 So this webinar is one of the initiatives that we have organized for the members of the LEM working group. NEMO as Network of European Organizations is organized in working groups, one of which is called the LEM, the Learning Museum. This working group started in 2014, just at the end of a European funded project which was called with the same name, the LEM, the Learning Museum, which was a network project, which brought together a huge number of museum organizations and other organizations working with museums to achieve a better understanding of learning and to transform museums into learning environments and learning organizations themselves. The projects, as you know, all European projects come to an end that happened also to that project which my organization, the Institute of Cultural Heritage, was project coordinator of and which I led. And when you come at the end of a European project, there's always the dilemma what's going to happen with the materials, with the relations, with the productions, with the outcomes and so on. So the idea then was to incorporate the LEM working group which was, as I said, a network itself into NEMO. So the material was transferred into the NEMO's repositories and the members of the LEM working group also became some of them members of NEMO. In any case, a group was retained which continues to exist nowadays, which is called LEM, the working group LEM. And in this working group which I coordinate, normally in normal conditions, we organize a study visit once a year, and we commission research once a year. And then of course we meet when the network comes together during the annual conference. This year and last year we were not able to meet in person and to organize a study visit. So we decided to organize other kind of get-togethers like this webinar. So as I said, the webinar is open to only members of the LEM working group were invited to join it, although the registration recording will be available to everyone afterwards on the NEMO's website. But we also invited, because they showed an interest, members of another European funded project, which is Charter. Charter is a very important project that we as museum people and cultural heritage people should all be aware of. This is the project in the arena for these four years. And in order to introduce you, because I think that the meeting of the two groups could also be very, very advantageous for both. I invited one of its coordinators to briefly present to the LEM people what the Charter project is. So I asked Herman Mendolickio to do that as representative of the University of Barcelona, which is leading the project. So Herman, thank you and thanks to the members of Charter for taking part and the floor is yours. Thank you very much Margarita and thanks to NEMO for the invitation to present the Charter project and in this very interesting session. I will quickly share the screen. Let me check if it's working. Yes, can you see it? Good. So here we go. So as agreed that would be very brief and that we quickly introduce what is Charter, what is its main mission, and who are the partners that compose the consortium. So first of all Charter as Margarita was saying is an Erasmus Plus funded project that started recently in January 2021 and it will be developed during the next four years until December 2024. The acronym of the project Charter stands for cultural heritage actions to refine training, education and roles. And its mission and main goals are to sustainably protect, promote and enhance European tangible and intangible cultural heritage by creating a lasting and comprehensive sectoral skills strategy, bridging the gaps between educational and occupational systems and employer needs and proposed training and curricula for the development of new skills for cultural heritage professionals, including those working in museums as Margarita said for the museum sector is also a very important project. So what is important to highlight is that Charter is an alliance, is an alliance among key stakeholders. And it will involve and analyze the needs and expectations of at least these four main sectors. On one side the education and training providers that seek to improve clarity on curricula provision. On the other side the industry that wish to be certain of the availability of high quality expertise. Then on another side the public bodies and agencies that need to articulate policies that safeguard sustain and promote cultural heritage. And finally, the important and wide sector of the cultural heritage professionals that seek recognition for their roles and mission. So who composes the the consortium Charter is composed by 47 members. So it's a huge is a very huge consortium representing a wide spectrum of the cultural heritage field. I cannot name now all of them for the sake of time, but we have 21 full members representing 14 EU states, and among them we have universities, education and training organizations with employers. We have European networks. Then we have seven affiliated members representing also different regions in Europe. And we have 19 associated members. So the goals of the project are many. And the Charter consortium is working on identifying the multiple challenges that the cultural heritage sector is facing, both in the professional field and the educational field. So what I would invite you to do is in order to get more information is to check the website that is now available online, and I would invite you as well to subscribe to the newsletter to keep updated on the events and the results of the project and you have here. It's small but you have the website here Charter hyphen alliance dot EU. So thank you very much, Margarita. And that's it. Thank you Herman and of course you can keep in the loop with regard to the Charter project because Nemo is also a member so also through the to the Nemo website, you will find the updates and the link, etc. It's a very important project because it deals with skills and professions and profiles. And as we know people are important in museums not only as visitors as public audience but also the people working in museums are very important. The museum is a labor intensive organization so you know people really make a difference so I can also bringing these two groups together this afternoon I thought that we could maybe envisage a cooperation in the future because when it comes for the Charter project to look into the museum educator, say, I think that a very fruitful exchange could happen with the with the members of the land working group. So, having said that, I mentioned that the working group commissions report or is a research once a year, and you will find them all again on the name website, the previous one, not the 2021. But not the 2021 but the previous one 2019 was called with a provocative title is learning better without objects. So some of them are quite interesting and challenging and I invite you to have a look. And this year or last year is the one that was published in 2021 but was carried out in 2020 is about museums and emotions emotions and learning in museums. And it was edited by Paulo Mazzanti of the University of Florence. So I give him the floor to briefly tell us a few words about the publication. Margarita. I'm sure my screen. Just a moment. Can you see. Yeah. Okay. Good afternoon. Good morning to everybody and thank you Margarita for inviting me and Nemo for inviting me to introduce the report. I'm Margarita Mazzanti working at the University of Florence in a media integration and communication center and NEMEC. This is another competence center of the University of Florence. They are two interdisciplinary research center focused on multimedia technologies for museums for cultural heritage sectors but also other sectors and my research is focused on user experience and interaction design. So Margarita introduced the report and the report was published the last February. And it's important to say that the report explored the role that emotions play in supporting the learning museum experience. And how emotional precondition for learning during their visitor journey and inside museum during after and before. The idea from the report comes from two initiatives. One is a museum TV in Italian and in English emotional museums. One is a training workshop, organized by MEC, by NEMEC, and I am a scientific co-coordinator. Since 2016, we organized the five editions in Italian museums. And the topic was the role of emotions in 21 museum designs. So you can see in the slide. And the other initiative was connected audience conference titled the role of emotions in audience engagement. I participated together with Margarita in 2019 in Berlin and the conference was organized by cultural agenda and the Institute for Learning and Innovations and in collaboration with NEMO. And there we meet also Carlin Gardner, she was a speaker of the conference. And as you can see in the slide, the mood, the method of museum, museum TV is an interdisciplinary way to design the museum experience considering emotions from four many points of view. From what is the content side, considering also emotion from the how, from the exhibit side, from the with the tools and the technology side and from the people side. And of course, the method is connected and involves many studies and many professionals as you can see in the slide. So why emotion in museum so why together with Margarita decided to publish this report you can of course understand better and more reading the report but I identify two to item one, because emotions are a new trend in many research studies related to human knowledge and human behavior, especially the recent neuroscience confirms that without emotion we are not able to to make a decision because emotion pervade our actions so motivate our choices make our experience more memorable. And there is a new idea of a museum, a museum of people centered the museums need to consider emotion to stay relevant because museum not of the present and maybe museum of the future are not only exhibition spaces but also dynamic places for research for learning for improving well being and sharing ideas and socializing. So emotion is used to motivate access to the research contents to stimulate the curiosity attention and the interest of the public also the report. Also the selected authors of the report analyzed the relationship between learning and emotions in museums from a different perspective in interdisciplinary way. We analyzed the role of the motion inside and outside museums, the role of the motion from the digital technology point of view from the role of the motion from the scenography point of view, the relationship between emotion networks and communities and stories and storytelling connecting with audiences, the role of the motions in museum going to decide to visit the museums and the planning the museum experience the role of the motions and the relationship in the history. And of course, the empathy, the to be effective and emotional museum also be connected with audiences and you as you can see here in the table of contents that there is also a contribution written by a carling garden title fostering empathy to the visual arts and she outlines our heart. Expand our perceptions and trigger triggers emotional responses and and empathy. This is a short overview you can of course download the data report from the name of website and maybe. You can share the link in the chat, the idea of the webinars, maybe was inspired by also the report and by the, the contribution of Kathleen pieces or so I give the floor to Margarita and take you again. Now, indeed, the report is made up by contributions both of people who intervened at the museum or TV workshops, and by presenters at the conference in Berlin that the column mentioned it's this combination. And so, in order to look more into this topic of empathy in museums which I first encountered by reading the day transwatch publication 2017 of the Center for the Future and museums which challenge museum to contribute to filling the empathy gap in American society or in society in general. And I thought we thought that it would be nice to have someone looking into this from a very practical point of view a practitioner's point of view. I did ask Carleen Garner to present this afternoon, and she came all the way from Minneapolis. Thank you for joining us, where she is director of learning and innovation at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and she leads also the Center for empathy and the visual arts. And previously she served as curator of education at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and on the board of the museum education round table. So thank you so much for joining us Carleen and now the floor is yours. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here today. Let's get this slide. There we go. Okay. Good afternoon and I guess good morning here. I'm glad to be with you all today. Thanks for being here. I wanted to start out today with this quote by a really well known artist, and it says what I love and art is that it takes down known combinations and reorders them in a way that sheds light on something that we have never seen before, or allows us to see the world in a slightly different way. And I think this quote by Cahendi Riley Wiley really helps us think about the impact that we can have in our work in museums, and really how working engaging with objects, whether it's art, historical objects, scientific objects really can help us think about things in different ways and maybe help us see things from someone else's perspective. So, sorry, there we go. And so really in thinking about empathy and museums, whether art museums or any other kind of museums, I like to think about what are people expecting, how can we model empathy as cultural institutions by meeting the needs and expectations of people. This was a culture track is a survey that's done by an American organization here called La Placa Cohen, and they do a survey every three years to see people's motivations and to kind of gauge their experiences with cultural institutions. And this was a survey they recently did last spring with COVID and really asking people, you know, what are you looking for when you can actually return to cultural institutions so you can see a variety of things people are looking for. But particularly looking at art museums. I think people are looking for escape now so 57% of people are really want to see something beautiful and inspirational. 49% of people are looking to be challenged or further thinking to be changed, much like the quote from Cahendi Wiley indicated. And then kind of to Paolo's point, they're looking to be engaged emotionally they're looking for emotionally powerful experiences. And we know when people's motivations are engaged and activated. They have more profound experiences. They have more learning and they have more memorable experiences. And as Margarita mentioned, there is an empathy deficit in the United States and I would probably say, across the world. This is an older study, I think there it's being redone right now, but it shows a decline in empathetic concern and perspective taking particularly for college age students in the United States from 1979 to 2009. And there are many theories of why this is happening. We can think about social media, people use to talk, you know, communicating with devices rather than face to face. People aren't participating in activities as groups as much religious participation has gone down, people aren't getting out into nature as much those are a lot of things contributing to this. As a museum, we really thought about how can we think about using our collection and our programs and teaching strategies to really help, you know, with the empathy deficit and foster empathy amongst our audiences. We also really create tools and strategies that we can share with the field. So when I really started looking into empathy research with the visual arts, the really none exists. So this was a real impetus for us to think about what we could do with our collection. And so I wanted to first start off with there's so many different definitions of empathy that even social scientists neuroscience is nobody can agree on one definition. The definition we're using at Mia, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, is this one by Roman Kuznarek, who is, he's a British philosopher, he's an empathy scholar and author and he also founded empathy museum which you can see pictured here. He created an experience where you go in and get sized for shoes. And you put literally put someone else's shoes on and listen to an audio tour in their own voice here their story and you literally walk a mile in their shoes. And I've done this experience in the museum it was really amazing. And I love his definition is the ability to step into the shoes of another person, aiming to understand their feelings and perspectives, and to use that understanding to guide our actions. So I think empathy is very important, but empathy is not enough so it's really putting that empathy into action so that's what I really appreciate about his definition is that it's focused on action. It doesn't just stay on our heads, it really impacts the way we act and treat people in our everyday lives. So, again, I was, what can we do with our collection at the Minneapolis Institute of Art we have over 92,000 objects spanning 5000 years. So we feel like we have this amazing opportunity to engage people with cultures and time periods and people they can never experience in their lives, and really connect people with the people they're visiting the museum with with artists with different ways of thinking. So in 2017, we founded the Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts, which is our museum so as we're taking a really institutional approach to empathy, we're thinking about it from the visitor experience, the way we're marketing the way we're doing programs it's really permeating everything we do as a museum. Oops, sorry. And one of, I was going to kind of just talk about the three areas for the Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts. One is building communities of practice, and it's kind of getting out of our museum bubble, and bringing in people with different expertise, different lived experiences, and helping us build something together. So one of the things about empathy is really the valuing multiple perspectives and viewpoints. And we're really trying to model this in our practice with the Center for Empathy and the Visual Arts. As you can see, we're partnering with a lot of academic institutions, you can see one of the first things first things that we did with the Center was convene a think tank at the University of California Berkeley, with a wide variety of people from different backgrounds. And then in 2019, we hosted Empathy Lab at NIA, where we invited people from all across the country, very different expertise, skill sets, disciplines, and they came and spent time in our galleries with our staff so it was curators, educators, media producers. And really thinking about empathy and how we can foster empathy with our collections, with the way we interpret exhibitions, how we produce content. So that's one of the areas that we are really focused on are these communities of practice. And then we're also thinking very much about our programs. So how can we invite different people into the museum to share their stories to create art inspired by our collection, and to share those stories with our public. So here you can see a partnership we did with the advocates for human rights by inviting spoken word artists in who created spoken word pieces inspired by artworks from our collection. And then really recently with COVID we've experiment been experimenting with virtual programs. So a few weeks ago we hosted a virtual empathy lab was really about setting the conditions and it was interactive and very experimental for us. And we did a lot of learning and we really realized I'm sure like many of you have, because we're having to work in a virtual world right now we can reach people across the world across the country, much like we're doing in this program right now. And so we're really thinking about how we can continue experimenting with both in the virtual and in person programming to inspire empathy to bring in multiple voices and viewpoints and really challenge people to maybe think and act differently. We're also, as I mentioned before, I'm doing several research initiatives. I'm going to share with you in just a few minutes kind of walk you through our empathy tour. But these are the questions that are really guiding our research. How does engaging with art foster empathy and individuals and how does that experience that people have at a museum, connect them with something bigger than themselves and influence how they think about with how they're thinking and really how they act again, not just keeping it in the museum but how can this impact people's lives and they're in and how they engage with others. So we are really looking at exhibitions to thinking about how we work with our curators and designers for interpreting for empathy. This is just a kind of a case study I wanted to briefly share with you. It's an exhibition research that we did on an exhibition when home won't let you stay or migration. So it was about contemporary art really created within the last 10 years, and really looking at the global migration immigration crisis. And it was this exhibition was developed by the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston. And what we felt was really missing in the, in Minneapolis was we have a very large population of people who have immigrated to hear from all over the world. And we wanted to make local connections really to humanize and make it a local, as well as a global exhibition. So we worked with many different community partners and developed both audio tours, as well as labels by our community partners who are refugees or immigrants into the twin cities to Minneapolis. And so you can see here, Alfreda Daniels, people could listen to her response to this artwork, and then read her quote on the wall along with the artist label. So we're really experimenting with humanized bringing real human and human elements, whether it's through audio or video into our exhibition spaces. And as you can see here, the exhibition we asked people in a survey. What emotions are you feeling this was right after they had visited the exhibition, and you can see a wide variety of emotions here. You can see empathy was the most predominant one that you can see sadness, anger, guilt, hope. It was a really tough exhibition. So you can see that happiness was not hugely felt and then kind of digging a little bit deeper we looked at the emotions but we're also very interested in perspective taking in terms of empathy. So we asked people, if they took a perspective other than their own this was the survey questions we asked them, and they reflected on their own relationship with immigration and migration. They took a perspective other than their own. Again, that emotional connection response. And then they felt compassion warped their concern for another person or other people. So really showing the potential in kind of un facilitated experiences that you don't have a guide, but how can we create interpretive materials within exhibitions that will help people have more emotion, emotional responses, more connection to humanity, and to take, you know, really think about different perspectives and viewpoints. And then now I was going to I'm going to kind of switch gears a little bit and then focus on the tours we're doing around empathy and I will start off by saying that we were all poised to do our empathy research on our tours. A year ago, and COVID happened so we're going to be picking that up next fall and next spring. So, but we developed a tour, an empathy tour. And these are the key elements we've been really working with school systems we've been working with social scientists with a lot of different people to help us figure out what are the, how can we really be intentional when we're guiding people on an experience through our museums. So, the first thing is grounding. So, we have an amazing collection of Asian art at our museum. So oftentimes we start off the experience in front of a Buddha or a Bodhisattva and ask people just to breathe to take a few minutes kind of transition from their daily lives, let all that kind of go and to really be present because part of really practicing empathy is being present. So we start off with some kind of grounding it might not be with a Buddha it might just be a breathing exercise but it's really important. And then we asked the group about meeting agreements, because we want people to feel we want to create a safe space. So, these are the meeting agreements we share with people take space like speak up, but then step back and let someone else speak. Listen attentively. And remember, this is all very dialogical based teaching. So telling people that you're in charge of your own story don't share something that you're not comfortable sharing with. And then we asked the audience, what else they'd like to see on this list that they think would create a safe and open environment where people can be vulnerable and share. And then we really do an emotions check in, whether we're using a piece of artwork, like the kusama you can see here on your left, or even like letting people look at a, you know, a page of emojis and point out how they're feeling, because part of empathy is really being aware and knowing what mindset or feelings or emotions you're bringing to a situation, and then becoming aware of other people's. So we feel like this exercise is a great way to get everybody, you know, together, see where everybody's coming from how they're feeling, and we had, you know, build on that shared experience. And now I'm going to ask you to engage in an activity. I'm going to ask you and to look at these eight portraits from our collection and on loan in our collection, and take a few minutes to find someone that you don't connect with that you have a hard time connecting with, and really spend a few moments, looking at the person and and try to kind of understand maybe why you're having trouble connecting with them. So just take a couple of minutes and then I'd love for people to, to share out, if you're comfortable doing that. So for the sake of time I'll just, I'll interrupt you all now to did that do you need more time. I'll give you more time obviously in in the galleries. But did anybody feel free to share maybe identifying someone that they didn't connect with, and maybe why I go first. Okay, two people, number one and number three. Okay, number one. I don't know if you say scruffy. Yes, that's a good guy. Yes. Alright, so I don't like that kind of feeling that kind of okay. But in contrast also number three is someone I because that is the image of myself that I don't want to see that I wouldn't want to see. So what about that image makes you I mean like what about that image makes you not want to be that person number three or number one. Number three, because I think I would be inclined to be that kind of person, you know very rigorous very as opposed to the other guy, just these are the opposites maybe. So maybe I just want to be in between. I'm just expressing a wish maybe. She's not it's not I don't feel comfortable with number three because she's too. I don't know how to how to express it in English but she's too stuck up. Okay, so she's get so you're really noticing her body language her facial expression and she's kind of giving you an attitude that you really, you don't appreciate and you don't want to see yourself doing that. Exactly. Yeah. Anybody else want to share. For me, it's, it's the same picture the number three, because for me it's difficult. This is I am maybe I can understand the, the, the phase expression, and maybe she's not so happy. And maybe she seems like a teacher or like a psychological like analyst. So this is not, not easy, create empathy with this position the sofa, the position of the, the harms. And I identify these because I can recognize something about she about her in the in the picture. So again, just I think much like margarita you're you're feeling that kind of a split she's kind of, there's a barrier. She's kind of got authoritarian feeling to her that is not very conducive to empathy or warmth. Maybe one more person and then can I add. Absolutely. I also, I also the least person I would engage with would be three and just for the sake of it looks like the kind of person that if you smile you know when you get to somebody and you smile it's like and hey how are you and then the other person smiles and and everything starts here it wouldn't happen. That's the feeling is there's no, there's no dialogue there. Okay. There's just no, there's no, yeah, dialogue or two. There's no room for a way or no way. No room for your opinions or thoughts. Okay. Okay, well I wish I could spend time with everybody but we're gonna just for the sake of time up and then move on. But this is an example of something that was really thinking about there's a lot of research that we show that shows we empathize with people who are like us who have the same backgrounds who might look like us. And we have a harder time empathizing with people that we feel are different, or, you know, not warm. So, we think this is a really good exercise and we were in the galleries I'd ask you all to spend several minutes with that person, and see if your perceptions might have changed, might change by spending some time getting curious. So, I was going to say, alright, so these are the questions so we can also you can also start off asking someone who they do connect with, and why, then you could, you know have somebody that you don't connect with and why and then spend time and kind of unpack why you don't connect with them or why you do and really kind of building that self awareness within yourself. This exercise also is a really good way we really thinking about something that's kind of new for us on our tours usually we have a tour guide that takes you to every the different artworks and you and you don't have any choice about your agency and what you're looking at or discussing. So, in our empathy tours, we're giving people agency and galleries to walk around, find an artwork that resonates with them or in this case doesn't. So, agency and giving people choice has been really important on our empathy tours. I'm thinking a lot about, you know, get stepping into someone else's shoes. So with younger children, we're thinking about embodiment and Tableau. So I'm sure a lot of you have asked young people or adults to strike a pose, and think about how the, you know, the sculpture, the person in the painting is feeling at that moment so really trying to step into someone's body, if you will, and trying to understand their emotions at that moment and share those back. So this is something we do with younger children. And then with older children and adults, we do step more into perspective taking. And so I'm going to, this is a routine that was developed by Harvard's project zero it's a global thinking routine, and it really challenges you to step in to the painting. To identify a person that you want to spend some time with and really think about. And then challenge yourself, you know, from what you can see at this time what do you think this person is feeling what are you thinking what do you think they're thinking. What do you know about them just from looking at them. And then you want to people to step out and really think about how hard it is and challenging to, to really know someone from just looking at them so you often need a lot more information. But what might you need to know that might help you understand that person better, and then kind of, you know, think about that. So this is oftentimes we make snap judgments and don't really think about things or try to learn more about another person. So perspective taking in this exercise really challenges us to, to think more deeply to find out more to be curious. And then really stepping back from the artwork and saying given your exploration of this person so far. And then thinking about yourself how hard it is it to take someone else's perspective, because you can only go so far we can't truly understand the perspective of another person, especially if we have not lived, you know, had their cultural experiences their life experiences, but it's very important for us to attempt to take perspectives and to have better understanding of people by doing that and really try not to make snap judgments. So that was, and then finally, really importantly, we want a call to action we we want people to take, and I've said this a couple times in this talk, take what they've learned in the art museum, and apply it to their daily lives. So we often in with reflection questions. And one of the social scientists that I work with a lot calls our in an empathy muscle, and you have to exercise your muscles. You constantly through different activities, whether it's the art museum, or going out and meeting a lot of different people in your life, whatever it is. But what can you do to flex your empathy muscles so we asked people who participate on our tours. What's one thing you learn today that will help you continue to exercise your empathy muscle. What action will you take, what act of kindness will you do for someone today. So really trying to leave people with the intent that they're going to do something with what they've learned. And then of course we would end with kind of another mindfulness activity to get people centered again and grounded and ready to go on with their day. Thank you so much. I know I wanted to, I kind of rushed through a little bit but I wanted to make sure I had enough time for questions. So I'm quit sharing right now, and open it up for questions. Thank you very much, Kathleen, and now we can start asking you lots of things. As I said we are in a small group so I think it should be quite easy to address you. If you want you can raise your hand and or you can simply just unmute your microphone and and speak. I actually, I always have questions. I actually have it's two, it's two questions but I think they're connected. One thing is, does it happen that sometimes people react oddly to this experience meaning that they actually can't engage with some, I don't know, happily with these exercises being confronted with something. I don't know, I don't know if it happens. And the second thing is, if someone does this sort of tours that you do and engages with this experience and exercises, how luckily they are to come back. If you've seen an increase of you know the same audience returning because they something happens to them doing these processes and helps them to return to the same museum or another. They're two different, but I think they might be connected. Yes, so I think you're right I think I think part I think having empathy for our audiences, especially adult audiences I will say that are maybe not as used to doing activities and maybe not as used to sharing their emotions, or thinking, really trying to set the stage that this is what this is going to be like. So they know what they're getting into, like the empathy lab on the virtual empathy lab that I said that we did a couple weeks ago, we were really clear, you know you need to be vulnerable, you're going to be put into breakout groups you're going to be sharing so really empathizing but letting people know that ahead of time. And we have seen people be resistant to the activities we've worked with a lot of corporate groups that have come on empathy tours. And you know, once they get into it. They really enjoy it so they I think you know just kind of going with it for a little while, most people really end up having a good time, and with especially with corporate groups they get to know their colleagues so much better and they build these connections. And I think we, we kind of got interrupted by coven with these programs so I can't say if we have a lot of returning visitors but I think, I think we will. I can't answer that right now just because you know we had to kind of disrupt what our programming, but I'm hoping to but that's a really good thing to be for me to be thinking about and looking for repeat visitors and and program attendees. Thank you so much. Sure. Thank you for that. Can I just come in. I just wonder if you can tell me a little bit more about how that's kind of training you supply to you do for your staff and who are delivering the workshops and what kind of background some of these people might have. Yeah, great question. So, currently we have some of our education staff who have a lot of experience in dialogical teaching. We have a lot of our volunteer got tour guides are also practicing in these tours, and we've also hired some teaching artists that are participating in this to we really wanted to have a diverse group of people leading these tours so people could see themselves reflected at the museum. And I will say like a lot of museums are volunteer core tends to be older and very white. And our audiences not necessarily. So we're really trying to have a broad group a very broad diverse group of people, but we're really training them in a dialogical teaching strategies. And a lot of I don't know if you're familiar with visual thinking strategies. So a lot of our teams have been in, you know, engaged with that that's really kind of a learner centered approach. And so a lot and then we do we do a special training for the empathy tour leaders, walking them through the tour, giving them the scientific background. We do a lot of prototyping and experimenting and finding out what works, but so it's kind of people that already have a lot of gallery teaching skills and knowledge, but kind of read and just kind of teaching them a new approach and I think we do a lot of activities and reflections in this that aren't part of other tours. So, just kind of teaching them new skills and strategies within these tours. Mm hmm. Yeah, that was something I was also deeply interested in and also within this context of the charter project where we look at skills and upskilling and risk killing. Thinking that this kind of training would, you know, be necessary in a museum is also is also very interesting for us, Jenny soon added a comment in the chat I don't know if you want to put it in words, Jenny. Thanks Margarita. And thank you Carly. No, I'm in agreement with the program. But it does take a very special skill set when dealing with empathy and mindfulness. And I believe this whole horrible experience that we're all going through will bring up a lot of things, particularly in public spaces and just be mindful of that as well. Absolutely Jennifer that's a really, really good point and we have not, you know, come back to we're not doing tours in the museum yet so I think you're right I think being really mindful and practicing empathy as practitioners. And really thinking about people sharing, you could be, you know, traumatizing for people so really being mindful of that. I think that's a really good point I'm going to make a note of that and just really think about how we might be able to do some trauma informed training we've talked a lot about this pre COVID but now post well almost post COVID. And I think that's something really to to focus on I know a lot of educators in the United States have been focusing on trauma informed teaching practices anti racist teaching practices. So I think that's something that we should really think about and prepare our guides for so thank you for bringing that up Jennifer. I actually bring it up myself as well just to take myself. Yes, no. We are vulnerable ourselves as museum practitioners. It's a, it's a place where I understand in the recovery that government will see museums as places for supporting recovery. Yes, of some kind that museums are places of sanctuary. But yet the people in them working in them are also impacted by COVID-19. So it's just and I mean I love the idea of mindfulness and empathy. They're fantastic. It's just I guess I suppose I do feel vulnerable and by going back in and re engaging so it's just it's just something that's wrong to mind but I think it's a fantastic project or program. Well thank you and I think you bring up a really good point we keep talking about empathy for our visitors we need to also think empathetically about our staff and our guides and what you know we have all gone through during these last 16 months and really thinking about taking care and taking care of our staff and their wellness is really, really important so thank you for sharing that. Herman, please. Yeah, thank you, Caroline. I have a question. Do you bring any of these activities in order to practice empathy outside of the museum as well in order to engage with the community or with the surrounding. Good question we had started doing a little bit of that especially with one of our creative aging programs for older adults with its art making, working with the teaching artists looking at artworks. So we had started doing that. But with COVID, it kind of put an end to those in person. We, you know, we do it doing a little bit in the virtual world but I'd love to see once we are back at the museum, and it's safe to go out into communities. We absolutely want to think about engaging like meeting people where they are, you know that's that's modeling empathy to right. So, I think that's a great idea we've got a lot of really strong community partnerships, and really will probably be talking about how we can kind of take it outside the museum walls, not just virtually but in person as well. Thanks. Thank you. If it's fine, I actually also had a question. I'm just wondering during these tours. If you are using a variety of different art forms like if you know if there's paintings and sculptures and film. If you feel that there's one or another that seems to generate more of this empathetic response and like willingness to be vulnerable or if you think it just flat out completely varies person to person. Well, I think it can vary person to person but we have noticed a lot and I didn't show a lot of sculpture on here. But we do really thinking about embodiment and that, you know, 3D, we have noticed a lot more people really kind of maybe having experiences with sculpture because they are 3D. So that's a really good point. I will say that this whole initiative has made us look at our collection differently. We realize how stern and noble so many of our portraits are and they don't have a lot of emotions because you know that was kind of the intent of why they were created to show someone's social class or a hierarchy. And so we're really, you know, looking at our collection differently and another thing about being virtual, like the experience you all did with those portraits, I could have never done that in the museum because they're all in different galleries. We do have one gallery that's all portraits and so that's where we do that activity, but there's not the diversity of portraits in there that we would ultimately like. So I'm, I'm trying to get our curators to give me a gallery so I can have like an empathy space where we can do a lot of these practices. I don't know how realistic that is. But yeah, I think people, they really all different media of art form, I think it depends on what the artwork is how like emotionally evocative is, and then also depending on the person but I have like like I said notice sculpture really does resonate with people. Yeah, that's that's really interesting. Thank you. Elise, please. Yes, I'm just, I'm finding this really really really interesting very curious it's not at all my area but lots of questions popping up. Do you see there are clusters in demographics that react better to your experience. You mentioned that maybe corporate people or older people are not so used to do exercises and these activities like a young youngsters are maybe, but do you see, is there a pattern of age or I don't know, whatever. The clusters are very difficult to crack, I would say, and others are very welcome. This is a question another one I'm thinking about audiences and especially I'm also thinking about how could this be a driver of engaging and more people coming to museums. Yes, you understand as a way of opening museums again to different audiences, which I would say that for instance I'm coming from Portugal would be really key. So, do you see a pattern of people more open to these experiences, and this sort of programs and tours and I will say just from our recent experience. It tends to be an older demographic of people that mean like for our empathy lab it was a lot I mean we also did it in a morning. So it might the time so I think it's experimenting, but we know that older people tend to be more empathic than younger people. And they also I think in especially in this coven age are looking for social connection. So I love your idea of how could we use this as an opportunity to invite people to come back to museums and connect with new people in different communities. So I think that's a really, really strong thing to think about. We might have to talk to our marketing team about that but I think it would be a great way to not just have a passive experience but to join a group and really have an engaging dialogue around artwork and to meet new people and learn new things so I love that idea. I think it's because I saw this in the first, well you know the first reopening of things we had last year is that any in Portugal it is a problem for to take people to museums if you go to a museum you will find other artists or those old people who went to museums all their lives and usually are educated scholar people who actually have done have done that as a routine on their lives and after all of these we've gone through like Mary says and Jennifer, would this be a good, I don't know a good idea of how can we use this sort of thinking to engage with people and really welcome people to museums as a place where they can unlock all of these social fears that most people will have now this problem of engaging the post trauma all of that so I was wondering if that could be in a good way because it is this program it is to crack a bit of the difficulty of people of engaging I would say. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, so this could be a tool just. Yeah, very interesting. Thank you so much. Any more questions or remarks. Ideas to share with. I have a question if that's okay. Hi, sure. And thanks very much, I also find it very interesting. I just have a very practical question. I do you run this empathy tours and empathy labs open to general public so you explain what is to be expected and then people joining or is it only for a class or an corporate group or for, because I would be interested in knowing how, if it is open for general public, how do you manage it and how do you actually manage because I, I like, I'm like, and I would be slightly afraid of this therapeutic expectations of people to have towards such a tour, but I think you would have to have an art therapist who is able to run professionally who can deal with any sort of trauma. And if that happens. I would also imagine that there would have to be very strict kind of guidelines of what you can and can't share and what you can and cannot comment on and so on. And I don't know if unexperienced people commenting on each other's experience is a good idea. I think, you know, it's completely different when it's a, it's a guide who's been trained to deal with these things tactfully, and kind of, if there is any tension of, or any trauma to know how to deal and move on with it and it's completely different if unexperienced participants are commenting on each other's, you know, experiences. So how, how do you, how do you manage this. I have a question I would say with the empathy tours we have marketed we've done those with school groups and with corporate groups so we haven't opened those up to the public. For the empathy lab that we recently did that was open to the public. And like I said, we were very explicit about you know you're going to share it's interactive. We're going to bring up some really good points that we aren't therapists we might not, we might uncover something that we don't know how to handle, or how to work with that person. So I think, again, it's trying to look to outside experts and I think maybe in this after COVID, there's going to be a lot more of that showing up than maybe pre COVID. So I, we do work with art therapists. They're not necessarily on the tours but I think maybe you've given me an idea to really thinking about that trauma informed teaching practices maybe we do need to work with some art therapist and and come up with some ideas that are educators and guides might be able to deal with and handle situations that arise like that so got a lot of I don't have a lot of answers for that but that's really useful information for me to think about. So thank you, justina. And we're also kind of considering for example doing something like that for teens specifically because I think teenagers would have been affected very much by the current situation and we have been talking about well being amongst you know younger audiences. And, you know, it's such a great age of discovery and a lot of that is done through being with others for teenagers. They discovered themselves and discover themselves in their communities so to speak which has been taken away from them. So I would be very interested also you know how you do your empathy labs. And but I might just look at your website and see what's there. Yeah, I love your idea though I'd love to maybe do a teen empathy lab I think that would be a great idea you're right I mean teens have been very impacted having to go to school from home and not being able to socialize so I think that's a great idea. Thank you. Any other question or comment. I have a question. Carlin regarding the digital tools. Are you using digital tools during your activities especially with teens because I understand it's better to not to use the digital technologies or mobile to create empathy also because we know that the young generation use technologies and technologies that do not to create empathy people are alone. But are you using or, of course, are you using after the visit to create a digital storytelling or impression what kind of which kind of tools are are you using or not using So I would say we're not using any digital tools currently it's you know more sketching journaling different and dialogical activities within the tour itself. I will say that we have developed an empathy quiz with the University of California Berkeley and it's on an iPad, but it's a pre and a post. And it's really about kind of test I hate to say the word test, but we're trying to, you know, have some quantitative measurements, and it's really about identifying other people's emotions and perspective taking. And if but it's kind of a fun quiz that you do before the tour and then after the tour, but that's the only digital component so far, but we are also looking very much more for qualitative data so we're are going to be asking questions so I like your idea of maybe digital storytelling as a place for people who have experienced the tour to share their thoughts and responses. So I like that idea, but currently we're not besides the quiz we're not doing anything with digital. Thank you. Anything else. Well, if not, and if I may I have to very quick questions myself. One is, if this philosophy has been embraced by your organization by the museum itself is it in your mission. Are you becoming I've read something about the empathetic museum in the, in the US there's also a website, are you en route to become an empathetic or you are already maybe how much has this been built into the institutional fabric of your organization. And the other question is about you mentioned that you're working with community or you have established a community of practice or community of practice communities of practice. Is there some with universities is there somewhere where you have distilled this knowledge and these experiences there's something written a report a manual whatever that we could share now or in the future. Thank you. Great question. So I will say that this started off as a research project, you know, how can the visual engagement with the visual arts foster empathy, but it got gained such momentum at our institution that I would say we're, we're on our way to being an empathetic museum. We really are very visitor centered so we're caught you know really thinking about our the perspectives and motivations of our visitors how we can help them feel a sense of belonging and welcoming when they come to the museum. How can we help them see themselves, whether it's in the staff or the artwork at the museum, and really thinking about wellness for staff I mean I think like we talked about earlier so we're thinking about that very much we're thinking about it in our. The selection of exhibitions in the curation and design and interpretation of exhibitions and then also in our programs, so it really has become an institutional initiative. And part of the grant that we received to do the research is funding a toolkit. So we will have tools strategies once we can actually do our research. And we will share it'll be a digital free to anyone to use, and then we'll also have kind of a convening to share this and initially it was going to be in person but now we've seen. Like I said we can get a worldwide audience. So we're going to probably be doing a virtual convening to share our research to have you know and share the practices and strategies that we've developed. Probably in the spring of late 2023. So, look for that that will be coming. We really want to share and we want to really anybody who has ideas that can help us move this work or we're very interested in collaboration we believe in multiple perspectives and areas of expertise. So, I've learned so much from all of you today. So, please feel free anytime to reach out. I would love to have further discussion with you and really appreciate your insights and ideas. Thank you so much Carlene and we want to be kept in the loop so we will. Okay, good. Thank you so much I think we can close this webinar. I would like to thank Carlene Gardner first of all, very much for your time. And Paolo and Herman for their presentations and of course Liz from the NEMA office. Liz, it's time to show yourself and say goodbye. Thank you very much for your support behind the scenes, and a good afternoon and morning to to all of us again. Yes, thank you all so much. It was a pleasure. Goodbye.