What is the role of the museum today? Answering this question may give us an overall view of the current state of Museology. It gets harder to deal with other models of leisure and entertainment (movies, video games…) and face the individualist society we are moving forward, what makes it necessary to find new ways to interact with the general public.

Participation

An effective way to engage the public is to encourage them to participate. By making them to take part in cultural institutions, museums can grow in importance. That is why, more and more, cultural centers take advantage of events related to music, creative workshops or even invite to rethink about the institution or Art itself.

The contest "Cartela abierta"

In the framework of the Bicentennial of the Museo del Prado, the institution wanted that the public wrote the cartouche texts of five of his most famous works: The executions, by Goya; Self-portrait, by Dürer; Queen Joanna the Mad, by Pradilla; Portrait of Queen Anne of Austria, by Sofonisba Anguissola and The Descent from the cross, by Van der Weyden. The idea of the contest was to enrich the texts with the experiences and knowledge of the visitors, which do not always find a place in museums.

Multiple points of view

By this initiative people could share their own experiences, what enriched the dialogue between the artworks and the public. This communication is sometimes scarce, mainly due to the lack of space of the own cartouche or due to conventionalism. The chosen paintings were not only well-known, but also, they depicted a topic that allowed to reflect on untreated themes and alternative stories, far from the academicism of Art History. In fact, it also questioned about the explanation that the spectator would like to be given about work or how an ideal cartouche would look like.