Performing museography: A practice-led research for art museums, conducted at MUVE, Fondazione dei Musei Civici di Venezia

Abstract

This contribution explores the relationship between performance and art museum practice, through a creative practice-led approach, as part of a collaboration with MUVE, Fondazione dei Musei Civici in Venice. The focus here is on the exploration of performance opportunities embedded in the museography of the case study institutions, encompassing both artistic and curatorial considerations. Through a reflection on current challenges faced by such institutions and through speculative implementation of creative practice ideas, the argument here is that, as museums have re-opened their doors to the public in the aftermath of COVID-19, their performance activation may be crucial in reclaiming their role as physical contexts for cultural dialogue. Performance provides a useful lens to explore and re-imagine the experience of visitors, emphasizing their subjective positionality and their inter-relational connections with each other, with the collection and with the museographic configuration of the space.