MusLi (Museums Literacy) - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

MusLi - No qualifications needed: museums and new audiences
ministrators, education officials, museum staff, prison officers, and inmates, but also medical personnel,
psychologists, and prison educators and trainers at the Maison d’Arrêt de la Santé in Paris.
We analyzed, qualitatively and comprehensively, the context of the project’s implementation, the
adequacy and appropriateness of the content offered in regard to the unique needs of the target
audience, the conditions of implementation and interactions between different project partners, the
project’s overall coherence in comparison to the social and cultural missions of both institutions, and
finally, the effects and benefits to those in the prison system.
Methods
The evaluation relied on:
A review of documentation available on prisons and cultural action in prisons;
A case study of cultural activities in prisons conducted by French museums;
Expert interviews with legal representatives, academics, and museum professionals;
71 interviews with persons in charge, coordinators, prison staff, and social and cultural stakeholders
directly and indirectly involved in the program, and four group meetings with inmates who had
participated in the program, and inmates who did not participate.
The main results from the evaluation
Compared to other artistic and cultural activities conducted in prisons, the museum as a cultural
institution, presents challenges and constraints of its own:
it requires actual contact between the individual and the original artwork, a very difficult task to
achieve while in prison;
it implies an experience of walking around the museum, an almost impossible task to achieve with
regards to the restrictions imposed on inmates;
finally, it requires complex knowledge and an interest for “high culture”, which are opposing prerequisites
with regards to the usual profile of those detained.
These elements represent major hurdles for museum activities in prison. The question of gaps in
terms of artistic and cultural knowledge is reinforced by an absence or weakness of the inmates’
“basic” knowledge, which for persons having a low literacy level is characterized as:
difficulties in reading comprehension, understanding concepts, and an ability to abstract;
significant gaps in spatial and time markers;
a significant difficulty in self expression, both oral and written communication;
difficulty in logical reasoning.
Analysing the constraints on individuals and the prison system demonstrated the best way to translate
the program’s effects on the inmate population.
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