International Museum Day

International Museum Day (IMD) is a celebration that held every year on or around 18 May, coordinated by the International Council of Museums (ICOM). The event highlights a specific theme that changes every year and that is at the heart of the international museum community’s preoccupations.

The IMD provides the opportunity for museum professionals to meet the public and alert them as to the challenges that museums face. Indeed, following the definition of museums provided by ICOM, a museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, 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. International Museum Day therefore serves as a platform to raise public awareness on the role museums play in the development of society today, on an international level.

History

Each year, all museums in the world are invited to participate in IMD to promote the role of museums around in the world, creating unique, enjoyable and free activities around a theme discussed within the ICOM community for this special day. Since its creation in 1977,[1] International Museum Day has gained increasing attention. In 2009, International Museum Day attracted the participation of 20,000 museums hosting events in more than 90 countries. In 2010, 98 countries participated in the celebration, with 100 in 2011, and 30,000 museums in 129 countries in 2012. In 2011, the official IMD poster was translated into 37 languages. In 2012, this number jumped by one to 38.

Themes

About ICOM

The International Council of Museum (ICOM) is the main organisation of museums and museum professionals with a global scope, committed to the promotion and protection of natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible and intangible. ICOM’s commitment to culture and knowledge promotion is reinforced by its 31 International Committees dedicated to a wide range of museum specialities, who conduct advanced research in their respective fields for the benefit of the museum community. The organisation is also involved in fighting illicit trafficking, assisting museums in emergency situations, and more. ICOM created International Museum Day in 1977. The organisation chooses the theme and coordinates the event every year.

International Museum Day through the years

International Museum Day 2012

About 32,000 museums in 129 countries on all continents participated in IMD 2012.

The theme

The International Museum Day 2012 was celebrated around the theme Museum in a changing world. New challenges, new inspirations. Regarding the changes facing the world, moving faster than ever before, it was important that museums explore these topics by organising various activities and events. New technologies, new ideas, an unstable climate and social media are now fields in which museums and people are acting.

Five fields related to the theme were explored by museums:

35th anniversary of the International Museum Day

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of the International Museum Day, ICOM sponsored a photo contest entitled Me in my museum. The participants had to take photos of themselves, alone or with their friends, in or outside their favourite museums with the official logo created for the event. The winners of the “Me in my museum” contest were Yonit and Efrat, from Israel, whose picture was taken in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Special activities during IMD 2012

In many countries, International Museum Day is the occasion to celebrate museums and their activities. For instance, each year, the month of May is Museums Month in Guatemala, organised with the Ministry of Culture of Guatemala. This year, the theme was New challenges and new inspirations. In Brazil, the week of 14–20 May is the opportunity to organise museum activities over several days, and the 18th is celebrated as a national holiday. For the 10th edition of National Museums week, activities such as exhibitions, conferences, guided tours and workshop were organised in Brazilian cities. Museums as well as heritage institutions provided dance performances, music, theatre, poetry contests and more. In Peru and Bolivia, International Museum Day is followed by the Long Night of Museums. Visitors have both day and night to visit museums and the event is celebrated in both countries every year. In Lithuania, the year 2012 was declared as the Year of Museums,[2] in honour of the bicentenary opening of the first public museums in the country.

The Museu do Falso (Viseu, Portugal) opened on 18 May 2012, for International Museum Day. Visitors were able to discover the unique Museum of History, made from contributions by contemporary artists, working under the premise of Simulacrum: What if a given event occurred differently from how it did?. This aimed to serve as a hub for cultural actors and citizens. In Côte d’Ivoire, IMD 2012 was celebrated in the structure of the Palais Royal of Abenguru. Local institutions and ICOM Côte d’Ivoire organised various events including discussions, game contests for students and guided tours. About 1,500 people joined in the celebrations with important political and cultural actors from the country. Hans-Martin Hinz, President of ICOM,[3] launched the event from Bahrain, with the visit to the National Museum’s exhibition Tylos: Journey Beyond Life that recounted burial rites and customs in the ancient history of Bahrain. He then experienced the mobile museum Enkiru, an extension of the exhibition specifically geared for children aged 7 to 11.[4] Finally, he participated in a workshop devoted to emerging museum professionals organised by the National Committee of Bahrain, in partnership with ICOM Arab. Meanwhile, the ICOM President personally thanked Chinese and Argentine museums by sending them a video, broadcast during the launch ceremonies for International Museum Day in China and Argentina. To celebrate the event, Julien Anfruns, Director General of ICOM, delivered the keynote address on the 17 May at the conference "Science Museums and New Technologies” organized by the ICOM International Committee for Education and Cultural Action (CECA) in Rome, Italy. He was also a panellist and keynote speaker at the International Bar Association’s conference about new legal challenges in the arts which took place at the MAXXI – National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, Rome).

Partners of IMD 2012

European Night of Museums: For the second year, ICOM patronized the European Night of Museums, an event which echoes IMD in the spirit of an all day and all-night weekend dedicated to museums.[5] CNES: The CNES Space Observatory partnered with International Museum Day to offer a contemporary and original view on museum practice. It proposed sharing the questions raised by evolutions in the concept of space over the centuries to a curious and varied public, by organising various events in a great many European museums. Museum Together: On the occasion of International Museum Day, ICOM supported the Museum Together project, a social application that aims to foster the organisation of meetings around museums and encourage the sharing of cultural experiences.

International Museum Day 2011

About 30 000 museums in 110 countries participated in the celebration of International Museum Day 2011.

The theme

The theme for 2011 was “Museum and memory. Objects tell our story”. Museums have numerous objects in their collections that are basic to the memory of communities. These objects are the expression of natural and cultural heritage. Many of them are fragile, some endangered and they require special care and conservation. Five topics were developed during International Museum Day 2011:

Special activities during IMD 2011

In Australia, the National Sports Museum in Melbourne organised a programme called Remembering the Moments that Made Us where visitors of the museum had the opportunity to meet and talk with sporting legends (Memory Makers) who contributed to great sporting moments and memories.[6]

In Malaysia, seminar with international speakers, exhibitions, sport carnivals, workshops and educational programmes were organised in various museum around the country.

In Sudan, the Natural History Museum in Khartoum created an educational programme for families and school children who were able to participate in a photography competition on the theme “Documenting Our Natural History”.

In Argentina, the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Ridavia in Caba suggested a programme entitled Musecuentos especially established for this occasion. Storytellers shared stories that were highlighted by the museum’s objects.

In Belgium, the Musée Royal de Mariemont offered guided tours on the theme Objects’ CV.

Partners of the IMD 2011

The conservation and transmission of collective memory is a preoccupation for other heritage players, beyond the museum community. For this reason, for the first time ever, the International Council of Museums initiated institutional partnerships with other organisations that feel concerned by these questions and share ICOM’s preoccupation for the preservation of memory:

International Museum Day 2010

In 2010, museums from 96 countries participated in the event, organised around the theme Museums for social harmony.

Special activities during IMD 2010

In Mongolia, the theatre museum invited kindergarten children to attend a play in the museum.

The Samarkand State Museum of Cultural History in Uzbekistan organised an impressive performance with the award-winning children’s dance ensemble Jonona. It was followed by a musical slide show displaying the Samarkand region’s historical heritage.

In Sri Lanka, the Department of National Museums provided an educational programme with mobile exhibitions for students in the northern region of the country as a means to encourage peace and social harmony among the ethnic groups who are living in the north and the south of the country.

The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian) in Portugal arranged a special reception for visitors in a bid to highlight its initiative of creating a club for 23 local teenagers with anti-social behaviour.

International Museum Day 2009

In 2009, ICOM partnered WFFM (the World Federation of Friends of Museums) in order to promote the event.

International Museum Day 2008

20 000 museums in 90 countries participated in IMD in 2008. As the theme was Museums as agents of social change and development, the first virtual museum event took place on Second Life, with the contribution of the Tech Museum of Innovation (San Francisco, USA).

International Museum Day 2007

Museums in approximately 70 countries participated in the event. For this edition, the message that was conveyed was We are all responsible for universal heritage.

Special activities during IMD 2007

In Angola, a debate on The Contribution of the National Museum of Anthropology on Asserting Cultural Identity was organised. In Algeria, two days were devoted to the theme of heritage and museology in Algeria, the objective being to submit a project to set up a centre for training museum professionals. The Colombo National Museum in Sri Lanka organised visits and workshops for certain schools aimed at teaching pupils to identify with their heritage. At the Acadian Museum of the University of Moncton (Canada), a conference was held to discuss the issues involved in preserving Acadian oral heritage in a museum as a centre of conservation and dissemination. In Israel, the Historic Museum of Bethlehem partially opened on the occasion of IMD. In Botswana, the site museum of Tsodilo celebrated the event by organising performances of plays, music and traditional dances. In Peru, the inhabitants of Lima were invited to the Fifth Feria of “Museums within your reach” with the participation of 30 museums from Europe and Central Asia.

References

External links

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