Museum 2050 Symposium: Looking To New Institutional Models
ByCarol WangWhat will museums in 2050 look like? Under the backdrop of a rising number of public and private museums in China, and an increasing awareness of the value of arts, it is of utmost importance to reconsider the role of cultural institutions and their implications in the social and cultural sphere. Looking to new institutional models: China’s cultural landscape by mid-century, is a symposium organized by Shanghai-based platform 2050 and supported by 11 world-renowned museums in China. This conference will address the key issues of new institutional models and opportunities, in order to foster better community engagement and cultural exchange. Shanghai as the hub of the vibrant Chinese art scene, with many new museums and international connections, is the ideal location for an interrogation into both domestic and international museum experiences from the perspective of local cultural context.
The venue Long Museum.
Image courtesy of ArchDaily.
The symposium will be held at the Long Museum, Shanghai on June 9-10, 2018. Through diverse programmes of keynote lectures, panel discussions, film screenings and closed-door career development workshops, Museum 2050 will act as a platform for academics, public and private museum professionals, private collectors and artists to come together and address key issues about the future of cultural institutions in China and abroad. As its name “2050” suggests, the platform seeks to explore new opportunities and models for Chinese museums, while extending its outlook to the global stage and challenging the dominant Western institutional models by looking through the lens of China.
Co-founder of Museum 2050, Nicole Ching. Image courtesy of Museum 2050.
The symposium will open with a screening and discussion of Marysia Lewandowska’s Museum Futures: Distributed on Friday 8 June. This video work is set in 2058 with a staged centenary interview of Moderna Museet executive director Ayan Lindquist. By re-imagining the role of private and public institutions and actors in the art world, the work traces the development of contemporary art practice and its institutions, and reassesses the relevance of public museums to the art world.
On Saturday 9 June, 12 young academics will be presenting their dynamic research, following a keynote address by Erlend Høyersten, Director of ARoS Museum, Aarhus and Philip Tinari, Director of Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. The presentations tackle a variety of issues from the digitalizing of art museums and rise of online communities, the influence of social media on museum experiences, to a macroscopic view of how China’s regulative institutions shape the development of private art museums, to the concept of building a creative city.
Co-founder of Museum 2050, Leigh Tanner.
Image courtesy of Museum 2050.
Additionally, the Symposium focuses on the development of young museum staff from all over China, enabling them to forge connections with professionals, attend the diverse programmes and workshops to share ideas and create a vibrant museum community. Sunday 10 June will comprise of workshops exclusively offered to staff members of Museum 2050 Participating Institutions; these include A4 Art Museum, Guangda Art Museum, Inside Out Museum, Long Museum, M Woods, Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai Himalayas Museum, TANK Shanghai, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Yuz Museum, and Zhi Art Museum. The workshops will be convened by Michael XuFu Huang, Co-Founder of Beijing’s M Woods Museum, S. Alice Mong, Executive Director of Asia Society Hong Kong Center, and Valerie Wang, Artistic Director of Zhi Art Museum, Chengdu and Erlend Høyersten.
With the launching of the inaugural symposium, Museum 2050 hopes to continue the discussion on institutional models and future development of cultural institutions in the future.
Click here to find out more about the symposium and Museum 2050.
2nd Floor Auditorium, 3398 Longteng Ave, Xuhui District, Shanghai
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