Museum Community Research Articles

Museums of death as a modern trend

The paper analyzes Museums of death, which in recent decades have appeared in many countries of the world, including Russia. The popularity of museums that bring death out of the private and into the public sphere, removing the social taboos associated with it, testifies to a shift in public consciousness that is taking place before our eyes, which will require anthropologists to pay closer attention. Turning to their experience, on the one hand, is interesting as another attempt to answer the question why does the topic of death look both frightening and attractive at the same time? On the other hand, it will allow us to analyze the possibilities of museification of the idea of death, taking into account its social taboo. In this paper methods of digital ethnography were used, the sources were materials from the Internet official websites of institutions, their pages on social networks, reviews of visitors on various platforms. Materials of the authors observations and field studies in Russian museums, primarily in the Novosibirsk Museum of World Funeral Culture, were also partially involved. This paper also considers stages of international museum community formation associated with the presentation of the theme of death in public space, museum practices and development strategies, as well as the problems of exploiting the theme of death in the entertainment industry.

When Digital Doesn’t Work: Experiences of Co-Designing an Indigenous Community Museum

The challenges to implement digital technologies in community-based projects are exposed in a case study co-designing an indigenous Community Museum, situated in the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo, Malaysia. Over a five-year period, this co-design project consisted of field trips, community engagements, and creating a documentary film and an inaugural exhibition in the newly constructed Kelabit Museum. This article highlights the limitations of digital technologies in museum contexts. Co-designing with stakeholders resulted in the decision to take a non-digital approach to the museum development to encourage greater community agency and prevent disengagement, as it incorporated heritage values in local community developments and cultural tourism plans. The findings demonstrate that community self-determination conflicted with preconceived outcomes, resulting in a need to re-evaluate the goals of the project. Instead, the ambition of cultural heritage preservation that maintained community participation emerged as the central goal. Removing the focus on a digital solution expanded community participation, which is a finding that should be used to frame other community cultural developments.

Exhibition Activities of the Pavlovsk Palace and Park Ensemble in the 1950s

During the period of active post-war restoration of the palace and park ensembles of Leningrad, in the absence of permanent expositions, exhibitions were one of the few ways of museum communication. The article focuses on the exhibitions of the Pavlovsk Palace Museum and Park in the 1950s. As a research base, the author uses articles from the newspaper “Vperyod” issued in the city of Pushkin, and unpublished materials of the Central State Archive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg: reports and plans of the directorate, programs of festive events, minutes of the scientific department employees’ meetings, financial reports of the 1950s, etc.On the example of Pavlovsk, the article reveals the essence of exhibitions as a typical phenomenon for a museum complex, as well as for a culture and recreation park, which allowed forming civic consciousness and implementing state cultural policy. The exhibitions helped to solve a set of political, educational, personality-developing, leisure, and cultural tasks of Soviet cultural institutions.The author conducts a comparative quantitative analysis of the total number of exhibitions by year. Based on the content of the exhibitions, there is provided a universal thematic classification. The article shows the connection of the disclosed topics and the number of exhibitions with the cultural and political situation in the country during that period. There is determined the organizational specifics of the process, within which the main sites, time and forms of exhibitions are identified.The article concludes that most of the exhibitions did not correspond to the museum’s essence, but those that related directly to the history of the museum and its collections were in tourist demand. Some of the exhibitions of the museum profile, over time, determined the content of the future permanent expositions of the State Museum-Reserve “Pavlovsk”. The emergence and growth of such exhibitions, covered in the media, contributed to the activation of visitor interest in Pavlovsk as a museum and the development of cultural tourism, primarily at the local and regional level.

Modern Museum Communications as a Means of Visitors Attracting

The purpose of the study is to analyze the websites of museums in Russia in the European context. The Fine Arts museums in five regional centers of Russia and European Union, namely, in France, Germany, Poland, Croatia, and Lithuania were chosen for the assessment of their websites by four criteria: design, content, usability, and dynamism. A rating of the target Russian museum websites was compiled based on a comparative analysis of their compliance with these criteria. The findings allow concluding that some of the web resources of Russian regional museums meet the European standards, which let them powerfully join the modern virtual space and win both Russian and foreign audiences. The scienсe-based approach to a single virtual cultural space, which is currently on the focus of the museum institutions, supports the assumption of the museum websites to be a potent tool for the art communication with society. The practical value of the study is determined by possible uses of the results in streamlining and upgrading the museum sites, as well as in courses and training programs on museology, management, and marketing of social and cultural activities.

Save the Ukrainian People First: They Carry their Culture in their Hearts

Save the Ukrainian People First: They Carry their Culture in their Hearts

Evaluation of environmental conditions as a decontamination approach for SARS-CoV-2 when applied to common library, archive and museum-related materials.

AimsThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of ambient or altered environmental conditions on the inactivation of SARS‐CoV‐2 applied to materials common in libraries, archives and museums.Methods and ResultsPorous and non‐porous materials (e.g. paper, plastic protective book cover) were inoculated with approximately 1 × 105 TCID50 SARS CoV‐2 (USA‐WA1/2020), dried, placed within test chamber in either a stacked or unstacked configuration, and exposed to environmental conditions ranging from 4 to 29°C at 40 ± 10% relative humidity. The amount of infectious SARS‐CoV‐2 was then assessed at various timepoints from 0 to 10 days. Ambient conditions resulted in varying inactivation rates per material type. Virus inactivation rate decreased when materials were stacked or at colder temperatures. Virus inactivation rate increased when materials were unstacked or at warmer temperatures.ConclusionsSARS‐CoV‐2 at ambient conditions resulted in the inactivation of virus below limit of quantitation (LOQ) for all materials by Day 8. Warmer temperatures, for a subset of materials, increased SARS‐CoV‐2 inactivation, and all were <LOQ by Day 3.Significance and Impact of the StudyThese results provide information for the library, archives and museum community regarding the inactivation of SARS‐CoV‐2, showing that inactivation is possible using prescribed environmental conditions and is a potential method of decontamination for items not compatible with common liquid disinfectants.

Official response to the Russian war crimes in Ukraine

AbstractA reading of the Official Response Statements from the Global Museum Community: In the following pages, Coleman provides a content analysis of the statements issued in response to the 2022 war crimes being committed in the name of the Russian people against the Ukrainian people and their cultural heritage.

Lost Symbols in the Historic City of Puebla in Mexico

Since its origin, the city of Puebla has had representative elements in its public spaces that have survived for a long time, they are ornamental and utilitarian objects which are landmarks of the city. Street furniture is a benchmark of identity too. All elements have legends, they are references that have given identity to streets and avenues. Natural elements also refer to a city’s identity, like trees. But the natural element that defined origin, trace and growth of the city is one of the least visible. In the sixties, the San Francisco River was piped, as a sign of the new modernity, and today it is a boulevard where thousands of cars pass. Thus, bridges and other types of elements that the population still remember, mainly the elderly, have been forgotten. In recent years, some initiatives have emerged to rescue the historical memory of daily life and the revaluation of repre­sentative objects of the city center, such as the Casa Analco Community Museum project, coordinated by the Faculty of Architecture of BUAP in collaboration with residents of the Analco neighborhood. This article discusses both the monuments, their relics, elements of nature that shape the city's identity, as well as the gradual loss of these symbols.

The employment of dialogic principles in the websites and social media platforms of museums in China

ABSTRACT This study conducted a content analysis to investigate the extent of museums’ online communication by utilizing their communication tools, such as websites and social media platforms, to fulfill their various activities and purposes. This study first applied dialogic principles to Chinese museums and examined national first-grade museums’ websites and social media platforms (e.g., Weibo and WeChat) to better understand online communication under China’s circumstances. The results showed that most museums did well in terms of convenience and information usefulness, but the item related to interactions was not ideal. More than four out of five museums had social media accounts, indicating that museums had transferred online communication from websites to social media platforms. In addition, the museum type or the number of visitors did not influence the employment of dialogic communication in museums. In the future, both museums and the public should strengthen dialogic communication to build a better dialogic environment for museums’ sustainable development.

Museums in the age of platform giants: Disconnected policies and practices

This article explores how the British Museum and the National Museum of Australia tailor their digital cultural politics, and how this corresponds to their management of online collections and presence on social media. The article applies textual analysis to examine how the two museums discursively frame their policies; interface analysis to demonstrate how they organise their online collections; and platform analysis to scrutinise their communication on Instagram. Findings indicate that the museums’ policies align with writings on democratic, participative, and user-generated digital museum communication. In practice, however, their design of digital collections and use of Instagram does not reflect their digital cultural politics as policy. There is therefore a disconnect between their policies and practices. This disconnect does not indicate that their digital collections and presence on social media are poorly designed and executed, but rather that the democratic, engaging, user-driven and participatory discourses of new museology are overstated.

МУЗЕЙ КОММУНИКАЦИЯСЫН ДАМЫТУ МЕН ЖАРНАМАЛАУДАҒЫ PR ҚҰРАЛДАРЫНЫҢ ТИІМДІЛІГІ

This article comprehensively examines and analyzes the role of PR tools in the promotion and advertising of museum communications. The views of foreign piarologists were considered and 4 main directions of PR technologies in the development of museum communications were analyzed. As the basis of these directions, the essence of the event is fully revealed, considering marketing. In this regard, he compiled analysis tables that reflect the advantages and disadvantages. There is also information about the museum's information assets on the Internet, how to use them. Finally, the importance of the media in the development of museum communications is highlighted.

Decolonising the museum?

Decolonising the museum?

Exploring tensions in Holocaust museums’ modes of commemoration and interaction on social media

Digital technologies and social media platforms have been used in museum communication for over a decade now, and Holocaust museums have increasingly adopted them in their modes of commemoration and provision of educational content. Nevertheless, very limited research has been conducted into the potential of social media as new memory ecologies. In this exploratory study, we conceive social media platforms as socio-technical-ecological systems whereby users develop and engage with memory practices of the Holocaust. We adopt a networked socio-ecological approach to analyse how a sample of Holocaust museums (N = 69) develop practices of digital Holocaust memory in social media. The institutions are analysed in terms of “size” (small, medium, or large), how they differ in their attitudes towards these practices, and to what extent they circulate Holocaust memory on social media. The study adopts multiple quantitative approaches and combines the results of a survey with a set of social media metrics analysing how museums engage on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube in terms of generated content, interactivity, popularity, and type of content. Results show that museums have an overall positive attitude towards social media although some concerns were expressed, mostly by smaller institutions; they tend to use mostly Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and to share educational content and information about the museum's activities. However, despite a tendency to aggregate a large number of fans and followers, especially in the case of larger institutions, interaction with users remains limited. Prospects for more interactive participation and its implications are also discussed.

Intangible Cultural Heritage as a Catalyst of Constructing Private Museums

The development of ecomuseums and community museums in China over the past few decades has impacted the adaptation of the new museology as derived from Western contexts. However, these museums have been constructed and discussed within official heritage and museological discourses. This article suggests the need to reimagine and reframe the new museology employed in China, calling for an investigation into the bottom-up and alternative museological practices that intangible heritage practitioners conduct. Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) practitioners predominantly sustain and articulate their cultural traditions' values and vitality. Drawing on policies for heritage protection and local development or revitalisation, many ICH practitioners energetically participate in heritage-making and utilisation. They exert their power over ICH management by creating their own museums for self-representation and product commercialisation. Beyond privileging expert judgements and the received knowledge that scholars and official museums produce, ICH practitioners seek to freely define heritage value and demonstrate heritage authenticity within their own spaces. Drawing on the influence of critical heritage studies, this article is built upon a literature review and empirical case studies of two private museums in Guizhou and Guangxi provinces, China. It explores the museumification of ICH and contextualises the initiatives of ICH practitioners in the construction of private museums or non-official museums. It demonstrates how ICH acts as a catalyst for the diversification of museological practices, and how private museums founded by ICH practitioners become their vehicle for safeguarding ICH in situ.

Caring Spaces: Individual and Social Wellbeing in Museum Community Engagement Experiences

ABSTRACT This paper explores the narratives of participants in museum community engagement projects in Scotland. Emphasis is placed on how taking part in museum community engagement projects can have a positive impact on the participants’ wellbeing. This qualitative study employed a dialogical research strategy, which involved careful and mindful choreography of the context and space within which interactions between researcher and participants emerged. Semi-structured walking interviews with five participants were conducted in the summer of 2019 at two museums in Glasgow: Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum and The Lighthouse. All participants had taken part in at least one museum community engagement project in Glasgow. Participants’ narratives reveal the positive impacts that “caring spaces” engendered through museum community engagement work have on overall feelings of wellbeing, achieved through deep processes of critical reflection, which resulted in enhanced self-esteem and confidence, and a heightened awareness of participants’ situated ontology in the context of broader issues of social inequality and identities. Museum community engagement projects, when practiced and experienced as “spaces of care,” have a critical role in enhancing individual and social wellbeing amongst participants themselves, particularly in terms of identifying long-term educational and self-worth legacies.

Design in Gunther Kress’s social semiotics

Gunther Kress’s multimodal and social semiotic theory of communication has moved beyond the realm of linguistics, which originally framed his work, and has reached out to inform other fields, such as those of education, museum studies, as well as the humanities and social sciences more broadly. This article brings together our insights in relation to a concept from Gunther Kress’s theory, that of design. Drawing from our research, we reflect on Kress’s conceptualisation of design in social semiotics and discuss how this idea has inspired us to advance research across the domains of formal learning in schools, informal learning and communication in museums, and in everyday communication and social interaction. We consider that the contribution of design is to challenge the boundaries of concepts such as ‘competence’, ‘interpretation’ and ‘critique’, associated respectively with the dominant discourses and practices in the worlds of education, museums and everyday communication and research practice. We look at design as: (1) learning; (2) transformation of resources; and (3) an engaged and engaging social semiotic research, and argue that as an interpretative resource it enables us to move beyond the limitations posed by institutions such as schools, museums and academia.

Digital communication in museums in the age of all media from "only this green"

The 2022 CCTV Spring Festival Gala Dance and Poetry Drama 'Only This Green' has been widely acclaimed by the public and hailed by industry experts as a 'phenomenal' work of art. The transformation of the value of the piece from the relics in the collection "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" to "Only This Green" is not only to fill the public's aesthetic appetite and create a visual feast, but also to create a new era narrative structure for "green", "landscape" and "characters". The anthropomorphic characterisation of the 'characters', combined with the aesthetic perspective of the traditional Chinese idea of 'the unity of heaven and man', provides new ideas for the digital communication of museums. In this paper, the digital communication characteristics and development strategies of museums in the era of full media will be analysed in depth from the example of "Only This Green".

Safeguarding Uganda’s Cultural Heritage: An Inquiry into the Opportunities and Challenges Brought by the COVID-19 Pandemic

Uganda’s cultural heritage includes artistic and cultural expressions such as languages and literary arts, performing arts, visual arts and handicrafts, indigenous knowledge, cultural beliefs, traditions and values, cultural sites, museums, monuments and antiquities. Some of these cultural heritage aspects are man-made while others are natural. Our cultural heritage is important for both sociocultural and educational purposes. It promotes tourism and consequently, creates employment for people. The natural aspects of our heritage have been known to enhance the protection of the environment through indigenous knowledge (discussed in the later sections). The museums, especially community museums, for instance, have made an effort to engage young people through cultural heritage clubs, which are more than 150 across Uganda. The museums have also contributed to the safeguarding of unique and threatened aspects of Uganda’s heritage. Sites and monuments, including historic buildings, are important in preserving and showcasing our collective memory as a country and tell our journeys in terms of social life, governance and administration. Despite its importance, our cultural heritage is usually not adequately supported, maintained, or documented, and people’s awareness of its value is still alarmingly low. At the turn of 2020, Uganda just like other countries in the world was hit by the Coronavirus (COVID-19 pandemic), which virtually brought all aspects of life to a standstill. Tourism, particularly cultural tourism that provides a string on which the safeguarding of cultural heritage is fastened, was severely affected, exacerbating the dire situation that the cultural heritage industry was in before the pandemic. This paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the safeguarding of Uganda’s cultural heritage both tangible and intangible, which includes museums, heritage sites, historic buildings on the tangible side, and the creative industries, traditional or indigenous medicines, and traditional values, on the intangible side. The paper further explores the opportunities and challenges that the pandemic poses to the protection and promotion of our heritage industry.

The ICOM International museum definition from the perspective of the Czech Republic : results of a questionnaire survey among representatives of the museum community and other related disciplines

The significant interest of the Czech (or Czechoslovak) museum sphere in the form and continuous revision of the existing international museum definition was already evident during Jan Jelínek's tenure at the head of ICOM in the 1970s. The effort to get involved in international debates resonates with Czech museum workers, museologists, academics and students even now, especially in connection with the planned revision of the key concept at the Prague meeting of this most important professional museum organization. The attitudes towards the existing and the optimal form of the museum definition were also examined within a local Czech questionnaire survey, which was carried out by Brno museologists in the first half of 2021 in cooperation with the Czech Committee of ICOM and the Czech Association of Museums and Galleries. The paper presents the main outcomes of the research, including the key terms that the museum definition should contain according to representatives of (not only) the museum community.

Transformation of the concept "museum" in the Ukrainian space

After the conference in Japan in 2019, museum communities of different countries discussed the transformation of the concept of "museum" and the need to change the existing definition. The article attempts to outline how the idea of "museum" was transformed among Ukrainian museum workers from the end of the 19th century till now. At this time, active museum life unfolded on Ukrainian lands, and activists sought to outline the museum's mission. The idea of this concept was modified given the change in the political situation. Special requirements for the museum as a tool of propaganda existed within the framework of the Soviet socio-political system. After Ukraine declared independence, theorists and practitioners of the museum business primarily evaluated the museum as an institution of social memory, indicating this direction's importance for Ukrainian civil society. As an official representative of the Ukrainian museum community, the Presidium of the ICOM of Ukraine draws attention to the need to preserve the existing concept's critical characteristic against the current debate's background. At the same time, ICOM Ukraine warned that purely formal compliance with functional criteria does not prevent the transformation of museums into a tool of propaganda. Russia's cynical war against Ukraine in 2022 demonstrates that this is what must avoid at all costs.