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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.

 

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New thematic issue UMACJ

Call for proposals for a thematic issue of University Museums and Collections Journal UMACJ

UMAC, ICOM’s International Committee for university museums and collections, through 2020 and 2021 have undertaken an “Ethics of Repatriation and Restitution” study in partnership with other ICOM groups (ETHCOM, ICME and ICOM Australia), and with UNIVERSEUM, the European network of university museums. This project was part of ICOM’s commitment to research and address issues of decolonization. The project involved considerable international dialogue and exchange between university museums and source communities. It resulted in a draft set of guidelines designed to assist universities on the issue of restitution and repatriation and augment the ICOM Code of Ethics.

The project uncovered many interesting examples of repatriation from the higher education sector as part of university decolonisation strategies. We are now seeking to capture these for a thematic edition of the University Museums and Collections Journal. Given that the issue of repatriation will dominate the coming generation or two of museum practice, we believe it is important to capture the details of some of the initial repatriation efforts from universities. Universities must address the issue of heritage tainted with histories of violence, forceful occupation, oppression, exploitation, unethical research, and war.  Most importantly, we must go beyond university museums, deep into our departments, laboratories and institutes, which are full of items embodying uncomfortable truths.

We are seeking two different types of papers with this call:

  1. Papers that discuss and scope the changes in universities and university museums currently underway and frame these within the theoretical contexts of either museology, education, sociology, cultural studies or organisation and institution theory, or some combination of these.
  2. Case studies of your university repatriation experience in the form of a proposal (under 1000 words) for a full article. Aspects that should/could be included are:-
  • What was the nature of material repatriated?
  • How and why did it initially become part of the university?
  • Were you approached by source communities seeking material, or did you seek out source communities, or work with third parties?
  • Why was it the right time to repatriate material?
  • Did the repatriation provide learning, teaching and research opportunities? Will these be ongoing after the repatriation?
  • Was there any resistance to the repatriation?
  • Did the university (and university museum/collection) change as a result of the repatriation, including relationships with staff, students, alumni? If so, how?

For the case studies we prefer papers that are jointly authored by university practitioners and people from or representing source communities.

We are seeking both papers that either comply with or challenge the set of guidelines as currently expressed. You can find the guidelines here.

This thematic issue of UMACJ represents an opportunity to both develop a discourse around the changing paradigms of knowledge generation in higher education, and document some specific instances on the cusp of what is likely to be a generational change in our knowledge-based organisations as universities and their museums are transformed from being fixed points of cultural authority to fluid networks of cultural agency.

Proposals due: 31 December 2021.

Send proposal to umacjeditor@gmail.com

Publication: aiming for late 2022 or early 2023

This special issue will be edited by: Steph Scholten (The Hunterian, University of Glasgow), Jilda Andrews (Australian National University), Nicole Crawford (University of Wyoming), Andrew Simpson (Macquarie University).

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Colonized Objects and Bodies in Europe

Colonized Objects and Bodies in Europe

New challenges and new perspectives on the De-colonialization of Cultural Heritage 

CALL FOR PAPERS

  • Organizer: Coimbra Group, Working groups Heritage and Development Cooperation; Jeremy Upton (Edinburgh), Giuliana Tomasella (Padova), Julien Bobineau (Würzburg) 
  • Format: conference at the University of Würzburg (Germany) 
  • Date: 24th and 25th of June 2022 

In both the ex-colonial and the ex-colonized worlds, visions of Africa and its colonial past have become incarcerated in stereotypes, dichotomies, and historical misrepresentation. Especially in European Cultural Heritage, we see a mixture of these ambivalent subjects and habits of lack of self-searching. But the restitution debate in Europe on cultural objects from Africa (Sarr/Savoy 2018) and the Black Lives Matter movement, which also reached Europe in 2020, have set the course for a questioning of the colonial essence of Cultural Heritage. Recent questions about history politics, cultural memory and cultural traditions are now also – and above all – debated in public. Museums, Cultural Heritage institutions, Universities with their collections and their self-image are now more than ever in the spotlight of the dynamics of a global debate. In the course of the conference, we aim to discuss the following questions: 

– How can Cultural Heritage be decolonized in science, society, politics, and institutions to avoid ideological extremism? 

– Are there national differences and similarities in Europe? 

– Who are the actors and networks involved in defending the status quo or in decolo-nizing Cultural Heritage? 

– What are the direct and indirect consequences of unreflect and stereotypical Cultural Heritage in Europe? 

– How can the ‘decolonialization of Cultural Heritage’ contribute to the field of devel-opment cooperation with the African continent? 

The conference will be organized within four sessions: 

1. Historical misrepresentation: The concealment of colonial history in Cultural Heritage 

2. The survival of Stereotypes: Reflections on the Imaginary within Cultural Heritage 

3. University’s collection: Current states and new approaches 

4. European Museums: Restitutions and new displays 

The conference is organised under the umbrella of the Coimbra Group, an association of long-established European multidisciplinary universities of high international standard. 

 Abstracts of max. 300 words and a short bio of max. 200 words should be sent to julien.bobineau(at)uni-wuerzburg and giuliana.tomasella(at)unipd.it by 30 September 2021.