Mobility Scheme: State Museums of Upper Austria

In all, the stats’ museums are home to some eighteen million exhibits and attract close to 200,000 visitors a year.

Schlossmuseum Linz is Austria’s largest single-venue universal museum. Its collections take up more than 18,500 m² of floor space and illustrate Upper Austria’s natural and cultural history from the first stirrings of life approximately 250 million years ago to the first human settlements and right up to the 20th century. Focusing on topical international and/or regional themes, four temporary exhibitions are annually held and reflect issues or themes found in the permanent exhibitions.

The Landesgalerie Linz is the province of Upper Austria’s museum of modern and contemporary art. It enables its visitors to stay in touch with the latest trends in art by putting the latter into the context of 20th-century art history. Concepts for the comparative presentation of regional, national and international art are being established on a long-term basis.

The Biologiezentrum collects, conserves, researches, documents and offers insights into the animal, plant and mineral world. It houses zoological, botanical and geosciences collections; an archive; a natural history library, an eco park that functions both as a collection of live specimens and as a mediation venue; and a DNA lab to facilitate research into systematic and phylogenetic issues.

Cultural Mediation: What is common to all venues is the high priority accorded to cultural mediation. Close to 2,500 mediation programmes a year cater for c. 43,000 visitors, the bulk representing activities involving children and teenagers. We have been making every effort over the past few years to address the elderly and migrants through specially organised mediation (Memory Café and Know How Upper Austria). The aim is to establish a relationship based on participation and to create ties between the visitor groups and our museums. One of our main projects this year has been the installation of special encounter and experience areas devised for visitors of all age groups in our collection presentations in the Schlossmuseum Linz. We hope to come up with new ideas and gain practical experience in encountering and catering for adult target groups in our museum learning venues as a result of our participation in the LEM scheme.

Type of mobility

Job shadowing

Length of stay

Job shadowing: max 2 weeks

Characteristics of applicants

Individuals applying for job shadowing/placements should preferably have a background in mediation work with adults, especially in education and encounter projects with adults, and also in the planning and installation of museum learning venues. We are also interested in colleagues who will be able to translate into English or Czech for us.

Period and activities

March and April 2012

There will be a number of events in this period dedicated to older people (Memory Café) and to migrants (Know How Upper Austria). In addition we are organising a conference on our LEM issue ”Museums as learning places” together with the museum academy Joanneum (Graz).

July 2012

The end of the school year is the period when we hold most of the learning and encounter events we organise for school classes. In mid July we hold a large-scale event for families (The Long Night of the Family) and also special school holiday events for children and young people lasting several days.

September and October

Our biggest mediation event of the year (The Long Night of the Museums) is held at the beginning of October. We will also be offering our encounter and mediation events for older people and migrants at this period.

What can a job-shadower expect?

• Involvement in organising mediation events for different target groups
• Internships in organising mediation events for different target groups
• Assisting in the development of new mediation programs

Number of job shadowing placements

2 people per period, depending on the period and type of activity.