REVISITING THE CONSTITUENT MUSEUM

The idea of the “constituent museum” was formulated in mid 2010’s to describe experiments with new models of contemporary art institutions, that were taking place all around the globe.

The “constituent museum” is a socially useful “museum 3.0” that takes up the challenge of cooperating with local communities or social movements, implementing art beyond the conventions of the market and institutional circulation. The constituent museum plays diverse roles - it’s not only a “temple of high art” but also a community center, common space or headquarters of climate movements. At the heart of its activities Museum 3.0 puts building, maintaining and developing long-standing relationships with communities, groups, and audiences that co-constitute the institution. Art itself is an important, but not the only part of this assemblage.

The aim of the planned session isn’t to take another look at the term itself, as it has been already comprehensively discussed, for example in the 2018 book “The Constituent Museum. Constellations of Knowledge, Politics and Mediation. A Generator of Social Change” (published as part of the activities of the confederation of European museums L’Internationale). We are rather interested in the current status of the institutional experiments with the “constituent museum” model. Together with invited guests - co-authors of the aforementioned publication, theorists, museologists and artists from the UK, Poland, Netherlands and Spain - we will discuss how the implementation of the idea looks today: what are the challenges faced by “constituent” practices and institutions? How were they affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as rapid social and political changes that happened during the last couple of years? Do we still need “constituent museums”? And finally, do artists engaged in creating real social change need museums at all?

To participate in the session please send as an email at klimat@artmuseum.pl.