Hosted by Dr. Robyn Dowlen, The Reflecting Value Podcast shares the successes and challenges of communicating cultural value, bringing together a range of thought-provoking contributors for discussion and reflection. In the first episode of its second season, the podcast sat down with the Director of African Digital Heritage, Chao Tayiana, alongside Rebecca Black from Royal Opera House and Dr. Harry Weeks from the University of Newcastle to explore how cultural organizations and practitioners make use of existing spaces to engage their audiences.
You can find the entire video here.
Listen to this episode of the podcast here.
1. The Role of Digitization to the African Cultural Heritage Space
For museums, archives and monuments in Africa, digitization also includes using digital methods to preserve and re-document African history and culture. The physical nature of African museums as we know them were built on a legacy of exclusion. Unfortunately, we are still seeing these imperial structures playing out, with Africans feeling excluded and limited to making a contribution to their heritage, based on the strict clinical approach that we inherited from our colonizers when it comes to working with artifacts and archives. Consequently, this has instilled a form of fear in the public; fear that they may make a mistake when working in this field and eventually underestimate their capability of making a contribution.
According to African Digital Heritage, digitization translates to freedom. Digitization allows African cultural practitioners to interpret, document and provide easy access to data; away from the colonial lens. Digital platforms such as social media have helped strengthen the relationship between people and culture by giving Africans platforms to share and contribute to the documentation of African history and culture, instead of only learning historical facts from experts, institutions, books and films; redefining our African story.
Consequently, there has been an increase in active participation, which has enabled many Africans to retrace their steps and discover their identity; something that has brought a healing to many. We hope that digitization will eventually break the barrier of limited access and pave the way for many to learn and share different aspects and stories of their heritage with one another.
2. How The Digital Landscape is Helping Cultural Institutions Connect with Communities
The contemporary arts space has experienced a huge shift, especially when it comes to how it relates to the public. Today, in collaboration with community members, museums and galleries are playing crucial roles in their home cities. In order to effectively connect with these community members, more cultural organizations are adopting digital methods.
Digitization is advancing the role of physical functions of galleries. Galleries that have adopted digital methods now have a wider outreach, breaking barriers that had been set with the traditional structure of the space. Moreover, they have become more keen on their audience, their workforce and their presentations, which have enabled them to grow.
Dr. Harry Weeks recently studied the rise of useful museums and galleries. He investigated how fine art is underrated and the role of civic responsibility in this space. His findings point to the fact that the process of recognizing and working on the challenges experienced in this space are long and difficult. However, change is inevitable and, with the uprising of new generations that are questioning, the gaps, it is high time practitioners in the field pivoted to fill these gaps and delivered to their new audiences.
3. The Role of Social Media in Growing Engaged Audiences
For The Royal Opera House, when it came to interacting with their audience online, TikTok proved to be a very helpful platform. Royal Opera House has approximately half a million followers on TikTok. During the height of the pandemic, when physical gatherings had been banned, they used the channel to showcase past performances, highlight choreography and costumes and also spotlight their ballerinas as they practiced and worked from home. This was a good opportunity for them to interact with digital audiences, especially the youth.
With the knowledge that trends on TikTok are more often than not associated with dance and music, the Royal Opera House curated videos from their audiovisual material in their archives
that went viral, helping them gain popularity on social media. Some of their infamous videos include the ballet version of a dance trend that earned them 900,000 views and ‘The Queen of the Night’ performance that earned them 14 Million views; proving that although these opera pieces were drafted over 200 years ago, they can still be relevant to the youth of today if introduced right.
According to Rebecca Black, cultural organizations can grow their audiences, particularly on TikTok, by:
- Getting a contact on TikTok. With the help of an individual from TikTok, organizations can receive updates on trends they would be interested in trying.
- Leveraging on Trends. By using new functionalities introduced, organizations can easily access algorithms that align with their activities in order to leverage on trends.
- Consistency: By being creative with posts and uploading them without fail, organizations can keep their audience on their feet and entertained, making them always come back.
Thanks to the theatrical and dramatic nature of opera, the Royal Opera House has been successful on TikTok, which in return has opened doors for opera and enhanced the culture of arts and entertainment in this era.
