From 9-12 September COMCOL will have their 2020 annual conference online,  jointly organized with ICOM Russia. The title of the conference is Collecting Diversity: Divergence as Dialogue.  Museums can play a crucial role in the waves of societal struggles that are visible and dominating many public discussions these days. They have the capacity to reformulate social, cultural, and environmental values and can function as mirrors or sounding boards for their societies. They have the possibility to echo the problems of the contexts in which they are immersed and to focus on fostering diverse values for better social co-existence.

Below the outline of the program and the registration links for each session. (so be aware that each session has it’s own dedicated registration link)

WEDNESDAY, September 9 

13.00-15.00 (CEST) -Session 1: Collecting Diversity: Divergence as Dialogue How can museums navigate through the politics of collecting in a way that will represent, respect, and relate to the multiplicity of today? In this session, we will be bringing two great professionals together to each reflect on these questions and more from their own context.

Keynotes: Julia Kupina, Ph.D., Director, Russian Museum of Ethnography, (St-Petersburg, Russia) and Armando Perla, Head of Human Rights, Holocaust Museum Montreal, (Montreal, Canada)

15.30-16.30 (CEST) Session 2: Matters of Representation Critical reflections on how collections have been created and how objects have been (re)presented have taught us to revisit our practice. How can institutions today collect, present, interpret, and share the variety of meanings that these objects bear today for the future in a respectful and inclusive manner? 

17:00-18:30 (CEST) Session 3: What tells the Collection Collections have their own history. What do the collections that were created in the past tell us today? Who created the collections? For what purpose? 

17:00-18:30 (CEST) Session 4: Ethics of collecting  Museums have a responsibility to reconsider the ethical dimensions of their collecting methods and the ethics of the collections they already hold. Collections often include contested objects and raise questions around colonialism, representation, and repatriation, sacral conservation, categorization, and multivocality. How can museums deal with these matters?

19:00-20:00 (CEST) Mingling session 1 Finish out the first day of conferencing with some fun. Join us at the first-ever COMCOL professional speed-dating. Bring a drink and get to know colleagues from all over the world while talking collections.

 

THURSDAY, September 10

11:45-12:45 (CEST) Mingling session 2  Start your conference day by getting to know your fellow attendees. Join us in discussions around some of the hot topics of current collection practice and share experiences and opinions.

13:00-14:30 (CEST) Session 5: Using Collections to make New Connections  Do museums do enough to open their collections to everyone they are relevant for? Do they answer to their societies’ needs and demands?

15:00 -16:30 (CEST) Session 6: Contemporary Ways of Collecting Museums have the responsibility to collect and show collections in an inclusive way. How is this done? How can museums collect and preserve stories and objects that showcase our super-diverse societies? How do museums work in an inclusive way with contemporary collecting and collections? 

17:00-17:00 (CEST) Session 7: Digital Collections to Share What can digital collections (whether born-digital or digitized objects) offer to us as museum professionals and to our audiences? What are the possibilities of connecting to more people? Or to connect to other collections and make new narratives? 

 

FRIDAY, September 11

13:00-14:00 (CEST) COMCOL members meeting This is the moment for our members to learn more about what COMCOL has been doing in the past year and the plans we have for the coming years, so please do join us. It is also a perfect moment for you to give your input on what you would like and expect from us. Not a COMCOL member but interested to become one – please feel welcome as well. We are happy to tell you more about our (net)work.

14:00-16:00 (CEST) Young Professionals Network Kick-off session:  The aim of this workshop is to introduce an initiative undertaken by COMCOL to encourage more young professionals to engage with the work of ICOM and COMCOL. The International Young Museum Professionals Network will be presented and interactive participation will be encouraged in order to explore future directions and interests to be taken onboard. All young members (but also non-members) of COMCOL are invited to attend!

SATURDAY, September 12

13:00-15:00 (CEST) Workshop on Heritage of Religion A joint workshop of the Jewish Museum Berlin and COMCOL on Object Interpretations: After the Destruction and Transformation of Religion. Please note that the maximum of participants is limited to 30!

 

Additional Documents:

Here the detailed overview of the program

You can find the abstracts of the speakers here

The Call for Papers is closed.