Category: Inspiration

By Manuel Charr
Original paper on MuseumNext >

A modern take on the historic struggle to liberate the French capital from Nazi oppression has been launched at the Museum of the Liberation of Paris. The museum, which opened in 1994 as the Musée Jean Moulin in honour of one of the Resistance’s greatest heroes, has since been renamed and it is now a pioneer of ground-breaking mixed reality technology. The Microsoft system, HoloLens, has been deployed in the museum to bring much of the final struggle to overturn the German invaders to life.

According to Nino Sapina and Diego Fernandez-Bravo of Realcast – the mixed reality specialists who developed the high-tech visitor experience – the opportunity to use HoloLens at the museum was an exciting one. The museum is situated in a government bomb shelter that was first constructed in 1938. However, the site was left unoccupied during the period of Nazi takeover in the French capital from June 1940 onwards. It ended up being used as a base for some of the Resistance networks that sprung up in Paris. As of August 1944, following D-Day, it became the centre of operations for the Resistance as the Paris uprising began.

By Myrsini Samaroudi and Karina Rodriguez Echavarria
Original paper on MuseumNext >

Manchester Museum recently returned items taken from Australia more than 100 years ago to Aboriginal leaders, the latest move in an ongoing debate over calls to “repatriate” museum artefacts to their countries of origin.
It’s part of a wider discussion over to what degree museums need to reform and “decolonise” away from displaying collections that were gathered or stolen from other countries during the colonial era, in a way that portrays foreign cultures as strange or inferior and other nations as unsuitable possessors of the world’s cultural heritage and knowledge. Major institutions including the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum have been caught up in the debate.
One way forward may be found in digital technologies that can enable people to access representations of other cultures in fair, interesting ways, without cultural institutions needing to hold on to controversial artefacts. For example, with 3D imaging and 3D printing we can produce digital and physical copies of artefacts, allowing visitors to study and interact with them more closely than ever before.

Copying artefacts

Copying artefacts has a surprisingly long history. Many ancient Greek statues that we have today are actually Roman copies made hundreds of years after the originals. Famous Renaissance artists’ workshops regularly produced copies of artwork. In the 19th century, museums produced copies through processes that involved making a mould of the original item, such as casting and electrotyping. The famous diplodocus skeleton “Dippy” actually exists as a number of copies in museums all over the world.

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ICOM informations

Proactively addressing inequalities and exclusion becomes essential for museums when fulfilling their mission to serving society.

This becomes even more important in a context of increasing movements of populations, polarisation and divisive public discourses. Museums deal with these issues by working on diverse themes such as participation, accessibility, well-being, gender, marginalization and inclusion/exclusion through a variety of activities.