The best museums in the world take you into a whole new realm with their carefully curated collections and transcendent exhibitions. They make people rethink how they view society and the things that are most important to it, and they offer a glimpse of the past in ways that help us better understand the present and shape our futures.
Yet museums are also nebulous spaces that can mean different things to different people. For example, the old ICOM definition stated that a museum is “a non-profit institution in the service of society and its development open to all, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment.” This broad language gave museums free rein to interpret their own mission however they chose, and this is evident in many different museum practices today.
For some, the word “museum” is associated with artifacts gathered from across the globe by Western colonial powers, while for others it refers to a space that celebrates a city’s history, or that houses a collection of objects related to science and technology. And for still others, a museum is simply an educational institution that helps people learn something new, which can be a useful tool in our fast-changing world.
Despite these diverse uses, museums all have one thing in common: they are spaces for human connection. As such, they are essential to both the health of societies and the preservation of our shared heritage. But they are also facing some real challenges in the current political climate, with museums often perceived as spaces that harbor political correctness and fail to address issues like privilege and oppression in their collections and exhibitions.
Museums are a constant presence in our lives, whether we visit them on college campuses, in our hometowns and cities, or even in the background of movies like Black Panther or Night at the Museum. They’re the setting for interviews on CBS Sunday Morning or National Geographic, and they appear in hit songs by Panic! at the Disco. Museums are all around us, and they’re also the heart of why some of the most popular museums in the world have seen an increase in visitors this year.
What does this mean for the future of museums? As we look to the next generation of museumgoers, it means that museums must continue to meet their needs, recognizing that they’re democratizing and inclusive spaces where people come together to create community and discuss the pasts and futures of their communities. This requires addressing complex issues like colonialism and privilege in their collections, as well as embracing diverse perspectives in their interpretation and community engagement work.