How Do Museums Relate to Communities, Culture and the Public?

More discussions on museums would seem to promote a better understanding of what cultural institutions mean to society, and encourage meaningful interactions between communities and the profession, while considering what type of museums are needed in the city. In this essay, two museum projects (the “A History of the World in 100 Objects” project by the British Museum and the International Slavery Museum of the National Museums Liverpool) are introduced to consider how museums produce knowledge and engage the community with culture, for the purpose of improving the quality of living. The case studies do not propose what museums should do and how they should do it. Instead, the aim is to open up new possibilities for how the institutions can respond to contemporary social needs. How do museums respond to social change and rework their interpretation of communicating for a wider audience? Museological researchers hold that museums are an intellectual platform serving to engage communities to share ideas, negotiate differences, and create values and meanings for art and culture. In magnifying the potentials of cultural activities, museums in Hong Kong should re-examine the relationship between the institutions and local communities. How can cultural institutions connect with a wide range of communities? How can such institutions discuss local issues to address community interests and concerns? How can they improve peoples’ life experiences through art and culture? If these questions remain unanswered, the discussion about local museum development would be limited to little more than practical operating models, outcome-based evaluations, and professional guidelines. What is lacking is not how institutional routines should be executed, but how the notion of museums can be contextualized in relation to local cultural needs. Ultimately, we need to consider the purpose of museums and how this cultural mechanism can promote critical public discussions about our cultures.