ISS 25 (1995).pdf - The International Council of Museums

The need for a "museum context" or a "musealization" of matters often appears, as an
obsession, expressed through a fervent museum-planning activity or an ardent museum­
going. Both phenomena know a flourishing prosperity nowadays.
Museum exhibitions - the "par-excellence" communication tool of museums- serve often
as stages for the dramatic confrontation of ideas and images, in which objects
decontextualized from their original dynamic environment reveal the various versions of
the politics of cultural patrimony.
Assuming their moral obligations to communities museums have attempted to be
relevant, responsible and up to date through brave and innovative endeavors, as some
recent examples from the international era illustrate. Yet, these efforts have provoked
criticism and wrathful attacks 5 from the pUblic.
Hence, the arising of dilemmas and the interrogation how to cope with them becomes a
key concern.
Under the present debate about diversity and the new perspectives of the cyberspace,
inquiries like the following arise:
Who has the right to articulate a point of view and who is to speak for whom?
Is the taste and expertise of museum professionals and scholars the only parameter
for shaping the authority of truth?
Who decides about what is central or marginal, valid or useless especially when
dealing with identity issues?
What happens if the up-dated exhibitions -through their vigorous depictions of
history and culture- dynamite social and intellectual structures?
How many possibilities are there left to avoid taking sides in the struggle of
communities over identity-ethnic, national. cultural- and public recognition? Or.
should museums apply a strategy of sympathy and engagement?
What will the proper solution be when the claims of one community persecute
another one? And who judges the validity of requests?
23