MO Museum, Vilnius, Lithuania
2020
Cited as one of the most awaited museums in Europe in 2019 – the MO Museum in Vilnius has partnered with the innovative Dutch multimedia artist and director Saskia Boddeke and one of the most original filmmakers of his generation, Peter Greenaway. Their exhibition Why Is It Hard to Love? features a site-specific installation and includes highlights of Lithuanian contemporary art from the MO Museum collection.
All artworks are presented in relation to a narrative which explores the topic of inequalities (social, racial, gender etc.) and society’s strive for harmony in spite of it. The collaboration offers a beautiful opportunity to tackle the important questions of openness and our ability to accept one another and our differences.
MO Museum aims to employ the topics explored in this exhibition to engage with individuals from different linguistic or socially excluded minority groups in Lithuania. The project adopts innovative educational methods that are geared to empower people from socially excluded backgrounds with 21st century skills: critical thinking, creativity, and dialogue. In the educational activities the museum also encourages these groups to work together around the exhibition narratives and to experience different approaches to these themes through the medium of art.
Throughout the 7 months of the exhibition the project:
- Engage 9 schools and 3 communities in ethnically diverse regions of Lithuania
- Engage over 50 teachers and 250 students and 100 community members in various educational sessions delivered locally as well as at MO Museum
- Reach out to 7-10 communities in Lithuania through "Travelling MO Museum" approach
- Through a strong focus on visual thinking strategy, the project will give participants the methods and tools to assess information critically and objectively. MO Museum will welcome the participants of the project and will give them visibility and acceptance, thus increasing their sense of dignity, belonging and of positive participation in civic life.