Museo Barda del Desierto
MUSEO BARDA DEL DESIERTO
Members: María Eugenia Cordero, Belén Arenas Arce, Cecilia Maletti, Flavia Visconte, Andrea Beltramo
Year of Establishment: 2014 – Present
Location: Contralmirante Cordero, Río Negro, Argentina
Contact: [email protected]
Description, Concept and Objectives
The Museo Barda del Desierto (mBDD), located on a seventy-hectare site as a contemporary art ecomuseum, engages with the cultural geography of its territory and its connection to social, communal, environmental, and territorial issues of the steppe region. It promotes transdisciplinary research across science, architecture, and the arts.
From a territorial perspective, the mBDD recognizes the significance of cultural geography as a critical and reflective tool. It seeks to revalue the steppe region through cultural production and reflection, strengthening emotional connections with the identity of the landscape. The museum fosters environmental awareness and encourages dialogue among local residents, artists, researchers, theorists, and curators, both nationally and internationally, while advocating for cultural decentralization from major urban centers.
Activities
A central component of the museum’s work lies in its art-educational programs, which aim to question the concept of the desert and challenge understandings of shared territory in collaboration with the local community. Key programs include:
-Exchange and Training Practices [PIF]: Aimed at regional educators, this initiative fosters exchange between learning and creative processes, encouraging reflection on contemporary ways of thinking, seeing, and making art, and bringing participants closer to situated artistic practices.
-LAT/LONG Circuit, Latitude/Longitude: An art-educational tool designed for children and youth, offering practical exercises to pedagogically engage with the territory.
-Guided Tour: An immersive bodily experience within the museum, guided by signage inspired by the work The Museum Is a School, featuring thought-provoking questions.
These activities are designed to integrate diverse sectors of the community into the museum’s languages and can be activated at different times throughout the year.
Difficulties
The museum faces persistent economic challenges in all its activities. Additionally, it lacks institutional support from local authorities. Insufficient funding, weak institutional backing, limited communication and outreach capacity, and a general lack of understanding of the project from various stakeholders constitute major barriers to the sustainability of the civil association that supports it.
Future Challenges
The most urgent challenge is to establish a sustainable resource system to ensure the continuity of the team and its programs. As part of its research and curatorial development, the museum proposes a collaborative program with artists, architects, scientists, and the local community with the following goals:
-Build a narrative research body addressing specific theoretical frameworks, aligned with the museum’s thematic axes and contributing to artistic and territorial heritage.
-Design and activate art-educational, pedagogical, and applied research tools within the framework of innovation and development (R&D).
-Organize cycles of gatherings to explore new curatorial approaches to the museum’s collection.
-Promote curatorial and exhibition proposals born from interpretative and narrative intersections, creating new ecosystems between art and science, digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and fluid architectural boundaries.
