Transnational Memory Practices in the UK and South Korea - Ethics, Evaluation and Learning in Digital Exhibitions

This project addresses theoretical and practical discussions and approaches emergent from digitally enabled advances in audience user experience in the field of museums and cultural heritage. Specifically, it seeks to engage in and further international and interdisciplinary debate around difficult heritage, complex memory and associated ethical and methodological considerations arising when digital technologies are utilised by cultural heritage organisations to develop learning and participation applications. New technologies are increasingly commonplace, however, more needs to be explored in terms of understanding the diverse and complex learning spaces that these open up and by exploring how those spaces and interactions are evaluated. The project critically explores both the physical and virtual space(s) of the museum/ gallery and its objects, narratives, and emergent shifts in expected (and unexpected) usage in order to further best practices and foster new research agendas on an international scale.

The network will use specific recent, ongoing and planned examples and initiatives from across the UK and S.Korea as case studies for discussion. For example, it will engage with ongoing and future initiatives at NML's International Slavery Museum, exploring the shift to online learning and digital exhibitions, as well as the collections relevance to S.Korea. In the case of South Korea, case studies will explore digital exhibitions at Art Sonje Center relating to the Demilitarised Zone in Korea, as well as other examples which explore the representation of complex memory, for example collaborative work on a virtual reality exhibition around forced labour under the Japenese occupation. Across all of these, there will be a critical exploration of inter- and transcultural aspects of practices of (re) presenting, curating, and narrating complex memory and identities by sharing current practices framed around learning and participation. This funded network is therefore crucial to ensure a multi-faceted collaborative approach that understands impacts on both the local, national and the global scale.

The network builds on and significantly expands existing relationships across the three institutions of the Universities of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Sogang, Seoul, and their cultural partners. By capitalizing on and strengthening these with the inclusion of experts in the field, the key impact and uniqueness of this network is that it will revolve around international academic experts, stakeholders, sites and key cultural organizations, to scope and shape innovative practices in the area of memory studies, museum learning and participation, and explore the potential of evaluation frameworks which cut across sectors and disciplines, shaping approaches that can positively impact the (re) presentation of, and critical debate around, difficult memory, nationhood, identity and belonging.