Universidad Complutense de Madrid :: NILS mobility project

Venue: Iceland Academy of the Arts

From: April 1, 2010

to: June 30, 2010

Isabel García is Professor at the Conservation Department at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain).

Her research plan, together with Alma Ragnarsdóttir, is based on a former work which she was developing at the fine Arts School of the UCM with the students taking the Museology and Museography class.

The research plan implies to analyze the fine arts studies of the Iceland Academy of the Arts in relation with creative processes and exhibit design and give some lectures about the subject. She will carry out the same study as with the UCM students and she will evaluate the similarities and differences in the way of working and the appreciation of the artistic subject.

About her work:

"I am interested in the museum context and the role of the exhibit designer. In the last years I have intensified my research on the creative aspect of the developing of exhibits from the point of view of its artistic value and as a communication media. Since I truly believe it is one of the strongest tools that an artist has to express and reach the desired audience.

I know some research Project which is being developed in the northern countries of Europe as the Hanna Hilt. Her project DESIGNING CULTURE, as she states "has grown out of the need to identify the role of the designer in a changing museum context. The project wish to promote dialogue between the designer and other museum professionals".

Her aim in DESIGNING CULTURE "is to design exhibitions, mainly of cultural history, and through the design process reflect on my role as an exhibition designer and on the process of designing exhibitions, and to map out some responsibilities in this process".

However I am interested mostly in art museums (as a designer I have worked in all kind of museums and although I am in the fine arts school, most of my work have been done out of the art world) I believe there is cultural differences on viewing and what we apprehend depends on our cultural background (those differences are not very obvious in the museum context because most of the time are based on the differences of application of the assumed codes).

I am not just talking about western and not western cultures but north and south, west and east differences. I find this an opportunity to explore the differences of approaching to art between a northern and southern countries and that is why I consider this a good opportunity to deepen in this cultural diversity. My starting point is the book of Arthur W. Melton Problems of installation in museums of art s published by the American Association of Museums in 1935 then he stated that "the general problem was the determination of the relative effectiveness of different methods of display or of different display situations for the arousal of the interest of visitors in art objects". Obviously the public has changed and art as well, so it is a challenge to analyze this new situation."