The Outdoor Project

Artistic Director of the Museo Novecento, Sergio Risaliti, has launched a new initiative in collaboration with MUS.E, the cultural mediation association for Florence’s civic museums. The Outdoor project is, as its name suggests, dedicated to moving the artworks outside the museum and bringing them, quite literally, to the people. The goal is to better promote and valorize the museum’s collections and to forge connections with other institutions in the area, even those whose main mission is outside the world of culture and the arts.

The project was launched with an experimental presentation on November 14 at the Istituto Comprensivo Oltrarno, where Risaliti and members of the museum’s staff spoke to middle school students about the painting Natura morta con carpa e conchiglie e limoni nel paesaggio di Pomposa by Filippo De Pisis. The visit included a demonstration of the delicate steps taken to transport an artwork, showing the students how the piece would be unloaded from its crate after reaching its destination, followed by a brief analysis by a restorer that allowed the students to examine the work up close and an activity dedicated to the artist which was led by MUS.E. A hands-on part is also planned for the future.

The aim of the Outdoor project is to display paintings and sculptures from the museum’s collections in schools, hospitals, prisons, centres for the elderly, libraries and companies in order to promote knowledge about the museum’s patrimony by moving it to locations that are visited on a daily basis and to encourage interaction with the artwork and the museum as a whole. Each event will include a presentation about the work and its artist by a mediator.