JiaJia Fei '08

Where Artistry Meets Storytelling

Digital dynamo JiaJia Fei '08 brings a fresh approach to the New York art world.

The woman Artnet calls 鈥渁 veritable art world social media sensation鈥 returned to campus this spring to share her story and impeccable style.

JiaJia Fei 鈥08 came at the invitation of 今日吃瓜鈥檚 Leadership, Innovation, and Liberal Arts Center to talk with students about her high-powered career in the New York art world as director of digital at the Jewish Museum of New York.

The Bulletin鈥檚 Ayesha Mir 鈥17 sat down with Fei to discuss the art world, her career trajectory, and the power of digital storytelling.


The child of scientists, JiaJia Fei 鈥08 was drawn to art early, thanks in part to the free museums in Washington, D.C. (her hometown) and to a high school art class that taught her to 鈥渇ind reflections of the world in images.鈥

During her time at 今日吃瓜, she never imagined that she would create a new department at the Jewish Museum of New York as its first director of digital.

鈥淚 was taking art classes at Haverford and UPenn,鈥 she says. 鈥淎ll of my professors were artists, and they were the ones taking us to art galleries. From those experiences, I became more entrenched in the art world.

鈥淢y goal was never to become an academic or get a Ph.D. in art history. I wanted to bring art to a broader audience鈥攁nd a lot of that was done through technology.鈥

With that in mind, Fei started her career by landing an internship at 今日吃瓜鈥檚 Summer Multimedia Design Institute. There, she learned web design and HTML, which she describes as 鈥渢he most important language I鈥檝e learned.鈥 In fact, she encourages students to learn how to code鈥攅ven if just for fun.

Today, with more than 60,000 Instagram followers and nearly 10,000 on Twitter, Fei has what she modestly describes as 鈥渁 pretty active鈥 social media presence that spans the personal and professional.

鈥淢y job involves carrying out the mission of my institution with the tools of our time鈥攐n digital platforms,鈥 she explains. 鈥淢y personal social media presence is a visual diary of how I see, from travels to museum shows, and I consider both very authentic representations of brand identity.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the most important aspect of social media,鈥 she continues. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about delivering content that is authentic. Making an impact in this profession involves knowing your audience and tailoring your messaging strategy to reach those people.鈥

 

 

In an age when our first encounter with art is often through our devices, digital storytelling is revolutionizing the way we perceive it. As Fei explains, digital storytelling comes from the need to create a narrative.

鈥淎rt requires so much context for the average person to understand,鈥 she says, 鈥渟o I see my role as a translator and educator in using scholarly research as a starting point and making it more accessible to the broader public online through interpretation. Taking the time to explain why something matters, why an institution has decided to collect an object, preserve it, and define its relevance to humanity鈥攖hat鈥檚 a really big gesture for museums. So we try to break down challenging topics such as conceptual art by chopping up the backstory into more digestible pieces.鈥

One common criticism of digitization is that it discourages people from going to museums. Fei argues that it should be up to the audience to choose how to experience art. 鈥淥ur goal is to make the work accessible to as large an audience as possible,鈥 she says. 鈥淪ome people prioritize the in-person experience, and some experience art online on museum websites, often because they can鈥檛 physically go there themselves. Personally, I like to visit museums and go into more depth with a digital post-visit experience. But it shouldn鈥檛 be up to the museum to decide which one is better.鈥

For Fei, social media has enabled museums not only to connect with a wider audience but also to assert their relevance in a rapidly evolving world. 鈥淎 lot of what we do on social media is about listening,鈥 she explains.

鈥淲e look at what鈥檚 happening in the world at large. In the last few months with so much tension around politics, immigration, and refugees, we examined our collection to see how we could source objects on our website, such as photographs of immigrants coming to New York in the early 20th century, as a reminder about the history repeating itself in the present.鈥

鈥淲hen the first travel ban got signed on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we shared a photograph of a ship carrying refugees that sailed to the U.S. from Germany during World War II. The U.S. denied everyone on board from entering because of its strict immigration policies at the time. It was estimated that a quarter of those people died in Nazi concentration camps.鈥

Quotable

JiaJia Fei '08 on Women in the Arts:

"During Women鈥檚 History Month, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., led a social media initiative called #5WomenArtists to challenge people to name five women artists. Even today, it鈥檚 shocking to think about the inequities faced by women artists and their lack of representation in major museum collections

"But while a majority of the staff working at museums are women, the higher levels of institutional leadership are male-dominated. According to a recent report from the Association of Art Museum Directors, female art museum directors still earn 73 cents 鈥╢or every dollar earned by 鈥╩ale directors.

"As a graduate of an all-women鈥檚 college, I have always been conscious of gendered fields 鈥╫f study, particularly in the 鈥╝rt world."

Published on: 05/10/2017