Virtual Exhibitions as an Interactive Educational Tool

Exhibitions and exhibition reviews are known practices in several disciplines. Some of these disciplines have an artistic nature that allows critiques and face-to-face interaction to triangulate the exhibited work from practice, reflection, and future possibilities. The Covid-19 pandemics restricted face-to-face exhibitions, which allowed other forms of virtual nature to develop. Online exhibitions are events that can be viewed on digital devices like computers and mobile phones using the internet anywhere, any time and any place. Nowadays, it is considered one of the best ways to disseminate digital artifacts information in any area, including Art, Heritage, Design, special Museum or temporary Exhibition collections. This research explores the validity and potential of virtual exhibitions using social media platforms to exhibit designed products. The research reflects on the process and collects qualitative data from 2020 and 2021 virtual exhibitions of design projects and products exhibited on the ‘Instagram’ social platform. The experience of 38 exhibitors and 15 jurors was recorded and analyzed to understand the potential of this learning experience. The results indicated the success of the experiment and allured the possibility of adopting this learning method in more disciplines where cost and complexity are replaced with efficiency and extreme interactivity. This sustainable academic practice may then be adopted as a regular one considering its relatively free cost and extremely high educational benefits.