1. Final Project for The Digital Museum Jon Bunge July 21,
2014
2. Proposal for The Metropolitan Museum of Arts Sierra Leone
Youth Art Project 3. My Original Questions: Given the very unequal
distribution of cultural riches in the world, how could they be
better shared? How could the Internet and digital media be used to
share the cultural resources of a great museum with people of
impoverished countries, who have much less access to such
resources? 4. My Client: The Met Because their encyclopedic
collection would appeal to people of various cultures I wanted to
be careful not to export only Western culture (the main focus of
some U.S. museums) 5. My Target Country: Sierra Leone Why Sierra
Leone? A mentee of mine, Mohamed Bah, is from there Small,
impoverished nation in West Africa, population about six million
One of the poorest countries in the world One of the lowest
literary rates in Africa 6. My Original Idea Educational videos
produced by the Met about art objects from the Mets collection that
could be viewed online The Met staff would give background and
explanation of various objects on the videos Videos would be
translated into the main native language of Sierra Leone (Creole)
or be subtitled Videos could later be subtitled in many languages
to be used not only in Sierra Leonewith the idea that the Met is a
global institution and in keeping with One Met. Many Worlds. For
older children, videos could be a curriculum tool in schools Adults
could learn about art and have their world expanded 7. What I
learned from Mohamed My idea isnt a good one because it requires
Internet access Less than 1% of the population of Sierra Leone is
online (according to one figure on the net) Electricity outages are
common, so Internet access is inconsistent Subtitles wont work well
only 43% are literate and Creole is not really a written language
No free public education in Sierra Leone, so only an estimated 25%
of kids are in school (and thus wouldnt see videos) Mohamed himself
didnt start school until he was nine Main takeaway: I didnt realize
how big the digital divide still was. 8. New Proposal (in
conversation with David) The Met would: Collaborate with a NGO in
Sierra Leone which focuses on youth and education (the Met would
not run the program itself) Solicit donations of computer tablets
and solar chargers (the latter to address the electricity issue)
Load the tablets with images of masterpieces of world art (not just
Western) from the Mets collection Find someone fluent in Creole,
perhaps a volunteer, to translate background information and
discussion questions about the art objects Load translated
information onto tablets 9. Example of Tablet Screen 10. Proposal
(continued) An instructor from the NGO would run classes for
children Instructor will lead discussion about works of art on the
tablet (to address lack of art education in school) Children will
then be taught how to take photos on the tablet Photo activities
could be based on images studied from the tablets Children would
then share their best photos on Facebook Facebook pages would be
maintained in Creole (for audience in Sierra Leone and West Africa)
and English (for audience in the U.S. and other English-speaking
countries) 11. Facebook page (Creole version) 12. Proposal (final
points) The Met would maintain a blog about the project on its
website, with a link to both versions of the Facebook page and
other social media With some funding and in-kind donations,
exhibits of the childrens artwork would be mounted in both Sierra
Leone and New York The children would help with prepping the work
for the shows (such as matting and framing), thus learning more
skills The shows would help to publicize and raise money for the
project Some of the proceeds from any sales at the shows would go
to the children and their families With increased visibility and
funding, the project expands to serve more children 13. Thank you
so much for listening!
