Volume 1: Museum Management
ICOM is developing a four-volume handbook series. The first volume of the series, co-edited by Darko Babić and Catherine C. Cole, aims to explore contemporary practices in the field of museum management.
Abstracts of between 250 and 300 words, written in English, French or Spanish, should be submitted to Aedín Mac Devitt at aedin.macdevitt@icom.museum
The submission deadline is 2 February, 2018.
UMAC invites all its members, as well as the broader community of university museums, collections and galleries to commemorate the INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM DAY 2018.
Promoted by ICOM, the IMD 2018 takes place around May 18. It is a global event, with more than 36,000 museums from 157 countries participating last year.
Read more and register your activities here.
Issue No. 9 of our journal UMACJ was just launched! It includes papers presented at the 2016 UMAC Annual Conference in Milan, Italy.
Musée Théodore Monod d’Art Africain, Senegal!
Continue reading → “COLLECTION OF THE MONTH: Musée Théodore Monod d’Art Africain”
We are pleased to announce that the new issue of Museum International, dedicated to the ICOM 2016 General Conference theme ‘Museums and cultural landscapes’, has just been published. The printed version is now available. We have redefined the journal’s layout and design to be more aesthetically pleasing and readable, bringing out a more dynamic, vibrant whole.
Free access to the articles will be available to ICOM members for 30 days, through the Wiley Online Library platform: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/muse.2017.69.issue-1-2/issuetoc
Wiley offers a reduced subscription fee to all ICOM members. To subscribe, please visit the Museum International homepage at: http://ordering.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/subs.asp?ref=1468-0033&doi=10.1111/(ISSN)1468-0033
ICOM-ITC April 2018 workshop
The ICOM International Training Centre (ICOM-ITC) is announcing the organisation of its tenth training workshop that will be held from 9 to 17 April, 2018 in Beijing, China. ICOM, ICOM China and the Palace Museum are pleased to award travel grants to international participants attending the training workshop called Managing a Museum Today.
Please apply online: https://icom.formstack.com/forms/icom_itc_april_2018_application
The application forms should be filled out and the required documents should be sent before Midnight (CET) Wednesday 20 December, 2017.
Museo di Storia della Fisica, University of Padua, Italy!
Continue reading → “Collection of the Month: Museo di Storia della Fisica, University of Padua”
Published this year, on the material culture of universities: Materielle Kultur in universitären und außeruniversitären Sammlungen, edited by Ernst Seidl, Frank Steinheimer and Cornelia Weber. Berlin: Koordinierungsstelle für wissenschaliche Universitätssammlungen in Deutschland.
Download the PDF here.
In the beautiful Palazzo Bo, University of Padova, home to the oldest Anatomical Theatre in the world (1495), several national and international experts will debate the evaluation of ‘third mission’ activities in Italian universities.
UMAC has been invited to reflect on the role of museums, collections and heritage in the ‘third mission’, and how this role can be measured.
The meeting is promoted by ANVUR, the Italian Agenzia Nazionale di Valutazione del Sistema Universitario e della Ricerca.
See programme here.
On Friday, September 29, at the Leading Culture Destinations Awards event in London, the Davis Museum at Wellesley College won the Best Soft Power Cultural Activation Award. The honor recognizes the ingenuity and global impact of ART-LESS: the Davis Without Immigrants, an initiative, and intervention launched by the Davis Museum in February 2017.
ART-LESS responded to President Trump’s first executive order on immigration, issued on January 27, 2017—a proposed “Muslim ban” on entry to the United States that left many feeling alarmed, threatened, and frightened. The goal of the ART-LESS initiative was to demonstrate the critical role that immigrants to the United States have played in the arts, via both their creative contributions as artists and their philanthropic roles as museum donors. It also articulated the Museum as a public space for critical discourse on matters of national importance.
Dr. Claire Whitner, Assistant Director of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Curator of Collections, says “the Davis puts cultural pluralism at the heart of our mission; to take that seriously means to create programming that emphasizes that value and defends it when threatened.”
During this six-day event, which encompassed the American “Presidents’ Day” holiday, the Davis Museum de-installed or shrouded all works of art in its permanent collections galleries that were either created by or given to Wellesley’s art collection by immigrants to the United States. Approximately 120 works of art—roughly 20 percent of the objects on view in the Museum’s permanent collections galleries—were either taken down or covered in heavy black cloth. Signage was posted next to each affected piece to indicate “Made by an Immigrant” or “Given by an Immigrant.” The concept and its impact were dramatic, particularly in light of a sluggish response among most American museums. The initiative garnered extensive international media coverage.
“I believe that museums can be important political spaces,” said Lisa Fischman, the Ruth Gordon Shapiro ’37 Director of the Davis,” for generating discourse, social engagement, and smart activism. Through actions like ART-LESS, the Davis takes a stance on contemporary issues, modeling social activism and political integrity for students—for the next generation—and for the larger community. Particularly at this moment in the nation’s history, it is extremely important to demonstrate the impact of immigrants—past, present, and future—on American cultural life. ART-LESS posed an invitation: taking the Davis as a microcosm, one might extrapolate out and consider the tremendous impact of immigrants on the nation as a whole.”
