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UMAC 2020 Sydney: Call for Papers now open

The University of Sydney’s new Chau Chak Wing Museum will host the 20th annual UMAC conference from the 15th to 17th September, 2020.
 
The call for papers is now open!
 

The University of Sydney is Australia’s first university and home to the new, state-of-the-art Chau Chak Wing Museum. This museum will unite the university’s art, antiquities and natural history collections and is the result of a 10-year strategy. UMAC 2020 brings delegates to Sydney in spring, just weeks after the Chau Chak Wing Museum opens, to explore the conference theme of ‘New Destinations: Looking Forward, Looking Back’.

 

As the operating environment of higher education is changing, museums and collections can play a significant role in helping to shape an institution’s identity and narrative. They are an opportunity for diverse audiences to engage with history, academic thought and contemporary ideas while performing as a theatre space for innovative research and practice. UMAC 2020 examines the relationships between museums and collections and their institutional hosts, their relationship with the tripartite missions of teaching, research and engagement and their relevance to global issues in both higher education and broader society.

 

Call for Papers

Internationally, universities are using their museums and collections innovatively to create new forms of student, research and community engagement. The utility of collections for research training, object-based learning and cross-disciplinary programs is being increasingly explored and exploited in higher education. ‘New Destinations’ poses the question: ‘Are we there yet?’
 

The International Committee for UMAC invites proposals for its 20th Annual Conference. The theme of the conference is ‘New Destinations: Looking Forward, Looking Back. We are interested in receiving proposals that address the themes listed below.

 

Conference themes

Do museums and collections now represent the institutional DNA of a university?
Are university museums and collections now the central drivers of cultural production in higher education?
Do university leaders consider museums and collections to be core university business?
Is museum and collection work in higher education an emerging professional specialism?
Are university staff who work with material collections now recognised as an integral part of the global professional museum community?
How are ethnographic collections relevant to the generation of new knowledge, evolving institutional agendas and Indigenous community expectations?
 

The University of Sydney has substantial and highly significant Indigenous ethnographic collections. Much was acquired during a former time when Australia was on the margin of a European empire. As a special sub-theme of this conference, we consider possible new destinations for this category of university collection. Can the university museum lead the way in imagining and configuring new destinations for these collections?

 
Proposal submissions are due by Friday 28 February, 2020.
 
For more information and guidance on how to put forward a proposal visit the UMAC 2020 website.
 
 
 
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New UMAC Board elected

Yesterday, a new UMAC Board was elected during the 19th Annual General Meeting.

The UMAC Board 2019-22, 3 September 2019, Kyoto, Japan.

The elected members are:

Chair: Marta C. Lourenço, University of Lisbon, Portugal

Vice-Chair: Andrew Simpson, Macquarie University, Australia

Vice-Chair: Steph Scholten, University of Glasgow, UK

Secretary: Wenjia Qiu, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

Treasurer: Nathalie Nyst, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium

Ordinary Members: Fatemeh Ahmadi, University of Tehran, Iran; Nicole M. Crawford, University of Wyoming, USA; Margarita Guzmán, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia.

The Board was elected in the most participated UMAC annual general meeting ever and will remain in office until 2022.

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The Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen wins UMAC Award 2019

The winner of the UMAC Award 2019 was announced yesterday in Kyoto, Japan, by Laishun AN, Vice-President of ICOM, at the 19th Annual General Meeting of UMAC.

The Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen, won the prize with the project MIND THE GUT. Congratulations!

Read the media release here.

Ken Arnold and Adam Bencard, from the Medical Museion, with Marta Lourenço, Chair of UMAC, and Laishun An, Vice-President of ICOM, Kyoto, 3 September 2019 (photo S. Soubiran).

Read the Jury’s evaluation and learn more about the MIND THE GUT project here.

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The Kyoto Book of Abstracts has just been published

In many conferences, books of abstracts are just part of that immense pile of paper that we trash in the hotel room right before returning home.

With UMAC, it was also like that. Few of us have the abstracts from UMAC 2004 or UMAC 2011.

Until now.

By publishing the Book of Abstracts as an issue of our journal UMACJ – Volume 11, No. 1 – abstracts from the 19th UMAC Annual Conference in Kyoto will remain accessible in our institutional record and be preserved as a resource for research. Moreover, this gives authors the opportunity to have their abstracts  referenced and cited in an ISSN peer-review journal.

Read more about this change in the introduction of UMACJ, Vol. 11 No. 1.

The issue was edited by Andrew Simpson, Akiko Fukuno and Hiroshi Minami, with graphic edition of Silvana Arago Telona.

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UMAC app: don’t be left out!

UMAC is developing, in partnership with the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (Chendgu), an app for iOS and Android based on our World Database of University Museums and Collections.

See here some preliminary screenshots:

The aim is to make basic information about your museum, collection, botanic garden, science center, archive, library, etc, accessible for free in everyone’s phone so it can be can be even more visible and more visited.

But for that to happen, your museum or collection needs to be in the database and the information should be up-to-date.

Until 7 September 2019, UMAC is asking for university museums and collections around the world to upload updated information to our database in order to be included in the UMAC app pilot.

It’s easy. Here’s what you have to do:

1. Go to the UMAC World Database and search for your museum or collection.

2. If it’s there, check the information, particularly Opening Hours,  Location (the map) and links. Insert any changes by pressing EDIT RECORD. Save your changes. Send a couple of nice photos (max. 2 M, with a very short caption and credits, preferably horizontal to mclourenco@museus.ulisboa.pt). And that’s it.

3. If it’s not there, press PARTICIPATE (left side menu) and  CONTRIBUTE NEW COLLECTION. Follow the instructions. Then, send a couple of nice photos (max. 2 M, with very short caption and credits, preferably horizontal to mclourenco@museus.ulisboa.pt). Also that’s it.

4. No personal information (names or emails) will appear in the UMAC app.

5. If you have questions, find wrong or unreliable information (e.g. a museum or collection that no longer exists, was merged, etc), please email mclourenco@museus.ulisboa.pt. 

 

The UMAC app is being developed by the Electronic Science and Technology Museum, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, under the coordination of Dr. Zhao Ke.

 

 

 

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UMAC 2019 final program is out!

The program for the 19th UMAC Annual Conference in Kyoto was just published and can be accessed here.

If you are presenting a paper (oral or poster), or just participating, make sure you read our Useful Information section. It has everything you need — from guidelines to speakers, instructions for posters, how to find your way in Kyoto, maps of the conference locations, and much more.

Safe travels and see you in Kyoto!

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The new museum definition is out!

In fact, two new museum definitions.

Following a long public debate, ICOM’s standing committee on Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials (MDPP) has proposed two new museum definitions to the  Executive Board of ICOM, which will be voted  next September in Kyoto.

Read more here.

And here they are, the two definitions:

DEFINITION 1

Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people.

DEFINITION 2

Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary well being.

A new museum definition was always likely to be controversial and this announcement is generating considerable debate.

What do you think? Please leave your comments below, we would love to hear from you.

UMAC is still debating how to vote in Kyoto, in any case at this point we are joining those who say that more internal debate is needed.

Read here a brief speech by the UMAC Chair on the importance of the museum definition for university museums, Milan, 8 July.