How to create an experience thus attracting the general public who are not interested in Asian art？
Museums want to educate the public about art, but some elements of exotic Asian cultures would be overlooked
Eastern cultures are often tainted with mystery, such as those ancient but non-existent beasts, the gestures you make for meditation when doing yoga, the quiet and serene Buddha statues all have a deeper cultural connotation. Some elements of exotic cultures are interesting in different cultural contexts, and many of them would be overlooked if they were not visually visualized.
So I took the opportunity to work with the Smithsonian Open Access Department to create a series of data vis works that visualize interesting parts of Asian art.Different from the curator telling the story, I tell the story through the data, let the data tell the story by itself. This is a way for more people to understand art, thus helping non-profit organizations like Smithsonian to educate the public about art.
Introducing National Museum of Asian Art
Impact: As one of the earliest example of visualizing collections from the Smithsonian Open Access, My work is mentioned on the official websites of Smithsonian and Parsons.
Comments: "In a short time it got my attention :)"
When was the last time you visited Smithsonian? Have you visited the national museum of Asian Art?
As a branch of the Smithsonian, compared to big brothers such as natural history or air and space museum, it struggled to have more visitors mainly due to limited information about their visitors' interests and the complicated and nuanced nature of art collections.
Out of Smithsonian's mission: the increase and diffusion of knowledge, in February 2020, Smithsonian Open Access launched its more than 3 million items online from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums including the National Museum of Asian Art.
The new database publishes a lot of content, but in the case of the population is not familiar with the context. Instead, it is easy to lose direction. By exploring data in both quantitative and qualitative ways, This results in three separate but interconnected interactive data visualizations.
Questions Answered:
- How many pieces of art have animals on them?
- What kind of animals are they?
- What is the relationship between the animals? What cultural connotations do they bring to the table?
→ Play with it
Inspired by ancient Buddhist scripture scrolls, the mudras (gestures) art pieces are gathered together and synthesized for presentation.
Questions Answered:
- What is mudra?
- How often do these mudras appear in the national museum of Asian art? Which is the most common?
- What are the meanings of the different mudras?
→ View it online
Inspired by ancient Buddhist scripture scrolls, the mudras (gestures) art pieces are gathered together and synthesized for presentation.
Questions Answered:
- What is mudra?
- How often do these mudras appear in the national museum of Asian art? Which is the most common?
- What are the meanings of the different mudras?
→ Interact with it online
Integrating the Smithsonian's purpose of spreading art, the data vis project is aimed at the general public, So I conducted desktop research and interview to collected their thoughts.
Through the open access database, national museum of asian art has 5,642 artwork records, Here are what it provides：
Artworks data are very difficult to quantify in a uniform standard. For example, bronze, bronze with inlay, bronze with glaze are different categories.
Also the amount of information presented by the data is relatively limited, not all of them have detailed descriptions of its cultural value.
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How to create an experience thus attracting the general public who are not interested in Asian art？
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How might I create an experience thus systematically presenting Asian art ？
With these two questions in mind, I started from the database topics, selected interesting topics close to life, and integrated the topics to find the connection between them.
Systematic connections
At the macro level, The design should look for systematic connections within the data points. allow the users to engage with the collections in a deeper way.
Present the truth
At the micro-level, the design should as a matter of fact display data in a straightforward way
Attractive
If having， the design should include elements of discovery to attract users
Educational
The design should amplify the educational nature of the museum
Then I mapped out possible options I had frequent working sessions from the client and the cohort to absorb and evaluate their feedback. By wire-framing the design multiple times, There are updates everywhere including layout, visualizations, and visual presentations respectively.
How might I create an experience that could appeal to the masses?
How to create an experience thus systematically presenting Asian art ？
All the three projects were completed online, which brought a lot of communication problems with the client and the designer cohort. At the beginning I felt overwhelmed with the database because there was less information available. So I reached out to the Smithsonian people and asked them to give me more information or clarification. Interestingly, at the end of the project, I was invited by the director of the museum of asian art to help them improve the smithsonian database, using this project as a starting point.
My next step is to continue to systematically summarize buddhism art collections and incorporate filter and search functions. In 2017, smithsonian held an exhibition: Encountering the Buddha: Art and Practice Across Asia. at that time I visited DC for the first time and visited this exhibition, which left a deep impression on me.Buddhist art is a large and important part of the collection of the national museum of asian art. So there is a great potentials to systematically visualize Buddhist art collections.
