Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The role of small local museums in Colombia usually only focuses as indirect education institutions on specific topics such as history, geography, and natural history, among others; dedicated only to the past and to be a reservoir of collections. Nonetheless, these small museums should go beyond the past and start creating discussions and awareness on global social, economic, and environmental issues. Using the past as a lever to introduce modern topics and help to generate knowledge in local communities and young people on important subjects for today’s society such as black lives matter, global warming, modern colonization, modern slavery, feminism, conflicts, economic crisis, and so on. Internationally a museum in Hiroshima helps awareness on the use of atomic weapons, another in Nottingham about the death penalty worldwide, and in Curaçao, a small museum introduces the fight against racism. Given the new role of museums nowadays, the only museums called to be active actors in everyday lives should not be the nationally and internationally renowned ones. Local institutions, called to create awareness and knowledge of local history should also go beyond the past and bring the important topics closer to local communities, given that in many cases it is the only place where these discussions can be created. The research is a comparative analysis of five international small museums that develop modern social subjects with five small local museums in Colombia, and study how they can develop exhibitions and open spaces for discussions with local communities.