Did you know that the Denmark Queen’s husband is a french guy ?
I did not.

Henrik, Prince Consort of Denmark

Now I do know that France and Denmark have some connections already 🙂

But I also know that there is going to be more connections between our two countries. Soon, many danish people will join the Museomix community and together we will cross the frontiers of museums !

Mar Dixon and I (Samuel Bausson) spent 4 days last week in Danemark. We had the opportunity to talk about Museomix with many great museum people. Mar was a 2012 edition participant, in the web team (yeah !). She is now organizing her own museomix in UK (yeah again !). She was able to share her point of view on what museomix is all about, and that was enriching.

If I had to summarize our trip in one sentence I would say : lots of museums ready to take the leap, lots of enthusiasm… and lots of questions !

Lots of enthusiasm for museomix

Danism museums people are curious about Museomix and want to know more.

We were invited to present Museomix at the Danish Museums association annual conference. This is the main conference for museums in Denmark, for big and small museums from all over the country. As most speakers were from UK and USA, the organizers were happy to include a project from elsewhere.

The day before that conference, Merete Sanderhoff from the SMK had invited us to come over and talk about Museomix with 2 colleagues Nana Bernhardt from the education department and Frederik Henrik Knap, coordinator of the Art Labs for Young People. The SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark, is a major art museum. This SMK is also pioneering more open and participative relationships with users. The museum hosts the “Sharing is Caring” conference on cultural OpenData. 3 more people from outside the Museum, who had heard about the meeting on twitter, also joined us (in a perfect museomix-spirit !) : Khristoffe Biglete and Stéphanie Legal who organize cultural events such as the French Art Day and Karine Blandel who is well connected with other museums in the area. All ideal candidates to co-organize a local museomix !

Talking Museomix at the Statens Museum for Kunst – National Gallery of Denmark

“I really really want to do this” said Frederik. But he also made a good point about involving other museum staff, which will takes some time. He aims for a 2014 edition instead of rushing things up now (as the call for participation in June is fast approaching)

Lots of Museums ready to be remixed

After the first day in Coppenhagen we took a 2 hours train trip to go to Horsens, where the conference was held. A perfect opportunity to meet with lots of museum people.

during the workshop

Mar and I did a 35 minutes presentation to all delegates on the first day. We conducted a 2 hours workshop for the most interested of them, 29 participants, the following day. The ideas was to move ahead, answer questions such as “why, with whom, how…. can I get my museum involved and host a Museomix event ?”, and finally get the next steps of actions listed. Here is the workshop timeline and visual support (Could be a meet-up tool for local coordinators !)

Participants worked in teams. They came up with many inventive ideas to reach out to their local communities and engage them in remixing their museum.

from Mette’s blog

See Mette’s short blog post here about her team taking the museum out to the grocery store.

Participants were ready to get “hands on” with museomix. We were happy to meet with Christina Back from the Royal Library, with Mette Liv Skovgaard from the Museum Education Center, Anneken Appel and Martin B. Djupdraet from the Den Gamle By (Open air Museum) and many many more…

So one thing I feel confident about is this : with that many museums ready to jump on board, there is going to be a museomix in Denmark ! In 2014 if not this year.

Lots of questions to be answered

During these sessions, many questions arised. Mostly practical questions on how to get things started : What is the first thing to do ? Who does what ? How much does it cost for the museum ? How do you know people are going to be interested ? How do you “select” participants” ? How are teams made ?

One recommendation I made was : get together as institutions, start the conversation with interested people outside the museums from diverse background, start talking about “your” museomix, about what it would be like… and get the local museomix community grow.

All the museums would benefit from this community, weither they actually host a museomix inside their building or not. A museomix community made of people, from diverse sectors, with diverse talents, eager to get co-creative about the idea of opening up museums.

Quebec co-organizers also had many questions. So the next thing to do for us is to open a “How to” page on the website to answer these many questions as we get more feedback and gain in experience along the way.

We also suggested that they participate in the next Museomix edition, so they can see for themselves how it works. As Mar says “you have to live a Museomix to really understand what it is”. Many said they will attend the Museomix in UK this year.

Big thank you to all who welcomed us in Denmark and made our trip so enjoyable. Special thanks to Anne-Mette Villumsen, Pernille Lyngsø, and Hans Henrik Appel from the Danish Museums Association : we had a blast !

En kommer snart !

Samuel

At midnight, Mar and I had to get outside to the “sausage wagon” and get a special Danish hot-dog. That’s the tradition !

(from Mar’s FB pics)