Museum Siam invites all interests and stakeholders to attend the Museum Forum 2021, which will be held for the first time through the online platform under the concept “Far-sighted Museum: Sighting forward to Aging Society” with an aim to share knowledge and discuss on museum management guidelines and practices in the interest of the elderly. The Museum Forum serves as a knowledge-based stage for people who are working with the elderly and museums, as well as, educators, and museum executives for sharing their ideas, knowledge, and experience in order to find a common goal and approach in museum management solutions for the elderly in Thailand and other countries. The topic of discussion during the online forum also includes the role of the museum in the blooming of an aging society.
Museum Siam collaborated with museum partners in Thailand and abroad to present 27 case studies on the works, role of the museum and its coexistence with the elderly. The online forumalso features keynote speeches by representative of the elderly and speakers from the museum in Taiwan, Singapore, Finland, and Thailand.
Dr.Huang, Sing-Da, Head of the Education Department of the National Taiwan Museum, will discuss the Super-Aged Society and preparation of museums to systemically move forward to the super-aged society where museums will feature a co-learning space and ecosystemas well as a series of learning programs for the elderly.Museums will work in collaboration with relevant health centers and pay a visit to the elderly who has a memory loss problem as well as working with the elderly care service and forming a creative museum network and alliance to exclusively provide services to the elderly.
Singapore is the first country in ASEAN to enter the aged population. The country has prepared physical infrastructure needed to support the population and accommodate the learning of the elderly.Mr. Thomas Kuan, founder of an education and learning network for the elderly through the University of the Third Age (U3A) in Singapore, will share his view of the importance and role of the museum, which serves as an encyclopedia that connects events in the past, communities, memories, and good quality of life of people.
Pia Hovi is a former curator of the Pori Art Museum in Finland. At present,she is the head curator at The Albert de la Chapelle Art Foundation. She will discuss on the change of demographic structure in Finland, political landscape, and the role of the museum as it is a part of urbanization as it is a time when museums are facing challenges and dealing with the rapidly increasing number of aged population. She will share her view on the museum strategies which can be used to get access to cultural heritages as well as what activities the museums have ever done or provided services to the elderly, so that they can access learning and participate in creative activities in order to have a better quality of life.
In addition, the Museum Forum has an honor to welcome KhunyingChamnongsriHanchanlash, who is a founder of Cheevamit Social Enterprise and driven a concept of the living will and the rights of death,as a keynote speaker. She mentioned that the “Far-sighted Museum” project is a testimony to a positive approach to provide people with inspiration and motivation as well as raising awareness of the value of life. It will serve as a recipe and a nutritional ingredient that nourishes the comprehensive quality of being humans, including body and mind, society, mindfulness and intelligence, and spirit. It is the source of growth and prosperity, knowledge, creativity and potential, mindfulness and wisdom. The museum management and curatorship are as if creating an upstream supply chain of food and water sources for people of all generations and genders to create and sustain the value of life. It is the most significant fundamental for those who have traveled so far on a life journey and are going to reach the destination.
Rames Promyen, Director General of the National Discovery Museum Institute (Museum Siam), said that this year’s Museum Forum highlights the word “Farsighted” to emphasize that the society is moving forward to a stage where people tend to be farsighted. Museums should realign its vision to look further so as to accommodate the aging population, which continues to increase to 20% of the total population in the near future. The online forum under the “Far-sighted Museum: Sighting forward to Aging Society” concept has a goal to encourage people to understand the multiple aspects and working dimensions of a museum in the back of an aging society as it also aims to embrace the cross-cultural differences in aging, ranging from the healthy elderly, active elderly in society, the elderly with different cultural and economic backgrounds, and the elderly at the end-of-life period with functional limitations in mobility. Museum Siam would like to thank for all supports and efforts to host the online forum and would like to extend my gratitude to the researchers, the social advocacy groups, and the museum partners in Thailand and abroad for sharing ideas, view points, and experience at the Museum Forum.
The online Museum Forum 2021 under the Far-sighted Museum: Sighting forward to Aging Society concept is scheduled for September 16-18, 2021 at 9.00 – 17.00 hrs. via Facebook Live: Museum Siam and Zoom Conference. We welcome for all interests to attend the forum with Thai and English simultaneous interpretation available. For more information, please contact at the Innovation and Knowledge Development Department, the National Discovery Museum Institute, Mobile: 081 927 4624 Email: farsightedmuseum@gmail.comor visit www.museumsiam.org/museumforum2021