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Museums and Museum Professionals in Ukraine

ICOM Call for Donations to Support Museums and Museum Professionals in Ukraine

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) would like to acknowledge the significant outpouring of support from the global museum community for the protection and valorisation of Ukrainian cultural heritage since the start of the invasion by armed forces of the Russian Federation. ICOM expresses its gratitude for the many offers of assistance received since the beginning of the conflict, a testament to the solidarity between the museum professionals and cultural actors in general.

Continue reading in ICOM website.

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New IMAGINATIONS videos published

Learn more about the daily lives and aspirations of young museum professionals around the world.

Zhao Ke, Co-Chair of UMAC Futures and Director of the Museum of Electronic Science, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, CHINA, has released three more videos of the series IMAGINATIONS:

  • Holly Millward, Australia
  • Mohamadou Moustapha Dieye, Senegal
  • Rebeca Bombonato, Brazil

The videos can be seen in UMAC YouTube channel. Here is a shortcut.

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Ukraine: Appeal from ICOM POLAND

Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,

in these dramatic days for Ukraine, the Polish Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM Poland) is asking for your support in our efforts to help Ukrainian museum professionals.

In the third week of the Russian aggression on Ukraine, Poland received over 1,7 millions of refugees, mainly women, children and the elderly. Extensive help is being offered by the Polish population and the local and state governments to assist them. They often arrive with few, if any, belongings and are in need of shelter, food, medical supplies and so on.

In Ukraine people are not only fighting the aggressor, but also try to protect and save the cultural heritage: museums, libraries, onuments, architectural gems. Polish museums and Ministry of Culture and National Heritage are organizing help for museums and cultural institutions in numerous Ukrainian cities.

What do we do?

ICOM Poland decided to focus on the needs of the museum personnel that found refuge in our country. With the assistance of ICOM General Secretariat we established an Ukrainian speaking office and started to locate persons scattered throughout Polish cities. We plan to provide 3-months individual grants to the museum professionals that will apply. These grants should help them to accommodate their first needs.

At the same time, our office will act as a contact point between the grantees and Polish museums and cultural institutions, so that they may find a job and a welcoming professional milieu. The Polish state already simplified the necessary employment formalities to the minimum.

Continue reading here.

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RELEASE: UMAC GUIDANCE ON RESTITUTION

After extensive and in-depth open debate, UMAC is releasing the final version of the document UMAC Guidance for Restitution and Return of Items from University Museums and Collections.

The document is the outcome of the project UMAC-ER: The Ethics of Restitution and Repatriation (2020-2021), chaired by Vice-Chair Steph Scholten (The Hungarian, University of Glasgow, UK), supported by ICOM and involving partners such as ICOM’s Committee for Professional Ethics (ETHCOM), ICOM Committee for Collections and Museums of Ethnography (ICME), ICOM Australia and UNIVERSEUM.

The document can be accessed here.

 

 

 

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Registrations to ICOM 2022 PRAGUE

Registrations to ICOM Prague 2022 are open
The 26th General Conference of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) will bring thousands of experts from around the world to Prague, in the Czech Republic, where they will set the course of the museum field for the coming years. From the 20th to 28th August, join the international museum community in ICOM Prague 2022 — both onsite and online!

Register here.

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ICOM Statement concerning the Russian invasion into Ukraine

 

“As of 24 February 2022, military forces from the Russian Federation have invaded Ukraine. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) strongly condemns this violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. ICOM is especially concerned about the risks faced by museum professionals as well as the threats to cultural heritage because of this armed conflict. ICOM expects both countries, as States Parties of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of armed conflict and its First Protocol, to abide by their international legal obligations to protect heritage.

Already this conflict is deeply distressing and likely to result in an unacceptable loss of life, therefore ICOM calls for a swift ceasefire, immediate mediation between belligerents, and coordinated efforts to ensure the safety of museum personal and protect cultural heritage.  In times of conflict and uncertainly like these, ICOM must also express its deep concern the implications this uncertainty will have on the safety and security of ICOM members, museum personnel and cultural heritage in Ukraine.

After first securing their own safety, ICOM advises all its members to recall their professional obligations under the ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums to preserve, maintain and promote heritage and ensure their museums and collections are protected against all varieties of risk, including in conflict. Furthermore, ICOM advises all interested parties that there are many online free and accessible tools which can help in crises such as this, including but not limited to: ICOM and UNESCO Museums Security and Disaster Preparedness in Running a Museum: Practice Handbook, ICCROM First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis – Toolkit or UNESCO and ICCROM Endangered heritage: emergency evacuation of heritage collections.

In addition, ICOM invites members of civil society to reach out to their local museums to assist them, if possible, with the ways and means to protect their buildings and collections. As important centres for education, study and enjoyment in local communities, it is important that museums – crucial reference points for local communities – are supported by their local communities.

Finally, outside of the immediate area of conflict, this crisis will provide an opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to profit from the threats to heritage. ICOM warns all interested parties to be vigilant for potential increases in the smuggling of cultural materials coming from the region, and ICOM reminds all national governments in the region of their international legal obligations to protect moveable cultural heritage under the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, and the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects, not to mention the other international cultural conventions for the protection of humanities common cultural heritage.

ICOM is working closely with its international partners and stakeholders in the region and monitoring the situation as it evolves. ICOM will continue to offer whatever support it can to alleviate any potential threats the heritage of Ukraine may face in the uncertain days and weeks to come.”

[read online]

 

Practical resources available online:

ICCROM First Aid to Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis (2018)

https://www.iccrom.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/fac_handbook_print_oct-2018_final.pdf

Endangered Heritage: Emergency Evacuation of Heritage Collections (2016) available in a number of languages at:

https://www.iccrom.org/publication/endangered-heritage-emergency-evacuation-heritage-collections   

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Update on UMAC 2022 Prague

Dear UMAC community,

This year, our annual conference will happen in August, in Prague, Czech Republic, included in the 26th ICOM General Conference.

This year’s ICOM General Conference will be a hybrid conference, in other words you will be able to register to attend in person or remotely. As always, registrations will be handled centrally by ICOM and should open soon.

As for UMAC 21st Annual Conference, it will be shorter than usual and have two parts:

PART 1 – 22-23 August: we will have a joint meeting with colleagues from three other ICOM committees: NATHIST (natural history museums), ICME (ethnography museums) and ICR (regional museums)

A Call for Papers for this is opening now.

PART 2 – 25 August: UMAC will meet separately at the Faculty of Sciences of Charles University (Hrdlicka Museum)

UMAC will give a limited number of grants to help cover travel and accommodation costs of members traveling to Prague. Please make sure you’re eligible.

You can find all the information about UMAC 2022 here: http://umac.icom.museum/activities/conferences/

We’re excited with our conference this year and we look forward to meeting you in Prague.

Warm regards,

Marta Lourenço, University of Lisbon

UMAC Chair

PS As mentioned earlier, this year’s Annual General Meeting will not happen in Prague. It will be 19th September, online.

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New volume: Call for Papers

CALL FOR PAPERS

Communication, Cultural Heritage, and Digital Strategies: University museums and collections

 
 
University museums and collections as repositories with heritage value and didactic and investigative vocation raise many questions and a diversity of approaches, both in theoretical foundations and in the strategies used for its conservation, exploitation, or public dissemination. For this reason, it is essential to develop an open mind that promotes the multidisciplinary integration of the different areas of knowledge and that coordinates work about the scientific, technical, and educational heritage produced or to be produced in the context of the institutions of higher education with shared values of respect for cultural heritage and service to society (Owen et al., 2016; Simpson, 2019).
 
 
Deadline: 28 February 2022.
 
Coordinated by Francisco Javier Frutos-Esteban and Valeriano Piñeiro-Naval, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.
 
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IMAGINATIONS: The Voice of Young Professionals

We are delighted to introduce UMAC FUTURES’ latest project IMAGINATIONS, a series of online conversations in our YouTube channel moderated by Zhao Ke, co-chair of UMAC Futures and Director of the Museum of Electronic Science at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China.

The series opens with five episodes featuring professionals from the Czech Republic, UK, Serbia, Argentina and Japan.

Read more.