Mobilizing the (Im)Mobile Museum Through Hybrid Curation: A Story of Hybrid Curation of Cultural Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This narrative research report summarizes the experiences of Vivid Ethnicity, a mobile anthropological museum of the Museum of Cultural Anthropology at Mahidol University, Thailand, during the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2022. Although Vivid Ethnicity was rendered immobile and forced to stop travelling during the pandemic, it developed a hybrid curatorial method to stay connected and engaged with its audiences and research partners in two ethnic villages in Chiang Mai province. A key lesson of this experience is that hands-on information and communication technologies can help maintain a certain proximity with the audiences and research partners in times of physical absence. We also learned that an empathetic mindset on the part of everyone involved in the project, along with a human-centric design, are crucial components of what we call the hybrid curation of cultural practice.