Weaving potential space and acculturation: Art therapy at the museum

Abstract

Abstract Contemporary museum paradigms that address social responsibility, value diverse interpretations and promote communication create novel possibilities for cultural connections and exchanges. Evidencing these new roles, the Museo del Oro (Gold Museum) in Bogotá, Colombia, offered an art therapy programme to serve internally displaced indigenous women (IDIW) of Wounaan and Guambiano ethnicities. The qualities of museums as safe holding environments able to serve in processes of acculturation, surfaced in the course of the art therapy programme. This article bridges discourses related to museums, immigrant populations and the object relations construct of potential space through the common denominator of the interplay between internal and external realities.