Jana Macháčková - curator of digital collections

Jana, introduce yourself briefly.

Jana Macháčková, Curator of Digital Collections, Digitization Department, Archdiocesan Museum Kroměříž

I am a creative person who has been fascinated by the world of art since childhood. A few years ago, my enthusiasm for new technologies, specifically digitization and data analysis, was awakened a bit unexpectedly.

I worked for the Olomouc Museum of Art for almost 5 years as a curator of old drawings and prints and also as the head of its specialist department in Kroměříž. Now I am working with the museum on a project of digitization of the collections within the project Recorded-Open.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I like challenges, so now I'm looking for projects that would help connect two seemingly distant fields - art and IT. That's why I now work as a consultant and analyst for an IT company providing products and services for museums and galleries.

What I enjoy about my work is that I apply my several years of experience working in museums and combine it with the amazing possibilities offered by new technologies. As a result, I am involved, albeit in a very different role than before, in the care and presentation of our common cultural heritage.

What is your favourite work of art?

I don't really have one favourite work of art, but I am very fascinated by an older film about the origins of the Sistine Chapel paintings The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). From my perspective, it captures quite wonderfully the often unique and intimate relationship between the artist and his work, as well as the complicated relationship between the artist and the commissioner of the work... each is completely different, but through art they somehow come to understand each other in the end.