NEMO Working Group delved into diversity and inclusion practises in Estonian museums

Afterwards the participants visited Estonia's most accessible museum, the Estonian Maritime Museum. The Seaplane Harbour hangar, built at the beginning of the 20th century, houses one of the two permanent exhibitions of the Estonian Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum is the first museum in Estonia to offer solutions that support equal opportunities for visitors with visual, hearing or mobility impairments or intellectual disabilities. 

In the afternoon of the first day, colleagues from Miiamilla Kids Museum showed how to develop an exhibition together with children. The exhibition deals with emotions in a playful way. The building that nowadays houses the Children’s Museum Miiamilla was built between 1936 and 1937 and was erected initially as the main building of the Kadriorg Children’s Park. During Soviet times the premises was used by a sports school. Renovation of the building started in 2007 and in 2009 the museum was opened.

On the second day, the group met at the Estonian Open-Air Museum and NEMO grant holders contributed with short presentations of projects and practices in their institution, country or elsewhere related to diversity, community and inclusion, which they consider as good practices. Around 20 museum educators and professionals from Estonian museums joined the event ‘Perspectives of Europe’.

In the afternoon participants visited the Center of Multicultural Estonia of the Estonian Open-Air Museum and learned about their work with national minority groups. While visiting the Kolkhoz apartment house, the group also learned how the museum created the exhibition with the help of the community. 

At the end of the study visit, participants visited Vabamu – Museum of Freedom and Occupation. Vabamu is the largest active non-profit private museum in Estonia with a mission to educate the people of Estonia and its visitors about the recent past, sense the fragility of freedom, and advocate for justice and the rule of law. Vabamu's permanent exhibition tells the story of Estonia's repressions and freedom. Since summer 2023 the audio journey ‘From “such people” to LGBT activism’ which explains the stories of sexual and gender minorities in 20th-century Estonia, was added to the museum's audio guide.

The track is available in Estonian, English and Russian and guides the listener through the permanent exhibition, drawing attention to some new and some old objects that help understand Estonia's LGBTQIA+ history. It answers questions such as what happened to ‘such people’ during the Second World War? How and where was homosexuality discussed in Soviet Estonia? What led to the decriminalization of homosexual relationships? What role has marriage played in the lives of homosexual people in Soviet times and today?

The group wishes to thank Dagmar Ingi for organising these inspiring days for NEMO’s Working Group LEM in 2024! 

Below follows the abstracts and presentations of the presentations delivered at the session “Perspectives of Europe - Contributions about Accessibility and Inclusion”. The was very successful and helpful for all participants. Around 20 colleagues from North Macedonia, the majority from Skopje, joined the exchange session.

Sol LeWitt at Markenhoven 

• Eva Koppen, Jewish Cultural Quarter, Amsterdam NL 
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I’d like to highlight the work we did on inclusion and with a local community of neighbours in the framework of the art exhibition on the American conceptual artist Sol LeWitt (1928-2007), which explores LeWitt’s Jewish background and his special connection with the Netherlands. We collaborated with a group of people with visual impairments to develop an accessible programme on Sol’s work, the first of its kind at the Jewish Cultural Quarter at large.  

We also collaborated with a local community of neighbours of 3 squares designed by LeWitt. These major works of art in public space, located in 3 more or less hidden court yards in Amsterdam were largely unknown amongst the public. Not to mention “forgotten” by the Amsterdam municipality that had not register the squares as art works in public space and that had ended up maintaining them as regular sidewalks or pavements. As there was almost no information available in archives, the community helped us with their own documentation and oral history, which was also included in the exhibition. After a successful lobby at the municipality to properly register the squares and clean them, we organised an open-air event at the squares together with and for the neighbours.

Museum and integration 

• Silvia Vrsalović, Ethnographic Museum, Zagreb 
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The Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb implements numerous programs aimed at socially vulnerable groups of visitors to reduce their cultural isolation, improve the quality of their lives, and raise public awareness of current social problems. The presentation will introduce the museum's educational program with which the Ethnographic Museum strives to be active in the community, and which includes a specific group of marginalised people - immigrants and asylum seekers. In implementing the activities from this program, we encountered many challenges and open questions that I would like to share and discuss with other participants.

Culture Helps / Культура допомагає. Project grants for integration through culture. 

• Julianna Joó, Museum of Applied Arts (Budapest) 
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Our Education Department this year has won a tender. Thanks to this project we could offer regular museum learning events for Ukrainian children, have sought refuge from the war in Budapest. The name of the project is Inclusive and diverse art.  We are convinced this artistic environment helps the social integration of Ukrainian families. This project aims to promote equal opportunities, equal access, inclusion and equity through artistic techniques and creative activities. These events also give families the opportunity to learn about the lives of the multifaceted artists and create opportunities for mutual acceptance and understanding. Diversity-friendly practices and methods help families to integrate. Aimed at families, the artistic activities would be held in the permanent exhibition of the György Ráth Villa (Art Nouveau – a Hungarian Perspective) and its workshop, and thus the relaxed, intimate atmosphere of a direct encounter with the works of art and the subsequent creative sessions would further their integration into the community. We believe that a museum is not only an environment that facilitates slowing down, contemplation and reflection, but a space as well where children can find pleasant sensory impressions and people who will listen to them. We are convinced this artistic environment helps the social integration of Ukrainian families. 

The project also gives children the opportunity to try out different art tools and techniques at the family events. Throughout its course, the creative programme, which draws on the use of special and unique technical means, will clearly contribute to the development of social skills, and provide positive experiences. It will further the social integration of the children and boost their self-confidence. Creation, sharing, discussion and the expression of opinions at these family events will further the processing of traumas and the development of social skills. 

Community and Inclusion 

• Vanessa Braekeveld, KBR Brussels  
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KBR is the national scientific library of Belgium. We collect, preserve, manage and study cultural and historical heritage. We provide the public with access to information, facilitate research and offer a broad cultural experience. The latter we do with our permanent KBR museum and organising temporary exhibitions.  

During the last exhibition, our aim was to be much more inclusive to blind and visually impaired people. For the first time we developed a guided tour with specific tools to give them a pleasant tailor-made visit. I like to share this experience; with the feedback we’ve got and the lessons we’ve learned. We would like to use this experience to develop a permanent offer in the new version of our KBR Museum that will open at the end of this year.  

During the process to re-opening of our KBR Museum, we’re doing a first project that is focussing on the community around us (i.e. KBR Museum). We’re in an early stage and not knowing yet how successful this will be, but also here I’m happy to share our experiences, insights and lessons learned.  

Welcoming the Spastics Society of Nothern Greece (SSNG) to the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki 

• Evmorfia Tsiamagka, Ephorate of Antiquities of Magnesia, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Greece 
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Accessibility in museums first started with building interventions but the request is to make interventions in the content of the collections and the educational programs. 

The concept of inclusion should fully run through all activities. Both while I was at the archaeological museum of Thessaloniki and now that I am at the archaeological museum of Volos, I tried and am trying to have the educational actions address different groups of audiences beyond the school ones that are our usual audience. 

When I was an employee at the archaeological museum of Thessaloniki I created a social history for people on the autism spectrum, which is posted on the museum's website. 

I also implemented a program with the Society of Spastics of Northern Greece. The group consisted of 8 male and female students, aged 24 – 45 years. Four of them had to use a wheelchair, the rest had difficulty moving. Two of them had low vision and one student was deaf. 

I had arranged a collaboration with students of hairdressing and aesthetics in order that the participants had a multifaceted museum experience. In that context, they dressed and combed their hair like the ancient Greeks, they smelled plants that have been growing in Greece since ancient times. The objectives were to get to know aspects of daily life in ancient Macedonia experientially, to approach items through the senses and to entertain themselves creatively. 

Τhe structure of the educational program was as follows: 

• Preparation of clothing and grooming in the educational program room. 
• The participants touched copies and educational materials, smelled plants that have grown in Greece since ancient times, and then looked for the original exhibits in the museum rooms. 
• Τhe educational program was completed when the participants created posters with images from the thematic sections of daily life in ancient Macedonia. 
• I consider the repetition of educational visits very important. 
• In whatever service I am in, this is the big bet for me, whether I am addressing an adult audience, or children, or schools of typical development, or with people with disabilities or other special groups of audiences. I wish that when they leave, they will have the desire to come again, that they will have felt familiar in the place, that their visit will have been a positive experience that they will remember and want to repeat. 

Engaging with communities in a post-communist country 

• Inesa Sulaj, MuZEH Lab, Albania
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This presentation will begin with the museology sector in Albania from the opening of the first museums until the present day. Some short information will be presented about how museums function nowadays, go into community engagement, and briefly mention some of the challenges that the museum staff face. In the third part of this presentation, I will talk about the community centre we opened a few years ago and how we managed to work with communities. At the end of this presentation some practical experiences will be shared.

A general overview of community-based education programs in Studio House Kadare 

• Erilda Selaj, Studio House Kadare, Tirana, Albania
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This presentation will consist on a full overview of the education programs at Studio House Kadare that are dedicated to the community of Tirana, successes, challenges and lessons learned. Studio House Kadare is a literary museum opened in 2019. One of the key points of our mission is to educate and promote reading and literacy. Since the very start we have created and implemented different programs dedicated to children and youth, such as “Meet the Princess”, “Against the current”, “Lexo N’park, Lexo Kudo” etc. But seeing the need of different groups we have diversified our programs to make a more inclusive museums, thus we now have programs catering to marginalized groups of the community, and elderly people. However, our newest program “Mengjeset ne Muze” is dedicated to preschool kids it is focused on Storytelling. 

Education programmes of Small Carpathian Museum for seniors  

• Karolína Juríkova, Small Carpathian Museum in Pezinok, Slovakia
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The Education programmes of Small Carpathian Museum for seniors were created as a response for demand to improve inclusivity and engagement of local community of senior visitors at the Small Carpathian Museum in Pezinok, Slovakia. The building of the museum is a well-preserved 17th century house with its original architecture which makes certain areas difficult to access. With this in mind, a new barrier free space at the institution was considered to be utilized as ideal for creating an inclusive space for our local community of seniors. The museum developed two programmes: Tajomstvo keramiky (The secrets of ceramics) and Rozpomínanie Pezinkom (Remembering Pezinok) with the aim to engage visitors in their local culture and history. The overarching goal of these programmes is to create a better relationship between the museum and its visitors. As such, we priorities sharing stories, discussion and exchanging ideas about the town of Pezinok, its history and cultural traditions. Through these programmes we ask our visitors to freely engage with the museum. The project has been successful in bringing the community together, and it is remarkable how enriching the community of seniors has become for the museum and its work.

NEMO’s Working Groups

NEMO’s Working Groups provide an opportunity for members of NEMO to get connected, learn and share experiences through organised study visits and events. The groups also inform the wider museum sector by publishing studies, recommendations and reports. At the moment NEMO has three active Working Groups:

• Working Group Digital Transformation
• Working Group LEM - the Learning Museum
• Working Group Sustainability and Climate Action