Diversified visitors’ participation roles as an innovation factor: a case study of the ‘Seoul Museum of Art Group’

ABSTRACT

This study analyses the managerial innovation process from 2019 to 2021 of the Seoul Museum of Art Group (SeMA Group), composed of seven museums. The SeMA Group changed its policy based on theoretical interest in visitor participation in 2019, and we see the museum transformation as a compelling case that raised the group's structure and active engagement of visitors. To achieve this, we quantify programs across exhibitions, education, and other areas to review the substantive changes since 2019 and conducted a case study to analyze visitor participation and their roles. The SeMA Main Building delegates its roles to affiliated museums. It allows each affiliated museum to grant diversified roles to visitors as active participants, enabling their involvement throughout the communication process, from planning to message implementation and promotion. These changes expand the SeMA Group's new role in managing visitors in diversified museum sectors, making close relationships between the SeMA Group and visitors and enhancing interaction among visitors. This new attempt provides visitors with a better understanding of the museum's identity and contributes to expanded social discourse and social value creation, ultimately increasing the SeMA Group's operational efficiency.

KEYWORDS:

• Seoul Museum of Art Group
• museum innovation
• operational system
• visitor participation
• Seoul Network Museum platform

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The SeMA was established in 1985 for collaborative international art exchange and sponsorship for artists through the 1988 Seoul Olympics (Park and Kim 2019). However, until 1999, the Seoul Metropolitan City's Culture and Arts Division, not the museum, oversaw planning and operations. Therefore, from 1997 to 2002, the SeMA underwent fundamental changes to fulfill operational autonomy (Seoul Metropolitan City 1997). First, from an institutional perspective, the SeMA has been defined as an independent operating institution since 1997.

2 The 1997 SeMA Management Ordinance has undergone 21 revisions. The role of the SeMA, which had the mission of supporting artists and communicating contemporary art in the early days of its establishment, was shared with museums. The SeMA Group has consistently focused on shaping and sharing social discourse, expanding its role in this process in response to changing times.

3 We checked the announcement on the Seoul Museum of Art's website and confirmed the changes in eligibility for application (SeMA Official Website).

4 The statistical results show that the value co-creator program mainly occurs in SeMA Storage. It is worth considering that the visitor number of educational programs related to curatorial activities is more significant than that conducted in a segmented SeMA Storage bunker because the program was born after the visitor's exhibition projects.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yon Jai Kim

Yon Jai Kim (PhD in Museum Studies, University of Leicester; MA in Art Management, Seoul National University) is a guest professor of Department of Art Theory at the Korea National University of Arts and World Arts & Cultures Institute at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea. His research interests include policy development, political change, art production, contexts, practices, and discourses of contemporary art museums. He is a member of the Korean Society of Art Theories and Korean Art Management Association.

Byung Jin Choi

Byung Jin Choi (PhD in Museum Studies, University of Florence; MSc in History of Art, Sapienza University of Rome) is an Associate Professor of World Arts & Cultures Institute and Department of Italian Studies at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea. His research interests include museum management and history of museum collections. He is a president of The Korean Society of Art Theories.