For the new generations, the museum must become a place of narratives

A supply and demand that are struggling to communicate but whose potential for encounter would allow museums to take a step forward in involving more of the least considered segment of museum-going in Italy, i.e. young people from secondary school to the beginning of working age. This is the objective being pursued by the third edition of the Young People and Museums Forum, organised as part of an agreement signed in 2024 between the General Directorate for Museums and the Benefit Among company, in collaboration with Musei in Comune Roma and Icom.

If the profile of the typical visitor that emerged from the research is clear - graduates, under 25, living in a metropolitan context - less evident is the way museums could increase participation. "We are in a sort of two-way short-circuit," comments Annamaria Gimigliano, coordinator of the Forum, "because young people are seen as a difficult audience, and indeed young people demand difficult content, capable of tackling even the most sensitive contemporary issues. But tackling this type of topic means giving up the generalist and somewhat encyclopaedic approach that characterises museum popularisation today. Thus young people do not find what they are looking for, museums struggle to offer it, and the distance risks widening'.

The main motivation for visiting galleries, exhibitions, and art galleries remains the desire to learn something new (at least for 75 per cent of the survey participants), but the best experience only materialises if someone helps manage the cognitive overload that museums present. "There is a strong demand forinvolvement from young people, which is often misunderstood as technological interactivity," Gimigliano points out. In reality, involvement for the under-30s means "finding something that speaks to them or about them, as they are attracted by being able to enter inside stories, inside someone's experience".

For two out of three young people, who live outside the big cities, a museum visit is one of the activities they do during their holiday, the economic cost of which is, for the most part, borne by others. "In this way, one does not realise the price of the ticket,' adds Gimigliano, 'partly because up to 25 years of age admission is free, at two euros for thestate museums or, in any case, capped with ad hoc offers. The over-25s, on the other hand, pay much more attention because they are starting to work and support themselves'. For 36% of them, in fact, the main barrier to attendance is economic: 10 euro is the threshold that should never be exceeded for ticket prices.

According to Ilaria Miarelli Mariani, director of the Civic Museums of Roma Capitale, proposing an eclectic and varied palimpsest, aiming to combine affordable costs with good quality services, could be the extra step to take to increase the appeal of museums in the eyes of young people and help them familiarise themselves with places that are anything but old and dusty. "We must certainly avoid fossilising on outdated models and a concept of a museum limited to the aspect of conservation," he notes. "So don't fixate solely on traditional activities and, beyond exhibitions, open up to alternative proposals, at least with respect to what is expected of a museum. Trying to study the interests of young targets and pushing to use grammars that are akin to their tastes. Such as multimedia, gaming, comics or street art'.