In his office, the director of the Egyptian museum in Turin hides a little secret: a magnificent fake papyrus. Yet for Christian Greco it is precious because it is a reproduction made by hand by an inmate so skilled as to make it almost unrecognizable if not to expert eyes. However, whoever created that papyrus never went to the museum. Rather, the museum went to him, to the Lorusso Cotugno prison: “We brought our curators alongside the teachers of the Plana Professional Institute and the Primo Liceo Artistico within school courses aimed at inmates – says Paola Matossi L’Orsa, Director of Communication and Marketing of the Egyptian Museum – The students produced copies of wooden objects, papyri and funeral masks, which were then taken to the courses of the Regina Margherita Pediatric Hospital. Our aim is to expand the accessibility of the collections and also reach those who cannot physically visit the museum ». In the same way the Egyptian entered the RSA with cycles of conferences and for years it has been a good practice in the inclusion of different cultures. For example, since 2015 it has prepared captions and audio guides in Arabic, promotional campaigns aimed at Arabic speakers as well as training Arab women as guides, together with the Mic Association. “We have been practicing a broad notion of sustainability for at least five years – adds Matossi – which includes the cultural and social meaning”. A trend now relaunched by the NRP which includes measures in favor of sustainability starting from the energy efficiency of museums, cinemas, theaters and the removal of architectural, sense-perceptive, cultural and cognitive barriers, the digitization of cultural heritage.
“With the pandemic, museums have shown the great potential they have as places, as content producers and as activators of creative solutions. We have worked a lot with schools, with neighborhoods, we have won calls for projects in the historic center and we will open up more to foreign communities with mediated guided tours, to the territories “says Serena Bertolucci, director of the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa who participates in the Inluce call for Compagnia di San Paolo to support culture in small towns. «We presented the candidacy together with the Municipality of Sassello to hold exhibitions and lessons on how to organize exhibitions, how to communicate, etc. Thus a large cultural institution takes care of a small structure. Covid has also taught us to share resources ».
In view of the allocation of funds from the PNRR in Turin, various realities have come forward, including Palazzo Reale. The institution is already involved in the transformation of the greenhouses (Orangerie) into a community space, with tables for students, for reading, conference rooms, a cafeteria etc. “We open up to the city even more with a territorial stitching operation between two different parts of the city, the center and the Aurora and Barriera Milano districts,” says the director Enrica Pagella as evidence of a renewed outlook on society. Palazzo Reale has asked for funds from the PNR for the restoration of the noble floor, the most visited area. «The intent is a real transformation of experience. The current setting is still within the canons of the 60s. We would like to re-functionalize these environments by restoring them and studying with the scenographers a new lighting system that returns the emotion of the rooms, as well as improving the energy saving of the old chandeliers. We would like to bring the wifi everywhere, in order to accompany the visit with the QR Code »adds Pagella.
Inclusiveness and expansion of the public have been part of the history of the Polo of the ‘900 since it was born five years ago. Consider, for example, the birth of the Spaccio di cultura – Community Concierge in Piazza della Repubblica in Turin, in the heart of the Porta Palazzo district, a community welfare system that connects traders, associations, citizens in collaboration with Rete Italian Popular Culture (partner institution of the Polo). And again «Rightsbus. The museum for the city ”, created by the widespread Museum of Resistance, Deportation, War, Rights and Freedom. This is a cultural mediation project aimed at people in conditions of social hardship, low education and lack of access to culture who are reached with a bus around Turin that around the themes of health, gender, disability, environment, migration e lavoro creates a calendar of events together with citizenship. Furthermore, the Polo launched “The winds of the environment” within a broader context of reflection on the theme of sustainability as a global dimension in relation to the objectives of the 2030 Agenda.
The themes of sustainability are also at the center of the Museum A come Ambiente (Maca) in Turin. Since 2004 he has been doing a work of dissemination.