Lucie Fitton, Head of Learning and Participation & Katie Moffat, Head of Digital, at The Audience Agency, designed and developed a series of bespoke workshops for museums in Peru and Chile. The pair worked with museums from across both countries as part of the MEET Museums British Council programme. The workshop sessions covered a wide range of learning, community engagement and digital related topics and were aimed at equipping the participants to develop and improve their learning, engagement and digital strategies.

The Fit

The Audience Agency has extensive experience of delivering training and facilitating workshops, both throughout the UK and internationally. Both Katie and Lucie have, for many years, worked closely with the museums sector, developing an in-depth knowledge of the challenges facing museum professionals. They have many examples of best practice and innovation in the area of learning, community engagement and in relation to the use of digital tools and technologies, to share and build upon.

The Task

Unlike in the UK, there are extremely few opportunities for individuals from museums in Peru and Chile to get together for the purpose of professional development and very little in the way of formal funding to support training programmes. The British Council in Peru developed a two-year programme, in partnership with Museo de Arte de Lima – MALI, which provided a collaborative platform between the museum sector in Peru and the UK. Through a series of lectures, workshops and master classes, different strategies and themes were explored, to address the needs and challenges facing the museum sector in the 21st century.

The Project

Initially, Katie Moffat participated in the first year of the programme, running two workshops in each country, covering digital strategy and content development. She also gave a talk in both countries on the future of museums and technology. Katie was invited back for the second year, and the sessions were expanded to include workshops by Lucie Fitton. In June 2018 Katie and Lucie delivered four workshops in each country. The content for each workshop was bespoke for the programme and designed to meet the specific challenges of the museums involved.

The workshops were interactive and developed to accommodate different learning styles. Rather than being merely knowledge transfer, their style encouraged participants to explore, debate, question and to ultimately embed the learning. On the learning side, topics included developing a learning strategy, using the collections as inspiration for learning resources and learning evaluation. The sessions on digital also covered a wide range of topics including taking a user-centred approach, developing creative ideas for digital engagement and measuring the impact of your digital activity. All sessions were delivered in English but simultaneously translated.