Rael Artel

I applied the travel grant to attend the CIMAM Annual Conference titled as The Museum in Transition which I saw as a great opportunity to catch up with the topical issues of the world of art museums today and meet old and new colleagues from all over the world.

In the conference program, I was the most inspired by the keynote speech by Jörg Heiser. In my opinion, this was the most stimulating talk and delivered in a way one could expect from keynote speech. I consider the issues that Heiser touched in his presentation – the conflict of interests when it comes to jobs and side jobs of museum directors, the impossible size and controversial aspects of mega shows like last documenta, the local political interests clashing the ideas of museum programming, etc. The presentation was so rich of talkative examples, exciting insights and smart conclusions, was a real pleasure to listen to it. As the Heiser’s speech was the only keynote speech that truly served this purpose (compared for example with the first one by hosts that were merely a plain introduction to the institution of Moderna Museet), it gave a clear direction also to the presentations and discussion that followed. I very much enjoyed the short talks by Ahmet Ögut, Ann Gallagher and Mami Kataoka.

Another part of the program very useful from professional sense was the discussion over the lunch break about the Museum Watch project. These debates in a smaller circle of colleagues gave an opportunity to have a deeper and wider insight into several problematic areas where CIMAM could offer practical support and help. I think the Museum Watch project is a very meaningful initiative, I do hope it is going to work out well.

The last but not least important was to meet again old and new colleagues active in an art museum and contemporary art scene. This kind of contacts and informal talks always have such a positive impact giving the impression that I am not alone and that there are colleagues around dealing with similar issues and facing similar problems in their works.

As a conclusion, I very much enjoyed the conference and its diverse activities. Thank you and hopefully see you next time!