New art forms (NFTs) and distribution platforms (metaverse, over-the-top media services) and their inherent economic models challenge conventional ways of collecting and exhibiting art. They put museums under pressure to keep up with the latest digital trends, which cast as threats to institutions, disrupting the traditional ways to collecting art.

In this online conversation, curators from four institutions across Asia came together to share how their expertise—structured by rigorous research frameworks that define value and authenticity of an artwork—can broaden our understanding of digital developments. Speakers included Jihoi Lee from MMCA, Seoul; Joselina Cruz from MCAD, Manillia; Kittima Chareeprasit from MAIIAM, Chiang Mai; and Silke Schmickl from M+, Hong Kong.

Watch and Chill, a co-curated travelling moving image exhibition that combines physical and online components, serves as a starting point to discuss innovative forms of collaborations and new potentials that lie in such hybrid environments.

With the persisting pandemic and advancing digitisation of cultural activities, artists and curators will discuss how they present and adapt existing works for virtual audiences and produce future projects. How do virtual presentations offer new possibilities for collaboration, inclusivity, and internationalism to foster a new film culture that is true to our time?

In this online conversation, moving image artists Shireen Seno, Cici Wu, Kawita Vatanajyankur, and Kim Heecheon, and curators Jihoi Lee and Silke Schmickl shared their experiences about Watch and Chill, a travelling exhibition co-presented by MMCA in Seoul, MCAD in Manila, MAIIAM in Chiang Mai, and M+ in Hong Kong. Conceived in a hybrid format consisting of an online streaming platform and physical presentations across the four cities, this project emerged from a collective desire to create a platform for the exchange of moving image works.

M+ announced the two-day online programme 'How Can Museums Matter Today,' a collaboration with National Gallery Singapore, which examined the role of museums in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath from the perspective of two newly formed institutions in Asia. The programme, held on February 23–24, 2021, consisted of two public talks on Zoom which were both followed by a Q&A session. Considering the myriad changes facing museums today, conversations between M+ and the Gallery curators will depart from two institutional standpoints—collection building and audience engagement. These talks touched upon the different ways museums can uphold inclusivity and diversity in their spaces, find opportunity in adversity, adapt to the rise of digitalisation, and encourage audience participation in these contexts.

Collections and Their Relevance: Why Do Collections Matter?

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Audiences and Engagement: What Can a Museum Be?

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In 2019, the Archigram archive entered the collections of M+. Through its dense layering of infrastructure, media, and commerce, Hong Kong can be read as an ‘Archigram city’, and the archive’s presence here offers the potential to trace new, situated lines of inquiry in architecture and visual culture. With new readings of Archigram’s practice and new contributions to the discourse of architecture through the archive, M+ addresses the historical importance of the group’s work and also considers its relevance for the immediate present and for potential futures.

M+ Matters: Archigram Cities Online Symposium

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M+ Matters: Archigram Cities – It's Archigram!

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M+ International x Power Station of Art: Archigram Cities

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In the context of the contemporary, globalised conversation on modern and contemporary art and visual culture, museums in Asia are devising new ways to manage and loan their collections to promote alternative models of collaboration with other institutions. Furthermore, with the development of digital technology, the ways in which collections data can be shared is rapidly evolving. Reflecting on the ideas raised during the two-day symposium, this public event takes museums of different regional, historical, and financial backgrounds, and with various administrative structures, as a starting point for discussion. Examining the activities of these museums should allow us to investigate potential models and future possibilities for museum collections.

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From 29 May to 2 June 2019, M+ and the Sydney Opera House co-present The Hidden Pulse as part of Vivid LIVE, the annual centrepiece of the Sydney Opera House’s year-round contemporary music programme. This is a five-day programme of artists’ moving image that explores the capacity of music and performance to build community, resist authority, transform culture, shape identity, excavate history, and reclaim space.