Reflections around utility and shifting mindsets — It comes as no surprise that the editorial of the latest edition of The Burlington Magazine (March 2022) is dedicated to art in the age of digital reproduction. Taking the cue from Walter Benjamin’s seminal 1936 essay ‘The Work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’, the editorial speaks…

Introducing the Phygital Museum Scale — Let’s go straight to the point. Linguistically, the word phygital is a combination of the words “ physical” and “digital” to signify the ever-growing experiential cross-referencing and amalgamation of these two worlds. In other words, the term refers to the ways and means how these two realms — physical and…

What views as the dust begins to settle? — I have been thinking about this piece for quite sometime as I observed the ways and means museums have jumped onto the bandwagon of the NFT hype. Some of that was probably informed by circumstances, particularly with regards to hard-hit revenue streams due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I still don’t…

Post-COVID19 Museum Funding [II] — This post has been in the works for quite sometime, following my first take on this highly fascinating subject in September 2020. Back then, my choice of title was a question. I also chose to title my thoughts with a question, yet again. …

MUŻE.X — Shaping Museum Futures Pre-Conference Webinar Events — Delighted to announce the spring conversation series of three webinars featuring top international speakers Francois Matarasso, Linda Norris and Danielle Kuijten. These conversations are free to register and shall be happening between April and June as part of the buildup to the international conference MUŻE.X — Shaping Museum Futures. An…

Museums and Climate Change — Less than four years ago, way before the COVID-19 pandemic spread out across the globe, Margret Boysen, a scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published her adult fairytale story “Alice, the Zeta Cat and Climate Change”. Inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Boysen’s fairytale has an almost identical…

Can it be in this day and age? — I write this piece as news of a second lockdown have been resonating around the world with some countries or regions already back to where things were in February, or quite. This time around, it seems that a sinister deja-vu feeling has made things easier to absorb and adjust and…

Six international museum voices from around the world — Our biennial conference, MUŻE.X — Shaping Museum Futures, had to happen this coming November but circumstances dictated otherwise. But, as the saying goes, there is always a silver lining. We have now shifted the physical conference to October 2021 and, in the run-up to the physical event, we shall be…

Post-COVID19 museum funding [Part I] — Museums are non-profit institutions at the service of society. We know it because the museum definition still in force, the one that has been questioned and currently still under discussion (or so it seems), says so. Should we stop here then? Yes! Museums are non-profit organisations and yet their coffee…