Under the patronage of HE Sheikh Faisal bin Qassim al-Thani, the Museum With No Frontiers (MWNF) launched Monday a new online exhibition platform at a live event co-hosted by the Sheikh Faisal Bin Qassim Al Thani Museum.The event included a panel of 10 cultural institutions that have an existing partnership with the MWNF to discuss potential uses of the new online platform for education, exhibition programming, and interaction with physical exhibitions.Representatives in attendance included those from cultural organisations in Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Oman, Portugal, Qatar, Turkiye, the UK, and the US, in additional to a number of dignitaries.The presentation of the new platform was based on a demo exhibition titled The Use of Colours in Art, enabling users to scroll through themes and digitally interact with collections on a faster, more dynamic system.The new, visually appealing platform provides the MWNF with the tools to easily accompany audiences through history and art.The MWNF has an almost 20-year history in developing and managing virtual exhibitions.The biggest achievement of this new online exhibition platform is its innovative technical solutions – like the use of automated templates – to minimise resources spent on programming and allow the MWNF to devote more time to developing high-quality content with its international network of cultural partners.Virtual exhibitions and programming are not new to the MWNF.Founded in 1995, the MWNF has built popular and wide-reaching online museums and galleries through strong collaborations with world-renowned sites and museums.Projects to date include "Discover Islamic Art”, "Discover Baroque Art”, and "Sharing History”, as well as MWNF Galleries where the material is sorted by medium or type of objects such as "Discover Carpet Art” or "Discover Glass Art”.An industry-wide shift towards digital and virtual cultural activities was caused by the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.While physical exhibitions are resuming, there is still growing demand placed upon cultural institutions by audiences across the globe, expecting to access educational and artistic resources at their fingertips.This was the motivation behind the MWNF’s desire to develop its new online platform, responding to the situation the heritage industry finds itself in.The new online platform is an extension of the museum’s pioneering approach – collaborating with local experts and focusing on local priorities to combine their interpretation of artefacts and monuments with the cultural and historical context.With the new platform in place, the MWNF hopes to achieve the following goals:* Create international exhibition projects with all partners taking part with the same possibilities* Promote internationalisation, namely also in the elaboration of curatorial concepts* Make the results of research accessible and enjoyable to a large audience* Improve visual formatting, making educational content more appealing* Develop exhibitions for specific educational groups, focusing on age-appropriate information for different levels of schooling* Employ virtual and physical exhibitions side-by-side, increasing their potential audience or improving the experience of visitors to physical spaces* Provide opportunities to young people and students in relevant fields, allowing them to understand the process of creating exhibitions and the possibility that virtual space provides.The MWNF is a collaborative programme involving public and private partners from all over the world with the mission to build bridges through knowledge and understanding.The programme consists of two main activities: the MWNF Virtual Museum and its related online exhibitions and galleries, and the MWNF Exhibition Trails and related travel books and virtual tours.The first MWNF online exhibition cycle was set up between 2006 and 2007, as part of *Discover Islamic Art: 18 exhibitions present the artistic legacy of the great Islamic dynasties that ruled in the Mediterranean between the Umayyad and the Ottoman period.Each exhibition was curated by a small team of partner institutions and presents material – artefacts and monuments – from 14 countries: https://islamicart.museumwnf.org/exhibitions/ISL/A second exhibition cycle, Discover Baroque Art, focusing on little known Baroque, followed between 2008 and 2010: https://baroqueart.museumwnf.org/exhibitions/BAR/A co-operation with the League of Arab States offered an ideal framework for the development of a third MWNF online exhibition cycle, this time focusing on Arab-Ottoman-European relations in the XIX century: *Sharing History, set up in co-operation with partners from 22 countries between 2012 and 2015, providing access to 10 exhibitions presenting one of the most complex periods in our common history, taking into consideration the perspectives of all concerned: https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/exhibitions/AWE/index.phpAll these projects aim at contextualisation and present topics that benefit from a virtual exhibition space in terms of the variety of materials on display, positions and perspectives.
June 06, 2023 | 12:31 AM