Modern strategies for the democratisation of culture modified traditional exhibition practices, when the public silently looked at works of art. Today, the key words for the museum community are participation and engagement. Museum professionals working in education departments develop programmes and methodologies that allow visitors to become active participants in the processes of creating and comprehending exhibitions. These educational models, known as «Cultural Mediation» or «Gallery Education», «inclusion» and / or «art therapy», acquire different meanings in different institutional contexts, and are interpreted differently by museum specialists.

This dialogues series is an attempt to consider various experiences, including educational initiatives, both as agents for expanding the notion of social inclusion, and as a territories of collision of various interests that promote (or resist) the emergence of new forms of dialogue, interaction and relationships within cultural institutions.

The design of the discussion is inspired by the style of Vasily Olenin, an artist working in the art studio of the St. Petersburg Charity organisation «Perspectivy».