News – Newsletters
Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice: Designing change together
This article was released in the April 2020 ICOM Canada e-newsletter on Sustainable Development. See more articles from this issue here. Dr. Viviane Gosselin (Museum of Vancouver) and Dr. Robert R. Janes (Editor-in-Chief, Museum Management and Curatorship) Museums are key intellectual and civic resources where substantive issues can be aired, discussed, and acted upon. These unique qualities must now be put to work in finding solutions to climate emergency. The Coalition of Museums for Climate Justice (CMCJ) was formed in 2016 to build museums' capacity to promote community awareness, mitigation and resilience in the face of the growing climate crisis. Its Advisory Group offers leadership by proposing and implementing initiatives to achieve this goal. At present, the Coalition’s primary activities include social media outreach (Facebook, Twitter, blog posts) that engage more than 2,000 Canadians and other museum professionals on a regular basis; regional, national and international conference presentations and sessions; [...]
Sustainability in Conservation
This article was released in the ICOM Canada April 2020 e-newsletter on Sustainable Development. See more articles from this issue here. Amy Kowalchuk (Technical Assistant, Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology / Historical Resources Intern, Athabasca University) Sustainability in Conservation (SiC) is an international non-governmental organization that strives to research and promote options for sustainable practices within the conservation sector. The Student Ambassador Program (SAP) aims to facilitate environmental awareness by providing students with resources to encourage the adoption of sustainable practices early in their careers, as well as a global online forum for resource sharing. As the first student ambassador at the Royal Tyrrell Museum, starting in February, I have recently started helping the museum work towards responsible changes for sustainability. As the program’s focus for this year is materials and waste, one of the first tasks we completed was filling out a self-assessment of the museum’s preparation laboratory. This [...]
Sustainable Transportation in Canadian Museums
This article was released in the ICOM Canada April 2020 e-newsletter on Sustainable Development. See more articles from this issue here. ICOM Canada asked museum professionals from across Canada to share what they are doing to make travel and transport more sustainable. Check out the answers below from Peter Ord (The Bateman Foundation and Gallery of Nature) and Katelyn Roughley (Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame). Peter Ord, Executive Director, The Bateman Foundation and Gallery of Nature (Victoria, BC): The Bateman Foundation's has made a conscious decision to use video conferencing as the primary tool for communications planning, instead of travelling either locally or out of town. The foundation runs programs across seven cities in Canada, including Tuktoyaktuk in the Arctic. Managing our network of coordinators through online platforms like Zoom or WhatsApp not only saves as time and money, but also meets our sustainability focus. Katelyn Roughley, Manager, Education and [...]
Carbon Literacy Program at Manchester Museum
This article was released in the ICOM Canada April 2020 e-newsletter on Sustainable Development. See more articles from this issue here. Lynsey Jones (Museum Development North West (UK)) Museum Development North West (MDNW) is based in Manchester and funded by Arts Council England (ACE) to support 150 Accredited museums in North West England. MDNW has always had a Green Museums strand in its programme, believing that sustainability is about the triple bottom line of environmental, economic and social justice. In 2016 we started working with the Carbon Literacy Project. This originated as part of Manchester City Council’s strategy to create a zero-carbon city by 2038. The original aim was to give every person who works, lives or studies in Manchester (approximately one million people) a day’s worth of Carbon Literacy training but the climate emergency has vastly expanded the remit of the project. MDNW has been taking the lead on [...]
City Museums: Reflections on a Missing Definition
ICOM Canada wishes to share with our members an article on City Museums by Francesca Lanz, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano. The article reflects on city museum concepts and definitions that might be useful in an operative way. The article was originally published in the September 2019 CAMOC Museums of Cities Review and is available here (English only). Please learn more by visiting network.icom.museum/camoc.
ICOM Canada Travel Bursary Report
Sophie Yamauchi From September 1-7, 2019, nearly 5,000 museum professionals, scholars, and cultural advocates gathered in Kyoto, Japan, for ICOM’s 25th General Conference. Because of ICOM-Canada’s Travel Bursary for Emerging Museum Professionals, Queen’s graduate-student, Sophie Yamauchi (Vancouver), was able to join her international colleagues in Kyoto to partake in fascinating conversations and gain insight into the governance of ICOM and its deep and meaningful roots world-wide. As an ICOM-newcomer and aspiring museum-polymath, Sophie took the opportunity to attend a variety of sessions offered by many different international committees. She was particularly interested in ICME (ethnographic museums) sessions, which were rich with case studies of collaboration with Indigenous people and revealed the interesting international similarities that museums face within their own communities. An advocate for the politicization and decolonization of museums, Sophie believes that museums can and should play an active role in engaging and shaping impactful and relevant discourse; and be accessible to all members of the [...]