MeLa final event: Envisioning 21st Century Museums

MeLa project - European Museums in an age of migrations concluded its four-year research programme with a three-day event, aimed at providing a critical overview on the main findings ensuing from its investigations and a forward-looking discussion about the future of European museums.

In adopting the concept of “migration” as paradigm of modernity, the MeLa project investigated the role of museums within the contemporary socio-cultural context, in order to identify new practises, tools and ways of representation and consumption able to foster an updated idea of museum, as space for dialogue and social cohesion in a transcultural Europe.

During the project final event, held at Politecnico di Milano on 21-23 January 2015, a highly interdisciplinary panel of scholars and policy makers from all over the world triggered a multi-perspective debate, bringing together the latest insights on museums' challenges and chances in the framework of the contemporary global and multi-cultural scenario. The initiative was conceived as an occasion for going on and nurturing the debate on the transformation of the contemporary museums, for starting new reflections and opening new prospects.

The event opened on 21 January, with the inauguration of an exhibition showing the results and products of the research, and continued on 22 January with a seminar based on the interventions by four key-note speakers.

23 January's programme was particularly rich: in the morning, the main research managers of MeLa led a critical dialogue around the topic “European Museums in an Age of Migrations”; in the afternoon, a round table involved European Commission representatives, experts of the museum sector, members of the international scientific community and policy makers with the aim of stimulating a multidisciplinary debate on the theme “European Museums for Reflective Societies” and reflecting upon the issues, challenges and opportunities today influencing the relationship between people and museums.

Download the event programme here

MeLa* European Museums in an age of migrations is a four-year Research Project funded by the European Commission (FP7), which aims to delineate new approaches for museums in relation with the conditions posed by the migrations of people, cultures, ideas, information and knowledge in the global world. It aims moreover to evaluate how much these changes can interfere with the organisation, the communication strategies, the physical structures and the architecture of the exhibition places. Its main objectives are to advance knowledge in the field and to support museum communities, practitioners, experts and policymakers in developing new missions and forms of museums and libraries in “an age of migrations”.

Results of last four years' research activities were widely represented and discussed in the framework of workshops, seminars and international conferences and they are accessible through the MeLa Book Series, including several open-access digital publications.