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Save the date —> UMAC 2018, 21-24 June

Next year, UMAC‘s annual conference will be held in partnership with the AAMG, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (USA). We are delighted to organise the conference with them, and also to be coming back to the USA after 15 years.

The date will be 21-24 June 2018, at the University of Miami.

We encourage members of either organization to join us and explore this year’s theme:

Audacious Ideas: University Museums and Collections as Change-Agents for a Better World

We live in a dangerous, often unstable, and environmentally compromised world. What can academic museums, galleries, and collections do to remedy this situation? If we are dedicated to teaching and training new generations of students, to serving increasingly diverse communities, how do we make a positive difference? How do we know we are making that difference? Let’s share great ideas and pressing concerns and learn and network with our global colleagues.

We’ll be posting our Call for Proposals in September. We’re looking for presenters to share with us exciting and unusual ways that their museums, galleries, and collections are serving as change-agents. We’re interested in proposals that address how you are adopting new roles and adapting old ones, welcoming new constituencies while keeping current visitors, and creating new paradigms that make our institutions more valued and critical partners in higher education and in building a more peaceful and healthy world.

We will invite proposals that address:

  • New models of teaching across campus, including exhibitions and collections
  • New strategies for equity and inclusion on and off campus
  • Innovative translational collaborations
  • New ideas for advancing our mission as change-agents in society – locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally

Stay tuned for more information soon!

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Artefacts stolen from the Bergen University Museum, Norway

Last August 14, some 400 artefacts belonging to the collections of the Bergen University Museum, in Norway, were stolen. If not recovered, this is an incredible loss of Norwegian and universal heritage.

The robbery has been reported in the news. During the night, several burglars climbed a scaffold, entered the storage on the 7th floor of the Museum, and raided the collection.

https://www.thelocal.no/20170814/high-value-objects-stolen-from-norway-museum

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1486633/400-viking-objects-stolen-norway-museum-heist/

UMAC has contacted the Bergen University Museum Director, Henrik von Achen. The focus is now on disseminating the information in case the artefacts appear on the market.

Pictures are available on the University of Bergen website and FB:

http://www.uib.no/aktuelt/109802/innbruddet-p%C3%A5-universitetsmuseet-i-bergen

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.716168091907676&type=1

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Becas Ibermuseos: Inscripciones abiertas!

LANÇADA A CONVOCATÓRIA DAS BOLSAS IBERMUSEUS DE CAPACITAÇÃO 2017

O Programa Ibermuseus apresenta a convocatória das Bolsas Ibermuseus de Capacitação 2017.

Com esta ação, o Programa pretende promover a qualificação profissional das equipes de museus, além de estimular a circulação do conhecimento e facilitar o intercâmbio de conteúdos, experiências, práticas e conceitos entre os países da Comunidade Ibero-americana.

Ler mais (in Portuguese and Spanish)

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La Universidad lanza el Programa Dered Museo UNDAV

Con el fin de dar continuidad al diseño  de acciones que se focalicen   en  el  análisis   crítico y reflexivo  de  producciones   expresivas, simbólicas, comunicacionales y artísticas que se generan en la Universidad  y en el entorno comunitario, la Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda lanza el Programa Dered Museo UNDAV, una iniciativa desde una perspectiva transversal, transdisciplinar e interinstitucional que propone acciones  orientadas a la detección factores de identidad artística que están presentes en lo cotidiano. 

En este sentido el Programa Dered Museo UNDAV busca fortalecer los vínculos  de las sedes  de la Universidad con sus barrios, desde  acciones  y producciones culturales que ensayen  respuestas a las problemáticas particulares de cada comunidad, como así también  poner en valor y difundir el patrimonio  tangible e intangible  relevado en las mismas y aportar  a la generación de financiamientos extra  institucionales a partir de la transferencia de productos y servicios originados en el marco del Programa.

A tal efecto, Dered Museo UNDAV ofrecerá un circuito de muestras a partir de convocatorias de participación abierta y gratuita dirigida a artistas de la comunidad UNDAV y la región sur en general, recorriendo trabajos realizados en los distintos lenguajes artísticos que podrá abarcar desde la producción textil, el dibujo, la pintura, el grabado, cerámica, escultura, instalaciones, producciones audiovisuales, multimedia, literarias, entre otras.

More info, please contact: Hugo Oscar Arámburu (coordinator of the Programme)

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Caves & Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura are World Heritage too!

The Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura, Germany, whose collections are at the Museum of the University of Tübingen, was also listed this weekend as World Heritage by UNESCO.

40.000 Jahre alte Figur eines Wildpferds aus der Vogelherdhöhle

Read more (in German).

This means that 2017 is already a fantastic year for university heritage in Europe.

Many congratulations to this wonderful and well deserved recognition!

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University of Strasbourg is World Heritage!

The main building of the University of Strasbourg, the neo-Renaissance Palais Universitaire, constructed between 1879 and 1884 and designed by German architect Otto Warth (Photo F. Zvardon, University of Strasbourg archives, courtesy Jardin des Sciences)

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee, presently meeting in Krakow, Poland, just announced that the Neustadt — the late 19th and early 20th century urban development of the city of Strasbourg, which includes at its very heart the University of Strasbourg (the University Palace depicted in the photo, but also the Astronomical Observatory, the Botanic Garden, the Zoology Museum and Jardin des Sciences, and several other buildings) — just entered the World Heritage List.

See more here.

UMAC is extremely glad and proud of these wonderful news and congratulates the city of Strasbourg, the University of Strasbourg, and all partners involved for this successful and entirely deserved recognition.

 

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UMAC AWARDS 2017: NOMINEES ANNOUNCED

The UMAC Award is presented annually to a university museum or collection in the world whose projects or initiatives demonstrate innovation and creativity, excellence and transferability of ideas that can be adopted by other university museums and collections, and that have significant impact on the host university, the community or society at large.

 

The nominees for the 2017 UMAC Award are (in alphabetical order):

 

Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair (ONAYLF)

Sam Noble Museum of Natural History, University of Oklahoma

Every spring, hundreds of students, teachers and community members gather at the Sam Noble Museum, University of Oklahoma, for the Oklahoma Native American Youth Language Fair (ONAYLF). The Fair celebrates language diversity, with live presentations of song, speech and story and students compete in material submission categories like poster art, films, books cartoons and advocacy essays.

The Fair has encouraged and supported the efforts of Native communities in Oklahoma and the surrounding region to document, revitalize and perpetuate their ancestral languages. The growth of the Fair over 15 years has established the event as a major celebration of indigenous languages.

Replication of the Curie experiment on radioactivity

University of Rennes

The first quantitative measurement of radioactivity was made in 1898 by Pierre and Marie Curie. They used a prototype experiment based on a quartz balance. These measurements led to the discovery of radium and polonium.

 In 2015, Bernard Pigelet and Dominique Bernard achieved the delicate replication of the Curie prototype at the University of Rennes 1. Using an original quartz balance and pieces from historical instruments identified in the collections of the University they could make the experiment fully operational and it is now regularly presented to the public, through a permanent exhibition, online videos and particular events.

 The ‘I C Taiwan Exhibition’

National Cheng Kung University Museum

The NCKU Museum, cooperating with National Technical Museum, the City of Prague Museum and the Mendel Museum of Masaryk University in Czech Republic, presents the exhibition ‘I C Taiwan’ as the largest international exhibition organized by a Taiwanese university. The exhibition features a matrix of interdependent themes about Taiwan; the melding of religious cultures, the innovation of traditional techniques in cope with preserving historical and cultural heritages. The Czech museums hosted the exhibition from July 2015 until January 2016.

Media release

The winner of the Award will be announced at the UMAC 2017 General Assembly, 6 September, in Helsinki.

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UNIVERSEUM has a new President!

 

 

UMAC is delighted that UMAC member Sébastien Soubiran, from the Jardin des Sciences/University of Strasbourg (France), was elected President of UNIVERSEUM, the European University Heritage Network, on 10 June 2017.

UMAC wishes Sébastien the best promoting European university heritage in Europe and beyond. We are looking forward to even more collaborations with him and the newly-elected UNIVERSEUM Board.

We also profit to thank Sofia Talas, the former UNIVERSEUM President – also a UMAC member – her precious contribution to university museums and collections and to UMAC. The organisation of the last UMAC Annual Conference in Milan would have not been possible without her.

UMAC wishes both the best of successes!!!