VI. Education Through Art Workshop Conference: Art as Experience – Museum Pedagogy

The Research Institute of Art Theory and Methodology at the Hungarian Academy of Arts (MMA MMKI) is holding the VI. Education Through Art Workshop Conference on 8 June 2026 in the Makovecz Hall of the Pesti Vigadó. Museum pedagogy will be in the spotlight during this year’s conference.

The title of the workshop conference, “Art as Experience – Museum Pedagogy”, aims to draw attention to the fact that art is not only a collection of works to be observed, knowledge to be passed on or cultural content to be relayed, but a living form of experience as well. Museums can be one of the key settings for education through art: an environment where encounters with works of art, stories, and spaces can be transformed into personal experiences, shared reflection and even acts of creation. Explaining the displayed artworks is not the only purpose of museum pedagogical work. Rather, it creates opportunities for visitors, children, young people and adults, to connect with art through their own questions, experiences and sensitivities. The revelation that art can improve attentiveness, self-reflection, empathy, creative thinking and the ability to connect socially is the common ground for education through art and museum pedagogy. Engaging with an artwork is therefore not just the one-way acquisition of knowledge but a more open and interpretive approach: an experience in which the visitor is an active interpreter rather than just a passive observer.

The presentations will examine the challenges faced today by museum pedagogy from an organisational and methodological perspective. Discussion will be held about the connection between museums and schools, the relationship of curatorial interpretation and visitor experience, the issues related to social accessibility, the possibilities of the STEAM framework, the museum education practices linked to urban cultural events and about the creative processes in which the participants aren’t just passive recipients, but active members creating meaning drawn from their own experiences.

The event will be divided into two thematic sections. The first section, titled “The Challenges of Museum Pedagogy”, focuses on the questions regarding contemporary museum interpretation from a wider, organisational and societal standpoint. The second section, “Shaping Perspective”, will showcase useful practices, methodological examples and pedagogical situations in which creation, experimentation, collective thinking and personal experience take centre stage.

Led by István Sinkó and Judit Szepesi, a roundtable discussion will close the conference. This discussion will grant the opportunity for the questions raised throughout the presentations to be transformed into professional, community-based reflections: what form of museum pedagogy is needed today, how can a true connection be established between an artwork, an institution and a visitor, and how can a museum become a pivotal space for education through art.

Please indicate your intention to participate through the MMA MMKI website or via email to muveszettelneveles@mma-mmki.hu by 5 June 2026 at the latest.