Idealism in museum

The extensive volume edited by Robert R. Janes and Richard Sandell titled Museum Activism is composed of papers by over 50 authors. They are in majority case studies, with examples from most varied institutions. Museum activism is the opposite to museum social alienation; in this respect, the first definitely draws from the many-years’ experience of New Museology and participatory museum. Museum activism advocates are negative about the commercial populism and the success measured by turnout only, and not that measured exclusively by the differentiation of the museum offer and its accessibility to minority and marginalized groups. According to the Editors, contemporary museums are more morally obliged to engage in social activism, since in the times of a radical drop of social trust worldwide, museums still constitute one of the social institutions considered as trustworthy. Many of the actions described in the book concern the sphere of museum accessibility broadly speaking, both in the sense of physical access and possibility to participate in the programme, and barriers of social nature. Another sphere of museum activism is made up of curatorial practices. The texts point to many dimensions of activist curatorial practices which, however, first of all become the space for questioning the myth about museum’s neutrality in many respects: the colonial collection genesis, attitude towards climate, narratives constructing national identity, or finally the issue of the presence of curator’s voice in an exhibition. In many of the papers the role of museums in the context of the responsibility for the climate, of raising social awareness, of constructing a new narrative on the relation between man and the world, as well as the necessity to revise one’s own praxis are reiterated.