Virtual Walks
Details on how to participate will be announced after the opening ceremony of the conference!
GRAND OPENING
Opening speech by the Deputy Director of the Olomouc Museum of Art
Dear friends from the Olomouc Museum of Art, thanks for your partnership!
Gina Renotière
A film documentary representing the Olomouc Museum of Art, Czech Republic.
Opening speech by the Deputy Director of the Olomouc Museum of Art, Head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art – Central European Forum Olomouc, curator, President of Czech National Committee of ICOM, Czech Republic.
The welcome address by Gina Renotière:
It is my great pleasure to greet all the participants of this international event on behalf of the OLOMOUC MUSEUM OF ART, as a partner institution of the Czech Section of INSEA conference titled Art Education in the Time of Coronavirus. In the current exceptional situation, this virtual meeting has great potential to contribute to the search for new ways to convey our values, to inspire and to educate through mutual sharing and exchange of experiences. Also this is reflected on in a film documentary representing our institution – Olomouc Museum of Art, which we have prepared for you.
The Olomouc Museum of Art (MUO) is a state collection institution, which is one of the most important entities of its kind in the Czech Republic in terms of the number of works of art managed. It takes care of works of the state, the church and private provenance, from antiquity to contemporary art culture. The team of MUO experts systematically acquaints the public with the millennial cultural and spiritual development not only in our territory, but also in the broader context of Central Europe. This effort is evidenced by the long-term research program Central European Forum (SEFO), a number of exhibition projects of international cooperation, but also the prestigious European Heritage Label, which was awarded to the MUO for its Archdiocesan Museum in Olomouc in 2015.
Our museum, like most cultural institutions in different parts of the world, had to face unexpected challenges at a time of coronavirus restrains, and seek answers to questions about how to maintain continuity in uncertain months of change. As part of the presentation and interpretation of museum collections, we formulated the following basic questions: How to maintain a public connection with our institution during isolation and when our institution is closed? How to stay in touch with specific visitors even in online environment, which can be very anonymous in itself? And what can be our role and contribution in this unexpected situation?
These challenges also gave us an opportunity to evaluate existing activities while putting our existing and upcoming projects in a new perspective. At MUO, our aim is to cross national and language barriers and to place fine arts beyond the limited space of exhibition halls. We have extensive collections available online, we are constantly expanding the CEAD (Central European Art Database) database. We offer to the public recordings and podcasts from various events, short documentaries and interviews with artists. Our goal was to organise new activities organically into the context of a long-term concept, whether it was a virtual opening of new exhibitions or a series of educational videos in which museum lecturers responded to the needs of distance education at the time of culminating pandemic.
Nevertheless, we have become aware of the great emptiness caused by the lack of personal contacts, especially in art, so dependent on sensory, emotional perception, direct contact and interaction, which is undoubtedly essential. Therefore, we also understand the importance of this conference and we are proud that the Olomouc Museum of Art has become its media partner.
Did you know that our partners from the Olomouc Museum of Art have prepared a workshop for you? Visit the workshop room!
Short Bio about Gina Renotière
Gina Renotière is the deputy director of the Olomouc Museum of Art, the head of the department of modern and contemporary art – Central European Forum Olomouc, a curator of the collection of author's books and curator of international exhibitions. In her work, she focuses on research, exhibitions, lecturing and publishing activities, as well as on obtaining significant acquisitions for the museum's collections. She participates in the development of the Central European Art Database (CEAD) project and the Central European Forum Olomouc (SEFO). Prior to joining the Olomouc Museum of Art, she lived and worked in Paris in both international (AIAP - UNESCO Paris) and Czech institutions with the focus on culture (Czech Centre Paris). She studied fine arts and aesthetics at the Department of Art History and the Department of Aesthetics at the Faculty of Arts of the Comenius University in Bratislava. After that, she continued her studies at the Fondation PostUniversitaire Internationale Paris, Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III and ENSBA – École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts Paris. Subsequently she received a Ph.D. degree at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. Together with her colleagues from the Olomouc Museum of Art, Gina Renotière strives to create an institution whose objective is to make the museum program and unique collections of old, modern and contemporary art accessible to the public.