Congratulations to the ANU Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies' Associate Professor Yujie Zhu who has been awarded an international grant from the Korean National Commission for UNESCO for the project, “Museums as Transnational Heritage Hubs: Civilian War Victims, Memory Networks and Global Recognition."

To be conducted in collaboration with leading scholars from Yale University and and Duke Kunshan University, as well as curators from museums in Seoul, Tokyo, Taipei, and Shanghai, the project explores how museums function as transnational platforms to engage with the legacies of war, forced displacement, and historical injustice.

A key innovation of the project is the development of digital cultural mapping in partnership with digital humanities researchers. This mapping will visualise the transnational memory networks linking institutions, communities, and archives across East Asia and beyond. It will also support educational and exhibition initiatives, enabling new ways to teach and engage the public with complex histories of violence, survival, and remembrance.

Through comparative fieldwork,digital storytelling and student-led exhibitions, the project explores how museums navigate political sensitivities, ethical challenges, and historical silences to craft meaningful narratives of survival and solidarity. In the context of ongoing global conflicts, refugee crises, and intensifying debates over historical memory, it highlights the vital role museums play in advancing ethical, inclusive approaches to public history.

This project affirms ANU’s leadership in heritage and museum studies and contributes to global conversations on building frameworks for peace, intercultural understanding, and a more inclusive shared future.