Reflections on art education from the practice of the contemporary art museum. The case of the museums in Lisbon

Abstract

Education in museums depends on three essential and interrelated factors: the educational policy carried out by the museum, museum educators and the public. In this article, we will make an approximation to one of these fundamental factors, the museum educators, since we consider them as a key in the equation museums+art+education. Specifically we propose to create a portrait of the group of educators of the two main contemporary art museums of Lisbon (Portugal). For this reason, we have conducted in-depth interviews with educators from the Contemporary Art Center of the Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon) and the Coleção Berardo Museum (Lisbon), with the aim of describing their professional situation, their cultural references, how they understand the education in museums and their training. The work shows that this group understands education in museums as an enhancer of the individual capacities of each individual, as a possibility to broaden the view of the world that surrounds us in a more intense, critical, liberating and creative way and as a social function.