Ecomuseum

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An ecomuseum is a museum focused on the identity of a place, largely based on local participation and aiming to enhance local communities welfare and development.

There are presently about 300 operating ecomuseums in the world; about 200 are in Europe (mainly in France and Italy).

The world's largest ecomuseum is Alberta, Canada's Kalyna Country, at 20,000km², or the size of Wales.

1 Development
2 Definition of the European Network of Ecomuseums
3 External links

[edit] Development

Introduced by the French museologist Hugues de Varine in 1971, the word ecomuseum has often been misused. The definition of an ecomuseum is still a controversial matter for contemporary museology. Many museologists sought to define the distinctive features of ecomuseums, listing their characteristics.

Following a complexity approach, in recent definitions, ecomuseums are more properly defined by what they do rather than by what they are.

[edit] Definition of the European Network of Ecomuseums

An Ecomuseum is a dynamic way in which communities preserve, interpret, and manage their heritage for a sustainable development. An Ecomuseum is based on a community agreement.

— Declaration of Intent of the Long Net Workshop, Trento (Italy), May 2004

Dynamic way means to go beyond the formal aspect of an ecomuseum, beyond a simple set course, designed on paper; it is about designing real actions, able to change our society and improve our landscape. Community means a group with:

General involvement;
Shared responsibilities;
Interchangeable roles: public officers, representatives, volunteers and other local actors are all playing a vital role in an ecomuseum.

Community involvement does not mean that local administrations, a unique historical heritage of European democracy, are irrelevant. On the contrary their role, to be effective, must involve people, going beyond the narrow circle of “authorized personnel”.

Preservation, interpretation and management means that reading and communicating heritage values, providing new interpretations of it and raising its profile, are part of the day-to-day activity for ecomuseums. Heritage is very close to Place as a notion, including history of inhabitants and things, what is visible and what it is not, tangibles and intangibles, memories and future.

Sustainable development is a central issue for ecomuseums and it implies also to increase the value of a place instead of diminishing it. Evidence from best practices identifies in this process two key elements: place-based development, as previously described, and the improvement of local networks, where ecomuseums have to play a key role as catalysts of social capital development.

Agreement means a mutual consent, implying reciprocal commitments between local players. The Polish national meeting, once more, put forward the idea of “voluntary meeting of people”.