Hadeel Eltayeb

On the first day of The Museum in Transition, I was introduced by Victoria Noorthoorn to the question of ‘How to Entangle the Universe in a Spider web’, via the site-specific installation created in Museo de Arte Moderno. Jointly created by spiders, and the museum staff who worked at night to feed them, the labor of museum professionals towards meaningful social change in their respective institutions can be described in terms of a spider web. As a process it requires patience, tracing hours of diligent efforts into a fragile structure that can be insular and set apart from its local context. As museum professionals subject to internal bureaucracies, we are often beholden to a body of work left by authors who are unseen, unheard and whose efforts can be unmade in record time. As we are driven by the need to serve a plurality of diverse publics and perspectives in working towards a more socially engaged practice, we are moving away from cultures of perceived risk and siloes within institutions. There is a sense of pushing back on the role of the museum in order to actively seek and build on local knowledge as a catalyst for institutional change. This process of transition in is an exciting time in museums and galleries. In sharing insights with peers from across the world, questions were raised within and outside of the conference sessions: how do we re-think how to expand our networks of engagement even further to invest in or surroundings locally and globally? How can we change our methods of attributing value and acquiring knowledge as institutions? Can this work move out of the four walls of a building, into public art and cultural encounters as a discursive strategy? I found the most interesting insights on progress came from discussions of how institutions could not only stop to assess at what they have worked to build so far but also to question how to better bring the world into their process.

I remain grateful to CIMAM and the Getty Foundation for selecting me and awarding me the travel grant award, in allowing me the opportunity to share in these lively discussions with curators and professionals from different disciplines and diverse backgrounds.