International Museum Day


International Museum Day is an international day held annually on or around 18 May, coordinated by the International Council of Museums. The event highlights a specific theme which changes every year to reflect the basis of the international museum community's preoccupations.
The IMD provides the opportunity for museum professionals to meet the public and alert them as to the challenges that museums face. Indeed, following the definition of museums provided by ICOM, a museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. International Museum Day therefore serves as a platform to raise public awareness on the role museums play in the development of society today, on an international level.

History

Each year, all museums in the world are invited to participate in IMD to promote the role of museums around in the world, creating unique, enjoyable and free activities around a theme discussed within the ICOM community for this special day.
Since its creation in 1977, International Museum Day has gained increasing attention. In 2009, International Museum Day attracted the participation of 20,000 museums hosting events in more than 90 countries. In 2010, 98 countries participated in the celebration, with 100 in 2011, and 30,000 museums in 129 countries in 2012. In 2011, the official IMD poster was translated into 37 languages. Since 2012, this number jumped by one to 38.

Themes

The International Council of Museum is the main organisation of museums and museum professionals with a global scope, committed to the promotion and protection of natural and cultural heritage, present and future, tangible and intangible. ICOM's commitment to culture and knowledge promotion is reinforced by its 31 International Committees dedicated to a wide range of museum specialities, who conduct advanced research in their respective fields for the benefit of the museum community. The organisation is also involved in fighting illicit trafficking, assisting museums in emergency situations, and more.
ICOM created International Museum Day in 1977. The organisation chooses the theme and coordinates the event every year.

Timeline

International Museum Day 2007

Museums in approximately 70 countries participated in the event. For this edition, the message that was conveyed was We are all responsible for universal heritage.

Special activities during IMD 2007

In Angola, a debate on The Contribution of the National Museum of Anthropology on Asserting Cultural Identity was organised.
In Algeria, two days were devoted to the theme of heritage and museology in Algeria, the objective being to submit a project to set up a centre for training museum professionals.
The Colombo National Museum in Sri Lanka organised visits and workshops for certain schools aimed at teaching pupils to identify with their heritage.
At the Acadian Museum of the University of Moncton, a conference was held to discuss the issues involved in preserving Acadian oral heritage in a museum as a centre of conservation and dissemination.
In Israel, the Historic Museum of Bethlehem partially opened on the occasion of IMD.
In Botswana, the site museum of Tsodilo celebrated the event by organising performances of plays, music and traditional dances.
In Peru, the inhabitants of Lima were invited to the Fifth Feria of “Museums within your reach” with the participation of 30 museums from Europe and Central Asia.

International Museum Day 2009

In 2009, ICOM partnered WFFM in order to promote the event.

International Museum Day 2010

In 2010, museums from 96 countries participated in the event, organised around the theme Museums for social harmony.

Special activities during IMD 2010

In Mongolia, the theatre museum invited kindergarten children to attend a play in the museum.
The Samarkand State Museum of Cultural History in Uzbekistan organised an impressive performance with the award-winning children's dance ensemble Jonona. It was followed by a musical slide show displaying the Samarkand region's historical heritage.
In Sri Lanka, the Department of National Museums provided an educational programme with mobile exhibitions for students in the northern region of the country as a means to encourage peace and social harmony among the ethnic groups who are living in the north and the south of the country.
The Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Portugal arranged a special reception for visitors in a bid to highlight its initiative of creating a club for 23 local teenagers with anti-social behaviour.

International Museum Day 2011

About 30 000 museums in 110 countries participated in the celebration of International Museum Day 2011.

The theme

The theme for 2011 was “Museum and memory. Objects tell our story”.
Five topics were developed during International Museum Day 2011:
In Australia, the National Sports Museum in Melbourne organised a programme called Remembering the Moments that Made Us where visitors of the museum had the opportunity to meet and talk with sporting legends who contributed to great sporting moments and memories.
In Malaysia, seminar with international speakers, exhibitions, sport carnivals, workshops and educational programmes were organised in various museum around the country.
In Sudan, the Natural History Museum in Khartoum created an educational programme for families and school children who were able to participate in a photography competition on the theme “Documenting Our Natural History”.
In Argentina, the Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Ridavia in Caba suggested a programme entitled Musecuentos especially established for this occasion. Storytellers shared stories that were highlighted by the museum's objects.
In Belgium, the Royal Museum of Mariemont, offered guided tours on the theme Objects’ CV.

Partners of the IMD 2011

The conservation and transmission of collective memory is a preoccupation for other heritage players, beyond the museum community. For this reason, for the first time ever, the International Council of Museums initiated institutional partnerships with other organisations that feel concerned by these questions and share ICOM's preoccupation for the preservation of memory:

The theme

The International Museum Day 2012 was celebrated around the theme Museum in a changing world. New challenges, new inspirations.

35th anniversary of the International Museum Day

To celebrate the 35th anniversary of the International Museum Day, the ICOM Fund sponsored a photo contest entitled Me in my museum. The participants had to take photos of themselves, alone or with their friends, in or outside their favourite museums with the official logo created for the event. The winners of the “Me in my museum” contest were Yonit and Efrat, from Israel, whose picture was taken in front of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.

Special activities during IMD 2012

In many countries, International Museum Day is the occasion to celebrate museums and their activities. For instance, each year, the month of May is Museums Month in Guatemala, organised with the Ministry of Culture of Guatemala. This year, the theme was New challenges and new inspirations.
In Brazil, the week of 14–20 May is the opportunity to organise museum activities over several days, and the 18th is celebrated as a national holiday. For the 10th edition of National Museums week, activities such as exhibitions, conferences, guided tours and workshop were organised in Brazilian cities. Museums as well as heritage institutions provided dance performances, music, theatre, poetry contests and more.
In Peru and Bolivia, International Museum Day is followed by the Long Night of Museums. Visitors have both day and night to visit museums and the event is celebrated in both countries every year.
In Lithuania, the year 2012 was declared as the Year of Museums, in honour of the bicentenary opening of the first public museums in the country.
The Museu do Falso opened on 18 May 2012, for International Museum Day. Visitors were able to discover the unique Museum of History, made from contributions by contemporary artists, working under the premise of Simulacrum: What if a given event occurred differently from how it did?. This aimed to serve as a hub for cultural actors and citizens.
In Côte d’Ivoire, IMD 2012 was celebrated in the structure of the Palais Royal of Abenguru. Local institutions and ICOM Côte d’Ivoire organised various events including discussions, game contests for students and guided tours. About 1,500 people joined in the celebrations with important political and cultural actors from the country.
Hans-Martin Hinz, President of ICOM, launched the event from Bahrain, with the visit to the National Museum's exhibition Tylos: Journey Beyond Life that recounted burial rites and customs in the ancient history of Bahrain. He then experienced the mobile museum Enkiru, an extension of the exhibition specifically geared for children aged 7 to 11. Finally, he participated in a workshop devoted to emerging museum professionals organised by the National Committee of Bahrain, in partnership with ICOM Arab. Meanwhile, the ICOM President personally thanked Chinese and Argentine museums by sending them a video, broadcast during the launch ceremonies for International Museum Day in China and Argentina.
To celebrate the event, Julien Anfruns, Director General of ICOM, delivered the keynote address on the 17 May at the conference "Science Museums and New Technologies” organized by the ICOM International Committee for Education and Cultural Action.

Partners of IMD 2012

The theme

The museum community decided to celebrate IMD 2013 around the theme: Museums = Social Change.

Special activities during IMD 2013

In Peru, the Pachacamac Site Museum scheduled an outdoor interactive project called Paint and Identify in the Pintado Temple to remember the paintings that once decorated this monument.
In Pakistan, the Museum of Natural History in Islamabad organised a Nature Poster Drawing Competition on the theme of Water and biodiversity, in which students from different schools participated by portraying the beauty of nature.
The National Museum of History of Moldovain Chişinău, Moldova organised a workshop for the public
on experimental archaeology, paper folding techniques, history and the art of writing.

International Museum Day 2014

The theme

The suggested theme for 2014 is Museum collections make connections.

Special activities during IMD 2014

Sharjah Museums in the United Arab Emirates carried out an Instagram project called #heartifact, inviting the public to photograph objects that are meaningful to them and post them along with a short description. The museum then created a collage of the images and shared it with the public on International Museum Day.
In Itu, Brazil, the Museu da Energia organised an event called Arte no Beco, bringing the museum to the street to raise awareness on the significance of museums and heritage preservation.

International Museum Day 2015

The theme

In 2015, the event will celebrate the theme: Museums for a sustainable society.

Special activities during IMD 2015

The Uganda Museum in Kampala, in Uganda, encouraged visitors to take a plant home or plant a tree at the museum to do their part in creating a sustainable environment. The National Forestry Authority donated trees to the cause.
The "Sc'Arti in Mostra" exhibition organised and promoted by the province of Avellino, in Italy, was the product of an art contest inspired by the themes of reusing and recycling waste through art. The exhibition, open to the public, supported a culture of recycling.

International Museum Day 2016

About 35,000 museums in 145 countries on all continents participated in IMD 2016.

The theme

The theme of the 2016 event is Museums and Cultural Landscapes.

Special activities during IMD 2016

The National Gallery of Victoria in Australia organised a conference to discuss how public and private institutions gather their collections and how such collecting can create or preserve a cultural landscape.
The Chimczuk Museum in the City of Windsor, Canada used International Museum Day as an opportunity to open the "Fighting in Flanders" exhibition in the presence of the Belgian ambassador to Canada.