The Ecologically Minded Museum
🗓️ Thursday, March, 13th,
- 🕖 10.00 hrs Sao Paulo, Brazil (BRT)
- 🕖 13.00 hrs London, UK (GMT)
- 🕖 18.30 hrs Sri Lanka (IST)
The Ecologically Minded Museum: Renegotiating Museum Structures and Sustainable Practices
Abstract:
Is the concept of a “sustainable museum” possible in practice? How can existing or new museum structures be renegotiated? Or should we start reimagining museums without buildings? Can we achieve ethically committed sustainability goals whilst embracing historical justice in our missions and values?
Two firm believers in the values of equity, sustainability, historical and social justice and reparation will bring fresh views and practical experience on how to make values real. Arriving from very different trajectories, Gus Casely-Hayford and Paulo Tavares will discuss museums and institutional platforms to share how they have brought their unique visions on historical justice and reparation to concrete action from very different perspectives and strategies. As an experienced museum leader and communicator, Gus will share with CIMAM members the ways in which V&A East is opening up one of the UK´s largest patrimonial holdings to bring it close to the public, to make them alive and meaningful, relevant for the British public. An arquitect and ecological activist, Paulo Tavares, is able to reconceive of nature itself as a forensic space, where forests and maps may reveal connections between environmental violence, violations to human rights and state-perpetrated terror. His unique vision will prove inspirational for those seeking to reconceive museums beyond walls, or to find museums beyond the institutions per se, to find museums in nature itself, in the real.
Rapid Response Webinars are free of cost for CIMAM members.
- CIMAM Member: You will find the Zoom link when logging in the Members Only section.
- Non-Member: You can attend by paying 10,00€, which will be deducted from your membership fee if you join CIMAM in the next 3 months. Please register here to assist as Non-CIMAM member.
Sessions are recorded and posted in CIMAM's Members Only section for those who missed the time.
Guest panelists:
- Gus Casely-Hayford: Inaugural Director of V&A East, London, UK
- Paulo Tavares: Architect, educator and researcher, Brasília, Brazil
Moderated by CIMAM Board Member, Victoria Noorthoorn, Director, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Malgorzata Ludwisiak Ph.D., Museum Management Expert / Freelance Curator / Academic Teacher, Warsaw, Poland.
Biographies:
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, OBE
Dr Gus Casely-Hayford, OBE, is the inaugural Director of V&A East, London. He is a British curator and cultural historian who writes, lectures, and broadcasts widely on culture, having presented a number of series for Sky, BBC radio and television and other channels. In the past, he has directed large and medium scale organizations including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art in Washington. He is also the Former Executive Director of Arts Strategy, Arts Council England (Britain´s major Art´s funder) and Ex Director of the Institute of International Contemporary Art. He has served on the boards of many cultural institutions, including the National Trust and the National Portrait Gallery. He has advised national and international bodies of heritage and culture including the United Nations and the Canadian, Dutch and Norwegian Art Councils. In 2005 he deployed these leadership, curatorial, fundraising, communications skills to organize the biggest celebration of Africa Britain has ever hosted when more tan 150 organizations put on over 1000 exhibitions and events. Gus holds a PhD from SOAS University of London, where he is Professor of Practice, Department of Art History & School of Arts. He is also a Board Member of the Creative Industries Federation, a Trustee of the Karun Thakur Foundation, and a member of the Art Mills Museum Scientific Committee and the English Heritage Blue Plaques Committee. Gus was awarded an OBE in 2018.
Paulo Tavares
Paulo Tavares is an architect and writer based in Brazil; Professor at the School of Architecture and Urbanism at the University of Brasília; Founding Director of autónoma (2017), a platform dedicated to environmental & urban research, intervention and reparation. Tavares was co-curator of the Chicago Architecture Biennial (2019) and more recently advisor to the Sharjah Biennale (2023). The curatorial project Terra - developed together with Gabriela de Matos - was awarded the Golden Lion Award for Best National Participation at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023.
Books:
Derechos no humanos y otros ensayos acerca de la arquitectura del bosque, Madrid: Bartlebooth, 2022
Lucio Costa era racista? São Paulo: N-1 Edições, 2021
Des-habitat Berlin: K-Verlag, 2021 / São Paulo: N-1, 2021
Memória da Terra Brasília: Ministério Público Federal, 2020
Forest Law, Broad Art Museum – Michigan State University, 2014
Milan: Nottetempo, 2020
edited books
... and other such stories, co-edited with Sepake Angiama and Yesomi Umolu New York: Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2019
Recommended readings:
Sponsorship, sustainability and security: what’s the future for UK museums?
The directors of the British Museum, V&A East and Tate Modern talked activism, funding, empire and more in a wide-ranging discussion on The Art Newspaper’s Week in Art podcast, November, 15. 2024.
The directors of three leading London cultural institutions have emphasised the importance of museums as places of healing during turbulent times at a roundtable discussion.
The Essay - A Museum in the Making - 15/03/2024 - BBC Sounds
Released On: 15 Mar 2024
For the new V&A museum in the Olympic Park the opening exhibition is vital for setting the tone and the ambition of the place. So 'The Music is Black: A British Story' is unequivocal in its appeal to a youthful, diverse audience. Director Gus Casely-Hayford talks to the curator of the exhibition, Jacqueline Springer, a former music journalist and broadcaster. They reflect on how Black music, culture and stories can now occupy centre stage, in from the margins they occupied in the past
Meet Gus Casely-Hayford, the man on a mission to drag museums into the 21st century
Interview with Gus Casely-Hayford by Kadish Morris for the Guardian, 2023.
The director of the forthcoming V&A East in London wants to transform the visitor experience with digital technology, to address colonialism – and to bring in young people.
In a ten-part BBC radio series Gus Casely-Hayford, director of V&A East, revealed the stories of a range of culturally important objects.
Released On: 02 Sep 2022
Gus Casely-Hayford, director of V&A East, unpicks the hidden histories behind what we wear by exploring ten key moments in fashion spanning the globe and five centuries, revealing the historical weight we carry through our clothes and the statements we make just by getting dressed in the morning. This is the second of two omnibus editions of the series. Producer: Tiffany Cassidy A Novel production for BBC Radio 4.
By Tatiana Letier Pinto October 18, 2023 Architecture, International, Q+A
A simple, straightforward, modernist composition, the Brazilian pavilion consists of two parallel but differently sized rectangular volumes skewered down its middle by a capped corridor. Like many other national pavilions that have sat through decades of political malfeasance back home, this one too has its own darker past. In the case of the current installation, Terra, its curators Paulo Tavares and Gabriela de Matos focused on interrogating the uneven legacy of Brazilian modernism. This work won them the Golden Lion for Best National Participation. Tatiana Letier Pinto takes up many of the issues presented by Terra in her interview with the curators.
From earth to Earth: how to reclaim a different heritage
A conversation with Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares on Terra, first ever Brazilian winner of the Golden Lion.
Interview by Federica Zambeletti x KoozArch, Published, 22 May 2023
CIMAM 2025 Rapid Response Webinars are made possible with the support from the Getty Foundation through its Connecting Professionals/Sharing Expertise initiative.