Reflection

Last week has been a fruitful week which deepening my knowledge and understanding of the museums in Vietnam. To my surprise, even though the museum development of this country has a short history of establishment, the museums here are making great progress, people here are keen on both learning and applying the new concepts in museology. For instance, the National Museum of Ethnology and Vietnamese Women's Museum (unfortunately I have missed this), have conducted some very impressive projects with the local communities. I enjoyed the video in the National Museum Of Ethnology showing how the ethnics group design and create their beautiful garments, it is a strong supporting document that enhance the appreciation of the garments about its values.

I am sure all of us have noticed a lack of multiple narratives in some of the museums we have visited. For instance, the National Museum of History displays the history of Vietnam mainly utilize objects arranged by different historic events (e.g. the war against the Mongolians), the descriptions on the label are standard information that has to be political correct. To be frank, I am surprise by this arrangement. Nowadays, museums would be considered as places where communities can express their voices and understanding each other. However, it is not easy to identify the political function of a museum that is owned by the government. The voices of these museums have to be absolute, sensible as they are the truth, so as to maintain the authority of the government. As long as the government has its influence on the museums' operation, it would have the power to control. However, are there any space that the voice of government and that of the community both exist?

What I found interesting is, although the national museums usually attract foreigners to visit, some of them provide none or limited English ( or other foreign languages) labels and interpretations. It may due to limited resources, or it simply reflects that tourists are not the major target audiences defined by these museums. I think the museums can do more to facilitate the visiting experience of the tourists, the narratives in some of the museums have a lot of assumptions and do not give much details and stories of the objects. They are more designed for local visitor with common background knowledge to understand it, but a national museum could be more than just for building national identity of its own people, it could also be a platform to present ones' nation to the others.

When we were discussing about museum and community development in the National Museum of Fine Arts, I was wondering if it would be more difficult for an art museum to engage people than a history or science museum in Vietnam , or some other Asian countries. As our fellow Vietmamese friends mentioned, most of their citizens prefer other leisure activities and entertainments than museums. To the working class, they would rather spend times on stuff that they think is useful. On the other hand, Asians, especially those areas influenced by Confucianism, emphasize the importance of learning practical knowledge, Art is usually considered as less important subject. In these cases, getting people, especially the younger generation to visit or even engage in the museum exhibition activities could be a challenge. There is no reason to visit museums and they always have other choices. Fighting against a perception that have been settled in people's heart from generations to generations is not easy, the fine arts museums have to persuade local people who do not care about arts that they are connected with arts.

The discussion about how to develop community projects in the Museum of Da Nang was inspiring. Working with the local community is an interesting and challenging task that with no universal method. The questions about the authority of designing the contents and context of a museum project is really complicated. Although we all agree the community itself would understand themselves more, but the museum staffs have the professional techniques to present objects. When there is a conflict between the community and the museum about the exhibition details, like what and how to display, whose idea should be considered? It may at last depend on the stand of the museum. However, if the museum makes the decision, is it mean the voice of the community are being selected? So is the museum still speaking for somebody? Or is it just speaking about something?

Overall, I think the Vietnam museums are in the transition of traditional museology to new museology. They are making their own progress in engaging community but more could be done in the future. The interaction between the museums and audiences are the part they should noted, as many of the exhibitions we have visited are statics, the exhibitions contains mostly objects behind glass. If interaction between visitors and exhibitions can be embedded in the exhibition in certain format, like simple museum worksheets or models that can be touched, visitors would have more opportunities to think and they can create their own interpretations.



By Lisa Man