A museum made to measure: An action-participation experience

Abstract

This article reports on the experience of the Education and Social Action lines of the Education Department of the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. This experience has been developed from 2008 to the present day. From its initial approach, we understand the Museum as a space for care, well-being and health. This way of understanding the Museum coincides with the current recommendations made by the WHO (Fancourt, Daisy and Finn, Saoirse. 2019) and other institutions on the benefits of art, museums and culture on health. In the case of the Education Area, for more than a decade, we have been working in dialogue with professionals and participants to generate open and flexible structures that allow the joint creation of contents, resources, activities and methodologies.  Processes of action-participation involve shared evaluation and reflection on the experience, turning the Museum into a scenario of meaningful participation with a high impact on people. This trajectory has reinforced our certainty that any educational action is a social action and has shown us how the learning and experience in working with the different communities has had an impact and has meant learning and enrichment for the entire Education Area and the rest of the programmes and audiences with which it works.