Goethe Institut: MuseumFutures – Africa Call for Expressions of Interest

GOETHE INSTITUT
MuseumFutures – Africa
Call for Expressions of Interest

The MuseumFutures-project is a pan-African project for the conceptual development of museums on the African continent supported by the Goethe-Institut and developed collaboratively with a team of practitioners from the art and museum fields. It aims at enabling museum-driven processes of innovation, change, or adaptation. The central tenet is for museums to drive their own change, through facilitated peer-to-peer learning between African Museums. The main aim of the project is to enable museums to address their own challenges or embark on new strategies, this might include; restructuring their work, developing new concepts for exhibitions, building new networks on the continent and developing strategies that engage more with a museum’s identified communities.

The MuseumFutures-project is a collaborative and experimental process that requires a high level of openness to and interest in change. It is a project in which museums will be twinned with relevant museums on the continent in order to share new experiences in redesigning strategies. Over the course of 18 months, a learning process will be facilitated that enables a different approach to museum work. This process will be externally facilitated and moderated. Participating museums will get access to modest funding for additional external support, some travel and to support exhibition projects related to the process. Activities such as Labs with the partnering museum, study group meetings and workshops will be financially supported by the project.

Museums will be expected to:
- Take part in a 12-18 months process
- Commit time and capacity of a minimum of three interested museum staff at different levels within the institution (e.g. senior management, middle management, docents, cleaning and security staff etc.)
- Convene and host monthly study groups that undertake a series of programmes and events
- Convene two labs with a partner African museum, one in each country
- Motivate its participating staff members to a high amount of commitment
- Give access to its infrastructure
- Contribute to the development of a publication that shares the learnings of the project

The project will offer learning and networking opportunities for the involved museums but requires consistent conceptual and practical work over a period of 12-18 months. To support the high amount of commitments the project requires, support by external advisers can be covered.

Active and running museums of all kinds from Africa can apply for this project. A priority will be given to museums that already are well connected in their community and can involve partners in the process.
If you are interested in participating, please hand in:
- A short description of the most significant change your museum has had in the past 12 months (max 200 words)

- A short description of the most significant exhibition, event, workshop or meeting your museum has had in the past 12 months. (max 200 words)
- A short description of one small thing in your museum you wish to fix/change/do that could have a major impact, but haven’t done due to limited capacity and/or resources. (max 200 words)

- A brief motivation for why you want to take part in this project (max 500 words)

Please send your application until June 15th 2020 to museum-futures@goethe.de

Shortlisted museums will be expected to develop a clearer proposal and take part in two discussions with the advisory group as part of the final selection process.

In case of further questions do not hesitate to contact us at the above mentioned email address.

MuseumFutures - Africa
The MuseumFutures - Africa project seeks to support museum-driven processes of innovation, change, or adaptation. It is based on the original concept produced collaboratively by a team of practitioners from the art and museums fields. Bernard Akoi-Jackson, Khwezi Gule, Flower Manase, Molemo Moiloa, Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja and Nontobeko Ntombela developed the original concept in 2019. The current iteration is a joint effort of the Goethe-Instituts in Sub-Saharan Africa, together with Manase, Moiloa and Mushaandja, who are continuing to develop the project MuseumFutures in 2020 and 2021.

You can download the document here Goethe Institut Call Museum Futures