives: art archivists need not only to have a good understanding of contemporary art, its conditions and institutional frameworks, they need many different skills including knowledge about librarian and archival standards, digitization and information technology, teaching and pedagogic competencies. For the project „Art Archives Exchange - Educational Strategies for Contemporary Art Archives” the five partner institutions Artpool Art Research Center / Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, basis wien – Documentation Centre for Contemporary Art, Fine Arts Archive Prague, MNAC Bucharest, Moderna galerija Ljubljana will work together intensively over the course of 26 months to develop a re-usable model for sharing good practice example and educational strategies for contemporary art archives. Defining core competences for contemporary art archives will lay the basis for a rotating roster of Learning Teaching /Training Activities in different peer groups. These will enable the participants to spend time at a partner institution, joining their colleagues in another country in their day-to-day work, earning new skills and building professional relations. The results of the projects will be published in the form of good practice examples on a website designed for the project. Using a template, it will also be possible for outside institutions to publish their good practice examples.
Art Archives Exchange - Educational Strategies for Contemporary Art Archives Art archives fulfill a very important specific role in our society as they collect material from the past, making it available in the present and creating cultural heritage to be conserved for the future. On the interface between the past and the future, this project asks precise questions about the educational and social significance of art archives, and investigates this field on a pan-European level. Through contributing objects and knowledge to exhibitions, involving researchers, universities, schools and their pupils in workshops and projects, art archives actively establish an educational perspective on the social value of art and culture. This concern encourages awareness of broader contexts and promotes critical thinking about cultural and historical perspectives. All participating archives foster and initiate and learning, making their sources available to researchers worldwide, often pursuing participatory and intercultural approaches to heritage and involving a wide range of target groups. In recent years there has been increased interest in the original and ephemeral materials collected by art archives and the services they offer. The archival work itself, on the other hand, often remains in the background as there is little public awareness of the continuous work and skills needed to ensure the conservation and accessibility of the objects. Archives of contemporary art employ a wide variety of strategies to document the production, exhibition and reception of art. Especially in smaller institutions, this can best be realized as a common endeavour in cooperation with other organizations. Digitization, for example, enables art archives to preserve, contextualize and share their sources and research projects worldwide. In order to be able to do so, they not only need the necessary infrastructure, professionals working in contemporary art archives also have to be digitally competent and up to date with current developments. They have to continually learn new skills and integrate them into their work, alongside educating their users on digital and information literacy. The focus of this project was both on the educational role of contemporary art archives, as well as the educational requirements of the professionals working in these archives. Work-based and peer learning through exchange with similar institutions are integral ways for professionals in the field of contemporary art documentation to actualize their skills and acquire new competence. Starting in September 2018, the five partner institutions Artpool Art Research Center/Museum of Fine Arts Budapest, basis wien — Documentation Centre for Contemporary Art, Fine Arts Archive Prague, MNAC Bucharest and Moderna galerija Ljubljana worked intensely together over the course of 36 months to develop a structural approach for the exchange of good practice examples, along with educational strategies that can be continued after the end of the project and used by other art archives, too. Five planned Learning Teaching Training Activities (LTTA) were central to the whole project, one organized and hosted by each partner archive. According to a predefined roster, guests from two other archives spent a whole working week (five working days) with the host archive. This enabled the guest archivists to improve their knowledge about the holdings and proceedings at the host archive. Together, the group also visited other archives and art institutions in the host city, learning more about the local cultural, institutional and historical setting. Each peer group (formed by host and guests) also prepared common activities to be completed during or in connection with the LTTA, the result of which are five examples of good practice that we hope will also be inspiring to others. The project was affected by travel restrictions during the Corona pandemic. With an extension of the deadline, four out of the five LTTAs were successfully implemented in the end. Meanwhile, the group continued their exchange with regular virtual meetings, keeping in contact and supporting each other during the pandemic. This ongoing exchange has proved very beneficial and was taken into account in the fifth good practice example, which reflects the value of creating strong networks and good connections to other professionals in the same field.