ITP Conference Grant awarded to Ma. Yohana Frias (Philippines, ITP 2018)

Written by Claire Messenger, Manager, International Training Programme

We are excited to announce that the first ITP Conference Grant of 2024 has been awarded to Ma. Yohana Frias (Philippines, ITP Fellow 2018).

Yohana will be using her support grant to travel to Belfast, Northern Ireland for the 2024 ICOM UK Conference – Common Ground: the role of museums in divided communities.

Yohana is an Exhibition Designer at the National Museum of the Philippines where she works with a team to design and install exhibitions, produce exhibition content, publications, virtual tours, and video featurettes.  Currently she is based in Edinburgh Napier University to study for an MA in Heritage and Exhibition Design.

The ICOM UK conference will take place from 11 to 13 April 2024 at Ulster Museum, part of National Museums Northern Ireland https://www.nationalmuseumsni.org/.

The conference theme will focus on the way we currently live in an age of division and discord, with many communities riven by political differences, social inequalities and, in some cases, conflict and its legacy. This conference will explore the role of museums as valuable shared spaces, where differences can be ethically discussed and represented, and areas of commonality identified and valued.

It will be an opportunity for Yohana to hear from museum professionals from the island of Ireland, the UK and the global museum community, in a city that has been damaged by division but through the ongoing social peace process is embracing the opportunities of the present and looking to a more positive future.

The ICOM UK 2024 Conference is a collaboration between ICOM UK, NMDC and National Museums NI, with support from the Northern Ireland Museums Council, the Irish Museums Association, ICOM Ireland and Barker Langham.

Yohana is an active member of the ITP global network.  In 2020, during COVID, she attended the International Training Programme’s series of online subject specialist sessions and in 2022, Yohana delivered an Online Subject Specialist Session on the Behind-the-Scenes of Exhibitions at the National Museum of the Philippines.  Later that year, she also participated in the ITP+ Leadership Training and Museums Association Conference held in Edinburgh.

We are delighted to be able to support Yohana to attend the conference in Belfast and look forward to her sharing her experience with the wider ITP network.