On 18 May 2019, International Museum Day, ten young people from Russia gathered at the State Hermitage to participate in the first session of the International Youth Consultative Board (IYCB) of the Russian-Dutch project Museum 15/24.
In the Council Hall of the State Hermitage, the curator of the IYCB, senior researcher of the State Hermitage Irina Bagdasarova, passed on a welcome and wishes for fruitful collective work from the General Director of the State Hermitage, Mikhail Piotrovsky. The participants received best wishes on International Museum Day, the theme of which in 2019 is “Museums as centres of culture: the future of tradition”.
The Russian members of the IYCB were informed about the project’s aims and immediate plans by the project organizers: Zorina Myskova, chairwoman of the board of the Hermitage 21st Century Foundation, and Svetlana Datsenko, a representative of the Hermitage–Amsterdam Exhibition Centre. Liubov Kozlovskaya, a member of the board of the Hermitage 21st Century Foundation, spoke about the publishing programme preparation and the tasks of shaping it facing the members of the IYCB.
Yelena Perova, Deputy Director for the Development of Cultural Programmes at the Institute of Finland in St Petersburg, was a guest at the meeting and presented the members of the IYCB with five new books published by the Institute and devoted to Finnish art and culture for the project of a youth library in the State Hermitage.
The members of the Russian section of the IYCB visited the State Hermitage Research Library accompanied by its head, Yevgeny Platonov, who spoke about the history of the library and its fields of activity and also showed the group unique publications from the museum storage of the Cabinet of Rare Books.
At the end of the meeting, the participants recorded video greetings to their Dutch counterparts in the International Youth Consultative Board and agreed on further cooperation on the project.
The Museum 15/24 project
The Museum 15/24 project is a complex innovative programme for the State Hermitage being implemented by an international consortium made up of the Hermitage–Amsterdam Exhibition Centre, the Hermitage 21st Century Foundation, and the Outsider Art Museum (Netherlands). The project is part of the Dutch-based international programme Creative Twinning.
The aims of the project are to develop new methods of involving young people aged 15–24 in traditional and innovative museum practices with museums in Russia and abroad, educational and research institutions in Russia and the Netherlands.
The International Youth Consultative Board
Eleven young people from the Netherlands and ten from Russia in the relevant age group come together to discuss and implement the Museum 15/24 project initiative. Board members will also act as experts to assess proposals and the results of work on all aspects of the project.
