The reactions to the proposal to change the official International Council of Museums (Icom) definition of a museum have been revealing. I hadn’t really been paying attention - until I saw that Icom UK and MA members in online polls voted resoundingly against it.
I checked the media. Several articles in the French arts press detected an attempted coup against the traditional idea of a museum. The Art Newspaper quotes the chair of the Icom Museology Committee, who dismissed it because it reflects “fashionable values”.
Online polls, with self-selecting participants, have no representative value. A quick look at the Icom website showed nothing as interesting as a coup – the proposal results from a two-year transparent process commissioned by Icom’s executive board, with an entire issue of Museum International devoted to the intellectual background.
So, what is going on? When the new definition comes to a vote at Icom’s Extraordinary General Assembly on 7 September in Kyoto, is the issue really fashionable values versus tradition?
The current definition is a functional, minimal vision of what museums are. It says what museums are, and is somewhat tautological – museums carry out museumy functions and bring museumy benefits to society. The new definition is maximal and says what museums can do. It retains the technical core – stewardship, collections, preservation, exhibition – but adds an explicit set of values and ambitions.
While some may react to the language – even “human rights” has acquired negative connotations in our polarised politics – dismissing a commitment to human dignity and democracy as “fashionable” surely misrepresents museums’ humane essence.
It seems to me that what is at stake is whether museums are part of society or, somehow, separate from it, occupying a neutral space. This detached status is what is meant by ‘the traditional museum’.
While some museums were founded to provide places of refuge from the cares of the world, many espoused a level of ambition to engage with and improve society that even now seems extravagant.
Henry Cole’s vision for the Victoria and Albert Museum was to place it at the centre of Victorian social reform, an institution of urgent relevance to many social issues – he boasted proudly of opening times and amenities that meant it attracted far more working class families than the National Gallery. This vision was dropped when he retired. Those who took over privileged serving the already-educated and developing their own interests over benefiting society.
The new definition is an attempt to tap into this other tradition and its sense of urgent relevance and ambition. If you were asked to list the major issues facing the world – climate crisis, migration, the future of democracy, clashing identities – and then how museums are responding, you might identify temporary exhibitions, events and education programmes. These are however transient forms of relevance, supplementing the traditional core, which is unchanging in its focus on internal concerns and institutional identity.
While defending what has been achieved may be a natural response in what WH Auden called our age of anxiety – and museums in particular should be cautious about change – the new definition demands a braver, more generous response. It implies that, in a world of increasing inequality, neutrality is impossible. Because all the benefits of society accrue more readily to those who are already doing well, if you are not working to reduce injustice, you are actively supporting its increase.
This may mean being more overtly political – but not necessarily. Museums offering a spiritual refuge don’t have to become activists but they have to address issues of equality of access to the refuge, and take care not to create a haven for complacent indifference.
And museums that address history or science have to be alert to the fact that "neutral" narratives are easily co-opted to protecting exclusivist ideologies.
The new definition offers a vision of museums that do more than bolt on meaningful engagement with reality, that have the courage to rethink how they work and the generosity of spirit to put their contribution to society before the comfort of those staff and audiences who have already benefited most from the status quo.
The new text calls for a more profound response to our times, drawing on all museum assets – collections, expertise, public spaces, audiences – to meet the cultural needs of a globalised world.
Mark O'Neill is an associate professor at the College of Arts, Glasgow University. He previously worked as director of policy and research for Glasgow Life and as head of Glasgow Museums
