• ICOM MPR Conference in Moscow

    ICOM MPR Conference in Moscow

    From September 16 to September 19, 2021, the 45th International Conference “Let's talk! Reimagine visitors journey” of the International Committee for Marketing and Public Relations (ICOM MPR), which was held jointly with ICOM Russia in a hybrid format at the International Numismatic Club Museum and at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow.

    For two days, the participants discussed issues of interaction with the audience, the importance of the visitor experience for the effective work of modern museums.

    The conference experts were speakers from different countries among which Austria, The United States of America, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Russia, Croatia.

    The geography of the conference participants is also very impressive: in two days more than 60 participants from different parts of the world joined the conference in ZOOM, more than 30 participants from different regions of the Russian Federation attended on-site.

    Keynote Speeches:

    Lisa Baxter (Founder of The Experience Business) spoke about why the visitor experience is one of the values ​​of the museum, and also shared interesting cases of curation of the visitor experience, including the example of the Landesmuseum Wurttemberg (Stuttgart). In addition, Lisa hosted an online conference workshop, in which participants tried their hand at designing and exploring the museum audience.

    Dragana Lucija Ratkovic Aydemir  (Founder and CEO of Muze d.o.o) presented the intricacies of working with ecomuseums, organizing a local community around a museum and preserving intangible heritage.

    Artem Silkin shared his experience of preserving intangible heritage in the Sviyazhsk Island-City Museum-Reserve, spoke about projects implemented on the basis of the museum. He also told  about the concept, around which interaction with visitors is built, and the revival of the region's heritage develops.

    Natalya Nikitina also addressed the topic of intangible heritage preservation and spoke about the work of the Kolomna Center for Cognitive Tourism “Kolomensky Posad”, interaction with the audiences of Kolomna museums and the experience of attracting different target audiences to the museum, costume performances and festivals.

    In addition, the Conference attendees were lucky enough to listen to interviews with Tacia Daske (General Director of Museum Hack) and Eike Schmidt (General Director, Uffizi Gallery, Florence).

    Among the key speakers were not only museum specialists. The conference participants listened to interviews with the famous writer Boris Akunin and the German astronaut Gerhard Tille. Both speakers shared their experiences of interacting with museums.

    At the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, two other conference sections took place. It started with a panel discussion “Universal language of communication - live, hybrid or completely digital? What language will the museum speak in the future?"  After that, Olga Sinitsyna moderated“MPR Smart talks”, within which the speakers presented their reports in the dynamic pecha-kucha format 

    Finally, Deborah Ziska spoke about the plans of the ICOM MPR to host events within the framework of the ICOM General Conference in 2022 in Prague.

    This was followed by the summing up of the results of the conference and the closing ceremony.

    A pleasant conclusion to the three-day conference for the participants in Moscow was the cultural program in Kolomna. The participants visited the Kolomenskaya Pastila Museum, Museum of Kalach, Museum-residence “Artcommunalka. Erofeev and others”, Literary café “Lazhechnikov”.

    We would like to thank the speakers, moderators and everyone who joined the conference on-site and through ZOOM!

    For more information on the conference program, please follow the link.