1

STANDING COMMITTEE FOR MUSEUM DEFINITION, PROSPECTS AND
POTENTIALS (MDPP)

PREFACEThis document contains the recommendations and the report submitted by the Standing Committee
for Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials (MDPP), in accordance with its mandate, to the
ICOM Executive Board regarding the needs for a potential revision of the museum definition.
The ICOM Executive Board unanimously accepted the report and adopted the recommendations.
The final section contains a framework on the process up to the ICOM’s 25th General Conference inKyoto in September 2019.
Minor grammatical corrections have been made to the current version, in order to reflect that theoriginal report was approved by the Executive Board.
Jette Sandahl, Chair, MDPP, December 2018

2

RECOMMENDATIONS ADOPTED BY THE EXECUTIVE BOARD
Recommendations from the MDPP committee to the ICOM Executive Board regarding a
potential revision of the current museum definition, approved on December 9th, 2018.
1. ICOM should initiate a process of reinterpretation, revision, rewriting, and reformulation of
the current museum definition to be proposed for debate and decision at the 25th ICOMGeneral Conference in Kyoto in September 2019
2. This process should start immediately at the beginning of 2019, ensuring that there is time fora broad and global anchoring and involvement of the membership as a whole
3. The MDPP is asked to initiate and organize this, in the first part of 2019, as a participatory
process through structured dialogic methods
4. The process may result in a number of different proposals to be brought to the Executive Board
in June 2019, and one or more proposals to be brought to the general conference in September
2019
5. The following parameters are set for proposals for a new definition:• the museum definition should be clear on the purposes of museums, and on the value
base from which museums meet their sustainable, ethical, political, social and cultural
challenges and responsibilities in the 21st century• the museum definition should retain – even if current terminology may vary - theunique, defining and essential unity in museums of the functions of collecting,preserving, documenting, researching, exhibiting and in other ways communicating thecollections or other evidence of cultural heritage
•
•

•

•

•
•

the museum definition should acknowledge the urgency of the crises in nature and theimperative to develop and implement sustainable solutions
the museum definition should acknowledge and recognise with respect andconsideration the vastly different world views, conditions and traditions under which
museums work across the globe
the museum definition should acknowledge and recognise with concern the legacies andcontinuous presence of deep societal inequalities and asymmetries of power and wealth across the globe as well as nationally, regionally and locallythe museum definition should express the unity of the expert role of museums with thecollaboration and shared commitment, responsibility and authority in relation to theircommunities
the museum definition should express the commitment of museums to be meaningful
meeting places and open and diverse platforms for learning and exchange
the museum definition should express the accountability and transparency under which
museums are expected to acquire and use their material, financial, social and intellectual
resources

3

REPORT FOR THE ICOM EXECUTIVE BOARD, DECEMBER 2018
The museum definition as the backbone of ICOM
Working methods for the MDPP
Values and purposes
Global trends and their reflection in museums
Epistemologies, world views and museum typologies
Power, ethics and cultural rights
Cultural democracies and cultural participation
Continued process

3
4
6
7
8
10
11
13

THE MUSEUM DEFINITION AS THE BACKBONE OF ICOMFounded in 1946, ICOM is the global organisation of museums and museum professionals,
with 40.000 members from 140 countries from all continents. ICOM provides a shared ethicalframework for museums, a forum for professional discussions, and a platform for questioning
and celebrating heritage and collections in museums and cultural institutions.
As a backbone for this global organisation sits a shared definition of what museums are andwhat they do. The latest version is from 2007.
The museum is a non-profit, permanent institution
in the service of society and its development,
open to the public,
which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits
the tangible and intangible heritageof humanity and its environment
for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.
While this definition is meant to define the essence of what constitutes a museum, it is also
understood as an ideal, which is interpreted somewhat differently by museums, and ICOM
recognises as members also institutions which only partially or to varying degrees fulfil all thecriteria or functions.
Over the decades minor adjustments have been made to this definition. In December 2018 theICOM Executive Board decided to develop an alternative definition which will be more
relevant and appropriate for museums in the 21st century and future museum landscapes. It
should be a definition which recognises the dissimilar conditions and practices of museums indiverse and rapidly changing societies, and supports museums in developing and adopting newscientific paradigms and addressing more adequately the complexities of the 21st century.
The museum definition is a core document in ICOM’s relationships with partner organisationand in the museum legislation of several countries, and all deliberations of changing it must
include carefully weighing and balancing the gains of a revision against the complications of a

4change. However, the costs of not revising should also be considered, not least in the ways
museums are perceived to be bound by their allegiances to former centuries.

Following exploratory work by a Working Group of around 25 ICOM members during 2015-16,
in 2017 a new Standing Committee, the Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials
committee (MDPP) was appointed by the Executive Board of ICOM. No clear consensus had
emerged in the working group as to whether the definition should remain as is, change inlimited ways, or change radically, in substance. But the initial discussions, supplemented by asurvey which did a word to word, phrase by phrase analysis, illuminated core challenges in thecurrent definition. The MDPP has included these analyses as well as the extensive debatesaround a new museum definition during 2003-04 in its work.
The MDPP differs categorically from these previous discussions of the museum definition in
ICOM, in its formal dual mandate, on one level to document and analyse prevalent societal
trends and how these impact museums, how museums anticipate them, resist them, and adapt
to them, and, on another level, on this background to make recommendations to the Executive
Board and Advisory Committee of ICOM about the potential needs for a revision of the current
definition.
The Committee for Museum Definition, Prospects and Potentials explores the shared but also
the profoundly dissimilar conditions, values and practices of museums in diverse and rapidlychanging societies.
Combining broad dialogue across the membership with dedicated expert fora, the committee
will address the ambiguous and often contradictory trends in society, and the subsequent
new conditions, obligations and possibilities for museums, and advise the Executive Board
and Advisory Council on these issues.
Approaching the ICOM general conference in 2019, on the background of information
gathered, new trends observed and documented, and discussions conducted through its
various working groups, the committee will advise the Executive Board and the Advisory
Council on museological and epistemological problem areas in the existing museum
definition.
It will make recommendations regarding the potential gains as well as the complication inrevising the definition, as a shared, international framework, to reflect and include morecurrent conditions, potentials and priorities for museums.

WORKING METHODS FOR THE MDPP
A fundamental challenge for ICOM, as for other organisations aiming for a global presence, isto counter the systemic European and Western dominance in the development of its strategies
and policies, and to create and ensure a real global representation and participation in its
central strategic processes.
A discussion of the definition of museums inevitably involves a set of assumptions andprojections about the future of museums and of museums in different and rapidly changing
societies. To adequately reflect not just the shared, but also the profound differences in theconditions and the purposes of museums, important discussions must, in basic ways, reflect
the breadth of the ICOM member countries.

5
That there should be or could be a shared definition for museums across the world can in noway be taken for granted, desirable as it may be from a professional point of view.
Universalizing can serve to hide and obfuscate differences, as also the recent ICOFOM
conferences on the museum definition have accentuated, and, if at all possible, any attempts atuniversalism must be carefully negotiated or earned.
At the centre of the MDPP committee is a core coordinating group, with representation fromall continents, which sets the direction for and coordinates the work in the Committee, andaround which circle a series of thematic working groups, with different content and somewhat
different approaches, but all attempting a global participation.
Jette Sandahl chairs the committee
Richard West leads the theme of changing epistemologies, world views and museum typologies
Margaret Anderson leads the theme of cultural democracy and cultural participation
Kenson Kwok leads the theme of new trends in museum partnerships, ownership andgovernanceGeorge Abungu leads the theme of geopolitics, migration and de-colonisation
David Fleming leads a theme of global trends
Lauran Bonilla Merchav leads the area of the round tables on challenges for societies and formuseums
Francois Mairesse bridges to the discussion in ICOFOM on the museum definition
Alberto Garlandini has participated from the ICOM Executive BoardAfşin Altaylı participates from the ICOM Secretariat
The core group of the MDPP met in Paris in June 2017 and June 2018, although not in full.
None of the working groups have had the opportunity to meet in person, but havecommunicated and functioned digitally only. Around 50 people have been involved in close
consultations.
The MDPP has presented its work and time lines to the Executive Board in December 2016, inJune 2017 and June 2018, and to the Advisory Council in June 2017 and June 2018 as well as
in a number of national and international committees. Through the Round Tables conductedby the MDPP an additional estimated 850 ICOM members and other museum professionals
from across the world have been involved in the discussions of the committee. The ICOFOM
conferences on the museum definition have drawn close to 1000 participants, also spanning
different continents. There is clearly a great interest among ICOM members and in the ICOM
committees in discussing new societal trends and challenges, the future of museums and thedefinition of museums.
The MDPP has approached the subject of the museum definition from the outside in.
Attempting to sidestep the given mold, there has been less focus on critiquing and revisingwords or paragraphs in the current definition, and more on historicizing and contextualizing it,
on de-naturalizing and de-colonizing it, and on anchoring the discussion of museums and thefutures of museums in a larger framework of general societal trends and issues of the 21st
century.
The MDPP reported and gave its recommendations to the ICOM Executive Board in December
2018, in time for involving and engaging the membership in preparing proposals for a revisionor new definition for Kyoto 2019.

6
Whatever the final result of this process will be, reassessing the museum definition has provento be an important occasion to re-examine the core values, the priorities and actual practices ofthe sector and see whether, how or to what extent they align.

VALUES AND PURPOSES

A definition of museums should be clear and easy to understand and should convey the spirit,
the essence, the overall purposes of museums, as well as the values from which they operate.
A definition obviously cannot name and list all aspects of the wide and complex field ofmuseums. However, it should be kept in mind that absences in core areas and on core subject
matters in the definition, will leave these voids to be filled with the values of the status-quo andthe powers-that-be. Identifying and locating what is silent in the current definition andassessing the impact of this silence are part of the preparation for a revision, as are uncoveringand interpreting the values embedded in or behind the choice of words.
As an organisational tool, for ICOM, its partners and for museums, the ICOM museum
definition is inevitably both descriptive and prescriptive.
The museum definition delineates the purposes, responsibilities and functions of museums –the why and what of museums – and is supplemented and supported by the ICOM Code of
Ethics in a description of the standards under which these responsibilities should be carriedout – the how of museums.
The current definition contains different, and unmediated, levels of purposes: museums
should be ‘in the service of society and its development’, and fulfil its specific functions ‘for the
purposes of education, study and enjoyment’.
While in 1974 the immensely significant insertion of ‘in service of society and its development’
was contentious and considered an inappropriate politisation of the purpose of museums bysections of the museum community, at the current point of time there is a need for a criticalappraisal of the lack of specificity and the almost naïve singularity of the term ‘society’ as well
as of the questionable ambiguity of the term ‘development’.
While the intended content of the phrase remains essential for current museum analysis andpolicy development, its openness signals an easy homogeneity, harmony and stability within
and between the two terms ‘museums and ‘society’. Societies, however, are ever changing,conflicted and contested contexts within which museums live and act, and which need to be
explored in dynamic terms, to understand the diverse and contradictory developmental trends.
The ICOM museum definition and the Code of Ethics offer scant support for museums inunderstanding or defining their ethical, social or political place in relation to their close
communities or the world at large, leaving individual museums to seek guidance outside themuseum field, in other global organisations and documents like the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights and UNESCO’s Declaration of Cultural Diversity to embed the museum in aclear set of values and system of ethical accountability.
Through ICOM’s relationship with UNESCO, and documents like the UNESCO
Recommendation concerning the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections,
ICOM is included in a world view and values of justice, liberty and peace, of solidarity, social

7
integration and cohesion, sustainable development – reflecting, as it is, major concerns andpriorities of the present time.
It seems, however, untenable in a contemporary and future context for ICOM to uphold thisethical vacuum or void in its own definition of museums. While ICOM has, for decades,
assumed a position of advocacy around museum collections, historic monuments and evencultural landscapes, there seems to be a need for a framework of value-based advocacy or
activist positions relative to people, to human rights and social justice, as well as to nature as
the – increasingly threatened – source of life.
Furthermore, also absent from the definition is any reference to the accountability of museums
towards the societies and the communities, which they serve, and to the means by whichsocietal needs are reflected in museum strategies and policies, in core museum functions ofresearch, collecting, preservation and exhibition.
Museums are not freestanding, sovereign, unfettered institutions, but are shaped by anddeeply embedded in multiple economic and political intentions, in nation building and theshaping of national identities, in regional and municipal revitalisation, regeneration, urban
renewal – and of course, these days, significantly in the tourism market. There needs to bemuch more extensive accountability and transparency than the simple term ‘non-profit’ toclarify how museums address their purpose, define and adhere to their principles, and acquireand use the material, financial, social and intellectual resources at their disposal.
When asked, in the round tables of the MDPP, about the most important contributions
museums could make to society, the responses by museum professionals, while containing the
purposes and functions of the current museum definition, went way beyond those into a strong
and impassioned commitment to the broader and deeper, social and humanitarian potential ofmuseums. These included bringing people together in purposeful convening, to exchange
ideas, to create a sense of belonging and identity, to build empathy, understanding andsensitivity towards differences, to promote reflection and critical thinking, and to create spaces
for reconciliation. To improve quality of life. Improve health.
It seems essential that a museum definition should contain this commitment as an overarchingframe of values and purpose.

GLOBAL TRENDS AND THEIR REFLECTION IN MUSEUMS

Museums grow and multiply, significantly, across the world. Current trends and changes insocieties directly and indirectly impact, frame and affect museums and museum work. In
adapting to the new conditions and new possibilities museums stretch, bend and reinvent the
known institutional formats of what a museum is thought to be. If the concept of ‘permanence’is relevant in a museum definition, it should be in relation to the life of collections as such,rather than to the specific institutional or organisational forms around them which arecontinuously changing.
Societal changes are complex, contradictory and uneven. However, major global surveys andanalytical forecasts seem to point to some pressing issues and vital concerns facing the world
today and in the near future, which, with some regional and other demographic variations, arebroadly shared across the world. These include climate change and the destruction of nature,inequality, lack of economic opportunities, migration, discrimination, large scale conflicts andwars, government transparency and accountability.

8
Observing societal trends like these can provide useful tools for navigating and charting thepotential relevance for the sector, for organisations like ICOM as well as for individual
museums.
Museum professionals in the MDPP round tables voiced very similar concerns to those of
respondents to global surveys. They also identified some of the challenges, which these issues
pose to museums, and which underline the importance of developing more inclusive methods,
open to the involvement and participation of communities, and addressing themes ofinequality and human rights, globalisation and migration, climate change.
While new museums, specialist museums and museum-like initiatives are created specificallyto address some of the contentious issues of ethnicity, human rights, gender, sustainability oreven the future, in response to expressed societal, governmental and community needs, there
remains a gap between these core concerns and the themes dominating the research, thecollecting, the exhibitions and events in traditional, mainstream museums.
As each year there are palpable increases in, for instance, the extinction of species and thepermanent disappearance of arable soil, in the inequalities in class-based life expectancies, andin the millions of people displaced by conflicts and wars, for museums to claim neutrality inrelation to urgent societal issues is increasingly perceived, by both museum professionals
themselves and by the wider society, as an abnegation of societal responsibilities. It is not aquestion of whether, but rather a question of which values and which world views museums
reflect or represent, and how transparent they are about acknowledging them.
While there are obviously places in the world, where actively addressing contentious issues ishighly risky for a museum, in other parts of the world the dangers of being too outspoken
should be measured and balanced against the dangers of being perceived as irrelevant, by theircommunities as well as by their funding authorities.
The disconnect, the hesitancy and reticence with which museums stay away from societal
conflicts, contentious content and contemporary dilemmas, even when these relate closely totheir defining subject matter, seem rooted both in the epistemological traditions and thehistoric positions museums have held within the power structures of their societies.

EPISTEMOLOGIES, WORLD VIEWS AND MUSEUM TYPOLOGIESIntuitively the word museum is easily understood in its manifold complexity, with a stable core
concept of a collection, of objects bearing information and transmitting emotions, memory andknowledge to those who view, contemplate and connect with them.
But it takes little unpacking or scratching beneath the surface of the museum definition for thescientific, social and political roots in the value systems and systems of thought of the 18th, 19thand 20th centuries to emerge.
From the logics of the earliest, private Wunder- and Kunstkammers through the development
and consolidation of the binary hierarchies of Western rationalism, museums represent
tangible evidence of how societies in different historical periods organize their knowledge andthe principles behind this knowledge. Gradually, over the centuries, museums have been
shaped by the splitting of culture and nature, of art and culture, of art and ethnography, of

9history and technology and art, into discrete departments in larger museums, and into theformation of scores of new, single-disciplinary museums in the late 19th century.
As the detrimental, long-term, in some cases irreversible, consequences of the so-called
scientific revolution and interventionist philosophies of nature become increasingly tangible inthe 21st century, the problematic character of the 20th century language of ‘humanity and its
environment’ of the museum definition – as is the case with ‘in the service of society and its
development’ – is equally manifest.
The isolation and elevation of humans from the rest of nature and the corresponding reductionof nature to being part of humanity’s environment, in the museum definition, leave noconceptual or principal place for the important natural history museums collections. And
conversely, cultural history collections are divorced from responsibilities relative to nature.
The museum definition thus provides no ethical or intellectual guidance or support formuseums trying to address the multipronged current crises in the bifurcated relationship ofhumans in nature, and for museums trying to contribute to a critical exploration ofsustainability with the level of authority, the collections could actually merit.
New museums, often driven by strong indigenous presences, in particularly the Americas, thePacific and now also the African continent, are developing inter-, trans-, and multidisciplinary,holistic approaches and methods, and embracing world views, cosmologies andepistemologies, which understand and interpret objects and collections within a framework ofa fundamental connectivity and interrelatedness of all things, all beings. These paradigms
provide powerful alternatives for museums, when they, faced with the complexities of the 21st
century, re-examine their lock-down in the single disciplinary methods and approaches.
A museum definition should be rooted in a plurality of world views and systems of knowledge,
rather than in a single, Western scientific tradition.
Knowledge is, to an important extent, situated. Increasingly museums come to realize, often
under pressure from people whose points of view and experiences are underrepresented, thatthe demographic composition of staff impact the kind of knowledge and perspectives themuseum can create, and its ability – or inability - to meet the different, and often conflicted,
gender, class, ethnic, or racial perspectives of its communities. A major shift in the 20th century
was the recognition, not least in countries with strong indigenous voices, of the needs andrights of a primary setting to interpret its culture and objects.
A museum definition should speak from a position of respect for this basic principle of selfrepresentation.
Throughout the history of museums, their unique and defining quality lies in uniting functions
and dimensions, which are most often split in institutional settings – in bringing together
research and ideas with material evidence and culture, ideas with physical Gestaltung,scientific knowledge production with the general public, documentation with communication.
The fundamental and inbuilt educational and social purpose of museums is well documented
through museum history. The relationship between collections and people is the constituent
one, when collections make the leap from private passion to public museum.
It seems essential, at a time of reassessing the basic definition of museums and at a time when
the sector is often restructured, to never lose sight of or let go of this fundamental unity andinterconnectivity of the various functions of a museum, the ‘acquires, conserves, researches,10communicates and exhibits’ of the museum definition – even if the language for and aroundthe functions may need to be updated. These functions and their integrated whole remain
principally and categorically essential for the museum field and for a museum definition.
However, how these basic museum functions enter into a closer, more accountable
relationship with the general public, with communities and stakeholders, represents a newchallenge, as the expectations towards cultural participation take hold and spread in the 21st
century.

POWER, ETHICS AND CULTURAL RIGHTS

The global geo-political context, conflicts and balances of the 21st century differ categoricallyfrom the centuries in which the museum as a paradigm and institutional model was formed.
They also vary greatly from the 20th century in which the ICOM museum definition wasdeveloped.
Museums as institutions were shaped at the intersection of a spirited quest for knowledge andnew scientific paradigms with the extreme violence employed by European powers in thecolonisation of the Americas, in the enslavement of populations in Africa, in religious
persecutions and expulsions within Europe. They were also shaped within and at the time of aparadigm which defined rights through ownership, thus denying the full humanity of large
populations, globally and locally, and excluding them from citizenship.
Absent, however, in the current museum definition is any reference to colonial or otherlegacies of power and wealth, which have been constitutive for the principles of how Westernmuseum collections were formed, with ethnographic collections shaped through the notion ofhierarchies of civilisation and (racial) inferiority, and national collection shaped through the
hierarchies of property and wealth, class, ethnicity and gender.
The museum definition thus, again, leaves an ethical vacuum as the legitimacy of the amassingof cultural property from other continents in European museums is persistently and more
widely interrogated in a contemporary geopolitical context, and as museums on all continents
engage in the fraught, political, intellectual and emotional processes of de-colonisation, be it interms of processes of repatriation, of recontextualizing collections, of developing methods ofcooperation and consultations, or in ensuring the diversity of staff and in governance.
Critiquing and protesting the way museums, monuments and sites perpetuate traditions of
power is not an attempt to rewrite history, but a demand, in the present time, to right historicwrongs.
The absent thematisation, in the museum definition, of the asymmetries of power and wealthleaves museums without an ethical framework within which to explore and expand the uniquepotential – and obligations - of museums relative to current societal issues of mass
displacement and migration. As a global professional organisation ICOM needs to provide
points of reference, which can name, contain and provide guidance in the conflicts between
what is currently often called the Global South and Global North, and make ‘de-colonisation’,in the widest sense of the word, a mutual and shared need and commitment.
Likewise, a definition of museums needs to recognise the general, national and local issues ofprivilege and inequality which mar most or all countries and cultures, and be sensitive andopen to the emergence of new museum paradigms which do not mirror the traditional mold.

11

Museums try, some would even claim that they do their best, to direct their resources towards
the needs of the people they serve. However, even the most basic audience research will show
the uneven pattern of museum audiences, least pronounced in natural history museums, mostpronounced in contemporary art museums. Museums tend to serve the well-educatedaudiences far more than other demographic groups. And this does not begin to address thequestions of how privilege manifests itself behind the scenes of museums, in the prioritizing of
themes, methods, content, or in recruitment and governance.
The high visitor figures in museums are put in perspective by this skewed composition towards
privilege, and by the failure to provide equal and real access for all, even in countries where
legislation, a broad political will and public funding support this. Taking a commitment toequal rights to culture seriously, transcending the economic, social and cultural barriers of
power and privilege and bridging the sense of disconnect, requires more than the mere being‘open to the public’ of the current museum definition indicates. It requires a proactive
engagement with and responsiveness to the diverse needs of diverse constituents.

CULTURAL DEMOCRACIES AND CULTURAL PARTICIPATIONIn the broadest meaning of the word, as the possibility for people, as individuals or collectives,to participate in the planning, steering, and governing of their own lives, democracy is aconcept of hope, of aspiration, of striving, never complete, never fully realized.
The history and processes of democracy have always been defined as much through what andwho they exclude as by what and who they include. The 19th and 20th centuries saw fierce andsuccessful struggles to expand who—in terms of class, gender and race—was to be enfranchised
and included in the processes of governing societies. The 21st century is marked by important
expansions in what is included – which areas of life are to be considered part of a political
realm and included in shared public decision making. At the same time, in the Global Northand West, neo-liberalist economic developments of the 21st century are narrowing andrestricting the areas within which government and general society can actually exert realcontrol.
Formal representative democracy is increasingly supplemented by informal local processes toshape and govern everyday quality of life, in neighbourhoods, at work, in places of education,in city development and planning. In museums, likewise, the expectations for influence,
participation and direct involvement are growing amongst constituents. The ‘education, study
and enjoyment’, which is allocated to ‘the public’ in the current museum definition, wants toblend into the active verbs of ‘acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits’,
which have been hitherto reserved for the museum itself.
Learning is increasingly understood as active, self-directing and self-selecting processes, inwhich knowledge, aided also by digital technologies, is discovered, developed, and constructed.
Public expectations of participation, collaborative processes and cocreation begin to reachbehind the traditional public scenes of exhibitions, education and events, into the back-ofhouse functions of collecting, documentation, research and general policy making. Across theworld, museums are experimenting with expanding their realms and methods to include andsupport new paradigms of public participation, in a positive, productive tension between being
both an expert institution and a community platform.

12
A museum definition needs to recognise these paradigmatic shifts towards a relationalframework, in a conceptual language of involvement, of mutuality and reciprocity, exchange,
equal partnership, outreach and inreach, cooperation, collaboration, shared responsibility,
shared purposes and collective authority.
Democracy – if that word or concept will survive much longer in the 21st century – is ideallyabout empowerment of individuals and communities as well as about processes for peacefully
negotiating and mediating differences and divergent points of view. The last quarter of the 20th
century saw the emergence of a new generation of museums defining themselves as places,
where a plurality of voices can speak, and where strangers can safely interact.
Among the MDPP round tables the democratic functions and purposes of museums were givena primary importance. Creating museums, as they say. as places for critical thought andpluralist views in an increasingly polarized world, calls for methods that strengthencommunity participation and access to heritage for all citizens.
While a language which transcends the binary hierarchy between the museum and its
constituents, communities or audiences is not readily at hand, a future museum definition
must, inevitably, define, reflect and support these broad democratic purposes as an
overarching framework for museums, their purposes and functions as well as for theirprofessions and governance.

13

CONTINUED PROCESSThe mandate of the MDPP does not call for the committee to propose new or revised
definitions, but only, at this point, to advise the Executive Board and Advisory Council on theneeds for a revision, and the MDPP has resisted the pressures and temptations to develop any
such proposals.
Following the Executive Board’s decision approving the recommendations made by the MDPP
in order to create a new definition that better expresses and addresses the values andcommitments, the purposes, functions, and methods of museums in the 21st century, the
MDPP will begin to structure and organize such a process.
The discussion of the museum definition in ICOM in 2003-04 provides important experiences
to be remembered. In embryonic form those discussions contained a number of the themes,
which have grown into principle points for the current analysis. The need for the definition of
museums to name the increasingly important social and community role of museum wasunderscored then, as was the need for museums actively to provide access to heritage, not justpassively have their doors open. The need to understand visitors as active, intelligent beings aswell as the ‘mutuality’ in the relationship between the museum and its users and communities
were brought up as issues. There was already then a call for the museum definition to address
the issues of sustainability. Little of this, however, found its way into any profoundly new
proposal for revision of the definition, as the discussion got stuck, as they self-critically said at
the time, within the existing framework.
Another important experience from 2003-04 is the critique of the narrow discussion fora andthe lack of broad participation among ICOM members.
Currently about 2000 ICOM members and museum professionals have already been directly
involved in the preliminary discussions around a possible revision, and it is considered anabsolute priority to ensure a high involvement in the continuing process, if it is to succeed inchannelling the excitement, enthusiasm and positive energy in the membership into
generating definitions which reflect the new aspirations, responsibilities and possibilities formuseums, in a much more mutual relationship with their surroundings.
The statutes of ICOM set a formal framework, which needs to be observed and followed:
•
•
•

•

The museum definition is Article 3, section 1 of the ICOM statutes, and a change in themuseum definition is thus a change in the ICOM statutes
Article 3, section 2 makes it possible to recognise additional institutions which carry some but
not all of the characteristics mentioned in the definition in Section 1
Article 23, section 3 stipulates that amendments to the statutes can be proposed by the
Executive Board, Advisory Council, National Committees and International Committees,
Regional Alliances and Affiliated Organisations. Standing Committees are not included.
Article 10, section 3 stipulates that amendments to the statutes can only be decided by an
Extraordinary General Assembly. An Extraordinary General Assembly can be called by The
President, on the recommendation of the Executive Board, the majority of the Advisory
Council or one-third (1/3) of the National Committees. The quorum for an Extraordinary
General Assembly is a two thirds (2/3) majority held between Voting Members. The decisions
are taken by a two thirds (2/3) majority of the members present and represented foramendments of the Statutes.

14•

Article 10, section 4 calls for an official invitation to an Extraordinary General Assembly to besent at least sixty (60) days before the date of the meeting on amendments of the Statutes. An
announcement is to be published on the ICOM website and communicated in a manner
deemed most efficient. The official invitation must include the date, time and place of themeeting, as well as the assembly’s agenda. Documents must be made available in sufficient
time for reflection and debate among ICOM’s members, preferably at the time of the official
invitation.

This sets a basic framework around a revision of the museum definition and amendment of thestatutes. Below is a draft plan for how the process towards a possible new definition will be
conducted between December 2018 and September 2019.
•

December 2018. Decision by the Executive Board to enter a process of a possible revision•December 2018. Creation of a platform or a method for positive development of a new
definition, citing the most important arguments and basic elements to be thought about or
included, to be used by individuals, committees or other collective gatherings to encourage andsupport new proposals. The format for proposals should be free, but it could be encouraged
that new definitions contain, in any order and in any type of language from the poetic to theterse, references to the values and purposes, the functions, modes and methods as well as theaccountabilities of museums.
December 2018. Development of a simple website, the ICOM Museum Definition webpage,
which promotes and explains the process and the methods, and to which all new proposals areto be submitted. This is not meant as a discussion site, and will not be a truly interactive site,
but is monitored by the ICOM secretariat/MDPP.

•

•

•

•

•

•

January 2019 – September 2019. Publication on the ICOM website and social media platformsof the report and recommendations of the MDPP and of the decision by the Executive Board,
accompanied by short video interviews with selected EB and MDPP committee members on
the need for a change, to be released at intervals to focus attention on the question leading up
to Kyoto September 2019
January 2019 – April 2019. Publication of a special Museum Definition page on the ICOM
website to which all proposals are to be submitted during the months January - April 2019.
Proposals can be submitted in any language, as long as they are accompanied by a provisionaltranslation into English. Proposals can be submitted by individuals, groups, committees.
Contributors will receive a thank you response to the proposals, but proposals will remain
anonymous, when they are made public on the site.
January 2019. Letter to all national, international, standing and affiliated committees plus
assorted museum associations and partner organisations encouraging them to join the efforts
to generate proposals for a new definition, following the parameters of the MDPP
recommendations
January – August 2019. Offering MDPP core members as participants in national andinternational meetings to clarify basic arguments for a revision and facilitate the creation of
new proposals
February – April 2019. Continuous monitoring, compilation and sorting of all incoming
proposals by the ICOM secretariat/MDPP.

15
•
•

May 2019. Selection of two to five proposals, including possible MDPP edits and creations, for
new museum definitions to be presented to the Executive Board meeting in June 2019
June 2019. Decision by the Executive Board of one to two new proposals to bring to an
Extraordinary General Assembly as alternatives to the existing definition•

June - July 2019. Call by the President/Executive Board for an Extraordinary General
Assembly in Kyoto September 2019 with an agenda of a possible revision of the museum
definition and thereby a change in the statutes of ICOM. The selected proposal(s) will be
included as documentation.

•

June 2019. Renewed publication on the ICOM websites and social media platforms along thelines of January message, but with only the new proposal(s) and the key arguments aroundit/themJune 2019. Publication of Museum International with the MDPP report, recommendations,the thematic articles by the working groups as well as a series of thematic articles addressing
current societal trends and issues by writers from outside the museum sector

•

•

•

•

•

September 2019. Plenary of the General Conference presenting and discussing the MDPP
analysis, the new proposal(s) and why this/these are valid and interesting alternatives to thecurrent definition at this historic point in time
September 2019. Workshops at the General Conference for interested members, going into
more depth on the issue, the analysis and the alternative proposals for new definition – aforum for expressing one’s doubts and hopes and fears before the voting and decision process
September 2019. Decision by an Extraordinary General Assembly re a potential adoption of a
new museum definition
October 2019 onwards. If a new definition is adopted, formal implementation of the new
definition in related ICOM documents and policies as well as in agreements and documentswith partner organisations and in national museum legislations. Exploring and monitoring
how the new definition can support ICOM committees and ICOM members in clarifying andconsolidating their purposes and commitments, and can serve as a new backbone for museums
in future challenges, in their activities and responsibilities in the 21st century