Can a painting be my friend? An exhibition on education through values at the MUN
The exhibition organized by the MUN's Education Department is presented as a milestone for the museum: a display that brings together the work of its Education Department.
During its ten years of existence, the MUN's Education Department has carried out educational programs aimed at all types of audiences—babies, schoolchildren, university students, senior citizens, and social organizations—with whom they have worked on values such as equality, peace, care, and diversity through collaborative creations.
Today marks the opening of an exhibition that is a milestone in the history of the MUN; the museum's Torre room is setting aside the great works and creations of established artists to host, until August 16, the creations of all those who, during the 10-year history of the MUN, have participated and collaborated in the programs organized by its Education Department. A total of 100,000 users, 50,000 of whom are schoolchildren, but also university students and teachers, senior citizens, families, and members of the SociARTE program.
Educational work of the Museum
Since its inception, the MUN has sought to be a friendly and free environment where, through art, people can enjoy experiences that contribute to their overall development and, in turn, enable them to better understand the world we live in. The museum has always sought to "help educate," contributing to the comprehensive development of human beings throughout all stages of life. As Fernando Echarri, curator and educator at the MUN, points out: "Society is plural, diverse, and inclusive, and the museum also wants to be inclusive and welcome all these people and respond to their needs and expectations from an educational point of view. That is our job and what we have aimed to do during this time."
To make this possible, the MUN Education Department created a roadmap to follow from the outset; its own way of educating through art: "The MUN Education Department," says Echarri, "has been committed to values-based education since its inception. Over the past 10 years, it has run specific programs to promote different values, such as peace, care, equality, and diversity. All of these programs, aimed primarily at schoolchildren, included a visit to the exhibitions, where different works of art were used to focus on the value to be promoted. In the galleries, they were asked what they thought about that value and how they could promote it. Afterwards, each student had to create a piece of artwork to represent that value. In addition, a collaborative artwork was created by all the students."
Can a painting be my friend?
Specifically, the exhibition brings together collaborative works that have emerged from the work carried out in these educational programs, as well as works of art from the MUN Collection that have inspired the work in this area, and participatory and creative corners where visitors themselves can collaborate by making their own artistic contributions.
Through this, it aims to make us reflect on how we see the world around us; that is why the title of this exhibition is taken directly from the question asked by a girl who visited the MUN years ago: Can a painting be my friend? Fernando Echarri and Teresa Barrio revisit this question with the intention of awakening in the viewer a more attentive and subtle awareness of things, recapturing that way of looking at the world that manifests itself naturally and spontaneously in childhood.
An exhibition structured in modules
The work carried out in these educational workshops has been compiled in this exhibition through eight modules:
After an introductory module entitled "Educating the Eye," in which a series of quotes from great artists lead us thoughtfully to the central space of the exhibition, we find modules related to the work carried out by the department with one of its key audiences: schoolchildren.
The first of the modules created by schoolchildren that we find is the "Rothko experience." Alongside Mark Rothko's Untitled (1969), we find creations made by schoolchildren as part of a project that reflects on the prejudices and courageous decisions of artists who broke with the ideals of their time.
Following this, the module "80th anniversary of Guernica" is presented as the sum of the work of the famous painter Picasso and the museum's own collection, Estela para un pueblo pacífico que era Guernica (1957) by Jorge Oteiza. Alongside these, there is a large collaborative mural of Picasso's work created by schoolchildren, which provided a space and place to reflect on peace. This space also houses the first of the immersive projects that visitors can take part in.
Next, the module "Kandinsky in the Plaza del Castillo" brings together the work carried out following the recovery of a postcard that the artist Kandinsky bought of the Plaza del Castillo. Taking this as a starting point, a collaborative project was created in which, by working with this postcard, school students reflected on artistic innovation, self-knowledge, and the individual's relationship with the outside world. This module also features Kandinsky's Untitled (1941), which inspired this project.
Following these creations by schoolchildren, we move on to a module that focuses on another sector of the population: as a result of COVID-19, older people became one of the main focus of attention and care. This situation gave rise to the module "Tribute to our elders." "QUIDARTE." In this space, alongside Ortiz Echagüe's photograph Mujer de Ávila (Woman from Ávila, undated), you can find another of the MUN Education Department's collaborative projects: "Care," says Teresa Barrio, curator of the exhibition and educator at the MUN, "is a value that we as a society have been very aware of since the pandemic. In addition, in this module, we wanted to focus on intergenerational links: on the recognition of older people and the role they play in families and society." It should also be noted that this project led to the creation of another new project: one that offered the possibility of bringing art to the elderly without them having to go to a museum to enjoy it. To this end, the material created in this program was taken to different nursing homes in Navarra, where it was preserved for the enjoyment of their residents.
After reflecting on the care of the elderly, the module "Women in the Arts" raises questions about the role of women in art, with the aim of offering visibility and recognition to women in the artistic world. During this activity, Cecilia Paredes' work Costa Rica (2007) was reproduced on a large scale. The mural included fragments that can be found scattered on the floor, beneath the artist's original work. As if they were a broken mirror, these fragments reveal a partial and distorted image (or story). A broken image, perhaps as a result of oblivion, an identity crisis, or a feeling of uprootedness that leads to camouflage and, ultimately, invisibility. In this module, you can also find works that emerged after working with students on the figure of Jane Clifford, who always remained in the shadow of her husband Charles' artistic creations, and those that emerged after analyzing the artistic contributions of Lynne Cohen.
The "Multicultural Pyramid" module presents the work carried out by the Education Department in relation to values such as diversity, inclusion, and respect for all, with this project also laying the foundations for the creation of SociARTE.
Finally, as could not be otherwise, this exhibition had to reflect another of the museum's functions: its status as a university museum. Thus, the last section compiles the work carried out in the workshops and activities aimed at students from different faculties of the University of Navarra and the teaching staff of this university.
An inclusive exhibition
All modules also feature materials that respond in a realistic way to the inclusion and diversity we find in society, with adapted texts, sign language videos, and audio files that facilitate accessibility to the content.
The exhibition opens to the public at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 11, and will be preceded at 7:00 p.m. by a masterclass with its curators, Fernando Echarri and Teresa Barrio. Admission is free, upon collection of an invitation at the box office or via the website.