Definition Of Museum Research Articles

The Hilditch-McGill Chinese Palace Temple: Exhibitions, Mass Culture, and China in the British Imagination in the 1920s.

In February 1926, Chinese art collector John Hilditch opened the Hilditch-McGill Chinese Palace Temple in Manchester. Filling a garage with Chinese objects and performing what he claimed to be Buddhist rituals, Hilditch insisted the temple offered visitors a chance to see Chinese art in 'actual Chinese fashion and atmosphere'. This article analyses Hilditch's attempts to construct an authentic temple and visitor accounts of its realism to analyse the relationship between high and low culture, and how China was understood and imagined in the 1920s. It shows how Hilditch's combination of sensory effects adopted from mass culture and claims to museum notions of scientific verification, in addition to the projection of well-established stereotypes of China, skewed understandings of authenticity and invited faith-albeit most likely 'ironic' faith-in the temple's legitimacy. Scholars have argued that the rise of mass culture prompted art museums to restructure on high cultural values but interpretation of the temple as a museum shows that the lines between mass culture and museums were blurred. The temple thereby encourages a broader definition of museums and complicates our understanding of interwar culture more generally by showing how the categories of high and low culture were less stable than some scholars have presumed.

Museumization of olive oil mills: instruments for conservation of the heritage of the olive grove culture

Opposed to the historical concept of the olive oil mills as places just for transporting the fruit, milling and olive oil production, the growing interest in its museumization is turning them into gastronomic, cultural and ethnographic points of reference. This study analysed the components of the museumization of Andalusian olive oil mills, using the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) technique and employing the fuzzy-set approach (fsQCA). To that end, it draws on the definition of museum put forward by the more progressive elements of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The main implication from the results is that olive oil mill professionals should adapt the museum offer according to the needs and aspects identified by the causality results of the model, and design museumization strategies with actions tailored to olive oil tourism, in order to more effectively tackle the transformations needed in the sector and enable the conservation of olive cultural heritage.

Debating the ‘museum’: a quantitative content analysis of international proposals for a new ICOM museum definition

ABSTRACT What is a museum? Though seemingly obvious, the answer to this question has eluded the international museum sector since a controversial redraft of the official definition, put forward by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in 2019, was dramatically rejected by its own membership. As deliberations about what constitutes a museum continue ahead of ICOM’s next General Conference in 2022, this article provides a quantitative content analysis of 269 definition proposals submitted by ICOM’s international membership during the 2019 consultation phase, in order to evaluate how closely the wording of the eventual proposed definition mirrored the priorities of ICOM’s stakeholder base. The research finds that contributors favoured the content of the standing ICOM definition over terms and concepts that characterised the proposed revision. In the light of these findings, the article proposes ways in which ICOM can improve its consultation processes in order to more faithfully gauge the perspectives of its constituents ahead of the 2022 conference.

PARTICIPATION OF THE PUBLIC IN POLISH MUSEUMS

In the 21<sup>st</sup> century, participation is one of the key words related to the operations of museums and debate around them. The public are encouraged to co-create museum projects: exhibitions, programmes that accompany exhibitions, studies; they play the role of consultants and advisors (youth councils, clubs, consultancy teams). Museums are more and more widely ‘opening’ to embrace the public. Never before has the position of visitors been as significant. An overview of participatory programmes in Polish museums is provided. They are classified and characterized by the Author who places them within the philosophy of museum operations, particularly with respect to the altering role of museums, currently debated over within ICOM, with the context of the new museum definition in mind; furthermore, she presents the initial conclusions drawn from the implementation of such projects for museums. In the paper the material from interviews conducted as part of the Atlas of Museum Participation Project implemented with a grant from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has been used.

Decolonising the Museum? Community Experiences in the Periphery of the ICOM Museum Definition

AbstractThe article proposes a postcolonial reflection on the impacts of the ICOM museum definition on the practice of community‐based museums and considers the possible effects of engaging these museums in the international conversations for a new definition. It investigates ICOM’s internal debates on a new museum definition, resumed since 2016, and its normative, political, and financial effects on the reality of community museums in the peripheries of the global South. By exploring the historical roots of the present debate and its decolonial rhetoric, this paper questions what forms of “decolonisation” are at stake, once again, in the discussions concerning a new museum definition for the 21st century. To demonstrate the impacts of the definition on community museums around the world, the article recurs to the example of Brazilian Social museology, which serves to illuminate how the persistence of political relationships between a centre and its peripheries help to define museum marginality. The ICOM museum definition, conceived as a tool by some central agents to be applied globally in different social contexts, establishes the boundaries between the subjects who have the right to memory and the means to make museums and those who are currently deprived of them.

Role of The Grand Egyptian Museum in Promoting International Tourism to Egypt

The Grand Egyptian Museum is considered one of the most important civilizational projects in the current century, as for its unique location, features, and cultural importance. The research was focusing on: Definition of Museums, Importance of Museums in Tourism Destinations, the GEM Importance, its role in promoting the International Tourism to Egypt. The study aims to identify the unique features of the GEM, illustrate its economic and tourism benefits, and mention the importance of opening the GEM in increasing and promoting the international tourism to Egypt. The study examines three research questions:(1)What are the most important features of the GEM that distinguished it from other museums worldwide?, (2)What is the role of the GEM in promoting the international tourism to Egypt?, (3) How can tourism organizations in Egypt benefit from the opening of the GEM in marketing Egyptian Tourism effectively?. Descriptive research with quantitative and qualitative methods were used, surveys was done to collect the data. The results revealed that the GEM will have a great role in revitalizing international tourism, especially cultural tourism in addition to conference and educational tourism and accessible tourism, furthermore providing suggestions to the tourism organizations in Egypt to benefit from the opening of the GEM in marketing Egyptian Tourism in a professional manner, the study provides valuable recommendations to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Egyptian General Authority for Tourist Promotion, Ministry of Civil Aviation, for promoting the Gem in effective way beside important recommendations for the GEM authority.

El museo como proyecto artístico

El museo como proyecto artístico habita un terreno poroso entre las prácticas instituyentes, la gestión y la producción artística que habilita la práctica contemporánea en arte. En este trabajo se analizan tres experiencias que se nombran como museo, surgidos entre 2010 y 2017 en diferentes ciudades de Argentina: La Ene. Nuevo Museo Energía de Arte Contemporáneo de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, Unidad Básica. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Córdoba y MUCA. Musea Constructora de La Plata. Para el análisis se partirá de la definición de museo acuñada por el ICOM, así como de los debates sobre el rol de los museos de arte y las prácticas museales contemporáneas. A su vez, se trazaron posibles genealogías alternativas de museos y filiaciones con proyectos artísticos de la crítica institucional a nivel internacional, regional y local. Se considera que estos proyectos constituyen experiencias críticas y proponen otros modos posibles de ser museo.

Intangible Cultural Heritage museums: Further considerations for a new museum definition

As a new museum definition is being developed, it is time to reconsider the impact of UNESCO’s Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage on the museum field. Museums focusing on specific intangible cultural elements, or Intangible Cultural Heritage museums, have been emerging to illustrate a range of approaches to the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage from a museological perspective. This paper suggests the need to explore these experiences to gain a better understanding of how museums and their practices are being transformed, expanded and adapted in response to this element of heritage. The Museo del Baile Flamenco is briefly presented as an example of an ICH museum that challenges us to think more broadly about the actors and methods involved in defining a museum, calling for a more open-minded approach for envisioning museums in the 21st century.

Foreword. ICOFOM’s commitment to a new museum definition

This new issue of ICOFOM Study Series was first conceived in Kyoto, Japan, after the ICOFOM plenary that discussed the museum definition prior to the ICOM Extraordinary Assembly of September 7, 2019. In that moment, we witnessed possibly the greatest dispute over a museum definition in ICOM history, and the increase of some frictions that would be both conceptual and political within this organisation. In an optimistic interpretation of the recent past, the General Conference in Kyoto represe...

In Defense of Museum Education

Based on a Friends episode, this text investigates perceptions concerning museum education, discusses disparities in regard to the relative value and power assigned to professionals in museums, and reflects on the relevance of education as a core purpose of these institutions. It comments on the conceptual heritage left by the first public policies of culture and reflects on the updating of and decolonizing actions in museums. It discusses how knowledge is constructed and questions the rise of new nomenclatures for museum education. Finally, it reflects on the new definition of museum, and the unfortunate removal of the term “education” from the definition as one of the institution’s main purposes.

What kinds of museums for what kinds of societies?

The article reflects the broader political contexts of the current debate about ICOM’s museum definition. It focuses on the aim to commit museums to specific values that define their place within their respective societies. What kind of values are addressed? What is specific about them? And why did they trigger such a lively debate? To my mind the decisive question at the heart of the controversy is: Is the new text about an ambitious museum vision for the future? Or should ICOM rather pursue the cultural policy matters of formulating (minimum) standards with its definition which (should) already apply to all museums today and which policy respects?

Is it Possible to Tie Down a Universal Museum Definition?

Museums are known worldwide and even though they are a Western construct, similar facilities can be found everywhere. There is a cachet to having a museum in one’s community where it becomes a source of collective pride. Nevertheless, museums serve not one, but many communities and the question is whether that fact can be encapsulated in a definition which reflects the total community ethos and the many voices of its stakeholders. Minority and indigenous populations in particular are demanding their voices be heard and this has posed a problem for the creation of a museum definition. In the end, an inclusive, meaningful definition may not be readily found.

It Is, It Was, They Are, We Are: The Museum Definition as a Norm and a Collective Framework

The ICOM museum definition is widely accepted by museums and is also used as a tool for research into the history of museums. This external acceptance obscures the fact that the complete definition text is rarely filled by any one museum, rather it defines all museums. It can be argued that if all elements of a definition are only held by a minority of museums, the definition itself is possibly questionable. This paper argues that, in addition to the factual description of what a museum is (or was) or what distinguishes museums collectively, museum professionals increasingly claim space in that definition to professionalize themselves. The definition has been instrumental in defining museum professionals and in projecting what they think they are about.

POLITICAL UNDERTONE OF THE NEW ICOM MUSEUM DEFINITION, OR MANEUVERING A TRANSATLANTIC AMONG ICEBERGS

The museum definition is of systemic importance for ICOM, since it demarcates the area of activity of this international non-governmental organization grouping museum curators. The answer to the question whether the new museum definition presented at the ICOM General Conference in Kyoto on 1–7 September 2019 reveal a political undertone is sought. The majority of the attendees did not support the put-forth proposal, opting to postpone the vote on its acceptance. What I mean by the ‘political undertone of the new museum definition’ is that the definiens takes into account the fact that museums are institutions tangled up in exerting power and applying symbolic violence. According to the Kyoto definition museums are identified with critical museums, treated as space for public debate directed at the future. This vision did not convince the majority, since it excluded many institutions until now regarded to be museums from the museum category. As such, the Kyoto definition turned out not to be a definition, but a political manifesto of a group of museum curators. Additionally, not being coherent, it proved useless for phrasing legislative acts.

Museum Cooperation Between Africa and Europe: A New Field for Museum Studies edited by Thomas Laely, Marc Meyer, and Raphael Schwere

Museum Cooperation Between Africa and Europe: A New Field for Museum Studies edited by Thomas Laely, Marc Meyer, and Raphael Schwere

MUSEUM IN THE PROCESS. SELECTED TENDENCIES IN 20TH-CENTURY MUSEOLOGY

The debate on the museum definition undertaken at the 2019 Kyoto ICOM General Conference points to the role played contemporarily by museums and the expectations they have to meet. It also results as a consequence of changes happening in museums beginning as of the 19th century until today. Extremely important processes took place in the past century. Initially, the changes covered the museum operating methods, mainly within museum education and display, however, they also had an impact on the status of objects in museum collections in the context of artistic and ethnographic collections. One of the most interesting ideas for museum’s redefinition was that proposed in the 1st half of the 20th c. in the formula of Museums of Artistic Culture. However, the departure from the traditionally conceived museum towards a ‘laboratory of modernity’ proposed by the Russian Avant-garde was still too revolutionary for its times. Beginning as of the 1960s, next to the reflection on museums’ operating modes, there increased the emphasis on the role they played and the one they should play in modern society. It was phenomena of political, social or economic character that had a direct impact on the transformation of the shape of museums, these phenomena appearing under the banners of globalization, liberalization, democratization, glocalization. Criticism of museums and their up-to-then praxes drew attention to the essential character of the relation between the institution and its public. The turn towards society allowed for such formats to appear as an ecomuseum, participatory museum, open museum. The solutions derived from the New Museology not only point to the necessity to move the level of the relationship between museum and society, but first and foremost to reflect on museum’s activity which is assumed to create an institution maximally transparent and ethical. It is for various reasons that not all the solutions proposed by museums meet the criteria. Museums continue to face numerous challenges, yet they boast potential to face them.

A Study on the Resolution of ICOM Museum Definition: Focusing on Predictions and Suggestions for the Museum Management

2019ICOM교토에서 새로운 박물관 정의의 채택 투표가 진행되었다. 문화적 담론으로의 새로운 박물관과 관련한 논의가 이루어지고 있었던 것에 힘입어 ICOM은 2015년 실무위원 구성을 중심으로 MDPP를 창설하고 새로운 박물관 정의를 제안했다. 본 연구는 박물관경영 차원에서 정의의 결정을 앞두고 논의 전개와 쟁점을 살펴보아 공론화하고자 하였다. 박물관 정의는 제트 샌달의 주도로 제안되었으며, 정의 채택에 대한 찬반 의견을 통해 각 국가들의 박물관 경영 전략이 의사결정에 전제되었음을 살펴보았다. 새로운 정의를 받아들일 충분한 논의와 준비의 필요 또한 확인하였다. 연구는 새로운 정의가 채택되면 대응차원에서 박물관이 직면하게 될 경영상 문제를 살펴보았다. 박물관 경영 비전과, 실행, 콘텐츠, 타겟 등의 경영 요소를 분류하고, 발생할 문제들을 예측하였다. 또한 뒤따를 제도적 법적 변화와, 예측을 통해 대비의 필요성을 제기하였다. 본 연구는 오늘날 박물관이 나아가고자 하는 방향성을 이해하고, 대응하기 위한 논의의 시발점으로 그 의미가 있다.ICOM voted to resolve a new museum definition at ICOM2019. With the new discussion of a museum as a platform for participation and communication and a cultural hub, ICOM created a MDPP in 2015, started discussions to propose. This study intends to publicize the issues before it resolved. The definition has been proceeded by Jet Sandal, and still requires discussion and preparation. The pros and cons in each country were premised on decision making. The museums would face in response to the adoption of new definitions. The study focused on museum management, categorized factors such as vision, content, and targets and suggested the problems that museum would face. Through institutional and legal changes and predictions, the necessity of preparation was raised. This study is meaningful as a starting point of discussion for understanding and responding to the direction that museums face today.

MUSEUM DIVERSITY THROUGH THE LENS OF THE KYOTO DEFINITION

The author analyses the logic underlying the ICOM museum definition process and the sense of continuity among the different definitions, since its creation in 1946. The new definition proposed in Kyoto in 2019 (during the ICOM General Conference, 1–7 September) created a risk of breaking within this continuity and the museum community. The definition process is here put in parallel with the notion of mission statement, associated with strategic management, and the value system linked to a resolutely activist vision of the museum, integrating such topics as gender, postcolonialism, sustainable development or human rights.

HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM CONCEPT AND CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES: INTRODUCTION INTO THE DEBATE ON THE NEW ICOM MUSEUM DEFINITION

The topic discussed in the paper is the change and evolution the concept of museum (Greek: museion, Latin: musaeum) has been undergoing for over 2500 years, as well as many of its different meanings: from the definition of a spot in space, including a place of worship, up to the name of learning form, research and knowledge centre, collection of texts and poetry, music and theatre festival, synonyms of a dictionary and encyclopaedia, library and a secluded study spot, up to large institutions co-creating culture and educating socially. Once museums had become social institutions, the process of defining their organizational form and their mission limits began. The International Council of Museums (ICOM), as an organization grouping museum employees and museologists, namely both practitioners and theoreticians, ever since its establishment in 1946 has on a number of occasions initiated works on a shared definition of museum. The paper assembles all the ICOM-proposed definitions in 1946–2007 presented both in English and Polish. The latest proposal submitted at the Kyoto ICOM General Conference on 7 September 2019 (Annex 1), however, for the first time aroused a heated debate and was not finally voted on by the ICOM General Assembly; instead, the debate has continued on the proposed phrasing since. The historical overview of the museum concept and the history of the ICOM museum definition presented against the opinions of invited Polish museum professionals is the ‘record of time’, documenting the considerations on the role and tasks of museum in contemporary society.

The ruins as museum of the place’s palimpsest. The ABDR’s project for the Mausoleum of Augustus

Nelle città stratificate mediterranee le rovine archeologiche riaffiorano in un contesto mutato rispetto a quello a cui appartenevano e ci trasportano in tempi di cui rievocano la memoria. Al loro valore rammemorativo, tuttavia, si aggiunge un valore potenziale che induce a considerarle delle forme aperte, disponibili ad alimentare la ricerca compositiva dell’architettura contemporanea. Questa duplice valenza, di rammemorare il passato e di suggerire nuove trasformazioni, è intimamente legata anche alla definizione di museo. Nel progetto di ABDR proposto in occasione della consultazione internazionale del 2006 per il Mausoleo di Augusto e piazza Augusto Imperatore, la rovina archeologica riacquista un senso contemporaneo, divenendo essa stessa museo del complesso palinsesto del luogo.