Virtual Museum of Guinea

In an effort to make culture a driver of development and outreach, the Government of Guinea wishes to improve access to its cultural heritage and promote its broad diversity, particularly among young people, through the use of digital tools.

It’s against this backdrop that a virtual museum is being set up to help promote the dissemination of 2D and 3D digitised versions of the collections.

The Virtual Museum is applying a groundbreaking technological approach by using modern tools and technical resources such as digitisation, dematerialisation and the Internet to preserve and promote Guinea’s cultural heritage and make it accessible.

This digitisation ensures that the Guinean authorities’ curatorial choices are respected and provides greater access to information on Guinean culture, transcending geographical boundaries.

The approach is also innovative because it links tangible and intangible heritage, with the aim of presenting objects accompanied by their sounds, songs and dances. This will be done via a web platform to be developed as part of the project.

Expertise France is supporting the National Museum of Guinea in its efforts to preserve and promote Guinea’s tangible and intangible heritage. Our work comprises three areas:

1. Organising the work on the collections of the National Museum of Guinea, including the digitisation of cultural heritage objects.
2. Training of Guinean cultural heritage professionals and students in preventive conservation, digitisation and documentary research.
3. Development of a web platform and an off-line tool that brings into dialogue tangible and intangible cultural heritage and its objects held both within and outside Guinea, as well as the creation of resources aimed at young people, the educational community and the research sector.

The goal of the “Virtual Museum of Guinea” is to make Guinean culture more accessible, not only within the country – particularly among young people and teachers – but also internationally, notably within the academic community.

It will help improve the quality of knowledge, promote research and enhance the skills of museum personnel at Guinean museums. This will be done through training programmes and the project to digitise the National Museum of Guinea’s collections.

Creative content will also be produced to showcase Guinea’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage and foster dialogue between them.

The Virtual Museum project seeks to be inclusive and participatory. It is committed to representing all Guinean cultures, including minority communities, through the creation of the virtual museum.

This engaging approach also involves Guinean young people in the design and implementation of the project, for example by involving blogging associations to promote Guinea’s heritage internationally.