Throughout history museums have been established for a wide variety of purposes. These range from serving as recreational facilities or scholarly venues to acting as centres of civic pride or nationalistic endeavour, and even transmitting overtly ideological concepts. Yet, despite their remarkable diversity of form and content, museums reveal themselves to be bound by a common purpose: they preserve and interpret the material evidence that comprises cultural consciousness.
Museums are non-profit, permanent institutions in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquire, conserve, research, communicate and exhibit the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and the natural world for educational, scientific, aesthetic and cultural purposes. They hold collections in trust, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and actively promote understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity, social justice and global equality.
In 2022, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) published a new definition of a museum that was a significant step forward in addressing how museums can be progressive spaces for critical dialogue with our pasts and futures. The definition is a significant contribution to the debate about museums as cultural mediators, democratising and inclusive places, and it is important that this approach to defining a museum continues to be developed in the coming years.
The new definition was the result of an extensive outreach project, involving over 50,000 people around the world and representing all the different types of museums. It was a process that was not without its challenges, as it was clear from the many voices that were heard during and after the consultation phase. Some of these voices were very concerned that the new definition did not address deaccessioning, which is still a problem in some museums, and other issues. Others were dissatisfied that the museum was not more focused on the work of museums to support human rights and to help address the environmental crisis.
One of the most interesting voices was that of Thangwa Mpogu, a museum director from Zimbabwe, who pointed out that Icom’s new definition did not include “decolonisation” as an essential part of the definition of a museum. Decolonisation is a term that refers to the process of returning artefacts to their place of origin or to a country that was once colonised. This is an ongoing issue in many countries of the world, and it is important that this concept be included in any new definition of a museum.
The ICOM Standing Committee for the Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials, has responded to these concerns by developing a methodology going forward that is based on greater transparency and care in listening to all proposals. The methodology will be available for all ICOM members to review, and ICOM encourages all committees and their constituents to use this when preparing their own responses to the next round of consultations. These will be held in 2022-2023. The results of these will be made public.