Q&A with Benjamin Korman: Sharing Research on Participatory Digital Media in Japanese Museums

When Benjamin Korman began his graduate research at Tokyo University of the Arts, he set out to explore how museums in Japan integrate digital media—even though he’d initially been cautioned that many institutions were slow to adopt new technologies due to budget constraints and other challenges. In the course of his research, however, Korman discovered an expansive, community-oriented approach to digital media, rooted in participatory production and meaningful local engagement.

Korman’s thesis, Digital Media as Local Practice: Community-Centered Media Production at Japanese Museums, documents these quietly transformative practices—from podcasts recorded in public spaces where local residents could contribute to online collection databases that help preserve regional histories. To ensure broader access to this work, Korman published his thesis openly on Thesis Commons, an open archive built on the Open Science Framework (OSF)’s infrastructure. The platform enables authors to share their graduate and undergraduate theses and dissertations for citation, reuse, and discovery.

By sharing his research openly, Korman aims to underscore the value of participatory digital practices in museums and other art spaces, provide a deeper understanding of Japan's unique relationship to media and technology, and offer a framework for alternate uses of digital media in cultural institutions.

In this Q&A, Korman reflects on how his background in media production and museum work led him toward open scholarship, how his path from television and audio production to museum education shaped his research, and why openness and collaboration are essential in museum studies and beyond.

Photo from one of Korman's workshops. Photographer: Alissa Osada-Phornsiri.

Q: Can you tell us about your background and your current area of research?

A: I’m originally from Baltimore, MD but lived in Brooklyn, NY for most of my life. My professional background is varied. I went to art school, then worked in television production for many years, then audio production and editorial. I was a writer at a sketch comedy theater for a long time. At some point I shifted into working at museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, making audio guides, videos, running the children’s digital program, and things like that. In 2022, I received a grant from the Japanese government to attend graduate school at Tokyo University of the Arts and research digital media at Japanese art institutions like museums, art centers, and NPOs. I’m still in Japan, working towards my PhD at a different university under the same grant.

Q: Your thesis documents some unique, community-driven uses of digital media in museum settings. What is a particularly memorable example that you encountered??

A: Most of the examples are pretty subtle, but the throughline is clear. Japan has a tendency to use art projects as a way to solve a whole list of problems—bringing tourism money to economically depressed regions, redeveloping commercial districts, engaging the remaining senior citizens in depopulated towns. There’s a small but well-funded public art museum in the Setagaya area of Tokyo that was founded in the 1980’s. Part of its charter was to create a continuing education art program. It’s still thriving, and almost all of its students are retired. After they complete the course, they can keep using the facilities. The educators led me down to the classroom areas and it was shocking. There were seniors carving wood, doing life drawing, just hanging out in this separate wing of the museum I’d never seen before. One of the courses they offer is in filmmaking. The museum had never tried to create online digital media like a web series before, but when they shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the filmmaking course graduates stepped up and made the web series for them using their own home equipment. Their efforts at community development came back and rewarded them in a surprising way.

Q: Why was it important for you to make your thesis publicly available, and how did you come to that decision?

A: It became clear as I was doing my research that Japanese museums don’t view digital media as an important part of their work. In other countries like the United States, it’s immensely valued, and large museums might have digital departments with dozens of employees. Many of the curators I spoke to here were surprised I was interested in their digital projects at all. I think it’s important for staff at Japanese art institutions to be aware of the value of the work they’re doing. Conversely, I think it’s worthwhile for museums in other countries to understand the possibilities of this community-driven approach. Many museums are highly engaged in their communities, but digital is often viewed as separate, more like an archive or a resource for a hypothetical “other” that can’t come to the museum. I’d like this information to be as available as possible. Future researchers in Japan can see that at least one person has looked into this topic and they can build from there.

Q: What was your first introduction to open scholarship? How has it shaped your thinking on how research should be shared or used?

A: Open access was a major effort while I was working at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I had the opportunity to learn about it by editing articles on the subject. The museum held Wikipedia edit-a-thons and made an enormous percentage of their artwork images available through open access licenses.

When I was doing research on my thesis, I read Remix by Lawrence Lessig, in which he shares his concept of a “read-write culture” in which he stresses the importance of allowing people to remix and rework existing media as they see fit.

Q: How did you discover the OSF, and what was your experience like using it to share your work on Thesis Commons?

A: I found that though many universities have resources for making master’s theses available online, mine did not. I started doing research on the best way to make my thesis available. At one point I wanted to upload the entire PDF to Wikimedia Commons. However, I read in some forums that the platform isn’t optimized for long documents.

I discovered Thesis Commons on some round-ups and it seemed like the best way to go. So far it’s been great and many people have already downloaded my thesis.

Photo from one of Korman's workshops. Photographer: Alissa Osada-Phornsiri.

Q: Your research blends scholarly inquiry with creative practice and community participation. What role do you think openness and accessibility should play in fields like museum studies or media production?

I think it’s important to understand what your goals are before embarking on a creative process. Museums have been pondering these questions for decades, and they’ve led to some big changes in curation, exhibition design, and education. One of the most important texts I leaned on during my research was Nina Simon’s The Participatory Museum from 2010, which documents these projects (she also made the entire book available online to read and cite with an open license). Digital media can definitely aid in those ongoing efforts. Socially engaged practice is an entire field of art that draws on these questions, as well.

I think the big question is whether you want to incorporate that openness into the production process, as some of these Japanese institutions have. There are drawbacks: you will almost definitely end up with a less polished final product. But the benefits are clear—it’s an opportunity to collaborate, educate, and build relationships.

Q: What’s next for you—do you plan to continue this line of research, or are you exploring new directions?

Shortly after graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts, I entered a PhD art practice program at Tama Art University, also in Tokyo. I have been expanding my community workshop practice and am making videos together with community members across Japan at different museums. I’m working on extending my work internationally, as a way to invite intercultural exchange