Participatory Video in the Museum

Since the turn of the 2000s, the institution of the museum has become increasingly open and participatory, with an emphasis not only on engaging the public, but also on active involvement, community empowerment and shared knowledge creation. The resulting process, in which the museum adapts new methodologies to its toolkit, entails the introduction of participatory video. In this article, the author examines how participatory video can be used as a museum pedagogical and/or method of mediation. Through selected examples, she presents the methodology of participatory filmmaking and its adaptations in museums, analysing the project The Living Cultures: Decolonising Cultural Spaces (2020). She also presents two participatory filmmaking museum sessions in Hungary: the Participatory Filmmaking Camp of the Hungarian Jewish Museum (2015) and the MyStory pilot project of the Sopron Museum (2018).¹