Welcome Message from the ICOM President Hans-Martin Hinz

Dear colleagues of the international museum community,

The forthcoming 24th ICOM General Conference will be held from 3 to 9 July, 2016 in Milan, Italy. We will be delighted to welcome you for what is sure to be an exciting week of discussions and events in a country that is world-renowned for its incredibly rich and diverse cultural heritage. The international museum community will gather together in Milan around the theme of Museums and cultural landscapes, which raises a number of issues dear to all of us, as museums around the world strive to redefine their roles and positions in relation to their communities and with respect to the cultural heritage that lies beyond their walls.
 

Packed with stimulating sessions, networking opportunities and committee meetings, the week-long ICOM General Conference is key in allowing ICOM’s 35,000 members from some 140 countries, alongside other museum professionals from an array of cultural and linguistic horizons, to maintain and expand their expertise and leadership on cultural heritage issues. In the year of ICOM’s 70th birthday, I count on your presence during this key moment for ICOM in Milan, to celebrate our seven decades of commitment to the protection, preservation and promotion of museums and cultural heritage.

It will be my honour to welcome you, together with our Italian hosts, to this momentous event. I am confident that with the help of your contributions and participation, it will be an unforgettable experience. We look forward to gathering together in Milan in 2016!

Prof. Dr. Hans-Martin Hinz
President of ICOM

Milano at a glance

The 24th ICOM General Conference is just around the corner! The online detailed programme is being constantly updated and enriched to help you navigate through a week chock full of activities, and this month, we’d like to spotlight some of the encounters at the heart of the General Conference, from 3 to 9 July in Milan.

We are delighted to welcome five keynote speakers, artists, thinkers and doers renowned the world over, each distinguished in their very different lines of work and sharing a commitment to the ideals of ICOM. The Opening Ceremony on the morning of Monday, 4 July will include speeches by Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist, and Christo, artist famous for his environmental interventions, carried out with his late partner Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009). The Plenary Session the following morning, 5 July, will feature keynote speeches by Michele De Lucchi, Italian architect prominent in movements including Cavart, Alchimia and Memphis, and Zambian Minister of Gender and Development Nkandu Luo. And finally, the morning of Wednesday, 6 July will see a keynote speech by David Throsby, Australian cultural economist at Macquarie University in Sydney.

The afternoon of Tuesday, 5 July will feature another event of vital interest for the ICOM community: the ICOM Memorial Lectures, which were launched at the 2007 General Conference in Vienna. Sponsored jointly by ICOM Austria and the International Committees for Education and Cultural Action (CECA), for the Training of Personnel (ICTOP), for Exhibition Exchange (ICEE) and for Museum Management (INTERCOM), the 2016 edition of this series features interdisciplinary talks on current issues and future developments in our field. Bernice Murphy will give the Jubilee Lecture for ICOM’s 70th anniversary, entitled “ICOM 70 years on: An ethical vision of nature, culture, heritage, and museums’ continuing social mission”; René Rivard will give the Fourth Alma S. Wittlin Memorial Lecture, devoted to “Museums and changing cultural landscapes”; and Cristina Vannini will give the Eleventh Stephen E. Weil Memorial Lecture, on “Revisiting Weil’s cabinet of curiosity”.

Finally, three different Panel Discussions are to be held as well – two on the afternoon of Tuesday, 5 July, and one on the following morning immediately after the keynote speech. The first is devoted to museum efforts to counter illicit traffic in cultural goods, featuring Eric Dorfman, Egyptian Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany and Markus Hilgert. The second will address the new UNESCO Recommendation on the Protection and Promotion of Museums and Collections, their Diversity and their Role in Society, with the participation of Anna Coliva, François Mairesse and Tereza Scheiner. The final discussion will be devoted to the social role of museums, featuring David Fleming, Robin Hirst, Marlen Mouliou and Giusi Nicolini.

Be sure to mark them down on your General Conference agenda!

To make the most of Milan, you can now register online for Excursion Day, Social Events, Pre- and Post-Conference Tours!
Register now for ICOM Milano 2016: http://network.icom.museum/icom-milan-2016/registration/how-to-register/
 

For further details on the General Conference programme:
http://network.icom.museum/icom-milan-2016/

Arrivederci a Milano!