ABSTRACT
The early twenty-first century has seen the advance of collaboration and cooperation between Japanese museums and their counterparts elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region in a wide range of forms. At the Asian Art Museum Directors’ Forum, an event held annually since 2006, museum directors discuss issues that confront museums and art galleries in Asia and deliberate actively on future measures for mutual cooperation. In Ningbo, China, in December 2008, museum representatives from fourteen countries gathered for the International Museum Forum, conducting lively discussions on the theme of ‘New tasks and core values for museums in the twenty-first century’. In February 2009, a Round-Table Discussion among Museums in Japan, China and South Korea was realized at Tokyo National Museum, under the sponsorship of the Japan Museum Management Academy. This conference formed part of ongoing deliberations by Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Japanese Association of Museums. The gathering was organized partly in response to a statement in February 2008 that ‘the Asian museum community strongly desires an international contribution by Japan’, when Dr Bae Kidong, the then Chairperson of the Korean Association of Museums, and Chang Inkyung, the former Chairperson of the International Council of Museums Asia-Pacific Alliance (ICOM-ASPAC), were invited to visit Japan for regional museums cooperation and planning.
