Museum Worlds

In the editorial for the last issue of Museum Worlds we commented on the growth of museums in every part of the world, and the allied expansion of museum studies. Both of us teach museum studies in our respective universities and are very well aware that the next generation of museum professionals is deeply committed to developing a curatorial practice that is engaged, ethically grounded, creative, and diverse. Our students regularly tell us that they are eager to learn from colleagues in all parts of the world and see this as an essential component of their professional development and their ability to critique what museums are and might be. As such, we are pleased in this issue to include reports, reviews, and articles from an enormous range of countries, and are especially pleased to publish the work of early career professionals alongside that of established colleagues. Taken together, we believe the projects, exhibitions, books, and other museum-based activities highlighted in this issue are a good indicator of the vitality of the field of museum studies, even in such challenging times.

This article considers the implications of using ethnological collections in the making of a national museum. It focuses on the case of the recently opened Ethnological Museum within the Humboldt Forum, Berlin, Germany, about which there has been much public debate and criticism, including about Germany's own colonialism. Through an analysis of the modes of display used by the Ethnological Museum, the article identifies how these variously engage in unreflexive “showing off” while others involve what is here called “telling off”— criticism directed at the German national self. The implications of the forms that these take, as well as their coexistence, are discussed, as is the case for replacing an ethnological approach with an anthropological one.

Since its closure in 2001, the San diorama at the South African Museum has dominated much of South Africa's critical museology. In recent years, there has been a significant drive for more sustained engagement with particular San communities by museums in Cape Town. This article utilizes the experiences of practitioners at the South African Museum and !Khwa ttu San Heritage Centre to ask questions about how knowledge is produced in the space that the closure of the diorama left behind, reflecting, in particular, on the epistemological contours of San participation in exhibitionary practice.

Worldwide, community museums can play an important role in regenerating and safeguarding Indigenous living cultures. The aim of this article is to explore and examine the complex socio-cultural context of the Nambya Community Museum (NCM), located in Hwange district, north-western Zimbabwe. Over the past 18 years, a web of multiple stakeholders has struggled to find common ground on what and whose cultural heritage the NCM should represent. As a result, many often conflicting views and attitudes held by different stakeholders have emerged concerning the present or future status and the purpose of the NCM. In this article we deploy multivocality theory, and rely on qualitative data collected during a large-scale archeological and heritage management research project to present and discuss a wide range of conceptual and practical issues confronting the NCM. We situate this case study within current global conversations about the ideal museum of the present and the future.

Class differences have historically received limited attention in museum theory and practice, and scholarly publications on issues of class and heritage are still scarce. COVID-19 has shone a particularly harsh light on class divisions. At the height of the pandemic, working-class laborers (such as supermarket cashiers, social care workers, truck and delivery drivers) were asked to shoulder high levels of health risks, exposing entrenched socioeconomic inequities. In this article, we build upon a small-scale research and collecting project, Inequalities, Class, and the Pandemic, carried out in 2021 by the London Museum (formerly known as the Museum of London) and King's College London, to discuss how museums can meaningfully engage with working-class lived experiences in our contemporary neo-liberal societies. We begin by analyzing whether and how museums have addressed working-class issues and (hi)stories. We then draw on the voices and experiences of our research participants to examine the ongoing structural inequalities experienced by working-class Londoners. Building on our empirical research, we argue for museums to play an active role in reclaiming the centrality of class in public culture, particularly addressing the contemporary lived experiences of working-class people.

Recent years have seen an increasing prominence of anthropogenic climate change issues within museums. While climate change itself has become a central theme for many exhibitions, some museums are, themselves, under threat from climate change. Within many industrial museums, however, there has been surprisingly little critical self-reflection, leaving themes of climate change both central and unsaid. Developing cases studies of Ironbridge Gorge (Shropshire, UK) and Heartlands (Cornwall, UK), this essay explores how certain museums have celebrated, often uncritically, the capacity for humans to alter the climate. Drawing parallels with how postcolonial theory has prompted critical self-reflection, the article examines how the climate crisis provides an imperative for museums both to explore their role in climate injustice and to seize a critical opportunity to make a contribution towards sustainable decarbonization. The article, therefore, calls for contemporary museum ambitions towards decolonization to be matched by activities that have an ambition towards decarbonization.

This article aims to deepen theoretical and practical engagement with the work of cultural participation in museums from the perspective of early outreach experiences in Mexico. The ideas and practices concerning museums’ social role and their commitment to communities have been consolidating for decades, from conceiving the museum as being “at the service of society” to museum and society working hand in hand. Using La Casa del Museo (1972–1980) as a case in point, this article shows how early experiences and thoughts in Latin America—often unknown to the English-speaking world—contributed to this change of perspectives. Moreover, from a theoretical point of view, it offers a review of cultural participation, its potential contributions as well as its problems and limitations, including the author's model of Holistic Cultural Participation. From a practical perspective, the article shows how this project worked on the outskirts of Mexico City in the seventies and its long-term effects.

This article is engaged with the transmission of Maoist memories in the Jianchuan Museum Complex (JMC) ½¨´¨²©Îï¹Ý¾ÛÂä, one of the country's largest and most high-profile non-state (minjian Ãñ¼ä) museum projects. Described as the “Red Age” (Hongse Niandai ºìÉ«Äê´ú), the Maoist period (1949–1976) is one of the four main themes that the Jianchuan Museum Complex commemorates, together with the War of Resistance against Japan (1931–1945), the Wenchuan earthquake (2008), and Chinese folk culture. Through a historicized account of the construction of these museums, this article examines the JMC's rendering of the Maoist period by analyzing the display methods and curatorial rationales in three of the Red Age museums. I show how Fan's curatorial approach changes, increasingly defined by his accommodation of the state's definition of what can be remembered and how.

This article is a revised version of the 2022 Michael Volkerling Memorial Lecture. It offers insights for the GLAM sector into the history of Australian national cultural policy (NCP), now in a new phase with the delivery of Revive in January 2023. It draws on the author's experience as a theatre director, a researcher into evaluation methods, and a policy activist to reflect on the challenges facing cultural policies at the current time. If arts organizations confront tough questions about diversity and inclusion, what happened to the economic ones of market efficiency and value-add that seemed all-consuming just a few years ago? The article utilizes Max Weber's conception of “a vocation” to reconsider the aims and purpose of an NCP. As the world contends with problems of entrenched inequality, catastrophic climate change, and democratic deficit, how can cultural policies, as distinct from other kinds, address these? Should they even try?

This article, a short critical analysis, explores dominant social and museological approaches to understanding museum collections made from current-day political crises. It focuses on events and collections in the US, a nation that has a museum sector directly tied up in political decision-making and crises since its inception (Message 2014) and reeling more acutely from events leading up to and surrounding the election of President Donald Trump in 2016. The article does not universalize the American experience in relation to either museological trends or broader twenty-first-century political crises. Its reflections are based on observation of political and museological activity occurring in Washington, DC and New York.

Originating from the Ancient Greek Mouseion early examples, such as the Institute for Philosophy in Alexandria (founded c. 280 BC), museums¹ were temple-like buildings set apart for study, and often associated with libraries. Scholars arrived from all parts of the (mainly Mediterranean) world not simply to consult the material but to meet like-minded people. Museums were places of intellectual and social commerce in an age when the concept of a university was in its infancy. As such they were found in the commercial heart of their locations; their buildings were surrounded by taverns, cafes, public spaces, temples, and shops where the scholar could be refreshed after a day's study. Two thousand years later, town planners would define such places as being “cultural quarters.” There are an estimated 105,000 museums in over 200 countries which, collectively, cover every field of artistic, scientific, cultural, and historical endeavor (Statista 2022a). Museums of all types (national, not-for-profit, local authority, university) collectively make a significant contribution to the tourism, leisure, and educational infrastructures of their countries. As distinct from public libraries (themselves of great antiquity), most modern museums would align their statement of purpose with the definition recently approved by the International Council of Museums (ICOM 2022): “collecting, conserving, documenting, interpreting and displaying objects of artistic, cultural, or scientific significance for study and public education and enjoyment.”

Museum studies is an academic and practical field of research that provides new challenges and opportunities to researchers thanks to the extraordinary growth of museums worldwide in the last 20 years (McCarthy and Brown 2022). There is, however, a need for more research on museum economics, including tourism (Silberberg and Lord 2015). The tourism industry has become the cornerstone of the economy for most of the world's tourist destinations thanks to the aviation industry, especially in the capital cities of developed countries where large airports are localized, as well as providing a high level of connectivity in the rest of the country. Tourism is highly dependent on the aviation sector (Florido-Benítez 2022a; 2022b). The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) indicates that air travel is the most popular choice of travel for leisure tourism (UNWTO 2020; 2021), and inside the tourism industry, museums represent a growing attraction for international tourists (Nowacki and Kruczek 2021). They help drive the tourism and aviation sectors, and play a cultural and economic role in their communities (Florido-Benítez 2023; Maxim 2017). City museums around the world empower their visitors to consider their roles as active city comakers (Grincheva 2022). “Superstar museums,” which are a “must see” for tourists and have achieved cult status (Frey 1998), depend on digital and physical positioning in the media (Plaza et al. 2022).

The word “professionally” suggests that a museum is measurable and is able to be evaluated in terms of its nature, quality, and realm of expertise. In addition to the museum accreditation and quality evaluation system, the museum community worldwide establishes awards, in order to “push museums to seek a disciplinary attribute and a real professional status in the self-reliant industry with a stable status in the social contract and to develop the ability to shoulder responsibilities in decision making” (Šola and Cipek 2022: 129). Awards incentivize museums to improve their operations, to fulfill their missions, and to follow professional and ethical public quality standards. China's museums are no exception. In the PRC, museum awards cover a complete set of categories—displays and exhibitions, social education, creative cultural products and new media, and so forth—significantly enhancing the potential and capacity of museums to serve society at large. However, there are several noteworthy concerns. In this article, we use a quantitative data analysis method to study the history of China's museum awards and conclude that in the context of China's pursuit of high-quality social and economic development, the bodies issuing museum awards should refine and quantify the criteria to highlight the most important achievements of museums and to encourage social participation and academic research.

One of Aotearoa New Zealand's greatest art controversies was caused by a disproportionately tiny 105-millimeter-high assemblage by Tania Kovats, Virgin in a Condom (1992) (see Figure 1). It featured in the British Council touring exhibition Pictura Britannica: Art from Britain, held at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), Wellington, from 1 March to 26 April 1998, opening just fifteen days after the museum itself. Thirty-three thousand people signed a Catholic Communications Office petition demanding the Virgin's removal. Thousands of phone calls, many abusive, bombarded Te Papa's Enquiry Centre. The display case was vandalized twice and a nearby visitor host assaulted. The controversy was repeatedly televised, culminating in a TV3 debate. Column meters of press coverage included a Sunday Star-Times (Auckland) article and 250 letters in Wellington newspapers alone. The BBC World Service Focus on Faith made the controversy its lead item (Stocker 2021: 81–82). Hence, critic Justin Paton warned in his New Zealand Listener article: “Yes, this is another article devoted to a certain religious statue sheathed in a certain birth-control device, but do not change the channel yet” (Paton 1998: 42).

In the twenty-first century, it is imperative for museums to strive towards the dual objective of educating and entertaining audiences, while effectively adapting to rapid advancements in technology (Merritt 2014). This pursuit has resulted in the emergence of the term “edutainment” to describe museums that amalgamate educational and entertainment functions (Rahimi et al. 2022). Technological interventions have played a pivotal role in facilitating this convergence as they enable the integration of diverse digital resources and tools, fostering interactive and immersive learning experiences for learners while connecting to the taonga (treasures) that museums care for.

The Poignant collection of more than 17,500 photographs and associated archival material reflects the work of Axel Poignant (1906–1986), who established his career as a portrait photographer in Australia, and the anthropologist Roslyn Poignant (1927–2019). Bequeathed by Roslyn to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), Cambridge upon her death in 2019, the collection came into the care of MAA in 2021.

Thanks for speaking to me today, Elaine. Can we start by talking about you and your background and how you first got into museums?

Reviews are one of the chimeras that exhibitions leave behind along with, if we are lucky, archives, visitor books, and catalogs that record and imperfectly reinvoke their transient existence, the scholarship and resources that conjured them into being and the responses they elicited. Reviews have value, even when published after an exhibition closes, not only in its assessment, but as an integral part of its archive. The exhibition Arte de los Pueblos de México: Disrupciones Indígenas marks a turning point in public scholarship on the history and interpretation of what has variously been described as “artesanias,” “arte indigena,” and “artes populares,” which most assuredly warrants being widely recorded, remembered, argued over, and incorporated into the annals of critical museology, much as its curators, Juan Rafael Coronel Riviera, Octavio Murillo Álvarez de la Cadena, and Lucía Sanromán Aranda, and the director of the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Miguel Fernández Félix, surely intended.

In the almost four years since The Arctic: While the Ice Is Melting opened (October 2019), we have experienced a global pandemic and now find ourselves teetering on the edge of catastrophic ice melt. With exhibits, elaborate installations, ceiling projections, and interactive stations, this award-winning exhibition frames Indigenous communities and the work of non-Indigenous researchers through the omnipresence of ice and ice melt around the Arctic, encompassing Alaska, Inuit Nunangat (Canada), Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), Iceland, Svalbard and Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. It is expansive in its thematic outlook and asks us to think about an Arctic without ice and the implications of this for Indigenous societies and cultures. With the exhibition extended throughout 2023, and given the latest news on predicted summer sea ice levels, the urgency of its message is perhaps now even more palpable.

The Future of Digital Data, Heritage and Curation in a More-than-Human World Fiona R. Cameron. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021.

What Photographs Do: The Making and Remaking of Museum Cultures Elizabeth Edwards and Ella Ravilious, eds. London: UCL Press, 2022.

The Aftermaths of Participation: Outcomes and Consequences of Participatory Work with Forced Migrants in Museums. Susanne Boersma. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2023.

Museum Times: Changing Histories in South Africa Leslie Witz. New York: Berghahn Books, 2022.

Ancestors, Artefacts, Empire: Indigenous Australia in British and Irish Museums Gaye Sculthorpe, Maria Nugent, and Howard Morphy, eds. London and Canberra: The British Museum Press and the National Museum of Australia, 2021.

The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art Histories in the United States and Canada Heather Igloliorte and Carla Taunton, eds. New York: Routledge, 2022.

Becoming Our Future: Global Indigenous Curatorial Practice Julie Nagam, Megan Tamati-Quennell, and Carly Lane, eds. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2020.

History Making a Difference: New Approaches from Aotearoa Katie Pickles, Lyndon Fraser, Marguerite Hill, Sarah Murray, and Greg Ryan, eds. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.