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There is currently an explosion of museum and heritage activity across Asia, especially in China, where audience development and public education have been made a government priority area for museums. In some Asian countries such as Singapore and Korea public participation is already well established. As yet, this is little documented and reviewed for a wider audience in Asia and beyond. This practical handbook examines and critiques these developments and asks how best practice can match the specific needs of diverse Asian cultures and societies. Prioritizing, understanding and developing the relationship between museums and their users in cultural contexts that may, but often do not prioritize the public is a key challenge for Asian museum professionals at all levels, and for foreign partners of Asian museums also. Bringing together a range of regional examples of innovative practice and new initiatives, written by current practitioners, the book covers shared themes and challenges in museums, galleries, outreach/community projects and heritage sites across Asia.
List of contents
Introduction. Chapters include case studies on a wide range of museums in India, China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand. Topics covered include: policy making; museum audience, local communities and public education; engaging ageing populations and children; sustaining innovation and presenting recent history.
About the author
Caroline Lang started her career in the (then) Far Eastern Section at the Victoria & Albert Museum before moving into museum education. She has experience of policy and practice in a number of UK Museums and cultural organisations, e.g. Head of Education at the Passmore Edwards Museum and Historic Royal Palaces, Head of Access and Inclusion at the Museums Libraries and Archives Council. As Head of Communities and Audience Development at the V&A, until 2012, she contributed to British Council training in Asia, conferences in Taipei, Shanghai and Guangzhou and ran a course in collaboration with 20 Indian museums. She has travelled widely in Asia and is currently based in Hong Kong where she has created a new public programmes team for a maritime museum and contributes to museum courses, professional training and other museum projects in Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and the region.John Reeve was formerly Head of Education at the British Museum working especially with its Asian collections. While there, and subsequently, he has worked for the British Council training museum professionals in Asia; and also until early 2016, as a lecturer in museum studies at UCL Institute of Education, training museum and heritage educators from all over the world and increasingly from Asia. He is now an honorary lecturer at UCL.�
He has worked with museums and organisations in India and Japan, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and China. He regularly teaches and writes about Asian art in London.
Summary
There has been an explosion of museum and heritage activity across Asia, especially in China, where audience development and public education have been made a government priority for museums. Public participation is already well established, for example in Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and Japan, but is little documented and reviewed for a wider audience in Asia and beyond. This book examines and critiques these developments and asks how best practice can match the specific needs of diverse Asian cultures and societies.
Written by practitioners, this book brings together a range of regional examples of innovative practice and new initiatives, which address shared themes and challenges for museums, galleries, community projects and heritage sites across Asia. It focuses on public programmes, exhibitions, education and media and seeks to provide a critical framework that is both sensitive to Asian contexts and alert to western museologies and critical practice.
