The world’s most popular museums are full of treasured art and history. Each year, Statista aggregates and analyses data from around the world’s top venues to discover which are visited the most. From New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to the National Museum of China, it’s a revealing list that offers insight into what museums do best.
Museums are democratising and inclusive spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and futures. They are polyphonic and participatory, and work in partnership with society to collect, preserve, research, interpret, and exhibit heritage for the benefit of human dignity and social justice, global equality, and planetary well-being.
These are the key concepts that the newly approved definition of museum seeks to capture. It builds upon the previous versions, but now places a stronger emphasis on diversity, inclusivity and accessibility, which are all essential to museums today. It also outlines the responsibilities of museums to protect and care for their collections. This is a far-reaching revision that reflects the needs of a sector which has seen significant changes in the past few years.
There is also a recognition that the definition should not be static, as museum practice evolves and changes. Hence the inclusion of a statement that museums are ‘living entities’, and that ‘the five functions [of preservation – research – interpretation – communication] form an entity; they are like the fingers of a hand, each independent but united for common purpose. A museum that omits or slights one of these responsibilities handicaps itself immeasurably’ (Noble 1970).
The word ‘museum’ comes from the Greek word mousa, which means goddess. The ancient Greeks had nine sister goddesses called the Muses, each representing a different art or science. The earliest known museum was in Athens, and was dedicated to these Muses and the arts and sciences they represented.
It is a complex task to define what a museum is, and the new definition includes a wide variety of activities. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all possible museum tasks, but a set of fundamental principles that can guide all museum activity.
The new definition of museum is the result of an unprecedented outreach project, with representatives from 126 of Icom’s member museums speaking to each other during 18 months and four distinct rounds of consultation by the Icom Define committee. The process was a huge undertaking, and a significant milestone for Icom. The museum community is now looking at how to implement the new definition and translate it into specific actions.
