Dear All,

Lurking on the list for a while now, picking up pearls.

I am doing a postgrad course in Museums Studies (at Institute of
Archaeology, University College London), and would be very interested to
know the list's thoughts on this topic: what is the future of the museums in
the 21st century? Please excuse the rather open nature of the questions
below, (but the topic is somewhat wide-ranging)!

From what I have seen and read, museums seem to be in crisis to a certain
extent, at least in the UK; underfunded and now with new schemes of
rationalisation. Do you feel this to be the same in the US and the rest of
the world?

How do you all see your respective institutions maintaining relevance in a
rapidly changing world, without losing the main purposes of museums - having
the public interact with real objects, and to conserve our material past?
How do you decide what to collect of the material present?

Perhaps museums should change: Kevin Moore wrote that they are a product of
the age in which they were invented; of nationalism and western imperialism,
and that museums would not be invented now if we did not have them. How
would you change museums as an institution on a macro-level?

How much do you want to be the sole authority able to interpret displays, or
do the public have a chance to question curators and their own opinions?
Should this happen more? Is this a good thing anyway?

Are museums able to escape being a mouthpiece of the dominant ideology and
political correctness?

I should say that this is for a paper that I am currently doing of the same
title, so any replies used will be fully cited!

Many thanks for all your help, please feel free to reply on or off list.


Katherine Hughes
Education Department
Royal Academy of Arts


www.royalacademy.org.uk





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