(2021). The Submerged Part of the Iceberg. Museum International: Vol. 73, Museum Collection Storage. Guest Editors: Yaël Kreplak and François Mairesse, pp. iv-iv.

(2021). Introduction. Museum International: Vol. 73, Museum Collection Storage. Guest Editors: Yaël Kreplak and François Mairesse, pp. 1-7.

Abstract Numerous recent studies have identified critical issues with a high percentage of museum storage facilities around the world. The problems detected in such studies are usually solved with ambitious renovation projects, or through the reorganisation of existing resources. This article, drawing from the example of five Spain-based museums, explores the new concept of ‘Storage Debt’. Storage

Abstract Heritage institutions find themselves increasingly compelled to lower costs related to energy use, without disowning their primary task of optimally preserving the collections they are entrusted with. Now, more than ever, resilience, autonomy and cost-effectiveness are key to managing heritage sustainably. With over 1,000 museums in Belgium, the energy savings that its institutions may obtain

Abstract In the information age, storage has become an essential element of managing museum collections. The complexity and variety of functions now encompassed by storage have moved it beyond its traditional conception to be regarded as a system of interconnected and organised elements that work as a whole and fosters knowledge through complex flows of information . Having recently celebrated its

Abstract Since 1874, the Old Acropolis Museum (OAM) in Athens has housed archaeological materials from the Acropolis Hill and its Slopes, dating from Antiquity to the modern period. This case study explores the undertaking, over the past three years, of the OAM Reopening Project by the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens (EACA), attached to the Greek Ministry of Culture. The repackaging,

Abstract Relocating museum collections involves many challenges, but also provides a unique opportunity for extensive reorganisation, which further complicate the task. Common approaches to both moving and reorganising tend to be empirical, linear and coarse-grained. This limits their usefulness for planning long-term and detailed facility moves. However, issues ranging from space estimation, storage

Abstract To address storage challenges, the Smithsonian undertook a multi-year, highly collaborative, and Institution-wide planning initiative in 2010 to document, analyse, and plan for addressing current and projected collections space needs in a pragmatic, strategic and integrated manner. This case study provides an overview of the planning process, illustrates the innovative methodologies utilised

Abstract The focus of this paper and case study is the public art Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, which will open in 2021 in Rotterdam. In our marketing campaign we present the Depot as the first fully public art storage facility in the world; but in fact, the development of opening up collections to the general public has been a focus for many institutions in the last decade. The concept of the Dep

Abstract 'Storage exhibitions' refer to staged storage areas displayed within a museum's permanent collection. What is the purpose of displaying these storage spaces within a museum's collection? I hypothesise that they are above all interpretive spaces intended to extend the dialogue between the museum and the public. A study of three cases (the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, Pinacoteca

Abstract Using the Costume and Textiles Department of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) as a case study, this article examines the history and current practices of collections-based work and care through the lens of Andy Warhol’s seminal museum-artist intervention exhibition, Raid the Icebox I. The study demonstrates the crucial need for museums to introduce empathic

Abstract Can a new storage facility drive a strategic transformation for a museum? What opportunities does an off-site ‘behind the scenes’ facility provide for developing a museum’s stakeholder relationships and its public engagement role; furthermore, what impact can it have on the social needs of a new community? The Colin Forbes Building is a 650-square-metre facility opened in 2019 by the Sedgwick

Abstract The Mucem has been registered as a national public institution in France since February 2013. It inherited the French holdings of the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro (1881) and the Musée National des Arts et Traditions Populaires (created in 1937, opened in 1975, and closed in 2005). Its Centre for Conservation and Resources (CCR), located in Marseille’s Belle de Mai neighbourhood, was designed

Abstract Despite the fact that the Netherlands is a small, centralised country, its storage facilities are surprisingly diverse. What has led to the development of such different storage solutions? In order to address this question, we followed three lines of investigation. Firstly, a survey was conducted to evaluate stored collections in the Netherlands. Secondly, a selection of facilities were visited

Abstract The birth of museums in India has its origins in colonial rule. While the country today counts over 800 museums, proper collections management and its treatment as a pivotal museum function have not taken hold widely. Several challenges remain, including a lack of space, the scarcity and misallocation of funds, and, critically, an absence of national standards and guidelines for collections

Abstract Community-museum storage spaces in west Cameroon are generally characterised by neglected collections, dust, and woodworm infestations. This situation is the result of abandoning indigenous conservation methods in favour of so-called conventional Western conservation techniques, which professionals consider to be superior, but whose implementation has been a failure in west Cameroon’s community

Abstract The Musée National de Burkina Faso - MNB (National Museum of Burkina Faso) was one of the first museums founded in West Africa in the wake of regional independence movements. Having long borne the consequences of geographical and institutional nomadism, the museum is now built on an area of 29 hectares in the heart of Burkina Faso's capital, Ouagadougou. Although today its storage rooms seem

Abstract As a result of almost 200 years of scientific activity and the enactment of different legal mandates, including specific requirements stipulated by the National Monuments Act of 1970, the collections of the Chilean National Museum of Natural History (MNHN, founded in 1830) have grown considerably since the museum's creation. However, it has been impossible to fulfill optimal preventive conservation

Abstract The safe storage of collections for future generations is the most important statutory activity of every museum worldwide. Although this objective is a long-held one, statistics show that, regrettably, a historical and global problem still exists in this field, including for Polish museums. Fortunately, positive changes have been implemented since the end of the 20th century, resulting not

Abstract The use of shared storage warehouses in Norwegian museums has emerged in recent years as an effective way of saving resources and ensuring that cultural assets are adequately protected. This article and case study describes the work carried out in one of the biggest shared storage warehouses in Norway, located in a former munitions store near Stavanger, in the Rogaland region. It describes

Abstract This article offers an overview of 10 years of institutional and human efforts led by ICCROM (the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property) and other international and national organisations to address the state of paralysis of collections in storage, and restore their potential as a tool for education and social cohesion. Launched in 2011

Abstract In June 2019, Madagascar was chosen as a host country for a RE-ORG programme, a method developed by ICCROM and UNESCO and applied transnationally to help museums to improve the management of their collections in storage. This activity, initiated by UNESCO, was financed by the government of Japan and carried out by the Ministry of Communication and Culture in Madagascar. In December 1995, the

Abstract Gaël de Guichen is a key figure in the world of conservation and collection storage. His career has taken him from the Lascaux cave in France's Vézère Valley to the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM) in Rome, Italy. At the latter, he developed the concept of ‘preventive conservation' and set up numerous study programmes for

(2021). Museum Storage and Meaning. Tales from the Crypt. Museum International: Vol. 73, Museum Collection Storage. Guest Editors: Yaël Kreplak and François Mairesse, pp. 236-237.

(2020). Guest Editors' Biographies. Museum International: Vol. 72, LGBTQI+ Museums. Guest Editors: Renaud Chantraine and Bruno Brulon Soares, pp. iv-iv.

(2020). Introduction and Editorial. Museum International: Vol. 72, LGBTQI+ Museums. Guest Editors: Renaud Chantraine and Bruno Brulon Soares, pp. 1-13.

(2020). Re-imagining Museum Studies: Review of Museums, Sexuality, and Gender Activism and Queering the Museum. Museum International: Vol. 72, LGBTQI+ Museums. Guest Editors: Renaud Chantraine and Bruno Brulon Soares, pp. 226-227.

Abstract The Museum of Sexual Diversity in São Paulo was created in 2012 following public demand by LGBTQI+ activists, who wanted to preserve the memory of fallen comrades during the 1980s AIDS epidemic. When Brazil became more democratic after 1989, sexual minorities increasingly advocated for their interests and fought for their rights. One outcome of this change was the creation of the Museum of

Abstract This article focuses on an increasingly common phenomenon: the exhibition on violence or trauma that evokes excessively strong reactions in visitors. Popular contemporary museum practices contribute to such responses. The first is the valorisation of the ‘difficult’ exhibition without sufficient consideration of the ways in which it is challenging or of the identities of its targets. The desire

Abstract The fact that there are only a few queer museums operating globally raises questions around the heteronormativity inherent in—and the invisibility of—the LGBTQI+ community in museums and mainstream institutions. This is true in Vietnam, where no museums have yet agreed to host an LGBTQI+ exhibition, despite growing interest. This lack of representation has led certain activists to seek alternative

Abstract Through her experiences as a queer feminist artist and cultural worker, V. Jourdain shares some of her artistic and curatorial practices in Quebec and France. Comparing the two cultures' consideration of LGBTQI+ minorities, she illuminates a few strategies for changing practices in art and artistic labour in two French-speaking communities. In this article, V. Jourdain shares her experience

Abstract The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society in San Francisco is an internationally recognised, community-based queer public history institution founded in 1985. In its early years, its work focused largely on recovering and preserving archival records, periodicals, photographs, art and artefacts documenting the histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people

Abstract This article will discuss the fundamental importance of community-led, organic research methodologies when uncovering and revealing LGBTQIA+ identities within the Irish national collection. Using the National Gallery of Ireland as a case study, the paper highlights the importance of this research in an Irish context. The representation of the LGBTQIA+ community in historical and cultural institutions

Abstract Prior to the emergence of social and critical museology, a normativist discourse suffused with a white, male, heterosexual, bourgeois perspective prevailed within museums. Any discourse that did not fit into that legitimising pattern would simply be silenced and forgotten. Accordingly, the memory of the LGBTQI+ community was excluded from the museums of the city of Buenos Aires. Nevertheless

Abstract Most museums claim to foster the democratisation of their collections through top-down educational programmes. However, it is possible to challenge this perspective and, instead, encourage self-empowerment in lieu of imitation, hosting, and fostering cultural contributions offered by different communities that cultivate independent paths toward creating identities and institutional recognition

Abstract Museums of science and technology embody the potential to affect institutional change on issues of gender equality, actively shaping future practices. This article argues that alternative methods of storytelling, creative practice and collaboration with new partners are crucial in museum work; they both ensure representation and awareness of the diversity of gender and sexuality and promote

Abstract In this text, we present the contributions of the Spain-based project Rereadings. Museum Itineraries from a Gender Perspective, which aims to present to the public the collections of 11 Valencian museums, of various kinds and under different types of ownership, from a gender and queer perspective. Rereadings uses virtual itineraries and QR codes to contribute to the study of gender. Thus,

Abstract The definition of ‘museum’ has changed, though some prefer to cling to that of a hundred years ago. The tension between what a museum is and what it does will continue, because the relationships and discourses we build among objects, communities and spaces remain dynamic as those same elements transform. Highlighting certain voices from museology and queer theory, this article tells the brief

Abstract This article will address experiences centred around relationships—which are often conflictive—between sexual dissidents and museums, in particular outside the Anglophone world. In it, I address certain projects that I have worked on personally and collectively as an artist, and offer reflections that are undoubtedly conditioned by my own status as a migrant and sexually dissident person who

Abstract How and why do we, as queer people, occupy and create community-based artistic spaces? What sorts of performative forces and dynamics are activated once we adopt the name ‘museum’? Is AMOQA (Athens Museum of Queer Arts), whose creation is discussed in the present article, a ‘museum’ or a social centre? How can we imagine alternative ways of blending art, activism and politics? For example

Abstract This article aims to rethink the concept of unpredictability – one that natural law theoreticians such as Thomas Hobbes have in the past read through negative connotations of suspiciousness, uncertainty, contingency or anti-orderliness - through the lens of art and LGBTQI+ activism. Instead of demanding more certainty, security and authoritarianism in an era when we are confronted with radical

Abstract This article presents the LGBT Memory Project and a mapping of institutions currently constructing a Latin American, LGBTQI+ Museology. The need to reflect on the current conjuncture in Latin America is justified in view of the ultraconservative turn in the political and social fields: one that has affected how museums and museology are constructed and conceived of. We understand LGBT Museology

Abstract This paper takes part in the ongoing debate around how museums have begun to address LGBTQI+ and feminist issues in the 21st century. While Portugal is a particularly interesting country to consider, given that it has passed some of the most advanced legislation on LGBTQI+ rights in Europe (Santos 2012), this progressivism is not reflected in Portuguese museum practices, given that gender

Abstract Renaud Chantraine, co-Guest Editor of the present volume, initiated a conversation in March 2020 with Birgit Bosold and E-J Scott around their practices as museologists and activists, and centred around their experiences as directors and founders of two community-based museums focused on LGBTQI+ heritage. Bosold is member of the Board of Directors of the Schwules Museum in Berlin (opened in

Abstract Many natural history museums present species’ life histories in their galleries, which millions of visitors use to make meaning of the ‘natural world’ to which humans belong. Because curation is inherently practiced through a human’s perspective, and often the male gaze, images depicting the ‘natural world’ may be informed more by dominant understandings of sex and gender as social constructs

Abstract This paper provides an overview of the Women of Kazakhstan virtual museum project as a case study and explores its principal vectors, missions and strategic lines. It critically analyses the themes and evolution of existing women’s museums in Kazakhstan. The key digital methods revealed in the article may be applied to existing women's museums and future museum initiatives in Kazakhstan and

Abstract This article addresses the use of the concept of gender in the analysis and interpretation of collections as a strategy for the inclusion of gender perspective in museums. Firstly, the two types of strategies for including a gender approach in museums, quantitative and qualitative, are presented. Both are necessary, but it is the qualitative strategies that allow the questioning the discourse

Abstract Museums do not simply reflect the world; they shape and mobilise our seeing and thus knowing of the world. As highly trusted, authoritative institutions, museums educate a common sense of historical, social, aesthetic and cultural value. Despite efforts to change, feminist cultural theorists remind us that women in all their diversity continue to be excluded or problematically imagined in

Abstract In 2017, four female students from the Master in Management of Cultural Sector at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) studied the issue of gender discrimination in the cultural and artistic sector in Brussels. The importance of this particular issue quickly became apparent to the students. By comparing their respective professional settings with their academic environment, they observed

Abstract Quantitative measures of relative representations of gender and minoritised persons provide stark evidence of the continuing inequalities in museums. Understanding and opposing such inequalities requires an account of museums that recognises their role in inscribing hierarchies associated with the modern nation state and its concept of citizenship. Benedict Anderson’s identification of the

Abstract The National Archaeological Museum of Athens, the Byzantine and Christian Museum, the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture and the Museum of Cycladic Art are among the finest museums in Greece. Their permanent collections include splendid, important works of art and rare everyday objects that, arranged chronologically, represent the evolution of life and history in the Greek peninsula from prehistory

Abstract Recent research has shown that Norwegian museums reproduce outdated ideas, power structures and inequities in their exhibitions and educational programmes, as well as in the management of their collections. In 2018, the Arts Council Norway granted the Norwegian Museum Network for Women’s History (led by the Women’s Museum in Norway) NOK 2.8 million (EUR 260,000) for a project aiming to change

Abstract To achieve long-term impact in the arena of gender equality, museums need to go beyond thematic educational activities and exhibitions. Museums need to become permanent spaces dedicated to problems of gender equality, advocate for changes that promote gender equality internally and externally and become acknowledged on local and national level as trusted organisations that bring together stakeholders

Abstract Insurgents: Redefining Rebellion in Barbados opened at the Barbados Museum & Historical Society (BMHS) on 8 March 2019. Curated by Saamiya Cumberbatch of the Barbados Youth Development Council, Ronelle King of Life in Leggings: Caribbean Alliance Against Gender Based Violence, and Natalie McGuire-Batson of the BMHS, this exhibition involved the design and development of an inclusive space

Abstract The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C., in the United States, and the Museum of Women (Musée de la Femme) in Longueuil, Canada, were founded with the objective of making women visible in museum collections and promoting gender equality in society. Can they be considered feminist museums? Feminist museology is not limited to describing the past and the present; on the

Abstract This article presents two case studies, which are the result of the application of a gendered interpretative tool to the collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) and the Vasa Museum (Stockholm). Objects and their gendered narratives within the museums’ collections were researched across their lifecycle, from commission and manufacture to consumption and display in a museum setting

Pleternica is a town of scenic beauty, nestled in the hollow of the Požega valley, located in Slavonia – a region in the east of Croatia.1 The story we wish to tell is that of a community finding a...

I there any need to introduce Hugues de Varine? As Assistant Director of ICOM from 1962 to 1965 and Director until 1974, he inspired a number of (eco) museum projects around the world. After publishing extensively on his conception of museums since the 1970s (his bibliography contains over 100 works), the author is now developing a retrospective and subjective look at the New Museology, from its origins

U museums as tools for sustainable community development is one of the priorities of the international research project EULAC-MUSEUMS (2016-2020). This ambitious project has been explicitly designed in response to the European Union Horizon 2020 Work Programme call INT 12 (2015), ‘the cultural, scientific and social dimension of EU-LAC relations’. The project seeks to carry out a comparative analysis

MUSEUM international K aren Brown is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art History, University of St Andrews in Scotland. She is also Director of the University’s Museums, Galleries and Collections Institute (MGCI), teaching Museum and Gallery Studies. A Board Member of ICOM’s International Committee on Museology (ICOFOM), she previously served as a Board Member of ICOM Europe and ICOM Ireland. A graduate