Barbora Hoduláková

11.6 Flow with Bedřich Smetana in a World of Silence (Poster)

Barbora Hoduláková | National Museum of the Czech Republic; Department of Art Education, Faculty of Education, Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic

Abstract:

Moments of slowing down, deep listening and focused attention are becoming increasingly rare for the distracted mind of the digital age. How can museum education help foster the quality of slowness and creative dialogue? Flow with Bedřich Smetana in a World of Silence is a joint educational project of the National Museum of the Czech Republic and the non-profit organization Tichý svět (Silent World) for the exhibition My country, commemorating the personality of Bedřich Smetana and his seminal work. Inspired by Smetana’s composition of the symphonic poem cycle after losing his hearing, and in solitude, the accompanying program for schools aims to connect the worlds of hearing and deaf communities through the universal language of art.

The program is designed for both students with or without hearing impairment and consists of a dialogue-based tour of the exhibition with a museum educator and a follow-up multi-sensory workshop led by a lecturer from Tichý svět. A pilot phase of action research is running concurrently with the series of programs, focusing on the possibilities of inter-institutional cooperation, the application of wellbeing principles in museum education and a multi-sensory approach to the interpretation of classical music. In this initial phase, the research explores innovative ways of mediating cultural heritage, inspired by the perception of music by the deaf community, and how it can stimulate creativity and perceptiveness.

Project participants: Barbora Hoduláková, Marie Horáková (Tichý svět)