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Day 2: SPEAKERS

Thematic Papers Session 4B – Future Classroom

Thematic Papers Session 4B – Future Classroom

Session Time: 11.00am
Venue: River Room, Level 2

1947 Partition in a Digital Age: Pedagogical Tools and Student Engagement

Ms Tejshvi Jain
Founder Director, ReReeti Foundation for Museums

Over the last two decades, Partition scholars and practitioners have invested time in shifting the gaze with which this history is viewed, retelling it through the eyes of witnesses, reclaiming the agency of narration to focus on the chaos done to the lives of ordinary people. Today this work is popularly referred to as the ‘Partition memorialisation project’. The popularisation of partition discourse within the mainstream space in South Asia has largely occurred outside the institutionalised space of a museum, undertaken by individuals. This Partition memorialisation project largely exists online. These digital projects, mostly oral history documentation, continue to play an imperative role in sensitising the larger community to the idea of recalling, retelling and commemorating Partition.

In order to legitimise these digital projects and to comment on Museums and Education with a focus on the history of the 1947 Partition, one needs to deconstruct, decolonise and decentralise the very idea of ‘what a museum is for developing countries?’ The idea of a museum in South Asia is not as straightforward and institutionalised as perhaps it is for the West. The paper calls upon the digital space as an alternative cultural landscape of India where education, public engagement and experimental curation thrives, this is particularly true for the 1947 Partition memorialisation project. Despite all this work, the formal education space that exists in classrooms and schools has remained stagnant in their teaching of Partition. Its focus has largely been on the political aspect of this history thus ignoring the human side of it. In doing so, it often fails to introduce to students the concept of empathy, loss, grief, displacement and the lingering legacy of this history.

The paper takes the example of the UN.Divided exhibition to streamline the many ways the digital museum-like projects on 1947 Partition can be used to make the teaching of this history engaging and holistic for students.

Shaping Life-long Learning Health Education in Taiwan: Toward Future Community Medical Museums

Ms Chen, I-Fen
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of English, Tamkang University
Ms Juan, Li-Ying
Deputy Chief, Department of Health and Wellness & Attending Physician and Associate Member, Division of Endocrinology, 
Department of Internal Medicine, Koo Foundation Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center

Community activity centres in Taiwan, like most of those in the world, are designed for multiple uses, such as libraries, exhibition galleries, and concert halls, providing various programmes about cultural and natural resources. They are local spaces for people who belonged to the same age groups or have the same interests to network and connect with each other. On the other hand, most of the medical museums in Taiwan play rather a professional role. They provide certain medical education by displaying anatomic oddities, the history of medical devices, and exclusive documentaries and case reports of medical research. The target audience is students and professionals from schools of medicine and hospitals. However, disinformation and rumours about health and medication easily and rapidly circulate among the peers and folks of the community centres via SNS, resulting from the insufficiency of adult education regarding accurate health knowledge. The situation worsened especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, how to use the resources of hospitals, to innovate community activity centres as the base of future community medical museums to convey correct information and shape the life-long learning health education in Taiwan become the main purpose of this paper.

Facing the Challenges of the Future of Education in National Museum of Korea: ‘MODU’ Education Platform

Ms Hyejin Cho
Museum Educator, Cheongju National Museum (the organisation affiliated with the National Museum of Korea)

COVID-19 has changed our perception of life itself drastically. The change took place in all directions. In particular, I think that the changes that have taken place in the field of education will lead to changes in our way of thinking and behaving in the future. Even when the museum was closed due to COVID-19 and the exhibition stopped, the museum responded and moved in its own way. There was education in front of it. When object-based learning, the greatest feature of museum education, was discontinued, museum education sought a new path. ‘Meeting’ no longer means meeting in a museum. Museums have moved into the new world of online. Of course, online-based museum services have been in existence for a long time, but they have not been this dominant.

The National Museum of Korea switched all education to online-based, non-face-to-face education from February 2020 after the outbreak of COVID-19. In the remote learning studio, online distance education was conducted according to various targets such as adults, teenagers, and children. However, in the 13 branch museums of the National Museum of Korea, there were many realistic problems in preparing for online education quickly. A few institutions operated online education, but most of them had difficulty introducing technology immediately due to lack of budget and manpower. In addition, the museum homepage was a form of delivering only one-sided information such as information on collections and exhibitions, and information on educational programmes. The format of the existing homepage was not suitable to show various online contents created during the closure period. During the extended closure period that lasted for several months, the museum made various attempts such as videos, learning materials, and online education using zoom. However, it was not easy for users to find or use the information they wanted on the existing homepage.

With both offline and online education running chaotically, we realised that it was time to systematically think about holistic changes in museum education. It is not a solution to simply do all education online due to COVID-19 and then shift to offline after Covid. Beyond the post-COVID-19 era, it was time to think about how to operate Korean museum education in the future of education. While connected to the real space of the museum, there was a need for a meta space where anyone can participate anytime, anywhere. Furthermore, it was necessary to establish a gradual plan, such as what direction should be established to provide interactive education suitable for the post-COVID-19 era from one-way online education, and how to enable users to actively participate in education during the learning process.

So, in 2021, the Education Divison of National Museum of Korea started a project to build a ‘Museum Education Platform’. This is a digital archive that encompasses not only the National Museum of Korea but also all the educational contents of the 13 affiliated museums, and provides various educational services to visitors. Furthermore, it aims to form a platform in which other contents are reproduced while the audience communicates and enjoys each other.

M Leuven: DIERIC BOUTS. Creator of Images

Mrs Sofie Vermeiren
Head of Education, M Leuven and National Correspondent, CECA Belgium

One of M’s specialisations is visual literacy and the human ability to create meanings through visual stimuli. This is also shown in the exhibitions the museum presents.

In the fall of 2023, M will present an extensive overview exhibition on Dieric Bouts. Never before have so many works by the Flemish master been brought together in his hometown. Moreover, you get a totally new perspective on his work from more than five centuries old – through a radical confrontation with today’s visual culture. The image we have today of the artiste peintre did not exist in the 15th century. Dieric Bouts was an image-maker. He painted what was expected of him and excelled at it, just think about his masterpiece ‘The Last Supper’.

That is why it makes sense to confront him with today’s image-makers of photographers, game developers and filmmakers (f.ex. Star Wars). M places them side-by-side with the old master. Images that are selected that visually fit within this exhibition and which show clear visual parallels. The spectators will be challenged to look and to reflect on their own viewing patterns.

The concept of this exhibition is a result of an intense collaboration between all departments of the museum. Several colleagues worked together on an equal footing in a transversal working environment.

Enhancing Visitor Experiences Through NFTs: A Proposal for Museums

Mrs Johanna Quatmann
Managing Director, QNA Agency

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have emerged as a new digital asset that has the potential to transform the way museums engage with their audiences. NFTs offer a unique way to digitise cultural heritage objects, art and artefacts, and offer museums the opportunity to create new visitor xperiences. This proposal focuses on how museums can use NFTs to enhance visitor experiences and create new opportunities for engagement.

The first part of the proposal will introduce NFTs, explaining what they are and how they work.

The second part of the proposal will focus on how museums can use NFTs to create new experiences for visitors. We will also provide examples of museums that have already used NFTs in innovative ways to engage visitors.

We will explore different ways in which NFTs can be used to provide access to exclusive content, offer virtual tours of museum collections, and reward visitor engagement. We will also discuss how NFTs can help museums to reach new audiences, including younger and tech-savvy audiences.

This proposal aims to contribute to the ongoing conversation in the museum sector about how museums can use digital technologies to create new and exciting visitor experiences.

We believe that NFTs offer an exciting opportunity for museums to innovate and experiment with new forms of audience engagement. By working with digital artists and blockchain experts, museums can create unique and memorable experiences for visitors, and position themselves as leaders in the use of digital technologies in the cultural sector.

Collab. Create. Curate: Activating Communities Offline and Online

Mr Zinnurain Nasir
Assistant Curator, Malay Heritage Centre, National Heritage Board

The Malay Heritage Centre (MHC) has been telling and re-telling the stories of the Malay community in Singapore and its place in the Nusantara. Since 2012, its exhibitions, festivals and programmes continue to be anchored in and driven by an unwavering belief in the importance of ‘sharing stories’, be they personal anecdotes, community adages, institutional accounts or national records. Despite its temporary closure from end 2022 for a major revamp, it remains steadfast to continue engaging its audiences, hear new perspectives and strengthen connections across the diverse Malay communities in Singapore and the wider Nusantara through digital means and physical activations. MHC aims to bring together communal stories and allow for creative imaginations to take place in the re-creation and presentation of histories, stories and heritage. In its attempts to story-tell and create meaningful points of entries into the understanding of local history and heritage, MHC has attempted to expand its approaches, including co-curating with interested enthusiasts for the digital realm.

This presentation sheds insights on how MHC has attempted to go beyond physical exhibitions and programmes to bridge the audience’s learning of local-communal history and heritage. MHC has stated opening up its collections and assets to interested enthusiasts including schools in an attempt to present content in the digital world.

This impetus has been one of the main reasons why it has co-curated with interested enthusiasts in bringing digestible and inclusive digital content to its audiences. From collaborating with community members and to work on heritage videos to collaborating with schools on animated story telling, MHC has been trying to find the best ways to present meaningful content to its audiences.

This presentation will share more how MHC will experiment with innovative educational initiatives and maintain its commitment to collaborate, curate and create digital learning experiences and materials that cater to diverse learners despite its closure for revamp.