NEMO members join Adeste+ Online Summer School on audience development

 Logo of the Adeste Summer School with little cartoon figures.

During 6 online sessions in September and October 2020, 8 NEMO members joined a NEMO Training Course within the framework of the Adeste+ Summer School “Change within Change. Re-examining the role of the cultural organisation and its relationship with the public”. Focusing on audience-centred strategies and navigating the current crisis, participants dove into the details of challenges and changes in their organisations.  

The online course looked at what cultural institutions need to do or change in order to become more audience focused. The concept of audience development is transversal, extending from the framing of cultural policy to issues of cultural rights, access and participation. Increasing cultural participation is a crucial challenge for an inclusive and open European society, and growing audiences depends on the ability of a cultural organisation to place the audience at the centre of its practice. However, this theme has taken on greater significance and new urgency as the crisis forces us to address the role of cultural organisations in this changed world. Now more than ever our actual or potential audience has to be at the forefront of our thinking.

All in all, 85 participants from 16 countries took part in the Summer School. NEMO is thankful for the collaboration with Adeste+ and that selected NEMO members were able to join the Summer School in the course of a NEMO Training Course.

Some reflections from NEMO participants: “I really admire the work of the facilitators, once they are dealing with complex topics, transmitting information in an accessible way. In this sense, I would like to highlight the importance of the summer school in my professional, and personal, development, and that I would be interested in similar virtual workshops in the future.” 

“The facilitators are experienced on the theme of audience development and quite inspiring, so it is a very good overall experience. Especially since we are learning best practices on the subject from the competent practitioners with an insight on innovative ways to implement them in our work (failures as well since they are good reflecting material).” 

The transition to online capacity building offers NEMO new challenges. While there are aspects of in-person workshops that are not replicable, experiences such as the Adeste+ Summer School provide the opportunity to collaborate, connect, and co-learn. NEMO will continue providing and striving to improve our capacity building activities on behalf of our members and the European museum community at large.