Didascalie in Collezione / Captions in the Collection

On the occasion of the setting-up of the permanent collection entitled senzamargine. Passaggi nell’arte italiana a cavallo del millennio (senzamargine. Passages in Italian Art at the Turn of the Millennium), the Education Office developed a project entitled ‘Didascalie in Collezione’ (‘Captions in the Collection’) in collaboration with four primary and secondary schools classes. The project – which was the result of a process that built on previous participatory writing experiences such as ‘Il mio Iran’ (‘My Iran’) and ‘Kids Museum’ – tried to combine the wishes of teachers with the criticalities resulting from the pandemic, thereby confirming once again the role of the Museum as a permanent learning resource at the service of the community. In the first months of 2020 we were forced to inhabit domestic environments only, and public spaces, art, architecture, socialisation and relationships as we knew them disappeared. We had to rethink ourselves and our daily lives, schools had to come up with educational strategies, and cultural institutions had to build a new relationship with audiences (whether actual, potential or non-public) through the Internet. In the last year we have worked around the ‘lack’ (of artworks, museum galleries and visitors) to develop different forms of relationship and collaboration, especially with the school community and families, with the aim of creating effective learning activities to ensure that forced distance does not become absence. The ‘Didascalie in Collezione’ project, which was carried out online, was born as part of this context of reflection and dialogue with teachers and school managers in order to analyse and interpret contemporary art together with them. Through in-depth online meetings on a selection of artworks and artists, MAXXI Education Office provided teachers and students with specially designed study materials and learning tools. During the participatory writing workshops, children and teenagers wrote captions for the very works, thereby developing an alternative polyphonic narrative aimed at complementing and enriching the curatorial one. In brief, the students wrote a story based on the content of the works and their meanings written for their peers.