A Museum Cannot Be Defined

Can it be in this day and age?

This month’s museum conferences have presented a picture of relative resilience in the face of such adversities. Experimentation has been increasing the case, risks are being taken and to err on the side of caution seems to be a less pursued option. The impact of all this might be early to gauge and I do look forward to what this might be leading to. Indeed, what will the museum idea look become and what will the instituton be in a post-COVID19 world?

Yes, sure, let’s go for that.

McGowan goes on — the success measures of our society have much more to do with learning, agility, adaptability and agency fuelled by purpose. When considering that 65% of the jobs of the future, and the skill-sets that will be sought after, do not exist yet. When considersing that a good percentage of jobs on the market, close to half, will be automated, it is indeed risky to pick a future self and work towards that.

Then comes the COVID-19 pandemic.

McGowan takes her argument further. The rate of technology-driven invention and innovation has been exponentially on the increase in ways and means never before experienced, and this has been happening over the past two centuries. By comparison, human adaptation has been linear and much more constant.

When all is said and done, the COVID-19 pandemic has only accellerated the rate of change, ambitiously striving to be in parallel with the exponential technology-driven rate of change, albeit still far, far away.

My first provocation is simple. Given the huge unprecedented change that we’ve already been living in pre-COVID19 times, now accellerating thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, how can we define such a liquid state we’re in to navigate such an unforseable future? With this in mind what type of institutions in general would contemporary societies need?

Yes, they do.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been the wrecking ball hitting the museum landscape hard and at short notice. Museums were, by and large, caught unawares and unprepared. None could see it coming, very few could have been prepared for it.

Museums around the globe were faced with the inevitable paradox of functioning from a physical space without the relevance of their publics. Remote working become a necessity almost overnight and museum core-business became dependent much more on the virtual than ever before.

Morgan suggests that an organisation can be

The journey that most museums worldwide seek to undertake might be broadly described as a transition from being a political or culture system, hopefully less of a political system, a psychic prison or an instrument of domination, to become a brain, an organism to hopefully aspire to become an organization in constant flux and transformation.

My second provocation might come across as a given. Given the circumstances, Which type of museum organisation are we trying to define?

Actually there is no straight answer.

Actually it’s even more complex than. As the museum sector struggles to find a much desired common-ground, the general public understands the museum as being something else, perhaps more traditional to all intents and purposes.

For the man in the street, institutional definitions count much less than what Google suggests. True, this may also be informed by complex algorithms which underpin the user’s personal perceptions and expectations. Nevertheless, the one featured here — a screenshot of my search — might be the better version provided by google to a person who remains very active in the museum world.

For Google, a museum is still the traditional institution storing and exhibiting objects of interest.

My third and final provocation beckons — With all these variables and differences, with all the fluidity and uncertainty that goes with it exponentially on the increase thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, is there a museum definition that can capture all this succinctly and in a concise, easy to grasp format?

Will there be one?

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