Cultural Mediation in Practice: Insights from Artist Mel O’Callaghan

Resource: Museums & Galleries of NSW

In this video, contemporary Australian artist Mel O’Callaghan reflects on her experience of working with professional cultural mediators in European institutions. Drawing from her artistic practice, she offers valuable insights into how cultural mediation can shape not only audience engagement, but also the work of artists and cultural producers themselves.

Cultural mediation is widely recognised across Europe as a key approach to connecting audiences with art and ideas. It involves processes of dialogue, exchange, and creative response, opening up multiple ways of understanding and experiencing artworks. Mediators play an essential role within museums and galleries by expanding access, encouraging participation, and enriching the visitor experience.

This session is part of a workshop presented by Museums & Galleries of NSW in partnership with Artspace, exploring both the theoretical and practical dimensions of cultural mediation. Alongside talks, the programme includes hands-on activities designed to introduce participants to the fundamentals of mediation and to support the development of skills for working as an art mediator.

This video is particularly relevant for educators, artists, and cultural professionals interested in participatory practices and new approaches to audience engagement.

In this episode of MeWell Talks, cultural mediator Karen Vanhercke introduces the practice of art-based dialogue as a method for deepening perception, expanding awareness, and reconnecting with our senses.

Framed as both a dialogue method and a form of liberation from habitual ways of seeing, this session invites participants to slow down and engage with art beyond quick judgment and surface interpretation.

At the core of this approach are three interconnected dimensions:
- Embodiment – experiencing art through the body
- Time – allowing perception to unfold gradually
- Language – sharing and shaping meaning through dialogue

Through a guided collective viewing of a sculpture, participants move between observation and perception, exploring associations, sensations, and interpretations. The process demonstrates how meaning is not fixed, but emerges through shared attention, presence, and dialogue.

🔹 In this video, you will explore:
- How slowing down transforms the way we experience art
- The relationship between observation and perception
- How embodied attention deepens engagement
- The role of dialogue in meaning-making
- How art-based dialogue supports awareness, agency, and reflection
- Why there is no single “correct” interpretation

This episode also highlights how art can become a space for both wellbeing and disruption—where participants can feel, reflect, question, and connect in a safe and open environment.

🙏 Special thanks to all contributors and participants involved in the session.

In this episode of MeWell Talks, artist and cultural mediator Charlotte Simon shares her practice at the intersection of visual arts, performance, and cultural mediation.
With over 17 years of experience working in museums and educational contexts, Charlotte reflects on how improvisation, playfulness, and creative processes can open meaningful spaces for expression, connection, and participation.

In this short video, cultural mediator Nina Mayer shares her approach to working with people living with dementia through multisensory cultural mediation.

The session demonstrates how simple yet thoughtful methods—such as starting with everyday objects, engaging multiple senses, and creating a calm, respectful atmosphere—can open meaningful opportunities for participation, expression, and connection.

Resource: MuseumMediatorsEU

This video features an interview recorded during the Lisbon Meeting in November 2012 as part of the Museum Mediators Europe project. Conducted by external evaluator Joaquim Jorge, the conversation with Cristina da Milano offers a critical reflection on the professional realities of museum educators and cultural mediators.

Resource: DAISSy Research Group

This video presents insights from the International Conference “Enhancing the Skills and Identity of a Cultural Mediator in a Multicultural Europe” (ESI-CM 2014), held at the Hellenic Open University in Patras, Greece.

Resource: MO Museum

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are,” – this idea by Anaïs Nin becomes the starting point of this video.

Karen, an educator at the MO Museum and curator of the children’s exhibition “A Lake Full of Stars,” introduces the Visual Thinking Strategies method – one of the core elements of MO’s educational practice. She shares how this approach helps not only to engage with art, but also to develop critical thinking, empathy, and the ability to listen to others.

Resource: Papasakok plačiau

Art educator Karen Vanhercke introduces the Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) method. VTS is a dialogue-based teaching approach that brings educators and participants into active conversation. It was developed by cognitive psychologist Abigail Housen and museum educator Philip Yenawine.

Resource: GARAGEMCA

This video is part of a series of online seminars developed in connection with the Russian edition of Time for Cultural Mediation by Carmen Mörsch and colleagues. The series brings together educators, curators, and researchers from Switzerland and Russia to reflect on key questions of cultural mediation and to exchange perspectives on its meanings, goals, and possibilities.

Resource: Power | Gender and Power through and in Art

This video, presented by the French partner Élan Interculturel, introduces Werner Moron’s method of art mediation, focusing on the concepts of the “real path” and the “imaginary path.” It explains how this approach works in practice and how it can be used to guide participants through reflective and creative processes in art mediation settings.

Resource: Museums & Galleries of NSW

In this video, Marion Buchloh-Kollerbohm, Head of Cultural Mediation at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, shares how cultural mediation is understood and implemented within her institution. She reflects on how this practice has evolved through collaboration with artist Mel O’Callaghan, highlighting the ways in which artistic processes can shape and expand mediation approaches.

Resource: Museums & Galleries of NSW

In this video, Lee Casey, Head of Communications and Engagement at Science Gallery Melbourne (University of Melbourne), explores how cultural mediation can be used as a powerful communication and participatory tool within a museum context. Drawing from institutional practice, he reflects on how mediation helps engage visitors with complex, thought-provoking ideas at the intersection of art, science, and society.

Resource: Museums & Galleries of NSW

In this video, Emily Sullivan, Curator at Kaldor Public Art Projects, reflects on a recent project developed with artist Asad Raza, focusing on the “cultivators” programme. She shares insights into how cultural mediation operates within the context of public art, where engagement extends beyond traditional exhibition formats into participatory, process-driven experiences.

Resource: Teacher Education About Multilingualism - TEAM

This screencast explores cultural mediation within social contexts, focusing on its role in enabling communication across languages and supporting equitable access to participation. It introduces key characteristics of mediation, while also reflecting on the roles, responsibilities, and limits of cultural mediators from both epistemological and ethical perspectives.

Resource: IntercultureTV

This video offers a clear and practical introduction to mediation and intercultural mediation, explaining how conflicts arise, why they escalate, and how they can be constructively resolved through dialogue.

Starting from everyday conflict situations—both private and professional—the video presents mediation as a structured, solution-oriented process that helps parties move beyond emotional reactions toward mutual understanding and agreement. It highlights mediation as an alternative to formal legal procedures, emphasizing collaboration rather than competition.

Source: Culture Days – Fête de la culture

In this short interview, Alexis Andrew from the Canada Council for the Arts shares her perspective on cultural mediation and its role in connecting people with art.

She describes cultural mediation as a process that supports the public in engaging with artworks and artists more deeply—through tools that help bridge understanding and create richer, more meaningful experiences.

Resource: Power | Gender and Power through and in Art

This video introduces a creative and reflective method titled “Real Journey / Imagined Journey”, inspired by Belgian artist Werner Moron. The exercise is designed to explore questions of gender, identity, and personal experience through writing, imagination, and artistic thinking.

⚠️ Note: This video is in French, with English subtitles available.

Source: The Munch Museum

This video offers a personal and reflective perspective on art mediation, inviting viewers to rethink how they experience and interpret art.

At its core is a simple but powerful idea: your way of seeing matters. Rather than adapting to a single “correct” way of looking, you are encouraged to trust your own voice, your presence, and your perspective within the exhibition space.

Resource: REACT Culture

In this presentation, Gina Popa, cultural mediator at the “Moldova” National Museum Complex of Iași, explores the evolving role of digital cultural mediation and how it differs from traditional, on-site approaches in museums.

Resource: Proko

In this engaging session, artist and instructor Tim Gula introduces a powerful drawing exercise based on spontaneity, intuition, and creative freedom. Drawing from his experiences working alongside legendary artists such as Frank Frazetta, Moebius, and Jack Kirby, he shares insights into how great artists develop imagination and maintain creative energy.

Resource: GARAGEMCA

In the second session on the theme “What does art mediation do?” hosts Susanne Kudorfer and Alexander Ivanov will talk about their practice and share their experience of creating educational projects and art mediation programs in cultural institutions in Switzerland and Russia. This seminar will focus on putting together a multilingual Reader on Art Mediation collectively with the participants.

Resource: GARAGEMCA

In the opening session of "Who does art mediation?" Charlotte Laubard and Alexey Boyko look at the figure of the art mediator and explore their agency within different institutional and social contexts. What stance does the art mediator take and to what extent do they identify themselves with the institution on behalf of which they speak? Is their practice research-based, and what kind of research is it, scientific or artistic?

Resource: Museums & Galleries of NSW

Widely recognised as an invaluable tool by institutions across Europe, cultural mediation generally refers to the process of gaining and negotiating knowledge about the arts and social or scientific phenomena through exchange, reaction and creative response. Cultural mediators work within organisations to improve the quality of the public’s visit to the museum or gallery and to broaden the possible ways of experiencing and interacting with an object and its context.

Cultural Mediation in Practice: Insights from Artist Mel O’Callaghan

MeWell Talks Episode #3 | Slowing Down, Sensing and Meaning-Making with Karen Vanhercke

MeWell Talks Episode #2 | Play, Improvisation and Cultural Mediation with Charlotte Simon

MeWell Talks Episode #1 | Working with Dementia in Cultural Mediation with Nina Mayer

Cultural Mediation in Question: Cristina da Milano on Practice and Precarity

Educating the Cultural Mediator in Europe ESΙ CM Conference 2014

Visual thinking strategy. Told by MO educator Karen

Methods of art education with Karen Vanhercke

Introductory session. A series of online seminars: Time for Cultural Mediation?

Werner Moron's method "Real path/Imaginary path": how to conduct an art mediation workshop

Defining Cultural Mediation in Practice: Insights from Palais de Tokyo

Cultural Mediation as Engagement: Insights from Science Gallery Melbourne

Cultivating Participation: Cultural Mediation in Public Art Practice

Cultural Mediation Beyond the Museum: Language, Access, and Rights

Intercultural Mediation

Cultural Mediation with Alexis Andrew

Real Path / Imaginary Path Method

The Art of Mediation: Manifesto

Digital vs Traditional Mediation in Museums

Meditation for Artists - The Automatic Drawing Technique

What does art mediation do? Practice-based session.

Who does art mediation? A series of online seminars: Time for Cultural Mediation?

Cultural Mediation in Practice