Sculpture, Archaeology and Museums
Sara Navarro explores the potential role of contemporary sculpture in communicating archaeology in museums. Combining her training in sculpture and her professional experience in the museum context, Sara explores the way how contemporary art – particularly sculpture – can be included in archaeological research with the aim to develop new ways of thinking and representing, communicating and displaying. Focused on ceramics production, Sara proposes to develop innovative museum strategies which, because they include the display of contemporary sculpture in archaeological contexts, activate the agency ability of the visitors so that their experience becomes more active, free and subjective. Sculpture makes it easier for visitors to be physically involved, confronting them with its presence and leading them to discover its shape, its matter, its detail. These aspects may draw and keep the attention of the visitors, encouraging them to independently explore the meanings of the work and of the archaeological context where it is displayed. Sara believes that the display of contemporary works of art in archaeological settings can be, besides good-to-look-at, good-to think-about insofar as it changes the place and challenges the visitors, re-orienting them towards an innovative commitment between the contemporary and the archaeological character of the space.
Sara Navarro (Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Belas-Artes, Centro de Investigação e de Estudos em Belas-Artes, Portugal); contact - saranavarrocondesso@gmail.com
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