Abstract
Imagine music is more than what you hear, it‘s a feeling, movement, energy that resonates within you. ‘Flow with Bedřich Smetana in a World of Silence‘ is a collaborative educational project between the National Museum of the Czech Republic and the NGO Tichý svět (Silent World) that seeks to connect the Deaf and hearing communities through the universal language of art. Created as a special program accompanying the temporary exhibition ‘My Country‘, dedicated to the iconic symphonic poem cycle by Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, the project draws inspiration from the composer’s personal experience of hearing loss. Aimed at students aged 11–18, both with and without hearing impairments, the program invites participants to engage with classical music through embodied, multisensory experiences. It includes a dialogue-based exhibition tour led by a museum educator, followed by a hands-on workshop with a Silent World lecturer, featuring expressive somatic etudes. This paper presents the co-creation process behind the educational program, detailing its structure and collaborative approach. It also introduces findings from an accompanying action research study, which explored participants‘ experiences of perceiving music through the lens of the Deaf community, and examined how the program may have influenced their creative self-expression and intercultural understanding. Project collaborators include the author and Marie Horáková (Silent World).
Presenters
Barbora HodulákováMuseum Educator, Education and Cultural Activities, National Museum of the Czech Republic, Praha, hlavní mesto, Czech Republic
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
MUSEUM EDUCATION, DEAF CULTURE, MULTISENSORY LEARNING, ACTION RESEARCH, CROSS-SECTOR COLLABORATION
