Educational department of MNAC

One of the works we had to do during the subject, was to make a research about the visual education in museums. 

In order to do it, we chose one museum of Barcelona: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. 

The National Art Museum of Catalonia, or also known as the MNAC, is an art museum located in Barcelona which brings together the most important Catalan art collection in the world from the Romanesque to the present. It is a museum because it is a permanent, non-profit institution, at the service of society that brings together a group of cultural and movable property.

First of all we had to search information about some data, such as the year of its creation, its tipology, services...

Then, there was another specific part about the educational department, where questions such as the organigram, if they participate in exhibitions, if they cooperate with other departments of other museums... All in all, it helped us to understand a little bit more about the work of this institution and more specifically about the educational part, that is not so common to see. 

Afterwards, there was another part which was dedicated to some activities of the department, as well as its philosophy, how they create the needed material for the exhibitions... In this part we had to contact with the educational department by e-mail, because some information was not on their website. However, they were very kind and answered our doubts. 

Finally, we had to visit the museum in order to focus on one of the exhibitions shown. We chose Liberxina: pop i nous comportaments artístics, 1966-1971.

This is a period that has not a very defined position but it is the moment of the emergence of Pop Art and New Figuration that went beyond the existentialism of the postwar period.

As a conclusion, this museum must be considered as a facilitator of knowledge and non-formal education, as it allows to offer a range of activities necessary for the culture of young people without curricular restrictions, encouraging creativity.

I think it would have been very positive to make profit of all the educational resources that each group found interesting, in order to learn in which way schools can use museums as spaces to learn. Sometimes this information is not as easy to find as it seems, and I think this was a good opportunity to learn more from these type of non-formal learning.