CULTURAL MEDIATION: Cultural what?!?
What is cultural mediation? What this « newly » created expression refers to? Actually, since its creation, it has referred to a lot of things in different fields: museums, theatres, communication, social.... The point of this article is not to give you a complete definition of cultural mediation, I won’t be able anyway. However, I will do my best to give a general idea of cultural mediation, which jobs are part of cultural mediation and which are the studies that lead to those jobs?
First of all, I would like to give
you this definition of cultural mediation by Daniel Jacobi in his book La
communication scientifique : discours, figures, modèles of
1999 :
« La médiation correspond à toutes les formes d’intervention à caractère culturel organisées à l’attention des visiteurs. Elle est médiation dans la mesure où elle se situe entre le patrimoine et les publics avec la volonté de contribuer, aussi bien à favoriser le moment de plaisir de la découverte ou un temps de délectation, qu’à faciliter le travail d’appropriation de connaissance. L’idée de l’intermédiaire postule implicitement la nécessité de modifier un rapport qui, précédemment, était établi sans tiers médiateur. »
Thus, the goal of cultural mediation is the
democratisation of a culture that would not be accessible, understandable by a
part of the population without an explanation (honestly, can you understand why
Marcel Duchamp made up his mind to tear a urinal off and exhibit it? If you
don't know anything about the art movement Dada or the readymade period of
Duchamp, you can’t fully apprehend this work of art). Cultural mediation is, in that sense, a
sharing of knowledge.
The relation between
the culture, art or whatever is presented, the « médiateur » and the
public is not unilateral; it is the encounter or confrontation of a wide range
of cultures. Members of the audience are often called upon to give their point
of view, to critic what they have just seen, if not with the médiateur, with
their friends or family that accompanied them. Here it is very important to
make the distinction between mediation and communication.
Indeed, cultural
mediation is different from communication because it makes resources available
to all, establishes a critical dialogue between the works of art, the space (or
institution) and the public. However communication is a unilateral stream of
information that gives to the public a general idea of the institution or
event. It encapsulates all the means to convey the information. The goal of
communication is to give more visibility to the structure or the event, to
promote them.
I would even say (and
this is totally open for debate) that communication serves the mediation as it
invites the public to come and take part in its actions whereas the role of the
médiateur is not to sell an exhibition or a show, it is for instance to develop
a cultural programmation in accordance with the institution cultural goals and
policies.
That leads us directly to my second part of this
article: which professions can be considered as cultural mediation? We can say
that there are two sorts of cultural mediation professions as there are
two sorts of mediation:
ñ
direct
mediation : the médiateur is present and relies on the public. He must
observe and anticipate the audience's reactions and adapt his discourse
consequently (change the pace; change the itinerary of the visit...)
ñ
indirect
mediation : it includes all the propositions that can be used or not by
the public during its visit. This kind of mediation addresses a public that
will use the information on a support (booklet, leaflet, App…) at their own
rhythm.
Thus, the cultural mediation professions include
either guide, cultural or national speaker, guide-interpret (there are already
a lots of jobs that can be associated with cultural mediation!) or museograph,
director of the cultural action, consultant in cultural engineering… You can
also work in different fields: heritage, museums, theatres… and in different
institutions: Musées de France, local governments, associations…
Now I would like to explain to you what is expected
from a médiateur (in other words, do you have what it takes to become a médiateur?).
First of all, I would like to make an announcement:
BEING SHY DOESN’T
KEEP YOU AWAY FROM BEING A MEDIATEUR.
I am saying that for all the people that are very fond
of arts and culture and who would love to share their passion with other people
(and the public needs people like you!) but think it is simply impossible
because they are shy and they cannot talk in front an audience. From my
experience, and God knows I am one of the shyest creature on this planet (apart
from wild cats, wolves, sloths… okay, I’ll stop rambling) and I am perfectly
able to talk in front of the public, you just need to love what you’re doing,
once you’ re into it, it comes out of your mouth very naturally. You can also
learn everything you can on the “thing” you are presenting, that way, you won’t
be afraid of not knowing the answers of the questions the public might ask.
Finally, if you really are agoraphobic, you can still take part in the cultural
mediation of the place you work for by organising the cultural activities or
create events for instance. You will work in an office, you’ll be awfully busy
but you won’t be required to talk in front of an audience.
Now that this is said, the typical requirements for
cultural mediation professions are:
- being interested in arts and culture (obviously!)
- being creative (according to me, this is one of the most important requirements)
- being able to identify the different types of publics and adapt your visit or what you write in accordance
- being enthusiastic
- being dynamic (or people will get quickly bored during your visit)
- …
Finally, I will draw a non-exhaustive list of the
different studies which train you in cultural mediation.
Most of the communication schools or communication
departments of universities offer trainings in cultural mediation such as the
Université Paris 3. There are one B.A Degree in cultural mediation and no less
than six M.A Degree.
But History or Art departments of universities offer
trainings in cultural mediation as well. Here, at the Université Lyon 2, you
have six B.A Degree such as History of Art or Cultural and Artistic Activities
and five M.A Degree like Music or cinematographic studies
As for me, I made up my
mind to go to Quimper
I hope you will find this article useful. Obviously, I didn’t write a thesis on cultural mediation: I just intended to give a general idea of cultural mediation. This article gives me the opportunity to open the first debate:
MEDIATION AND COMMUNICATION: IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?
Webography:
Two links on cultural mediation.
You can find a more detailed list of all of that on the Ecole Du Louvre website.
Here is the address of the université of Paris' website on which you can find more detailed information:
Here is the address of the université of Lyon's website on which you can find more detailed information:
I.U.P of Quimper:
http://formations.univ-brest.fr/fiche/FR_RNE_0290346U_PROG19807/FR_RNE_0290346U_PROG24975/presentation
Université
de Bretagne Sud:
I.U.P of Arras: just google it as the university's website is not available as I am writing my article
Ecole Du
Louvre:
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire