Marianne Bargeman

Visit the SMK, The National Gallery of Denmark website.

Marianne Grymer Bargeman is head of the Children & Youth Department at SMK, The National Gallery of Denmark and winner of the Children in Museums Award 2014.

Lessons learned

For many years, SMK has produced exhibitions for children that incorporate works of art. This year, we started a new research project to learn more about how children experience these exhibitions. The project will take its point of departure in the current children’s exhibition What makes a home?, and it will focus on the interaction between exhibition and child – and the quality of this interaction. What do we learn when we start to analyze children’s movement patterns throughout the exhibition? What can we learn from their drawings, videos and photos taken during the visit? Finally, what kind of conversations take place during the visit and afterwards? This presentation will share some of the conclusions of this research project.

Five Questions for Nina Lim Yuson

 

Marianne, what is your favorite museum/science center and why?

My favorite museum is Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam because of the fantastic collection, the entrances, the wardrobe by Rieki Somers, and the Video Room by Pipilotti Rist.

Best exhibition ever?

The best exhibition was James Turell’s retrospective at the Guggenheim in 2013, particularly the light installation in the famous rotunde (Aten Reign). I can also highly recommend the installation H by Ingvar Cronhammar at the Cisterns in Copenhagen. The piece is housed in a 4.320 square meter underground space that once contained the drinking water supply for the Danish capital. It will be showing until November 29, 2015.

Why should we come and listen to your lecture at the conference?

You should come to my lecture if you are interested in more research in the field of children at museums.

What is the greatest challenge for museums/science centers working with children in the future?

The greatest challenge for art museums working with children is to combine the active behavior of children with real art works, which you are generally not allowed to touch. It is a daily challenge!

What is the greatest opportunity for museums/science centers working with children in the future?

The greatest opportunity for museums is to make the world a better place.

On winning the Children in Museums Award:

The Children in Museums Award is very important. Not just to the SMK, but to all of us working professionally with children at museums. It gives us great pleasure to see how this award helps attract increasing focus on the work done for children – and, importantly, on the quality of such work.