Somewhere between a session on Exhibiting Dark Histories at the International Council of Museums international management group conference in 2008 in Rotorua, New Zealand, and a hike in the bush during the conference’s excursion day, the concept for the Federation of International Human Rights Museums (FIHRM) emerged.
Perhaps not the likeliest of beginnings, but further fuelled by the Torreon Declaration of Museum Responsibility to Promote Human Rights, issued during the 2009 Intercom conference in Torreon, Mexico, by the time all 90 delegates gathered at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool for the inaugural conference last month, FIHRM was up and running with council members, a website, a facebook page and twitter alerts.
FIHRM is coordinated by National Museums Liverpool, in partnership with museums, NGOs and academic partners. The federation aims “to enable museums which deal with sensitive and thought-provoking subjects such as transatlantic slavery, the Holocaust and human rights to work together and share new thinking and initiatives in a supportive environment”.
The conference themes – Museums as Active Campaigners; Children, Young People and Human Rights; Active Communities; and Exhibiting Sensitive Histories – were intended to open the door for examining the potential, and challenges, of museums as socially responsible institutions that take ideological stances.
The conference worked from the premise that all present shared a commitment to museums as advocates of human rights. The event provided inspiration, provoked debate, and facilitated dialogue for museum professionals working towards creating institutions where cultural diversity is celebrated, social responsibility is taken seriously, and where visitors leave determined to take action.
The International Slavery Museum, which is well-known as a campaigning museum, was a poignant venue for the conference. It was also significant that delegates came from 20 countries including Vietnam, Malawi, Rwanda, South Africa and Colombia, many on FIHRM bursaries, to try and to ensure as diverse a participation as possible.
This was an in important opportunity to make heard and further the cause of museums as campaigners for human rights.
The idea of museums promoting social harmony need not suggest, as is perhaps the temptation, that museums need to be neutral environments, carefully removed from the concerns of the day in order to preserve their identity as ‘safe spaces’.
Instead, they can be positive, active spaces that recognise their role in fighting for human rights at local, national and global levels.
Kate Craddy is the director of the Galicia Jewish Heritage Institute and is speaking at this year’s Museums Association conference
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