The Museum 2050 Symposium: Cultural Alliances

Museum 2050 is back with their third edition of their symposium, 'Cultural Alliances: The Imperatives and Challenges of Collaboration'. Each year, they work with a different hosting institution in China, and this year they will be holding their annual event at He Art Museum (HEM) in Shunde, Guangdong from 5 to 6 December. Museum 2050 is a platform that addresses the cultural and social impacts of exponential museum growth in the region, and how this growth will affect audiences and ideas about the existing museum frameworks. They also focus on being a resource for the younger generation in China and foster a vibrant museum community.

Through a one-day conference and a series of workshops, this year's edition symposium will be exploring the concept of collaboration with a focus on partnership amongst museums as a centrepiece of creative production. Within their discussion, they will be raising questions on the rationale of collaboration, the purpose of cultural alliances, and ways to foster collaboration for the future. This year, Museum 2050 also seeks to broaden the discussion beyond the realm of the Chinese context, investigating why museums choose to forge partnerships with those beyond their walls. 

The morning and afternoon sessions of the symposium will each kick off with keynote speeches. The morning session will be introduced by artist Daniel Arsham, and the afternoon session will be addressed by Nikita Yingqian Cai, Chief Curator at Guangdong Times Museum, who will consider how Times Museum is restructuring in response to post-pandemic realities and how engaging in rererouting the geo-infosphere might create networks of understanding and collaboration. The conference will also be live streamed for audiences who are not able to attend onsite and builds on last year’s summit at Chengdu’s Zhi Art Museum, where over 27,000 people tuned in to watch the day’s proceedings.

About Museum 2050

China-based platform Museum 2050 was initiated in 2017 to consider the cultural and social impacts the exponential museum growth in the region will have by mid-century and how this growth will affect audiences and ideas about existing museum frameworks. Additionally, the platform has a distinct focus on being a resource for young people from all over China, many of whom largely work and inhabit these institutions, as well as providing a place to converse, share ideas and create a vibrant museum community. With a focus on the date 2050, the platform hopes to evolve into a lasting forum in which the questions raised can be further explored over the coming years.

Symposium Dates: 5 - 6 December 2020
Address: He Art Museum, Yixing Rd, Shunde District, Foshan, Guangdong Province, China
Click here to register for the symposium and here to register for the workshops.