1. Final Project for
The Digital Museum
Jon Bunge
July 21, 2014

2. Proposal for
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s
Sierra Leone Youth Art Project

3. My Original Questions:
• Given the very unequal distribution of cultural
riches in the world, how could they be better
shared?
• How could the Internet and digital media be
used to share the cultural resources of a great
museum with people of impoverished
countries, who have much less access to such
resources?

4. My Client: The Met
• Because their encyclopedic collection would
appeal to people of various cultures
• I wanted to be careful not to “export” only
Western culture (the main focus of some U.S.
museums)

5. My Target Country: Sierra Leone
Why Sierra Leone?
• A mentee of mine, Mohamed Bah, is from there
• Small, impoverished nation in West Africa, population about six million
• One of the poorest countries in the world
• One of the lowest literary rates in Africa

6. My Original Idea
• Educational videos produced by the Met about art objects
from the Met’s collection that could be viewed online
• The Met staff would give background and explanation of
various objects on the videos
• Videos would be translated into the main native language
of Sierra Leone (Creole) or be subtitled
• Videos could later be subtitled in many languages to be
used not only in Sierra Leone—with the idea that the Met is
a global institution and in keeping with “One Met. Many
Worlds.”
• For older children, videos could be a curriculum tool in
schools
• Adults could learn about art and have their world expanded

7. What I learned from Mohamed
• My idea isn’t a good one because it requires Internet access
• Less than 1% of the population of Sierra Leone is online
(according to one figure on the net)
• Electricity outages are common, so Internet access is
inconsistent
• Subtitles won’t work well – only 43% are literate – and
Creole is not really a written language
• No free public education in Sierra Leone, so only an
estimated 25% of kids are in school (and thus wouldn’t see
videos)
• Mohamed himself didn’t start school until he was nine
• Main takeaway: I didn’t realize how big the “digital divide”
still was.

8. New Proposal (in conversation with David)
The Met would:
• Collaborate with a NGO in Sierra Leone which focuses
on youth and education (the Met would not run the
program itself)
• Solicit donations of computer tablets and solar
chargers (the latter to address the electricity issue)
• Load the tablets with images of masterpieces of world
art (not just Western) from the Met’s collection
• Find someone fluent in Creole, perhaps a volunteer, to
translate background information and discussion
questions about the art objects
• Load translated information onto tablets

9. Example of Tablet Screen

10. Proposal (continued)
• An instructor from the NGO would run classes for children
• Instructor will lead discussion about works of art on the
tablet (to address lack of art education in school)
• Children will then be taught how to take photos on the
tablet
• Photo activities could be based on images studied from the
tablets
• Children would then share their best photos on Facebook
• Facebook pages would be maintained in Creole (for
audience in Sierra Leone and West Africa) and English (for
audience in the U.S. and other English-speaking countries)

11. Facebook page (Creole version)

12. Proposal (final points)
• The Met would maintain a blog about the project on its
website, with a link to both versions of the Facebook page
and other social media
• With some funding and in-kind donations, exhibits of the
children’s artwork would be mounted in both Sierra Leone
and New York
• The children would help with prepping the work for the
shows (such as matting and framing), thus learning more
skills
• The shows would help to publicize and raise money for the
project
• Some of the proceeds from any sales at the shows would
go to the children and their families
• With increased visibility and funding, the project expands
to serve more children

13. Thank you so much for listening!