Museums & Galleries of NSW helps cultural institutions in New South Wales create engaging experiences for visitors and strong communities. It discusses cultural mediation, which involves facilitating understanding of art and ideas through creative exchange. The document also profiles several artists, such as Mel O'Callaghan, and cultural organizations that employ mediation.

1. Mel O'Callaghan, Respire, respire, 2018, performance with glass sculptures and harp 20
minutes, dimensions variable. Installation view Labanque, Bethune, France.
Cultural Mediation in Australia
Rachel Arndt, Museums & Galleries of NSW

2. Museums & Galleries of NSW (M&G NSW) helps museums, galleries
and Aboriginal cultural centres of NSW create exciting and inspiring
experiences for visitors and strong, thriving local communities.
Moving Histories // Future Projections, installation view at Wagga Wagga Art
Gallery, 2019. Pictured: Deborah Kelly, LYING WOMEN, 2016. A dLux Media
Arts exhibition toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW

4. Justene Williams, The Curtain Breathed Deeply, installation view at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2016.
The Curtain Breathed Deeply was curated and developed by Artspace and toured nationally in partnership with
Museums & Galleries of NSW

7. Engaging Art
ArtistTullyArnot delivering an Engaging Art workshop atWagga Wagga ArtGallery, NSW, 2018. PhotoTayla Martin
Gary Hillberg leads students of Girrawheen SHS through his Engaging Art workshop atWanneroo CulturalCentre,WA,
2018. Picture:Will Russell

8. What is Cultural Mediation?
Cultural mediation refers to the
process of gaining and
negotiating knowledge about
the arts and social or scientific
phenomena through
exchange, reaction and
creative response.1
1 Time for Cultural Mediation, Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council, 2012, p.18-19
https://prohelvetia.ch/app/uploads/2017/09/tfcm_0_complete_publication.pdf
Image: Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France. David Griggs, MANILA STRANGE #1 & #2, 2019. Photo

9. Palais de Tokyo

10. - Guide your visitor beyond comprehension
- Show your very personal path among culture, ideas, knowledge
- Consider artists as promoters of the human soul
- Highlight the creativity in each person
- Consider a relationship to art as a necessity
- Be full of empathy
- Sharpen the senses of your audience
- Make differences attractive
- Help your audience to put emotions into words
- Cherish the feeling of being part of something greater
- Encourage states of contemplation
- Demonstrate your own reveries/daydreams with the artworks
Palais de
Tokyo
Marion Buchloh-Kollerbohm, Head of
Mediation
Image: Mel O’Callaghan, To Hear With My Eyes, 2017, installation and performance, leather, brass, steel, cedar tree, water,
20 minutes, dimensions variable. Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2017

11. “We don’t consider our mediators voices
for the institution - they are voices for
themselves”
Marion Buchloh-Kollerbohm, Head of
Mediation
Image: Mel O’Callaghan, To Hear With My Eyes, 2017, installation and performance, leather, brass, steel, cedar tree, water,
20 minutes, dimensions variable. Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2017
“Mediators are not there to change
anyone’s opinion or make them love
contemporary art. They are there to
share a moment”

12. Artist Mel O’Callaghan
Mel O’Callaghan, Ensemble, 2013, installation view at National Gallery of Victoria, 2017.

13. Mel O’Callaghan, Centre of the Centre, 2019, 3 channel HD colour video with sound, 48:9, 20 minutes, installation
at Confort Moderne, France, courtesy the artist and Kronenberg Mais Wright, Sydney; Galerie Allen, Paris; Belo-
Galsterer, Lisbon.

14. Mel O’Callaghan, Respire, respire, 2019, performance and installation at Confort Moderne, France, courtesy
the artist and Kronenberg Mais Wright, Sydney; Galerie Allen, Paris; Belo-Galsterer, Lisbon. Photo: Clemens
Habicht

15. Science Gallery Melbourne
Insert pictures

16. Kaldor Public Art Projects
Photos: Emily Sullivan
“Contemporary art is already
beyond purely visual
contemplation and towards a
multisensory kind of experiential
practice.” Asad Raza

17. “To us growth is an
informed and deeply
engaged audience that
eagerly awaits the next
exhibition, it’s an audience
that holds curiosity and a
growing respect for
contemporary art and are
willing to talk about it.”
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery ‘Art Club’ knitting in response to Katthy Cavaliere: From the permanent
collection
Gina Mobayed, Director, Goulburn Regional Art
Gallery
“What we strive for is a level of
engagement that inspires the
potential of connection within each
individual visitor……”

18. Where to next?
Cultural Mediation in Practice workshop

19. Mel O’Callaghan Centre of the Centre Tour
Goulburn Regional Art Gallery NSW 14 May – 26 June 2021
Latrobe Regional Gallery VIC 10 July – 29 August 2021
The Glasshouse, Port Macquarie NSW 11 September – 7 November 2021
Western Plains Cultural Centre NSW
20 November 2021 – 6 February
2022
Tamworth Regional Gallery NSW 18 February – 10 April 2022
Bega Valley Regional Gallery NSW 23 April - 19 June 2022
Samstag Museum of Art SA 1 July – 23 September 2022
Burnie Regional Gallery TAS 17 February - 16 April 2023

20. Mel O’Callaghan, Respire, respire, 2019, performance and installation at
Artspace, Sydney with participants from Cultural Mediation in Practice workshop.
Photo: Document Photography

21. Rachel Arndt
Gallery Programs & Touring Exhibitions Manager
MUSEUMS & GALLERIES OF NSW
rachela@mgnsw.org.au
02 9339 9906
www.mgnsw.org.au
Twitter: @msrachelearndt @mgnsw
Instagram: @rachelearndt @mgnsw
Contact details