This is the landing page for the subcomittee of Asia Pacific of ICOFOM- ICOM

scroll down for the list of ICOFOM-ASPAC Board Members Term 2022-2024

More updates coming during 2024.

History of ICOFOM-ASPAC (2016-2022)
By Kuoning Chen

“With the trends of globalization, museums in Asia and Pacific Area have become increasingly influenced by local politics, economics, advances in information technology, and social movements, while undergoing significant changes in their connotation and form. The traditional function of museums to preserve cultural heritages has now expanded to include serving society and promoting social harmony. Operations include museum branding that eve help drive urban economic development. The new missions have become important tasks for museums in the 21st century.

In 2000, UNESCO-ICOM proposed an increased level of attention to the diversity of world cultures in the belief that museums must have culturally diverse perspectives to serve as different aspects to the human expression of emotions, transmission of values, interpretation of historical objectivity and cultural values. At the same time, museums should also serve a leading role in promoting values such as openness, tolerance, and social solidarity. Museums should stimulate the public to think problems on challenges of facing society today. UNESCO encourages international museums to share cultural properties, strengthen dialogue between different ethnic cultures, promote mutual understanding, and establish a spirit of peace and tolerance. Museums should serve as sites for peace and sustainable development.

In recent years, the main issues discussed in museums around the ASPAC era as well include exhibition interpretations, the construction of museums and identity, the commercialization of museums, the education and public participation of museums, the protection and expression of museums and intangible cultural heritage, the interpretations of societies conflictions, etc.

Since 2015 ICOM ICOFOM-ASPAC established, held annual conferences in the Asia Pacific region. In November 8-10 2016, we collaborated with National Cheng Kung University and Chimei Museum in Tainan to hold the seminar, “Triple Helix of Scientific, Technical and University Cultural Heritages” to discuss the sub-topics: (1) Museums, Museology and Social Changes: Development in the Past Decades, (2) Cultural Heritage, Education and Ethics and Law in the Museums, (3) University Museum Science and Technology.

In 2017, two conferences were held in China. During October 5 to 7, we held the Forum on “Protection and Development of Cultural Heritages” at Su Hsiang Hua Yuan at QingHai to discuss: The Protection and Inheritance of Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritages, the Development of the Cultural and Creative Industries, and the Definition of Museums. On October 8 and 9, we co-organised the conference of “Rethinking the Definition of a Museum” with the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peiking University in Beijing.

In 2018 we held 3 conferences, on October 27 and 28, we co-organised the forum and workshops of “Museum and Fashion” with Taichung Museum of Fiber Arts in Taichung, Taiwan to discuss the development and education of weaving culture, identity integration. On November 3 and 4, we co-organised the conference of “Museum and City” with Tainan City Museum of Art to discuss: Vocabulary of Museums and Urban Architecture- historical texture, urban identity, landscape features, urban revitalization, aesthetic of citizen’s life, cultural tourism; Museum and the Preservation of Urban Cultural Heritages: the Preservation of Cultural Heritages, Education, and Cultural Creative Industries. On November 7, we held the conference of “Museum and the Sacred” at the Museum of World Religions in Taipei. Topics on: The Sacred Properties, Connotations, and Presentation of Tangible and Intangible Cultural Heritage, as well as the Objectivity and Subjectivity of Interpretations in Museums.

More than 800 delegates attend these conferences, 90 more speakers and presenters from ICOM ICOFOM-ASPAC board members, museum curators, related academic experts, ad officials in charge of the museum had attended.

In December 2018, we selected papers from the conferences of 2016-2018 ICOFOM-ASPAC were compiled as a reference for colleagues interested in museology, published a book in title as “Museology and Culture—Museum and Heritage, City, Sacred and Museum Definition” . We thank the publisher institution of Museum of World Religions at Taipei, Museums and the Universities for co-organizing the conferences. In addition to the Ministry of Culture ROC, City Governments and among others for their assistance and financial supports. I also give the utmost thanks and appreciation to the authors of this book.

In 2019, during the ICOM General Conference, we held the board meeting in Kyoto and elected new board members. As a result, KuoNing Chen (Taiwan) was elected as the board Chair, Janet Tee(Malaysia) as the General Secretary with other board members including Olga Truevsiva (Siberia, Russia), Kenson Kwok (Singapore), Shin-Chieh Tzeng (Taiwan), Sitti (Malaysia), Joan Min Ma (China), Zheng Yi (China), Hitomi Hitomi Inoue (Japan), HongNam Kim (Korea), Susana YoungNan Kim (Korea) for the board (2019-2022).

Because of the Covid19 , we postponed the annual conference of 2020 to 2021, the on line international conference was held by Malaysia, with 120 participants joining. The theme and the program was ‘Impact of Pandemic in the Asia-Pacific Region’ and main focused on country report and individual papers.

In July 2022, Korea team held the annual conference in Seoul, we had a very successful program ,150 participants joined, the theme and topic was ‘The Power of Museums’. We held the board meeting and a new board election in Seoul. As the result, new board members elected for 2023-2025 are: Janet Tee (Chair), Zheng Yi (Vice Chair), Shin-Chieh Tzeng ( General Secretary), KuoNing Chen, Olga Truevsiva (Siberia, Russia), Kenson Kwok (Singapore), Sitti (Malaysia), Joan Min Ma (China) and Susana YoungNan Kim (Korea) .

I really want to thank all of my board members to give such efforts to make our programs successfully during past 6 years, and I thank to Hildegard Vielegg for her kindly consulting and participating since ICOFOM-SIB period ( 2007-2015 ).

Chen, Kuo-Ning
Former Chair of ICOM ICOFOM-ASPAC(2016-2022)
2023/4/18

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ICOFOM-ASPAC Board Members
Term 2022-2024

Janet Siew Mooi TEE, Chair. Former Director, Textile Museum Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Margaret Yi ZHENG, Vice Chair. Director, Administrative Division of Museums, Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, China

Shin-Chieh TZENG, General Secretary. Associate Professor & Director, Graduate Institute of Conservation of Cultural Relics and Museology,  Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan

KuoNing CHEN, Honor Director,  Museum of World Religions, Taiwan

Olga TRUEVSIVA, Professor, Altai State Pedagogical University, Siberia

Kenson KWOK, Founder & Director, Asian Civilisations Museum

Sitti Rabia Abd Rahman, Malaysia

Joan Min MA, Curator, National Museum of China, China

Susana YoungNan KIM, Director, Han Sangsoo Embroidery Museum, South Korea

Sitti Rabbia, Director of Galeria Perdana, Department of Museums Malaysia.