Web sites, online collections, image databases, and exhibitions that present and interpret museum collections and themes, providing a rich and meaningful virtual experience. Projects should demonstrate effective use of multiple media formats, innovative ways of complementing physical exhibitions or providing surrogates for physical experiences in online only exhibitions.
Jury Chairs: James Lin and Jewel Lin
Chief of Exhibition Service Division, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan; Secretary-General, Chinese Association of Museums, Vice-President, MCN-Taiwan Chapter
GOLD: Connections
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Judges said: Storytelling still is the best tool to “connect”! This entry combines the video and audio technologies in a brilliantly creative way to tell stories. The style is informal and conversational, and the topics cover any number of themes and subjects. With a kind of “post-structural” point of view, they bring new perspectives from common audience to enrich the viewing experiences and discover new stories and new life of these collections.
And they apply the MET brand in a true way!
Producers said: Connections, launched in January 2011, is a yearlong series of 100 interactive audiovisual narratives available on the Metropolitan Museum’s website. Throughout 2011, with new releases every Wednesday, Museum staff members offer their personal perspectives on works of art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s vast collection. These journeys through the collection are not driven so much by art history as by broad, often personal, themes and far-reaching ideas.
Connections presents the Metropolitan’s collections as a catalyst for intriguing commentaries and vibrant intellectual debate about the power of images. By cutting through the collection in unconventional and idiosyncratic ways, the series inspires fresh ways to approach art, and offers online visitors a novel, seductive, and illuminating means of access to the Metropolitan Museum of Art collections.
We hope Connections will build new audiences, both global and local-those who may have little exposure to art history or museums but are looking for the collections to speak to them poetically or inspirationally. Equally, it will enrich the experience of existing audiences-those who already trust the Metropolitan Museum to guide them in their viewing and understanding of art but will be intrigued to encounter Metropolitan experts and others exploring the collection in newly revealing ways.
SILVER: Never Lost: Polynesian Navigation (‘Imiakea)
Exploratorium
Judges said: This entry interprets the geographical and cultural exploration in a poetic way, using the citations of the local master navigators, and tells their exploring experiences. It’s very impressive as a new multimedia, bilingual (English/Hawaiian) website that immerses the user in the techniques and traditions of Polynesian navigation.
Producers said: “Never Lost: Polynesian Navigation” (‘Imiākea in Hawaiian) is a new multimedia, bilingual(English/Hawaiian) website that immerses the user in the techniques and traditions of Polynesian navigation. Visitors to the site learn to use natural signs to find their way, meet Hawaiian master navigators as they “talk story,” and use an online planetarium for a navigator’s tour of the night sky.
BRONZE: A Sailor’s Life for Me!
USS Constitution Museum and Eduweb
Judges said: This entry is an excellent research-based educational website. It’s a great game site without the limit of age and fun to play and learn from. Families can extend the fun and learning beyond the time spent online using downloadable activities.
Producers said: “A Sailor’s Life for Me!” [www.asailorslifeforme.org] is a research-based, interactive educational website that introduces virtual visitors to the lives and experiences of sailors who served on board America’s most famous ship during the War of 1812. Funded by a grant from IMLS (Museums for America, 2007), the US Navy’s Office of Commemorations, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the site reinvigorates the interpretation of USS Constitution. It fosters personal connections with the past by humanizing the naval experience with game-based learning, interactive illustrations, animations, first person text, artifacts, and quotes. Families can extend the fun and learning beyond the time spent online using downloadable activities. This project offers kid-friendly interpretation of the ship in time for the bicentennial of the War of 1812.
Jurors:
Yi-Ping Hung
Jin-Wei Nie
Associate Professor, Dept. of Interior Design, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan
Tien-Yu Hsu
Fang-yin Lin
Hsin-chien Huang
Herminia Din
Associate Professor of Art Education, University of Alaska Anchorage
Christina DePaolo
