Presentation 4

Online Outreach Programs at the National Centerfor the Promotion of Cultural Properties
Ms. Kojima Yukiko
Head of Planning at the National Center for the Promotion of Cultural Properties/Researcher at theCuratorial Planning Division, Curatorial Planning Department, Tokyo National Museum, Japan
ProfileKojima Yukiko graduated from Tamagawa University’s College ofHumanities. After working at McDonald’s Company (Japan), Ltd. (nowMcDonald’s Holdings Company (Japan), Ltd.), she obtained an MA in history
at the Graduate School of Kokugakuin University and left the school afterobtaining the required credits for the doctoral program. She began working atTokyo National Museum in 2012 and she assumed her current position in July
2018.
Yukiko specializes in museum studies. At the National Center for thePromotion of Cultural Properties she is involved in the creation of high-definition reproductions and theplanning of events to facilitate the enjoyment of cultural properties.
Presentation
Being ‘online’ involves connecting a device to a network or to another device via a communicationline, for example. Museum online content can broadly be divided into two categories. The first involves‘stock data,’ the term given to digital archives, websites, videos, or other forms of data with a long shelflife. The second involves ‘flow data,’ the term given to real-time information with a short shelf life. Thisdata can be classified into ‘real-time communication-type data’ or ‘appreciation-type data’, for example.
This presentation introduces cases whereby ‘real-time communication-type data’ was utilized to run
online programs aimed at facilitating the appreciation of cultural properties.
The ‘CPCP Outreach Program’The ‘CPCP Outreach Program’ was developed by Tokyo National Museum’s Education
Programming Department and the National Center for the Promotion of Cultural Properties (CPCP). It
is targeted at nationwide educational institutions (elementary, junior-high, and high schools, etc.),
social educational institutions, youth education institutions, museums, and galleries. The program isfree in principle, and it involves sending reproductions of cultural properties to applicant institutions.
The program uses art appreciation to encourage people to think for themselves about the cultural

properties carefully passed down in their local areas. The aim is to nurture a desire to protect theseartworks and pass them down to future generations.
(https://cpcp.nich.go.jp/modules/r_free_page/index.php?id=31)
Case (1): Elementary and junior high schools on the remote island of Himeshima in Oita
prefectureIn the summer of 2019, we received a request toguide the children of a remote island in Oita
prefecture through Tokyo National Museum (TNM)
using robotic avatars set up by Avatarin (a company
established by ANA Holdings)(https://about.avatarin.com). After considering thestate of the equipment, we managed to implement aprogram four times in February 2020, once forjunior-high students in year two and once apiece forelementary students in years one to three.

The program in progress (TNM side)

The equipment was not capable of providing agood view of the cultural properties within the exhibition rooms, so the program was split into two parts
to ensure the quality of the viewing experience. The first part involved a virtual tour of TNM and thesecond part involved the appreciation of cultural properties. The first half of the program tookelementary and junior high school students on the remote island of Himeshima in Oita prefecture on atour of TNM’s exhibition rooms by connecting school PCs to robotic avatars installed in the museum.
The second half saw researchers conducting a shortened version of the CPCP Outreach Program. They
did so using a PC at the CPCP to control a robotic avatar installed in the schools. It took one month toconnect the equipment and run trials, with a further week required to create a program geared to thecapabilities of the equipment. The process, from preparation (including meetings and adjustments) toactual implementation, took around three months, with over ten people involved in the implementation.
When asked to compare the experience of viewing artworks online with the experience of viewing highresolution reproductions, participants confirmed that the latter is a more effective way to appreciate
cultural properties. There are limitations when it comes to appreciating cultural properties using
equipment developed for one-to-one communication (or communication between small numbers ofpeople), so we will need to wait for technological improvements in commercially available equipment
before we can truly conduct art appreciation online.

Methods

Case (2): Mie Prefectural Yokkaichi High School
The second example involved an online
version of the lecturer talk component of ourbasic program. At that time, Tokyo was under astate of emergency and Mie prefecture a semistate of emergency. Guidelines issued by theMinistry of Education, Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology (MEXI)(https://www.mext.go.jp/content/20210423mxt_kouhou02-000004520_1.pdf) stated thatgatheringsofstudents

andconversations

between students should be avoided, so kit

The program in progress (school side)

sharing was ruled out. The program used theGoogle Meet application to connect an iPad at the CPCP with PCs and monitors in the school’s art room.
The students could view the lecturer, but not all the students were displayed on the CPCP’s iPad, so it
was difficult to discern how the students were appreciating the folding-screen reproduction in the art
room.
The appreciation component in the first half of the program was essentially left unchanged. However,rather than speaking out, students were told to raise their hands to indicate whether they agreed with astatement. They were then asked to reflect quietly on why they thought that way. In the second half,students were given the choice of expressing their thoughts and feelings through (1) art or (2) words,
with presentations taking place at the end. The only changes from the basic program were somealterations to the wording used to indicate movement.
A questionnaire completed by participants revealed that the online explanation were just as effective
as face-to-face explanations. The program also roused a variety of thoughts and feelings in most of thestudents. As such, it surpassed our goal of ‘providing opportunities to encounter cultural properties.’ Infact, the program clearly demonstrated the essential role that art appreciation classes should play inschool education.

Methods

Conclusion
Online real-time programs can be implemented if they involve a lecturer giving explanations, butthere remain challenges when it comes to displaying and appreciating art through screens, withconnection stability an issue too. I hope the private sector can develop equipment for this purpose. At
the same time, I believe online programs can help to stimulate interest in museums and culturalproperties. To achieve this, we need to consider (1) gathering the artwork data acquired during the shift
online and utilizing it as ‘stock data,’ (2) methods and tools to best fit our targets and goals, (3) aligning
the goals of museum online activities with user needs, and (4) the importance and role of communication.