Engaging New Museum Audience Through Art Workshops: The Case of “Adult Art” at Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art

Based on its experience on educational programs and acting as a contemporary institution that responses to social changes, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, a private, non-profit institution in Thessaloniki, has organized and implemented in the past, large-scale art workshops for immigrants and unemployed people, in the framework of co-funded programs by the European Integration Fund and by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, respectively. The precious experience from the programs, as well as from the museum’s multidimensional educational activity, determined the mapping process of the audience’s learning needs and led to the realization of “Adult Art”, a financially self-supporting and sustainable workshop addressed exclusively to adults. Adopting an innovative combination of the theoretical presentation with the experiential process of artistic creation, the workshop offers new museum experiences to the attendants, which promote a better understanding on contemporary art and the familiarization with the museum space. Being implemented for three consecutive years with a constantly increasing number of participants, Adult Art manages to fulfill MMCA’s mission statement for being an “engaging museum” while responding to the museum’s current needs. In terms of “audience development”, it reflects an initiative that creates new perspectives for the further integration of adult education in museum sites.