Please join us for this conversation brought to you by the ANU Humanities Research Centre in partnership with U3A Canberra.

Zooming into the Future – of Australia a new series of online discussions dedicated to understanding what the Australia of the future might look like.

National Museums of the Future: Australia, USA and Asia

International Museums Day 2024 focuses on the potential museums have to “unlock knowledge” for the benefit of research and education. This expert panel will talk about how the museums they work with or at and admire represent “cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples”. Representing nations, communities, and institutions that have different ideas of what an ideal future looks like, we will discuss how museums can engage with current and future challenges, opportunities, conflicts, and technologies, as well as those of the past.

This event is being held online via Zoom and will also be recorded. 

Presenters

Professor Christina Kreps is Professor of Anthropology, Director of Museum and Heritage Studies and the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Denver (Colorado, USA). She has been conducting research on museums and museological behavior for more than three decades in Europe, Asia, and the US, and has participated in several community-based museum and heritage projects in Indonesia and Thailand. Her publications include Pragmatic Imagination and the New Museum Anthropology, co-edited with Christina Hodge (Routledge 2024), Museums and Anthropology in the Age of Engagement (Routledge 2003), and Liberating Culture: Museums, Curation, and Heritage Preservation (Routledge 2002).

Dr Katrina Grant is a Research Associate in Visual Understanding at the Power Institute for Art & Visual Culture, the University of Sydney. She is also an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Art History and an Adjunct Fellow at the Humanities Research Centre, at the Australian National University. She is an art historian and digital humanities expert. Her research focuses on the history of gardens and landscapes in Early Modern Italy, the visual culture of performance in the same period, and, the application of digital technologies to art history and curatorial practice. https://katrinagrant.net/

Dr Luo Pan works as an associate professor in the Department of Research, at the Chinese National Museum of Ethnology from 2014 till now. She received her doctoral degree in 2011 from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, anthropology major. Her research priorities include museum anthropology and the history of ethnographic museums in China, cultural heritage and spatial strategy. She is also an exhibition interpreter. Her research publications include articles and book chapters on the history of ethnographic museums in China, heritage and urban space in Quanzhou. Since 2024, she is a member of the Board of Directors of the China Association for the Protection of Ethnic Minority Cultural Relics, and Deputy Director of the Professional Committee of Cultural Heritage and Anthropology.

Tammy Nguyen brings a wealth of experience from both business and community services arenas, spanning over 15 years in the field of Forensic Youth AOD and a decade in entrepreneurship. She's leading the charge in establishing Australia's first Vietnamese Museum, a ground-breaking initiative in cultural preservation. With a genuine dedication to social cohesion and community engagement, Tammy serves as Head of Museum Operations at Vietnamese Museum Australia. Her pragmatic approach underscores the importance of understanding and honouring the diverse narratives of the Vietnamese refugee diaspora.

Professor Kylie Message-Jones, Australian National University (chair)