The Border-Crossing Museum/ Museums Across Borders
Horsens, Denmark | Hotel Opus
Time has run out for the isolated institution that shuts itself in with its professional expertise. On all levels, museums - among other institutions - are encouraged to look beyond their own boundaries and explore the cross-disciplinary field to create new, dynamic projects and make different interactions possible. But where is the border between maintaining and respecting unique expert knowledge and academic expertise, and the all-encompassing inclusion of users and other external partners? Or is there even a border - and does it need to be guarded?
In many places and many ways, museums rise to the challenge and increasingly work across borders - both internally in relation to what in Denmark is referred to as the five pillars that museums work with (collecting, registering, preserving, researching and mediating) and between departments, and externally through mergers and the inclusion of new or other professions within the museum staff, interests and institutions. Traditional practice is challenged, and greater importance is placed on innovative and relevant exhibitions and communication to appeal to a wider audience.
The Association of Danish Museums’ International Seminar on Museum Mediation 2013 focuses on the potential benefits and pitfalls, the visions and strategies that arise when the modern museum works across boundaries. How do we create the best conditions for collaborations? Where do we see successful outcomes of these border-crossings, and where do they fail? And for what reasons? Through a number of key note speeches, debates and workshops with participants from Denmark and abroad, we hope to present food for thought, create an inspirational frame to stimulate new projects and enable the exchange of experience and sharing of knowledge across geographical and professional borders.