What happens when museum users (re)claim authority over collections, spaces and narratives and use them as building blocks of their own self-curated experiences?

Marianna Marcucci, co-founder of Invasioni digitali, is one of five featured “museum hackers” who see the museum as a fantastic playground to be invaded, remixed, subverted, un-told and re-told…

How did you come to the idea of invading museums?

We’re two co-founders: Fabrizio Todisco and myself. We are both digital strategists working in tourism and culture. We started the “Invasioni digitali” initiative two years ago because we wanted to do something about a current paradox in Italy: our country ranks top in international tourism and culture charts – and yet, because of this crisis, a lot of cultural institutions have seen their budgets go down and down and have difficulty making the most of this precious resource for the country.

Our aim is to re-connect people to museums and cultural sites. We give the digital revolution a little acceleration, helping the museum experience to become more participatory – and fun!

How does a “digital invasion” work?

We run a ten day long campaign in the spring – the 2015 event just finished at the beginning of May. It’s quite simple: people decide they want to pay a museum or site a visit together. Invaders agree on a time and date, spread the news through all possible channels and on the given day, participants go around the place, sharing their experiences and personal stories on all possible social media.

Of course museums are willingly invaded – they can even offer themselves up for invasion. In three editions, we’ve had 1,085 invasions – mostly in Italy, but also in Germany, Australia, Brazil and Spain.

Invasions usually bring together two kinds of people: social media lovers on the one hand, and culture lovers on the other – quite a few of them learn how to tweet thanks to Invasioni digitali!

Invasions are punctual events – are you thinking of more long-terms strategies too?

First, invasions can be catalytic: they put museums and users in contact, and quite a few invaded sites have built a long-lasting relationship with local communities thanks to the event. Some have already welcomed three invasions!

We also offer another service: we take museums hostage for one day! We put them in contact with a digital strategist who delivers a one-day diagnosis of the way they communicate now and how they could use digital tools in the future – they’re then free to transform this initial contact into a longer-term collaboration.

To read the full article and meet the other museum hackers, please click here.