Symposium talks about museums' expanding role in post-pandemic world

A screenshot of the presentation “What Do Museums Connect?: People, Place and Data in a Post-Pandemic World“ by Rebecca Kahn

A real-time discussion, “What Do Museums Connect?: Museums in a Post-Pandemic World,” between art experts across the globe and the general public, will be livestreamed on Thursday by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.

The discussion is part of an MMCA symposium that started earlier this month to explore the changing environment for museums and their expanding role in post-pandemic times. The symposium offers 10 talks by art experts consisting of two sections: “Boundaries Dissolved: Other Variables” and “New Dimensions: Directions of Practice.”

As a roundup of the symposium, curators, critics and five researchers will be participating in the livestreamed discussion that is also open to the general public. The session will be broadcast live at 5 p.m. on Thursday on the symposium’s website, www.whatdomuseumsconnect.kr. People can leave comments and questions during the roundtable talk, which will be accompanied by simultaneous interpreting in English and Korean.

The experts include Rebecca Kahn, Rewire postdoctoral researcher at University of Vienna; Kay Watson, head of arts technologies at Serpentine, UK; Geert Lovink, founding director of the Institute of Network Cultures, Netherlands; Lee Kwang-suk, associate professor of digital and cultural policy department at the Seoul National University of Science and Technology; and Hong Lee-ji, curator at National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea.

The video presentations of the symposium shared on the website touch on a variety of issues regarding how museums and galleries are responding to the pandemic across the world. 

A screenshot of the presentation by “Future Art Ecosystems: Arts Technologies at Serpentine” by Kay Watson

"The MMCA research project is an attempt to broaden the 21st-century museum’s possibilities,” said MMCA director Youn Bum-mo. “I hope that this symposium will provide fascinating materials not only for specialists and professionals in related fields, but also for everyone who has an interest in these themes.”

The symposium is the fourth academic event of the MMCA research project “What Do Museums Do?” aimed at reinforcing its research capacity and facilitating discussions with museums around the globe. The MMCA has hosted global symposiums since 2018 with the topics “What do Museums Research?,” “What Do Museums Collect?” and “What Do Museums Change?”

By Park Yuna(yunapark@heraldcorp.com)