MusLi (Museums Literacy) - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

MusLi - No qualifications needed: museums and new audiences
day centre. Patterns have emerged where the films about particular cultural objects are viewed by
source communities from countries of origin e.g. Films about the Sudanese collection receive most
views in Sudan and the Wai Yin films in China. This might suggest the importance attached to the
films by these particular communities.
Feedback:
The participants have talked about their involvement as providing a space to share information and
knowledge which is important to them and their cultural heritage. Here are some examples of what
they told us:
I think this is a good way of presenting the information.
Every time you are getting information, it is very useful it is education.
It is a good way of finding out about other objects and how they were used in
other communities.
(Ali Rahman from the Sudanese group)
We contributed a lot of history and knowledge which we hope will be passed on to
children as well as adults from a lot of different nations.
(Barrington from Mapping Our Lives group)
Here are some examples of some of the responses we have received from on-line subscribers:
it is craet that you make the video becorse my children have a father from Benin
City, I stay in Benin to and I speek EDO I com from Berlin but I miss benin soooo
mush... I all so meet the Chef of Benin I worse so proud.
(Subscriber on YouTube in response to film about the Calabash)
I love adinkra and am really interested in creating cloth of my own. Thank you so
much for shedding some light on the stamps and the process of creating this beautiful
art form.
(Subscriber on YouTube in response to Textiles from Ghana)
Conclusions:
Recruiting participants involved a range of engagement approaches from outreach sessions, where
the collection was taken out to people, to tours of the museum and stores. Some participants had
never visited the museum before or knew little about museums, so the museum experience was new
to them. During such encounters it was vital to offer an approach that was friendly and welcoming and
allowed people to relax and feel able to express themselves. This was often helped by an opportunity
to talk about something they knew or recognised, whether this was an object from the collection or the
re-telling of a story or experience. Some of the reasons for participants to get involved with Collective
Conversations were based on curiosity about the collection, an opportunity to tell us what they think,
an opportunity to do something different or the novelty of being filmed and appearing on the internet.
111