Museums can change lives. Museums are for and about people. For museums to be truly accountable to past, present and future generations, they must work with and for all sections of the communities they serve. Museums have the potential to strengthen the social fabric of society and act as meeting and dialoguing places for different cultures.
NEMO (Network of European Museum Organisations) brings together museum organisations and museums throughout Europe to strengthen mutual exchange and expertise and address the most crucial issues facing this sector. A current hot topic is how museums can be actors of change and promoters of social inclusion.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The role of museums in society across the globe has significantly changed in recent decades: from temples of knowledge to fora for debate and discussion, from repositories of objects to people-centred institutions with social responsibilities and functions. This shift reflects an ongoing trend to democratise museums and make them more accessible to wider audiences and responsive to the public, in particular to local communities, whose composition has changed to include migrants and people with different ethnic backgrounds.
With unprecedented migration flows to Europe and the increasing growth of multiethnic communities, we must ask how cultural institutions can contribute to effective integration and dialogue.
Funders and society expect museums to help facilitate the integration and peaceful coexistence of newcomers – and supportive financial resources are being made available, also at EU level.
It can be questioned whether it’s right to charge museums with these responsibilities. Does it push the boundaries of their work too far and give the social function a too prominent role, as opposed to fulfilling traditional conservation and educational tasks. Or it this debate already obsolete in the light of the growing body of evidence of good practices available at European level.
Museums in Europe are already engaging with migration and cultural diversity with a variety of approaches, reflecting the diverse nature of each institution and their national context. But no matter how seriously they take up the challenge, this is a completely new area of work requiring new programmes, attitudes and staff skills, including the ability to network and partner with various institutions active in different fields.
To support museums and help them to find a constructive multiperspective and multicultural approach to their work, in 2015 NEMO released Museums, Migration and Cultural Diversity. Recommendations for Museum Work*. The publication outlines how museums can develop an intercultural approach via three core activities: Collecting, Exhibiting and Outreach.
COLLECTING NEW PERSPECTIVES
Objects in a museum have many stories to tell about the culture that produced them and the contexts from which they originated. Very often though, museums represent only a mainstream culture, ignoring or downplaying other historical or societal components.
Museums seeking an intercultural approach should first of all reexamine and reassess existing collections using different perspectives and taking into account the viewpoint of individuals and communities.
This can be done by exposing the objects to different questions regarding their provenance and function – particularly if they originated in a colonial context – thereby bringing new stories to the light, or by adding new objects to the collection or collecting exhibits about migration history in collaboration with associations and contemporary witnesses.
Another strategy that museums can employ is to establish working agreements and partnerships with archives, local authorities and other public agencies.
A DIVERSE EXHIBIT
The narrative of a museum unfolds in its galleries through the objects and the interpretation methods chosen by curators. No exhibition is in itself neutral: choosing an object and interpreting it in a certain way is a deliberate act.
In order to open up new multicultural perspectives, people with a migrant background can be invited to contribute to a new exhibition by bringing objects and viewpoints, focusing on their own stories and autobiographical recollections.
Such a participatory approach seems to work well, especially in the concept and design of temporary exhibitions, which are better suited to addressing current topics and trying out new and different forms of public collaboration.
OPPORTUNITY OUTREACH
Outreach is closely linked to the three core activities of collecting, exhibiting and research, but its activities are often more easily achieved outside the institutional setting of a museum. For instance, it can be better to involve marginalised groups at community locations, day centres, shopping centres and even on the streets.
Outreach workers also benefit from experience in working with unrepresented groups, perhaps owing to low economic status or social exclusion, but initiating dialogue with migrants and refugees requires the sensitivity and intercultural skills of dedicated permanent staff.