Q: MALI was cre­ated more than 60 years ago. Tell us about the history of the museum

Na­talia: MALI was cre­ated in 1954 by a group of peo­ple who thought that Lima should have a place where art could be ex­hib­ited. At that time there was an ar­chae­o­log­i­cal mu­seum and a mu­seum of pop­u­lar art, but not one for fine
art. So from that time to the pre­sent, this has been a na­tional mu­seum of art. “MALI has the largest and most rep­re­sen­ta­tive col­lec­tion of artworks in Peru, from the pre-His­panic pe­riod to the pre­sent day. This has been achieved by a col­lec­tive ef­fort in­volv­ing sev­eral gen­er­a­tions of Pe­ru­vians. Many artists, col­lec­tors and fam­i­lies have con­tributed in dif­fer­ent ways (by do­nat­ing works, col­lec­tions, etc.) so that Peru should fi­nally have an in­ter­na­tion­ally re­spectable col­lec­tion. Also, dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments and pres­i­dents have sup­ported and en­sured the con­ti­nu­ity of its man­age­ment. That is the mu­seum’s strength: many years of work with a clear vi­sion of where we want to go”.

Q: How do you see Lima as a tourist des­ti­na­tion and how should you con­cen­trate on that sec­tor? 

Na­talia: Over the last ten years we have seen a grad­ual trans­for­ma­tion in the idea of Lima for tourism. For many years it was thought that the city had noth­ing of in­ter­est to tourists. This has been chang­ing and the boom in gas­tron­omy has been an in­ter­est­ing fac­tor, but there are oth­ers and I think the grad­ual ren­o­va­tion of Pe­ru­vian mu­se­ums has started to trans­form this point of view.

Lima’s great wealth is its mu­se­ums; the fact that for a long time they have been ig­nored by the au­thor­i­ties and travel agen­cies is a key fac­tor. Both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors have been blind to this enor­mous po­ten­tial. Lima does not have ruins as im­pres­sive as Machu Pic­chu, Kue­lap or Choque­quirao; clearly, the ar­chi­tec­ture of the coast does not have the same im­me­di­ate at­trac­tion; it may be as im­por­tant from an ar­chae­o­log­i­cal and his­toric point of view but to the tourist that is not the same. Nev­er­the­less, Lima is the city with the great­est con­cen­tra­tion of cul­tural her­itage in phys­i­cal terms, not just in Peru but in the re­gion.

What we have to imag­ine is that over the next six years, as the growth and ex­pan­sion plans of Lima’s var­i­ous mu­se­ums come to fruition, this will be the cul­tural cap­i­tal of South Amer­ica. As far as mu­se­ums, qual­ity and quan­tity are con­cerned, no other city can com­pete with Lima.

Q: You have worked with the public sector to refurbish the permanent exhibitions. How should you work with the private tourism industry?

Flavio: Hav­ing a per­ma­nent col­lec­tion helps us to work with or­gan­ised tourism be­cause we have a con­sis­tent prod­uct all year round, en­abling us to par­tic­i­pate in fairs and gen­er­ate ma­te­r­ial such as the audio and video guides. Since we opened in Sep­tem­ber 2015 we have worked very closely with agen­cies, tour op­er­a­tors and guides’ as­so­ci­a­tions, invit­ing them to the mu­seum so that they can see the new gal­leries in per­son. This has brought us the first wave of for­eign vis­i­tors, but we ex­pect even bet­ter re­sults from next year on­wards. We also have tourists who come on their own; we have dou­bled the num­ber of such vis­i­tors but the fig­ure is still low con­sid­er­ing this mu­seum’s po­ten­tial”.

Na­talia: An­other im­por­tant as­pect for tourists is the tem­po­rary ex­hi­bi­tions. A short while ago we opened a small ex­hi­bi­tion called Las playas de Lima, 1978-1991; it pro­vided a new lease of life. We also opened a mega-ex­hi­bi­tion of the col­lec­tion of genre paint­ings we have ac­quired, which is prob­a­bly the most im­por­tant watercolor col­lec­tion in Peru today. We will also mount ex­hi­bi­tions of pho­tographs and ar­chi­tec­ture on the coast, as well as a small dis­play in the tex­tile gallery, among
oth­ers. So not only will the tem­po­rary ex­hi­bi­tions on the first-floor change through­out the year, but the per­ma­nent dis­play will also be re­freshed. The idea is that reg­u­lar vis­i­tors to Lima -Pe­ru­vians from out­side the cap­i­tal and Latin Amer­i­can trav­ellers- will have a rea­son for com­ing­back to MALI again and again.

Q: And what about activities for local residents?

Flavio: Now we are serv­ing two sec­tors of the pub­lic, but we’ve al­ways been a local mu­seum. We know the dif­fer­ent seg­ments of the pub­lic in Lima, but vis­i­tors’ ex­pe­ri­ences are dif­fer­ent, de­pend­ing on where they come from. They come to a night in MALI —the first Fri­day of each month— to lis­ten to con­certs and have a drink; on Sun­day —a fam­ily day when we hold a num­ber of work­shops—peo­ple come to learn and to do some­thing to­gether as a fam­ily. The app, for ex­am­ple, helps to en­rich these ex­pe­ri­ences. We want them to keep com­ing back; we want vis­i­tors to do their own re­search to ob­tain an ever more in­ter­ac­tive ex­pe­ri­ence.

Q: Apart from this, do you have any more specialized activities?

Na­talia: Yes, con­fer­ences for ex­am­ple. We are also de­vel­op­ing a pro­gram of vis­its for a spe­cialised pub­lic, who will see the works we have in store, more com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tions than those on dis­play, vis­its guided by spe­cial­ists in the sub­ject, etc.

Q: What projects are on the horizon? 

Na­talia: We have a num­ber of on­go­ing pro­jects, the most im­por­tant of which is prob­a­bly an ex­ten­sion to MALI. It will be a space spe­cially de­signed for our con­tem­po­rary col­lec­tion that is not shown on the sec­ond floor be­cause it cov­ers up to the 20th Cen­tury. Nev­er­the­less our con­tem­po­rary col­lec­tion is one of MALI’s most im­por­tant and prob­a­bly one of the most
im­por­tant in the re­gion. “The idea is that the new build­ing should be used as an area that brings us into closer con­tact with the Par­que de la Ex­posi­cion; it will also be built in the con­text of the new line 2 metro sta­tion at the junc­tion of Paseo Colon and Gar­cilaso de la Vega. The sta­tion con­nect­ing the un­der­ground with the Met­ro­pol­i­tano bus ser­vices will be on our cor­ner. It will be­come the heart of Lima’s pub­lic trans­port sys­tem and it is very im­por­tant for us to make the mu­seum a part of this”.

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Hours

• Sun10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
• Tue – Fri10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
• Sat10:00 AM – 5:00 PM