Museums and Education for Research

Dr. Andrew Simpson

Vice President,

UMAC - University Museums and Collections,

an International Committee of ICOM (International Council of Museums).

Recent advances in digital technologies have profoundly impacted the work of museums. The vision of Malraux’s ‘Museum without Walls’ has come true through a combination of parcels of light and binary code. Objects and artworks have been released from the epistemic confinement of the museum, their digital avatars now roaming free through new conceptual and intellectual landscapes. This has been described as a revolution in accessibility, inclusion and democratisation of culture. It provides new extensions to how we use object-based learning to draw on embodied and experiential pedagogies to make meaning through constructivism. It has allowed both researchers and educators new dynamic tensions between objects and context. Some examples of how this has impacted the practice of individuals and institutions are briefly covered. UMAC, as an international association are keen to develop the power of the network to release more objects from university collections to make them widely accessible to teachers and researchers.