Our Treasurer Leen Beyers gave a presentation last month in Paide during the ICOM Estonia + Estonian Museum Association conference.  After a brief introduction to ICOM COMCOL, Leen provided an overview of the current state of contemporary collecting, addressing the seemingly obvious but often difficult questions of “why”, “how and with whom” and “what” for museum workers. 

New ethical ambitions have called into question many of the previous practices of collection ownership and management. The shift from ‘acquisition’ to ‘collection’ in the ICOM 2022 definition of museums is very meaningful in this regard. Environmental issues and the growing interest in living heritage have again raised a number of questions about collecting.

She illustrated the ideas on contemporary collecting with some practical examples from the Belgian museum field and her work as a curator of the MAS museum.

See her presentation here in full on youtube.