{"title":"Resilient Storage: Enabling Heritage Institutions to Effectively Manage High-performance Storage Areas","authors":"Geert Bauwens, E. De Bruyn.","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2021.1956731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956731","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Heritage institutions find themselves increasingly compelled to lower costs related to energy use, without disowning their primary task of optimally preserving the collections they are entrusted with. Now, more than ever, resilience, autonomy and cost-effectiveness are key to managing heritage sustainably. With over 1,000 museums in Belgium, the energy savings that its institutions may obtain by optimising their indoor climate management represents an important opportunity to alleviate strain on institutional budgets, and to help reach the ambitious energy-saving goals Belgium and the EU have set for themselves. Heritage institutions must be proactive in implementing such strategies, choosing from among a long list of measures to optimise their climate systems and indoor environments. This can be an overwhelming task. Indeed, museums and heritage institutions often lack in-house expertise to tackle these issues, which is why clear, practical and intuitive protocols, tools and concrete examples are required. As a case study and presentation of research-in-progress, this article describes Resilient Storage, a Belgian project that aims to validate a protocol to optimise the functioning of climate systems in museum storage areas. Developed by the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) and KU Leuven, Resilient Storage assembles an interdisciplinary team of public representatives, museum staff and experts in energy performance and conservation. It aims to help stakeholders optimise storage area management, simultaneously reducing its carbon footprint and optimising its preservation conditions. Resilient Storage aims to unearth synergies among these stakeholders, promote collaboration, develop a common language and transmit expertise to Belgian's small and medium-sized museums.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"73 1","pages":"22 - 31"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956731","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49322628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The RE-ORG Method Applied to Collection Storage at the Andafiavaratra Palace Museum, Madagascar","authors":"Bako Rasoarifetra","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2021.1956773","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956773","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In June 2019, Madagascar was chosen as a host country for a RE-ORG programme, a method developed by ICCROM and UNESCO and applied transnationally to help museums to improve the management of their collections in storage. This activity, initiated by UNESCO, was financed by the government of Japan and carried out by the Ministry of Communication and Culture in Madagascar. In December 1995, the Rova of Antananarivo, which housed the historic Queen’s Palace, was destroyed by a fire. Thirty per cent of the collections saved from the flames were transferred to the Prime Minister’s Andafiavaratra Palace, now a museum. For over two decades, the unexhibited collections were stored in unstructured rooms that did not comply with principles of preventive conservation. Putting theory into practice, the RE-ORG method was applied to the royal collections at the Andafiavaratra Museum in 2019. The project primarily involved the reorganisation of the storage rooms and training during two weeks for Malagasy museum staff. A unique approach was taken: the 26 participants from 12 museums returned to their respective museums when their training was completed with the intention to reorganise or create their own storage facilities. The RE-ORG project in Madagascar led the ICOM National Committee to a general review of Malagasy museums. This case study shows how improving storage areas in Malagasy museums led to greater awareness among the local museum community and visitors on the importance of preserving cultural heritage.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"73 1","pages":"218 - 225"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956773","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41899038","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mobilising Collections Storage to Deliver Wide-Ranging Strategic Objectives at the Sedgwick Museum","authors":"Liz Hide, Danna Pemberton","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2021.1956753","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956753","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Can a new storage facility drive a strategic transformation for a museum? What opportunities does an off-site ‘behind the scenes’ facility provide for developing a museum’s stakeholder relationships and its public engagement role; furthermore, what impact can it have on the social needs of a new community? The Colin Forbes Building is a 650-square-metre facility opened in 2019 by the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, UK, located around 4.5 kilometres from the main museum site in central Cambridge. When fully populated it will provide high-quality, environmentally controlled storage for more than 80 per cent of the Sedgwick’s rock and fossil collections and its unique historic archive. In this case study, we describe how a project conceived to improve storage is now driving a much wider range of strategic initiatives. The project is part of a new Strategic Plan for the Sedgwick Museum, adopted in 2019 and instigated by an external review of the museum’s activities, new leadership and extensive consultation. With the building project itself nearly completed, the challenge lay in mobilising this new facility to contribute to delivery of the aforementioned Strategic Plan. By equipping and presenting it as a dynamic centre for collections-based research we are enabling active development of the Sedgwick’s relationship with the scientific research community. Furthermore, it will enable the Sedgwick to deliver public engagement in ways that enhance the existing ‘traditional’ museum offer. The facility’s location on the edge of a major new community currently under construction on the north-west outskirts of Cambridge, enables us to engage meaningfully with a much wider public and university audience in an area of the city that currently has very little cultural provision. In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, we review approaches and achievements, and reflect on how the project can continue to support strategic transformation in the post-pandemic period.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"73 1","pages":"110 - 119"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956753","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46844429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"New Perspectives on Collections Management at the Musée National du Burkina Faso","authors":"Bély Hermann Abdoul-Karim Niangao","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2021.1956764","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956764","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Musée National de Burkina Faso - MNB (National Museum of Burkina Faso) was one of the first museums founded in West Africa in the wake of regional independence movements. Having long borne the consequences of geographical and institutional nomadism, the museum is now built on an area of 29 hectares in the heart of Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou. Although today its storage rooms seem to meet standards for the conservation of collections, further efforts need to be made. This case study develops a historical approach to understanding the evolution of the National Museum and its collections, particularly through the lens of storage management. It leads to new perspectives around the museum, particularly with regard to the inclusion of Living Human Treasures to its programmes. In addition, in a national context marked by multiple terrorist attacks that have led to the destruction of heritage, the role of the National Museum in the conservation of movable heritage from other museums deserves to be questioned.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"73 1","pages":"164 - 173"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956764","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48371791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Mucem’s Centre for Conservation and Resources: Promoting Collections and Cultural Heritage Careers","authors":"Marie-Charlotte Calafat","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2021.1956755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956755","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The Mucem has been registered as a national public institution in France since February 2013. It inherited the French holdings of the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro (1881) and the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires (created in 1937, opened in 1975, and closed in 2005). Its Centre for Conservation and Resources (CCR), located in Marseille’s Belle de Mai neighbourhood, was designed by the architectural firm Corinne Vezzoni and Associates. Housing one million objects and documents across 8,000 square metres of storage space (itself divided into 17 rooms), the CCR has four areas that are open to the public: a Viewing Room, a Reading Room, an Exhibition Room, and a 900-square-metre Storage Room. The CCR was designed not only with collection management in mind, but also to assist with mediation and promotion. Through an overview of the collections and the space in which they are housed, this article and case study reflects on the museum’s past seven years of operation.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"73 1","pages":"120 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956755","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45861375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Museum Storage and Meaning. Tales from the Crypt","authors":"T. Beltrame","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2021.1956783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956783","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"73 1","pages":"236 - 237"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2021-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2021.1956783","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42713609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Crossing Over: Museums as Spaces of Violence","authors":"Amy K. Levin","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2020.1873492","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873492","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article focuses on an increasingly common phenomenon: the exhibition on violence or trauma that evokes excessively strong reactions in visitors. Popular contemporary museum practices contribute to such responses. The first is the valorisation of the ‘difficult’ exhibition without sufficient consideration of the ways in which it is challenging or of the identities of its targets. The desire to foster empathy within institutions or individuals, which seems benign, also involves risks and limitations. We lack hard evidence of empathy’s benefits as a museum strategy, and particularly of whether it stimulates activism. Indeed, immersive exhibitions that succeed in engaging audiences in individual stories may not instigate systemic change; in terms of gender, they may focus on a particular woman’s suffering but not on global gender inequity. These excesses of violence and trauma wrought on gendered bodies may leave visitors despondent and unsettled. As a result, the gallery, promoted as a liberatory ‘third’ space of inclusion, may be perceived as confining or oppressive. To explain this paradox, I deploy James Giles’s theory of Fourthspace, using my experience viewing Carlos Motta’s installation on LGBTQI+ immigrants in the Netherlands at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 2017 as a case study. While offering prescriptive solutions is not my primary aim, I briefly discuss possible solutions.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"72 1","pages":"28 - 41"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873492","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48065495","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rita Grácio, Andreia C. Coutinho, Laura Falé, Maribel Sobreira
{"title":"The Art of Feminist-Queering the Museum: Gate-leaking","authors":"Rita Grácio, Andreia C. Coutinho, Laura Falé, Maribel Sobreira","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2020.1873522","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873522","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper takes part in the ongoing debate around how museums have begun to address LGBTQI+ and feminist issues in the 21st century. While Portugal is a particularly interesting country to consider, given that it has passed some of the most advanced legislation on LGBTQI+ rights in Europe (Santos 2012), this progressivism is not reflected in Portuguese museum practices, given that gender museology has been slow to emerge (Vaquinhas 2014). After briefly contextualising initiatives addressing gender in Portuguese art museums, we present as a case study Trazer a margem para o centro (Bringing the Margin to the Centre), a series of three talks hosted by the Berardo Collection Museum, which is considered Portugal’s primary modern and contemporary art museum. Unlike previous initiatives in art museums, which were museum-led, the series of talks was led by the small intersectional feminist collective FACA. A sociologist (Rita Grácio) and the three members of FACA (Andreia Coutinho, Laura Falé and Maribel Sobreira) designed and conducted the three talks that constitute the initiative Bringing the Margin to the Centre. Grácio designed and conducted the qualitative study of the audiences that attended Bringing the Margin to the Centre. This study consisted of participant observation at the event series, at which an adapted version of the Personal Meaning Mapping technique (Falk and Storksdieck 2005) was applied; semi-structured phone interviews with participants were then conducted after the event (Falk and Dierking 2011). The main findings show this event raised awareness among cisgender visitors with heteronormative perspectives and provided a space for counter-narratives of the queer community, showing the role of collective curatorial activism and museums in promoting gender equality and inclusiveness, if acting as gate-leakers, rather than as gatekeepers. Hence, museums can provide lessons to other organisations interested in promoting diversity and inclusion.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"72 1","pages":"200 - 211"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873522","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41558467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unpredictable Activism in Times of Uncertainty","authors":"Aylime Aslı Demir","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2020.1873515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873515","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article aims to rethink the concept of unpredictability – one that natural law theoreticians such as Thomas Hobbes have in the past read through negative connotations of suspiciousness, uncertainty, contingency or anti-orderliness - through the lens of art and LGBTQI+ activism. Instead of demanding more certainty, security and authoritarianism in an era when we are confronted with radical uncertainties, this article aims to explore the potentialities of unpredictable activism; more specifically, it explores the unpredictable actions that Turkey-based LGBTI & Queer activists have staged in response to various attacks in the past few years. In so doing, it reads the concept of unpredictability in a positive way, and unveils its potential in the realm of political activism.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"72 1","pages":"178 - 187"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873515","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42841722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Rereadings: Highlighting the Gender Perspective Through Hypermedia","authors":"Mar Gaitán, Ester Alba","doi":"10.1080/13500775.2020.1873502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873502","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In this text, we present the contributions of the Spain-based project Rereadings. Museum Itineraries from a Gender Perspective, which aims to present to the public the collections of 11 Valencian museums, of various kinds and under different types of ownership, from a gender and queer perspective. Rereadings uses virtual itineraries and QR codes to contribute to the study of gender. Thus, technology is used as a basis for information dissemination, analysis, and debate. The struggle against androcentrism and heteropatriarchy has generated a greater inclusion of women, other genders, and diverse sexualities in traditional museum discourse. New technologies function as one of the fundamental pillars of the project; their purpose is to disseminate museum itineraries as works in progress, and to promote education and access. Rereadings offers a forum for public discussion that questions androcentrism and the Western sexand gender-based binary system, while increasing the visibility and acceptance of alternative and transgender identities.","PeriodicalId":45701,"journal":{"name":"MUSEUM INTERNATIONAL","volume":"72 1","pages":"128 - 139"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3,"publicationDate":"2020-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/13500775.2020.1873502","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43478406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}