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The
Pleasures of Discovery
In
the material sent to ICOM Members, a definition of
the museum stated that a museum is 'a non-profit making,
permanent institution in the service of society and
of its development, and open to the public, which
acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and
exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment,
material evidence of people and their environment'.
This year, it was the pleasures of discovery that
were highlighted, an aspect which ICOM President,
Jacques Perot, stressed in comparing the visitor's
experience of a museum to that of a journey where
there is always some new and unsuspected angle to
be explored. If the success of International Museum
Day 1999 is anything to go by, the aims of museums
to be exciting and pleasurable for visitors around
the world were truly met.
This year, stickers advertising the event and promoting
the 'Pleasures of Discovery' theme were sent by ICOM
headquarters to all institutional members and Committees,
who could use this in addition to their own publicity.
ICOM National Committees organised press releases
to publicise International Museum Day, produced posters
for wide distribution, organised press conferences
and booked television and radio slots. An inventive
ICOM-Botswana produced stickers, flyers,
posters and banners, and
ICOM-Andorra created lively bookmarks and
a range of special postcards illustrating Andorra's
cultural heritage, to publicise the day.
Although conceived as a day event, yearly on 18 May,
many countries extended their celebrations of International
Museum Day, combined them with those of National Museum
Week or integrated them into ongoing projects. A vast
majority of museums were free on that day and many
extended their opening hours, including free tours,
behind-the-scenes trips, talks, lectures, trails and
screenings... .
However, to give a real flavour of the imagination
of participants and the many different pleasures and
discoveries to be found on International Museum Day,
a random survey of reports from ICOM Members yields
the following:
the Geological Museum in Mexico City (Mexico)
organised, as part of the week-long Mexican celebrations,
a build-your-own dinosaur competition; for the courageous,
a
bee safari was laid on by the Economusée du miel,
Quebec (Canada) as part of its fortnight
of celebrations; visitors could savour a demonstration
of different cooking styles at the
Ethnography Museum, Geneva (Switzerland),
could
attend a "cyberskool" of web-site discovery in India,
go
on architectural bicycle tours in Luxembourg
or a
workshop for consulting family trees in the Czech
Republic. In short, whether the activity was
hand-to-hand fighting tricks in
Moscow, a
sports carnival organised by ICOM-Malyasia
or children
dressing as knights in the Schloss Brake Museum, Lemgo
(Germany), imagination was nowhere lacking.
From
traditional dance via modern poetry to brand new museums...
In
the hands of committed performers, workshop leaders
and curators, the museum was the site of celebrations
and rediscovery of little-known heritage, as well
as the site where cultures of the future were explored:
the Central African Republic, which
was celebrating International Museum Day for the first
time, organised traditional dance performances, as
did ICOM-Singapore,
along with craft shows; in Niger,
traditional Kata fighting was demonstrated by school
clubs; the Nairobi
Museum, Nairobi (Kenya) hosted traditional
African storytelling and a concert dedicated to the
museum employees could be heard at the Janis
Akuraters Museum, Riga (Latvia).
Jordan
opened the doors of its archaeological collections,
the
Cyprus Museum (Cyprus) displayed on
poster recent finds by the Department of Antiquities
and Foreign
Archaeological Missions and at Iasi (Romania),
a large archaeological exhibition was arranged by
the National "Moldova" Museum, displaying over 400
pieces of painted ceramic from the ancient Cucuteni
culture of the area, the fruit of years of work by
an interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, geologists,
anthropologists and curators.
Visitors could also discover a new artist or writer,
for example at the
Musée Palais Jamaï, Meknès (Morocco)
where an exhibition of two Moroccan painters opened;
and in Slovakia,
a 3-day celebration at the Slovak Literary Museum
in Martin included an exhibition on a famous 20th
century woman poet, meetings with Slovak writers and
interpreters of spiritual literature and talks and
performances from the Slovak Marionnette Theatre.
The
Centro Cultural Banco do Brazil, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
produced an innovative cross-disciplinary lecture
series entitled Fetish, on fetishism in cinema, the
arts, advertising, literature, fashion, religion...
.
International Museum Day was also chosen for long-awaited
and spectacular events such as the opening of a new
museum:
a 'Museum of Time' was inaugurated at Torre das Cabaças,
Santarem (Portugal), a
'Museum of Life' in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil),
and
the new Ethnographic Museum (part of the National
Museum of Helsinki) opened in Finland.
Refurbished museums opened to the public again, such
as
the Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens (Greece)
or
the Ethnology Museum in Porto (Portugal),
which was open for the first time since 1992.
A new museum website (ICOM-Denmark)
also graced virtual space for the first time on International
Museum Day.
New collections were also presented, for example
the San Telmo Museum, San Sebastian (Spain)
displayed the J.J. Esteban Martin Donation, with works
by 17 Basque artists and a Catalan painter. The public
could also discover little-seen buildings or works,
or recently restored pieces such as the preparatory
sketches for the lost frescoes of the
Ducal Palace in Genoa (Italy).
Fostering
international links...
Some
ICOM members saw in the 'Pleasures of Discovery' theme
the opportunity to develop international links, promote
different experiences of the museum world and explore
lesser known perspectives by inviting speakers from
other countries.
ICOM-Malaysia,
where more than 80 museums took part in the celebrations
which took place on the island of Langkawi, invited
speakers from Australia and the Philippines, ICOM-Ireland
invited the Director of Naturalis in the Netherlands
to give the keynote speech of the day and the
Museum of Non-European Cultures 'Dinz Rialto' in Rimini
(Italy) devoted International Museum
Day to the works and culture of Ecuador.
ICOM-Costa
Rica worked with Texas Tech University, discussing
the policies and strategy of the Museo Integral de
Cultura e Identidad Nacional (MINCI), affiliated to
the Centro de Investigacion en Identidad y Cultura
Latinoamericanas (CIICLA).
A three-day certified course was organised for the
personnel of the museums of Costa
Rica by the National Museum of Costa Rica
and the University of Costa Rica, entitled 'Introduction
to Museology', and covering the history of the concept
of the museum across the world, the international
community of museums, material culture and other themes.
Each day's theme was accompanied by a specially prepared
exhibition and targeted exercises. Costa Rica's celebrations
of International Museum Day - which lasted a fortnight
- also coincided with the 112th anniversary of the
National Museum of Costa Rica.
ICOM-Peru
took these cross-cultural links one step further,
outlining with Ecuador an inventive project for exchanging
exhibitions (of craft, photos etc.) across their common
frontier.
Debating
and educating...
The
day, week or longer was also devoted to the discussion
of general issues affecting museums: ICOM-Rwanda
organised debates on heritage and development, and
there was discussion of a book by the Camerounian
economist Etounga Manguele, organised in partnership
with the French Cultural Centre, entitled "Does Africa
need a programme of cultural readjustment?" In Ecuador,
a round table discussion was held on the "Contribution
of museums in a period of crisis", about the role
of the museum today in its specific socio-political
context.
The museum as a centre for learning and on-going education
was also addressed. In Taiwan,
International Museum Day was integrated into the 'Lifelong
Learning' project at the National Museum of Natural
Science. The National Campaign for Heritage Education
was launched in Brazil
on International Museum Day, conceiving of heritage
as the object of a continual process of experimentation
and discovery, and involving partnership with schools,
institutions involved with archaeological and historic
sites and monuments, as well as museums. The
National Science Centre, Delhi (India)
announced its exciting new mobile programme, to cover
village schools in rural areas in states in Northern
India. ICOM-Ivory
Coast organised a round table discussion on
the educational projects of the Museum of Civilisations
of the Ivory Coast and ICOM-Mexico
held discussions on the relation between the museum
and the state, the role of community museums and the
different ways in which visitors may discover local
and national history. On this last subject, the
Guarda Museum (Portugal) used the museum
building itself as an historical object, discovering
in its transformation from a seminary to a museum,
from the 17th century to the present, a wider history.
At
the Regional Museum of Archaeology and Prehistory
in Martinique, the marine archaeology
display likewise gave an alternative version of the
country's history; and the
Randers Museum of Cultural History, Randers (Denmark)
presented a new perspective on historical development
through tracing the divergent paths of two friends
born at the end of the last century in Randers.
The
diversity and inventiveness of the projects produced
for International Museum Day, the commitment of the
organisers to a broad range of activities and to an
open conception of the museum as a site of creative
potential as well as a guardian of past cultures clearly
met with enthusiastic responses: the turnout was generally
high, and pleasures and discoveries awaited all who
took part.
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