Every three years, the international museum community comes together for the biggest conference of this sector: the triennial ICOM General Conference. Since its first edition in 1948, ICOM’s General Conference has become a worldwide reputed hub for exchange about the topical issues museums tackle today and the most innovative solutions.
The Advisory Council of ICOM elected Dubai as the host city of the 27th General Conference, which will take place in 2025.
In its presentation the UAE proposed to host the conference around the theme of ‘The Future of Museums in Rapidly Changing Communities’, which would feature discussions around change, recovery, transparency and accessibility.
The world we live in today is vastly different from the one we used to know not so long ago. A torrent of events — a pandemic, massive protests, natural disasters, soaring inequalities, a technology and digital revolution, to name a few — has changed everything we thought we knew and led to the one thing we can be certain of: tomorrow will be uncertain. We are all trying to learn to cope, adapt, change, progress within a fast-changing environment, with some communities and people better equipped than others to face the changes.
Our museums have been going through the same process, albeit not always at the same pace. As we seek to transform ourselves and relate to others, so do our museums. And that is the explorative journey we are proposing at the Conference: where might we go next, together – museums and communities, hand in hand, for a better future? We, as museum professionals and members of our communities need to recognise them and find ways to use them to our advantage and to the greater good, reinforcing our role as a social actor – activist, and an agent for changes.
Sheikh Mohammed said the win “gives a strong impetus to the country’s cultural sector”.
Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, chairperson of Dubai Culture and Member of Dubai Council also tweeted adding, “The 27th ICOM conference in Dubai will be an opportunity to mobilise efforts, ideas and capabilities to enhance the role of all museums as protectors of human and knowledge heritage and enhance their cultural and societal role in a more effective manner.”
For more information, please visit www.icom.museum/en/
