Reflexions de ICOM Italie pour Catane 

Waiting for 2016 ICOM Milano – 24th ICOM General Conference 

The upcoming 24th ICOM  General Conference (Milan, 3 – 9 July 2016) is engaging the Italian National Committee of ICOM not only in the organization of an event that will gather hundreds of museum and heritage professionals from all over the world, but also in the in-depth study of a key issue for Italian museology: the interaction with context and territory, open air heritage and community.

The topic has extensively connoted the debate on museology and museography, with the important antecedents we all know. A Seminar, held in Nuoro in September 2013, and Siena International Conference, which took place in July 2014, focused on the relationship between museums and cultural landscapes from different perspectives, finally proposing the Siena Charter, which contains motivations, strategies, and goals of a museum responsible towards the cultural landscape.

ICOM Italy thought it necessary to push its strategic reflection further, by involving several heritage professionals in the debate on the role that museums have played or may play in environmental and landscape projects.

Museums and World Cultural Heritage Sites 

Apart from their specific nature, World Cultural Heritage sites are such a remarkable model for the identification and management of cultural and environmental heritage, to be included in UNESCO’s world list.
For this reason, ICOM Italy has warmly welcomed the Sicilian authorities’ proposal to focus the attention on the role that museums play, or may play, in the management not only of Sicilian sites, but also of Italian and Euro-Mediterranean sites, by dedicating an international conference to the analysis of their condition and potential.

The examination of the strategies of preservation and promotion of these Sites allows us to establish principles and criteria for the management of cultural landscapes that could be extended to other contexts as well, and to determine not only the role museums may play, but also what types of museums could do it better.

In order to answer these questions, it was advisable to examine the condition of Sicilian sites in the wider Euro-Mediterranean area, by activating a comparison between those realities that possess a privileged point of observation on the role that museums may have in management plans.

Therefore, Catania Conference, which will be held from 16th to 18th October, with its three sessions (devoted respectively to Sicilian sites, Italian sites and Mediterranean countries sites, aims at providing contributions and reflections on Museums and World Cultural Heritage Sites to be converted into a Charter which will contribute to 2016 ICOM Milano, ICOM 24th General Conference and to define the role that museums may play in the identification, management and promotion of the Sites, whatever their kind.

Catania Conference 

The Conference opening will be followed by three parallel sessions devoted to case-studies that are particularly remarkable for Sicily, Italy and Mediterranean countries. In attendance as speakers will be the managers of the most remarkable Sites, the representatives of ICOM’s National and Regional Committees of Europe and Mediterranean, UNESCO professionals and experts in territorial heritage management and promotion.

The Conference Proceedings will be published in Italian, English and French.

Click here to download the programme in English.