Siena museums present programmatic guidelines for the next three years

Attention to young people, dialogue with the territory and local communities, openness to new audiences, focus on Agenda 2030 issues, museums as a space dedicated to exchanges, discussion, and active citizenship. The Fondazione Musei Senesi (FMS) has announced its new programmatic guidelines for the three-year period 2024/2026, aiming to strengthen the role of museums as cultural collectors and promoters of active citizenship. With a focus on alliances, sustainability, participation, and dialogue, FMS charts the future path to enhance Siena’s museum heritage. The Foundation now has 50 museums spread over a territory of more than 3 thousand square kilometers on which 4 Unesco sites insist and which involves 31 municipalities in the province of Siena, as well as institutions such as the Curia, the University degli Studi di Siena, the Monte dei Paschi Foundation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Accademia dei Fisiocritici, the Jewish Community of Florence and Siena, the Historical Institute of the Resistance and Contemporary Age and the Felice Ippolito Museum of Antarctica. A system that, in 2023, welcomed more than 900,000 visitors to its museums.

Starting in 2024, meanwhile, there will be an expansion of the museum network: in fact, the City of Siena returns to the Foundation, and there is a new membership, that of the City of San Casciano dei Bagni. As far as the Municipality is concerned, a collaboration has already been started, which begins with the organization of DIDAday, an open day dedicated to museum education in Siena’s museums. As for San Casciano dei Bagni, there will be a dialogue that will go into the concrete with the planning of the new museum dedicated to the bronzes found in the archaeological excavations of Bagno Grande.

The guidelines for the next three years will be under the banner of four main goals: storytelling, community building, alliance building, Agenda 2030. On heritage storytelling, FMS aims to interpret museum collections, put them in dialogue with each other, and in particular make them dialogue with contemporary expressions. The “Vis-à-Vis” initiative will foster a confrontation between historical collections and the visual, performing arts, music and poetry. In addition, research exhibitions on the Etruscans and the Sienese Middle Ages are being prepared, with the involvement of art historians and archaeologists.

For the goal of “making community,” the foundation aims to create an active community around museums by promoting educational and cultural paths. With the goal of transforming museums into places of community well-being, FMS will expand educational offerings by involving more than 30,000 students. School tourism will be enhanced; there will be an Open Day reserved for teachers on September 7, organized at Santa Maria della Scala; thematic itineraries dedicated to various historical periods, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary age, will be built. Special attention will also be paid to fragile audiences, with projects such as “Cultural Ecosystems,” an unprecedented project financed by the Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Foundation, and with the continuation of decades-long activities with the Tuscan network of “Museums and Alzheimer’s.”

On the alliances front, FMS will continue to build and consolidate partnerships with cultural actors in the area. The FMS Card, the museum card that offers benefits in partnership with major festivals in the area, will now also include the Accademia Musicale Chigiana, as well as the various live performance programs and schedules held in the Siena area. The “Florere” project, funded by the Monte dei Paschi Foundation’s “Reset” program, will promote sustainable cultural practices. Collaborations with private entities, such as the Azienda Agricola Carpineto (which will open its farm museum with agricultural tools, books and objects that tell two hundred years of viticulture and oenology), will further enrich the museum network. Finally, FMS will promote a renewed strategic vision of tourism by putting itself forward as a subject for co-designing strategic actions with the various spheres of tourism.

Finally, FMS will focus on heritage education, inclusion, gender policies and sustainability, in line with the goals of Agenda 2030. Specific projects will aim to coordinate UNESCO sites in the province of Siena and support territories on the “tentative list.” Particular attention will be paid to breaking down gender stereotypes with the “Arte RiGenerata” project, in collaboration with the Province of Siena and the University of Siena, which aims to reread museum works from a gender perspective.

With these new programmatic lines, Fondazione Musei Senesi aims to position itself as a key player in the promotion of culture and active community participation, and to chart a course of growth and enhancement of museum heritage for the coming years.

“The strategic guidelines we are presenting today,” says FMS President Alessandro Ricceri, “outline the future of the Foundation based on key concepts we hold dear: the enhancement of museum heritage with the goal of improving the visitor experience and to narrate the content of the collections in a contemporary and engaging way; the building of an active and collaborative community around museums; the strengthening of a network of relationships to create an organic cultural district connected to the territory, capable of generating meaningful experiences for communities and tourists; the need to align with the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, proposing projects that adapt these goals to the Sienese museum context.”

“The Fondazione Musei Senesi,” adds coordinator Carolina Taddei, “is thus projecting itself into the future with ambitious planning, aiming to consolidate relationships with cultural players in the area and to forge new ones, becoming a pivot for cultural offerings in the province of Siena. There is still tomorrow for the collections of Siena’s museums: FMS intends to concretize in the next three years an innovative and inclusive cultural vision, linked to contemporaneity, ready to break down barriers and stretching towards the new generations.”

Siena museums present programmatic guidelines for the next three years

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