My experience at the museum: Protocol for cultural mediation at the Pinacoteca University Art Museum in Colima, México

Abstract

Contemporary cultural policy concerning art museums demands the need to direct activities and work programs toward visitors; museums are no longer just heritage containers for an elite; they are now spaces of conversation and interaction between people and works of art. This article shares the work carried out by the non-formal education area of the Pinacoteca University Art Museum located in the city of Colima, Colima, Mexico. The general objective of the document is to share reflective experiences based on the empirical experience of the educational program: My Experience in the Museum, proposed and developed since 2021 from the perspective of cultural mediation that strengthens learning constructed between the works of art and the public. From there, we propose a Cultural Mediation Protocol that evidences the actions, people, resources, and timelines established in and around the educational museum program at the University Art Gallery, all with the aim of sharing an action strategy from practice. The protocol integrates three phases: 1, preparation for museum visits, 2, visitors’ tour through the art exhibition rooms and participation in creativity workshops, 3, closure and evaluation of the visits. With this proposal of the Cultural Mediation Protocol, we are interested in making visible, as a methodological strategy, the processes that contribute to generating new learning experiences.