How Museums Help Communities Heal

This exposition about the adaptation of the museum in Singapore as a social healer during (and due to) the pandemic has been informative. It shares the power of creativity and hope that is encompassed in an ethic of care and positive social transformation. Despite this, it still seems to perpetuate a top down approach. It is not clear how the global communities to which it refers are participants in the empowerment process through co-creativity, co-design, and co-implementation with the museum.

How is reciprocal empowerment truly carried out and what are its challenges as the privilege of the museum meets the real needs of the people with which it is trying to heal? The museum, as stated in the talk, is trying to survive and adapt as well. It needs the people with which it hopes to produce reciprocal empowerment. Finally, what are the next steps to promote this process in an ongoing fashion?

Roxanna Duntley-Matos, PhD, LMSW--Community Engaged Cultural Anthropologist and Critical Social Worker