Prism
A Museum Experience

Prism is an integrated museum app that unites works from multiple collections into a curated digital archive, designed to support art enthusiasts both online and on-site by restoring the joy of in-person discovery while expanding access for those exploring from home - particularly during the pandemic.

Appflow

A.01 Prism, 2020

Here, digitization reads as unquestioned good – a promise of broader access and discovery through a seamless virtual interface. But access to what, exactly? The app positions itself as a neutral frame that simply delivers museum content, yet such a move risks implicitly legitimizing the institutions – their classifications and narratives as complete and universally relevant.

And access for whom? Who is imagined as the “art enthusiast” here? Whose device, literacy, time, and cultural comfort become the baseline of participation? What languages would this app speak, and who decides which ones matter?

The interface also depends on a smooth backend of digitisation, shared standards, and cooperative institutions — all treated as logistical givens rather than deeply political processes shaped by labour and negotiation.

When cultural content becomes a scrollable feed, what contexts and relations fall away? What does design erase when it equates access with visibility?