The Community Museum of Sierra Hermosa (Zacatecas): Rethinking the Museology, Landscapes, and Archives from the Desert

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The text very succinctly develops the cultural mobilization of the library and the museum. A display of activities that are of important reference in Mexico as well as in the context of community work. I consider it important to review, even in a footnote, some of the activities and dynamics that have been carried out beyond those analyzed in the text. This to reveal how the process has been sustained and what challenges the pandemic implied between 2020 and 2022.

Along these same lines, I consider it´s important that the complicated notion of "cultural impact" be discussed in the text. To develop arguments that the importance of the museum, the library and the project is due to understanding the community dynamics themselves and how they can be tracked. This is an opportunity to question the notion of "cultural impact" as required of the arts in community projects funded by social development entities - which demand that they achieve social or behavioral or developmental changes. I am not considering that the text should "justify" its important actions in terms of demonstrating the "impact" or benefit of its practices in the community. Rather, in the debate on the relationship between art and community, politicians tends to flatten the discussion by putting the demonstration of "impact" first, as if this were demonstrative of the importance of the project. Thus falling into rhetoric that does not allow us to understand the poetics and dynamics of what is done. I believe that this text can shed some modest light on how to get out of the "impact justification" trap and propose how gestures, trust and the sustained generation of links between artists and communities are valid and necessary.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

An interesting presentation of conception, construction, and colonialism that is needed in the general art scholarship availability.

Author Response

The final document presents:

-Spell check reviewed.

-Secondary Bibliography improved.

-Methods clearly stated.

Reviewer 3 Report

This article presents a study of a museum created in recent years in Zacatecas: Sierra Hermosa Community Museum and Reading Club. It is a local museum, to which no previous studies have been devoted and in which the author has developed part of his professional activity. However, there are many museums in the world, and the fact that it is simply a recent and little-known museum does not in itself justify the contribution.

Clear research objectives should be set out in the introduction to the paper that go beyond the presentation of the history of the museum.
The ideas put forward in the abstract and introduction are too bold and too broad. Naturally, the case study and its educational and cultural action programmes are sufficiently interesting as a subject of study, without the author having to "propose a new definition of the very idea of a museum", which is beyond the subject matter of the study. Nor is it clear with the proposed structure what sense the two artistic productions by the local painter Luis Lara and artist Cristóbal Gracia have in the article. If the museum and its relationship with the landscape are to be studied, the analysis of specific works of art does not seem to be adequately justified.

The article devotes much space to contextualising Sierra Hermosa in Zacatecas. While interesting for Arts readers, it is unclear at times whether this is an article about the history of the region or of the museum itself. Basic issues such as the organisation, the layout of the space, its structure and its curatorial programme are missing.

The article lacks a formally established concluding section that validates the hypotheses put forward, answers the objectives and determines the value of this museum in the world. A comprehensive revision of the text is recommended in order to provide greater scientific coherence and to highlight the potential interest of this museum in the international context. In this sense, it would be appropriate to expand the bibliography to include the most current proposals in post-colonial museums, as well as in new museums in rural environments, in order to validate the actions carried out in the museum from a critical museology perspective.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for sending the response to the comments. Unfortunately, the document of the resubmitted article does not contain substantial changes to the comments already raised. Simply responding to them does not address the need for major changes to the article, so that it can have an international academic impact and encourage future citation to increase the prestige of the journal. Unfortunately, as the proposed changes have not been taken into account, the evaluation remains negative.

Author Response

 Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors of the text have not adequately addressed and solved many of the problems identified in the first revision of the text.
In view of this, the evaluation cannot be favourable.

Author Response

I attached the last version of the article for your review. Contains added higlighted paragraphs.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf