Creation of a province-wide digital mediation committee at the MMFA
Museums wanting to catch the digital technology wave and appeal to broader audiences will need to invent new experiences to offer their visitors. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is taking the lead by forming a Digital Committee, the first-ever province-wide group dedicated to exploring and innovating in the area of digital cultural mediation. Paving the way for a major research initiative, the Committee is composed of leading Quebec university researchers, technology experts and museum professionals:
Thomas Bastien, Director of Education and Wellness, MMFA
Ana-Laura Baz, Digital Engagement Coordinator, Musée de la civilisation
Charlène Bélanger, Educational Programs Officer – Digital Mediation, MMFA
Mathieu Ferland, Director and Senior Producer – New Business Development, Ubisoft Montreal
Marie-Claude Larouche, Professor, Department of Education, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR)
Katia Macias-Valadez, Director of Communications, Société des musées du Québec
Joëlle Pineau, Associate Professor and researcher, Reasoning and Learning Lab, McGill University
Rebecca Rouleau, Head of Digital Development, MMFA
Valérie Therrien, Director, Musée POP
Vivek Venkatesh, Associate Professor, Department of Art Education, Concordia University
Thibault Zimmer, Educational Resource Designer, MMFA.
The Digital Lab As part of Measure 115 of the Quebec government’s Plan culturel numérique, the Museum was mandated to put in place a collective incubator focused on digital museum mediation. To this end, the committee will be complemented by the creation of a permanent dedicated space at the MMFA: the Digital Lab. Its mission is to reinvent the museum-digital relationship by involving the visitor at the centre of its technological innovations. Mobilizing a vast network of partners, it will foster collaborations and experimentations that will lead to imagining and cocreating new forms of digital museum mediation.
The Digital Lab will be a democratic place of experimentation accessible to museums across Quebec as well as university researchers and technological partners. In addition, it will play a dissemination and cocreative role, where visitors will be able to generate content and will be provided with digital tools to transform their Museum experience.
More concretely, the Lab will help give Quebec cultural institutions a better understanding the digital experience their audiences are seeking, while offering the means to fulfill these expectations.
Acknowledgements The Michel de la Chenelière International Atelier for Education and Art Therapy could not have been made possible without the generous support of the Fondation de la Chenelière.
The Digital Lab is funded by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec as part of the implementation of measure 115 of Quebec’s digital culture plan.
Photo: Jean-François Brière
