Federação de Amigos dos Museus de Portugal: our Federation’s Young Friends of Museums
Encontro Jovem FAMP, taken during the second Youth Meeting, Coimbra, 2023 © FAMP
Last October, Federação de Amigos dos Museus de Portugal (FAMP) organized in Coimbra what is becoming the traditional annual Youth Meeting. It was the second national event for young members of FAMP. Friends from all over the country gathered in this city which is home to the oldest university in Portugal, Universidade de Coimbra, hosting Portugal’s most prized library, built by King John V in the eighteenth-century.
In line with these meetings, the current board of FAMP is and has been greatly focused on the development of a thriving youth community. Such a community will allow the fruits of cultural volunteering to ripen. In parallel, it will shape the role culture, art, and civic engagement have in our young friends’ lives. This year, FAMP’s foremost contact with the young friends will be made via Ana Rita, a young art-lover who is currently working at the Museu Nacional dos Coches (National Coach Museum). Ana Rita has attended both our Youth Meetings – and we are very happy she is joining us for closer collaboration from now on, especially for the preparation and organization of our 3rd Youth Meeting, the time and place of which are still to be confirmed.
Museu Nacional dos Coches, where Ana Rita is based, is a very special museum in the wide panorama of Portuguese heritage and art institutions. It is both the newest museum building in Portugal (it opened in 2015 with a design by architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha), and plays host to an outstanding collection of coaches, the like of which cannot be seen elsewhere in the world. Museu Nacional dos Coches is generous in welcoming FAMP, whose headquarters are established in this museum. For some time now, Ana Rita has worked and collaborated with Museu Nacional dos Coches, and we are sure the Young Friends will benefit from her experience in such an institution and from her art expertise. Curiously, one might perfectly fathom the Young Friends of Museum’s spirit in the logic of Museu Nacional dos Coches. What was a highly valuable collection which lacked protagonism is now a dynamic collection which showcases a radical contrast between old and new, between different forms, materials and mindsets – the collection now showcases the value of compromise and understanding and the compelling freshness which a new perspective might bring to a classical object.
Ana-Rita Lopes and Maria do Rosário Alvellos in front of the Coches da Embaixada ao Papa Clemente XI, next to the three Coaches of the Embassy to Pope Clement XI, Museu Nacional dos Coches (National Coach Museum)