Across the world museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about pasts and futures. They safeguard diverse memories and work in active partnership with communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, communicate and exhibit, with the aim of contributing to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing. This is a fundamentally new vision for the museum. It is time for a new definition of the institution that, since its earliest beginnings, has been so much more than a room full of things.
In the beginning there were collections of artifacts in private homes. By the 18th century, the term museum had been firmly established in the public imagination thanks to Denis Diderot and his nine-volume scheme of national museums for France. A museum, according to the dictionary definition from the International Council of Museums (ICOM), is “an institution devoted to the collecting, conservation, research and interpretation of tangible and intangible heritage for the benefit of society.”
The ICOM definition also defines the role of the museum as a place to share the values that are shared by different cultures. This is a key part of the museum’s mission because if it only exists for one culture, it can never serve as a truly empathetic forum that can bring people together.
While museums often only display a small percentage of their collections on any given day, the pieces that are stowed away are not just collecting dust; they are being used by researchers around the world to explore everything from painters to mummies to whale bones. These discoveries may not be as sensational as those on the big screen, but they are vital to our understanding of human culture.
But the old ICOM definition did not fully encompass these societal challenges and commitments that today’s museums face. This led to the development of a new draft museum definition. The draft was a result of a process that involved the largest outreach project in ICOM’s history. Over the course of four separate rounds, 126 ICOM committees and their members consulted with museums from all over the world.
The new definition that emerged from this process states that a museum is “a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, that acquires, conserves, researches, documents, explores, communicates and exhibits the heritage of humanity and its environment.” It is the first museum definition in ICOM’s history to reference a goal of planetary wellbeing, and the first to mention issues of decolonisation, repatriation and restitution. As such, it is an incredibly important document for the future of museums and the world they inhabit. It will serve as a point of departure for discussions at ICOM’s General Conference in 2022. For more information, visit the Museum Definition space on ICOM’s website. ICOM invites all museums, their directors and staff, and their partners to join the debate as we create a new, more accurate vision of the museum for the 21st century.