The void left by "storytellers" for heritage.

The global theme of this year's International Museum Day (May 18) is "Museums unite a divided world," reflecting the increasingly proactive and dialogue-driven role of museums.

In this transformative landscape, curation (a term referring to the profession of selecting, developing content, and organizing exhibitions) has emerged as a crucial position, directly influencing exhibition quality, public engagement, and even how a museum positions itself in contemporary life. However, in Vietnam, the curation profession still faces significant gaps, both in terms of awareness, training, and professional standards.

For a long time, museum activities were primarily viewed through the lens of "preserving and displaying artifacts." This approach remains necessary, but it is no longer sufficient in a rapidly changing society, where the public—especially young people—increasingly values ​​experience, emotion, and interaction alongside the need for information. Therefore, curators today are no longer simply "arranging artifacts," but rather organizers of stories, creators of experiences, and shapers of how the public engages with the past.

The problem is that while the role has changed, the training and professional recognition systems haven't kept pace, causing curators to easily become "diluted" into other functions within the museum. In many places, this work is fragmented among multiple departments, lacking a dedicated team with interdisciplinary expertise. As a result, many exhibitions, despite investment, lack depth in discourse, connectivity, and a distinct identity.

Meanwhile, international experience shows that curation is the "pivot" of museum innovation. At the Smithsonian Museum System (USA), the "community curation" model allows social groups to directly participate in building exhibition content, thereby creating more multifaceted and relatable stories. At the British Museum or Tate Modern (UK), curatorial teams are well-trained and act as "content producers," connecting academic research with contemporary creativity.

Another notable trend is the shift from “static exhibits” to “dynamic experiences.” The Louvre Museum (France) and the National Museum of Singapore have strongly integrated digital technology , from augmented reality to immersive spaces, transforming the visitor journey into a multi-sensory experience. In these models, the curator’s work extends to design, technology, and communication to build a complete “experiential scenario” for visitors.

Looking at these developments, the core issue isn't whether or not technology is adopted, but whether the curatorial capacity is sufficient to "retell" the heritage in a new way. Technology is merely a tool; it is the curator who decides how the story is told, in what tone, and to which audience.

In Vietnam, the urgent need now is to develop a standardized curatorial competency framework to serve as a foundation for training and practice. This framework needs to go beyond the confines of traditional museology, integrating interdisciplinary elements such as communication, design, technology, and public relations research. Simultaneously, it needs to create experimental spaces where curators can implement new ideas, embrace creative risks, and learn from practical experience.

More importantly, there needs to be a shift in perspective regarding curators, from a "behind-the-scenes" role to a strategic one. In the context of increasingly fierce cultural competition, museums are transforming from repositories of memory into spaces for producing content and images. And curators are the ones who "write the script" for how a museum tells the story it preserves.

When curators are properly positioned, museums will no longer be silent spaces of the past, but become living entities capable of engaging in dialogue with the present and opening up new ways of understanding heritage. This is also the path for Vietnamese museums to catch up with global trends and gradually create their own mark on the global cultural map.

OCEAN

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/khoang-trong-nguoi-ke-chuyen-cho-di-san-post852997.html