As the European Commission Call INT12 (2015) ‘The cultural, scientific and social dimension of EU-LAC relations’ explains: “A shared history, as well as cultural, political and economic ties, closely connect Europe and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Individual countries enjoy close bilateral relations, and cooperation at regional and sub-regional level is gaining momentum.

At bi-regional level, the Strategic Partnership between the EU and LAC was launched in Rio de Janeiro in 1999 and has gradually been upgraded into the current EU-CELAC[1] Partnership. Aided by this process, the two regions have cooperated on a wide range of issues in a number of sectors, including those identified by the EU-CELAC Action Plan and more particularly the Joint Initiative for Research and Innovation (JIRI) adopted at the Madrid Summit in 2010."

The EU-LAC-MUSEUMS project has been designed to address critical issues in the EU-CELAC Action Plan (2013-15), in the realm of small, local museums and their communities.

EU-CELAC Action Plan has been updated, to include Higher Education:

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/23757/eu-celac-action-plan.pdf

Illustration showing EU-LAC-MUSEUMS partner expertise in relation to the EU-CELAC Action Plan

Today, the European Union is the leading investor in the region, the second largest trading partner after the U.S.A. and a major provider of development cooperation assistance. However, beyond the economic relationship, the EU-CELAC cooperation needs to reinforce the cultural, scientific and social ties and common vision between the two world regions.”

Museums can provide vital services to their communities, proving under-represented people a chance to stake a place in history, as well as contributing to sustainability, community empowerment and links between generations. Europe has much to learn from Latin America and the Caribbean in this regard, and our project ethos is based around equal sharing of concepts, experiences, and sustainability surrounding museums and communities in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean. Maintaining an “historical and a forward-looking perspective” to crosscutting EU-CELAC issues including sustainability, social inclusion, migration, and technology, our project will build an EU--LAC knowledge area in sustainable museums and community in order to build a common voice for regional museums working against social exclusion.

Together, we seek to answer the following key questions in community museology:

  •  How can we define “community museums” and “sustainability” in bi-regional context?
  •  What are the most important changes our small-scale museum communities are experiencing in EU and LAC?
  •  What are the most cutting edge initiatives of museums to promote social inclusion and cohesion in each region?
  •  How can small-scale regional museums gain agency in promoting best practice amongst museums and policy makers on a global stage?

Our research and innovation project will seek to inform policy on EU-LAC relations in the realm of Culture. It will work with ICOM and the EU-LAC Foundation among other entities to achieve this goal: https://eulacfoundation.org/en

Museums for Social Inclusion and Cohesion


Characterize and promote the statements about historic and family memory, cultural identity and material/immaterial heritage which are emitted by the museums of the Region of Los Rios, and other museums situated in member countries from the EU-LAC Museum Consortium. Pursuing the promotion of ancestral knowledge, the bi-directional transmission of knowledge and principles between the communities / museums / universities, and strengthening the working relationship of the network of Museums.

Technology and Innovation for Bi-Regional Integration

By allowing local community museums to create a network with other similar organisations, in both LAC and EU, our project, and in particular this work package, will significantly promote and aid the development of mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through digital (namely web) and physical in situ means. Museums are an invaluable tool in this process due to their capacity to connect the remote/digital with the present/physical understanding of the world, both in terms of its similarities and diversities.

Fostering Sustainable Community Museums

EU-LAC-MUSEUMS seeks to carry out out a comparative analysis of small to medium-sized rural museums and their communities in the EU and LAC regions, and to develop associated history and theory.

Exhibiting Migration and Gender

To empower institutional partners within the EU_LAC project with the necessary digitisation and communication technology training and tools allowing them to fully participate in and support the development of a virtual museum of the migration experience/s as informed by the experiences and trajectories outlined.
To conceptualise and develop new interpretation resources, utilising both historical and contemporary contracts (both memory and art based) in the development of travelling exhibitions and associated educational resources, making available through partnership arrangements with museums as identified.

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Galleries of 3D Artefacts

Objects, following certain criteria, are picked by museum staff to either be 3D scanned or photogrammatised. Scanning can be done only if the necessary equipment is available, which lends photogrammetry to be the preferred affordable method. Images are sent through open source software that creates a 3D file which then can be archived and uploaded to a social archiving site such as Sketchfab. As a social site, Sketchfab tracks a user’s followers, views and comments. All digital objects appear in a video player which can be embedded in websites easily.

EU LAC Virtual Museum

Created specifically for the EU-LAC MUSEUMS project by the University of St Andrews, the EU-LAC MUSEUMS Virtual Museum is a major research outcome that assembles digital media of cultural heritage; making it easy to access and use. 3D digital objects, 360° museum tours and community discussion videos populate the Virtual Museum as content generated from the 3D Workshops, held in three European, three Latin American and three Caribbean countries. By creating digital content from community museums all over the world, the heritage, objects and stories can be shared and appreciated by a global audience.

Tangible & Intangible database

One of the objectives of this initiative is to encourage small community museums to contribute to a global online inventory.
In community museums, the exhibited objects represent (or are part of) an intangible cultural heritage. We propose the creation of a database that integrates an object-oriented inventory with an intangible cultural heritage-oriented inventory.

The contents of the website will be easier to search and access if we place all the cultural heritage (tangible and intangible) in a single database, even though the registration fields are not all the same for these two types of cultural heritage. In addition, an item placed in the database may contain a publication, several image files, a video file or an audio file. Or just one of these elements.

Bibliography

Bibliography of Museums, Community and Sustainability [Database + PDF]

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