This morning in the café of the Museum Center of Trani the atmosphere was full of enthusiasm, even after a few hours of sleep, in the sleeping bags arranged in the courtyard. “I am sure that this experience will mark in a special way the way in which these children will enter a museum in the future, and this was precisely the spirit with which we conceived and organized this special night: thus Graziano Urbano, director of the museum center and creator of this new edition of “Night at the Museum”.
Lights off in the museum, at night, just like in the atmosphere of the well-known American film, along a path illuminated only by torches, the children were led into the lapidary, into the rooms where the precious finds of the diocesan museum are kept and obviously into the space of extraordinary collection of typewriters, considered one of the most important in the world. Between the stories and the “psss psss…” evoked by majestic bronze busts and figures engraved in the bas-reliefs, after the screening of the film the children were involved in a creative workshop, with artefacts which they were then able to take home as evidence of a shared art experience, right in the place that celebrates art and reality every day. Make it clear that the museum is a living, vital place, not a mere exhibition of works that only connoisseurs can understand, inculcate in children the concept that art has the possibility of speaking in a special way to each one, ready to perceive in a serene, without filters: we can swear that from now on these children will have a different attraction for museums, not as boring places, but as places in which it is possible to interact, if not in workshops like these, even during a simple visit. Because without cell phones, without sharing on social media, what we tried to make work was the stimulus to imagination, to fantasy, to the trigger that art is capable of creating in everyone’s heart. And in children in particular, certainly, without the conditioning of the history of art and the opinions of critics, in an authentic, free and pure way. Also happy were the parents who confidently entrusted their little ones to the director of the Museum – who, let us remember, has an important experience as a teacher – and to his staff: tired from a sleepless night even in the dark, but visibly satisfied with the results obtained. And after croissants and coffee with milk, everyone goes home, with many things to tell and a pure enthusiasm that in an increasingly virtual world gives confidence in a humanity that remains authentic through these new generations. But also through these beautiful initiatives: “It is just the beginning of a series of summer cultural events that we are about to present- added Graziano Urbano -e which we have developed and imagined precisely to offer the city a summer that is not only made up of sea and clubs but also of interesting and intriguing proposals, for both children and adults”.
