Day: October 13, 2023

Cultural heritage can be understood as the aggregate of the expressions and values that a group or community perceives as fundamental to its identity. It is typically a complex combination of art, literature, music and dance, architecture and other buildings, historical monuments and sites, traditions, crafts and skills, and social or familial practices. Heritage also includes the natural landscape, which is often a source of community pride and identity.

Cultural Heritage in Practice

The broad range of cultural heritage raises many difficult issues. One of the most central is the tension between universalism and cultural specificity. On the one hand, there is a strong pull towards conceiving of cultural heritage as a human common good and thereby grounding consequent rights or permissions for all to use it. On the other hand, there is a strong push for culturally specific rights and restrictions that allow for recognition of the special claims of certain groups to cultural heritage.

Another central issue is the question of whether there is a coherent sense of cultural heritage that is sufficiently stable to support a system of protected monuments and museums. This is particularly important in countries with a history of colonialism and a legacy of centralized power. While there is a great deal of debate about the proper balance of these competing concerns, there is no doubt that the protection of cultural heritage in these situations requires a careful and sensitive balancing of these issues.

There are a wide variety of organizations that promote and preserve cultural heritage, including arts and culture centers, museums, archaeological sites, and preservation societies. In addition, there are a number of other organizations that sponsor cultural heritage activities, most often in the fields of education; food, agriculture and nutrition; health and medicine; community improvement and capacity-building; religion; and international development.

While these organizations differ in their approaches and the expressive forms they emphasize, all of them promote and support a particular set of heritage values. These values may include the promotion of a certain type of artistic style or a kind of cuisine, or they may encourage the understanding of ethnic, racial, regional, religious, or folk cultures or their traditions.

Cultural heritage is also a powerful tool for building loyalty among members of a group or society, especially during times of conflict. For example, a group can use its treatment of heritage to justify violence toward out-groups, such as by referring to those traditions as “ancient” or “traditional.” Such tactics can validate existing power structures and create loyalty within the in-group. They can also help develop a sense of identity that may be used as a basis for political and military alliances.

The word museum conjures up images of large buildings full of precious treasures from the past. Indeed, some museums house some very valuable items and attract hordes of visitors, but it’s important to note that these places are so much more than just buildings filled with old stuff. The definition of a museum varies from one professional organization to the next, but major museums share a commitment to the public good and to the care, preservation, and interpretation of their collections.

Museums have a long history and may be traced back to the innate human desire to collect and communicate. Museums often develop around a single subject, such as art or science, and are organized as institutions that acquire, conserve, research, communicate, and exhibit objects in service to the public.

In the earliest instances, museums were simply private collections of interesting items that were later displayed to the public. As museums grew in size and scope, the emphasis on education became more prominent. As a result, many modern museums are structured as non-profit educational institutions and are open to the general public.

While some museums have no collection at all, others may be very large and cover a wide range of subjects. For example, the Louvre in Paris, France, is one of the world’s largest museums and features thousands of artifacts, from paintings to mummies to Leonardo DaVinci’s Mona Lisa. Other famous museums include the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. and the British Museum in London, both of which have massive collections.

There are also specialized museums, such as those dedicated to specific locations or the life of a particular individual. A museum can be focused on a country or region, such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, or it can be more broadly based, such as a museum of ancient Egypt or a museum of aviation history.

A museum is run by a director, who works with a staff of curators and educators to organize the collection for display. Museums also often partner with other museums to bring together their collections for exhibit. In the past, this was done in order to share rare or expensive items that were not accessible to the general public, but more recently it is being done to increase exposure and reach to a wider audience.

The Standing Committee on Museum Definition is currently working on a reformulation of the museum definition for ICOM. Following the procedure established in the Manual on Museum Definition, ICOM Define will invite all committees and members to participate through a process of consultation, including the opportunity for ranking proposals at Consultation 1. ICOM members are encouraged to review all proposals and the methodology used to draft them in order to prepare their responses. Please visit the Museum Definition space to access all documents related to this work.