Why the Museum Has Become a Catalyst for Cultural Landscape Regeneration - Essay Example

THE MUSEUM AS A CATALYST FOR CULTURAL LANDSCAPE REGENERATION Introduction Museums are catalyst for cultural landscape regeneration. As defined by the International Council of Museums (Retrieved on Aug. 10, 2008), a museum is “a permanent institution in the service of society and its development, which acquires, conserves, communicates, researches, and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study, and enjoyment.” Museums are institutions that collect and safeguard artifacts and specimens while at the same time making them accessible and be held in trust for society (Bennett 1995). They are able to connect the past with the present, serve as reminders of a historic past, and provide a link between the old generation and the new one. They enable people to explore collections for inspiration, enjoyment, and learning. Investing in cultural projects such as museums has been the task of tourism, which is both indispensable and necessary. Likewise, urban development strategy has been the investment in cultural projects such as iconic museums and arts centers intended to enhance city image alongside catalyzing private sector participation and attracting tourists (Grodach 2008). Museums possess educational and cultural mandates, which are being transformed as institutions continuously play an increasingly important part in economic development and tourism promotion strategies (Tufts and Milne 1999). Museums are concerned with not only its traditional public mandate, but also with its ability to enhance consumption experiences while contributing to a diversified tourism product. Why the Museum Has Become a Catalyst for Cultural Landscape Regeneration The museum as a catalyst for cultural landscape regeneration is seen in its expansion in variety as well as explosion in popularity over the last decades, in which marked change in its role in society is significantly observed (Falk and Dierking 2002). In the past, the museum was oriented primarily towards research and collection. Today, it is increasingly viewed as an institution for public learning and has placed an emphasis on education – a task that it never did in the past (Falk and Dierking 2002). The issue of educating the public did not arise in the past and visits then were conducted privately. It must also be noted that, museums used to be for public collections alone, shared with others selectively by the curator. Although for many, the museum remains to hold a secondary function, it was observed that over time, its role as a public asset has become increasingly important (Falk and Dierking 2002). A quarter of century ago, most museums would have listed education as a distant third due to its non-prioritization and non-emphasis on education, but now, they regard themselves as first and foremost, centers for public learning and second to schools and books in terms of education. Museums now claim an equal concern for education, research, and collections. These educational mandates allowed museums to be recognized as significant learning environments. As a result, it is seldom for one to visit a museum without hearing or associating it with the word learning. This association makes the museum a catalyst for cultural landscape regeneration. This regeneration is seen in an illustration where the visitor’s perception of a painting, undertaken in the 1700s, and associating certain details of this work to the pervading social norms, laws, and culture of those days. He is able to travel back to a particular historical period of which the piece of work serves as both a reminder and a relic of the past culture. It was likewise posited that the way visitors perceive and interact with the exhibits strongly influences the concepts and beliefs they brought to their museum experience. Museums, as catalysts for cultural Landscape regeneration, collect and care for objects of scientific, artistic, or historical importance. Through exhibits that are either permanent or temporary, artifacts and objects of historical importance are made available for pubic viewing. The opportunity to view and scrutinize these artifacts and remnants of a past historical generation allows museums to be avenues for revisits to what was and what used to be in the bygone eras. Their nature as great source of information about cultures and history is an attribute that qualify them as catalysts for cultural landscape regeneration. Their ability to transcend culture and history to the current generation proves their being catalysts for this regeneration. The role that culture plays in development programs can tackle the promotion of renewal, which museums are often tasked. Museums also contribute to the enhancement of the promotion of tourism in a specified area or country, which in turn, promotes it as a driver of regenerating history, arts, and culture. Recent research also shows that parents view museums as one of the most trustworthy sources of information as well as the most important places for educating their children after schools and libraries, more highly valued over all than radio, newspapers, books and the internet (Leicester 2006). Museums, as cultural organizations, have been in the position to be valued for vitality and character of places, in which they include the challenge to achieve long-term, strategic reshaping of cities and neighborhoods. Merging with tourism strategies with local capability creation, museums undertake the so-called cultural investments and have been seen as effective catalysts for cultural landscape regeneration processes (Curioni and Martinazolli n. d.). Regeneration programs are seen in the budgeting for community capacity building, ensuring that stakeholders understand the needs for community development, entering into formal regeneration and service quality agreements, as well as measuring success in terms of residents’ views and community skills (Bianchini 1993). There are several attempts by various governments on how museums may be used as a catalyst of regenerating culture and heritage. These various attempts are usually linked with the tourism programs and objectives of the country, region, or city and for a long time, have been delegated to public management rather than the old practice of corporate or private sector support, which may hide some pretext of hidden motives (Anderson 2004). Museums are art institutions that create today’s history in art schools, in contemporary galleries, and the like whose tasks primarily involve the art of preservation (Karp et al., 2006). As catalysts for regeneration, museums belong to the manifest part of the evolution of the human kind as well as to societal dimension whose primary task is to guard artifacts. Studying them closely, museums spring from the passion of collecting what has been left as a reminder of a particular period in history, representing culture, to be viewed by the present generation for appreciation, enjoyment, and learning. It may be inferred that all civilizations, old and new, possess the desire to accumulate objects that are considered beautiful, valuable, and rare. This natural desire leads to the collection of things in a structure that facilitates this purpose, aiming to develop people’s knowledge and interest in arts, their past, culture, and their heritage. In this way, museums become an effective regenerator of culture, arts, and history. Providing documentation of the objects within the specific museum is one task of museum library, enabling people to seek further greater meanings in each historical and cultural object. There are several museums that offer activities for a range of audiences, which may consist of lectures and tutorials by museum staff or field experts, musical or dance performances, and films (Karp et al., 2006). With the advent of internet, a growing number of virtual museums began to sprout, bringing viewers to experience a revisit to a past culture without the geographical constraints. Due to its emphasis on public ends, museums are publicly funded and usually have free entrance, either permanently or on special days. Hence, they are not usually ran for the purpose of making profits, as the main intention for their operation is to provide a great source of information about cultures and heritage. This is reinforcing their character as catalysts of cultural landscape regeneration. It is evident that despite the onset of globalization trends to which people, corporations, and governments are particularly focused, the importance of museum remains in a standstill in the artistic, historical, and cultural urn of the current civilization. They continue to be keepers and catalysts of a bygone era, saliently stamped in every artifact, photo, memoir, and object that belong to a past culture and generation, which existed a long time ago. Perhaps, the indispensability of museums is merited to the fact that culture and history cannot be totally forgotten, and that they always lurk in the salient aspects of heritage in humanity’s continual recording of his own history and way of life. Even in the regeneration of cities, museums have been frequently utilized and optimized. This is because government and local entities subscribe to the importance of the notion of local identity and culture when these are made known to people (especially tourists). As arts and culture are important aspects of civilization, and as man continuously reshapes history, the current technological age cannot throw away completely the venue in which museums are placed. Museums are always a living reminder of the past, an effective tool for concrete learning, and a connector to the present. With this, there serves no threats of this pervasion of museums in the technological field. The role of museums in civil society and in according (not denying) identity continues to prevail in the globalized period. In fact, in today’s era, governments, and institutions have been committed to the critical development of museum as well as museum development in the belief that these institutions can and must be mobilized in tilting the benefits of the world’s globalizing processes towards the previously marginalized and excluded ones (Karp et al., 2006). The transformative potential of museums in the public sphere witnesses this possibility, with their capacity to act as both theory and practice in global civil society (Karp et al., 2006). Hence, a museum is not just simply a place or institution, but one that has developed into a portable social technology, and can thus become a global theater of real consequence whether they define their scope as national, regional, or community based. Because of this quality, museums have been international actors and are a part of various social orders. The changing nature of social relations and communication has produced circumstances to which museums and other related institutions necessarily adjust, alongside exploring new possibilities and challenges. It is to this concern that museums are considered catalysts of cultural landscape regeneration. The characteristic of the museum as a catalyst for cultural landscape regeneration is also seen in its being founded and proliferated in major cities and far-flung colonies, setting regional prominence and providing similar experience and edification for people who cannot travel the entire city, capital, or metropolis. Its ability to link people to the identity of these places is accounted to this character. This is possibly undertaken due to the innate nature of museums to document and collect a range of cultural creativity and natural diversity. Their activities and claims are naturally cultural and educational, alongside being bound up with ideas about values and identities that constitute a given society or region. They are a combination of the effects of advocacy, outreach, and public relations leading to the creation of potent modes of legitimization and authority (Karp et al., 2006). In their presentation of exhibitions and narratives that claim particular worldviews and ordered knowledge, visitors are particularly enlightened about certain places and resultantly inculcate particular ways of being. However, it does not mean to say that museums always have the verified presentation of facts and presumptions, since visitors could always produce counter-narratives, which could be through different knowledge bases, resistance, or miscomprehension. It suggests a subjective value of museums, viewed by different people with different perspectives and interpretation of history and culture. The museum’s value is never relegated in the sidelines since it is one institution associated with modernity, and is part of the checklist for being a nation, a means for constituting community identities, and a venue for disparate groups to present their histories and value in the pubic arena. The very nature of the museum to face inward to local constituencies and outward to wider audiences finds its way to mobilize a global sense of local identities, histories, and cultures. It has become an essential form that authoritatively makes statements about history, identity, and value, effectuating recognition. The use of the word ‘global’ in terms of the expansive character of the museum obscures the usual notion of its being patronized only by the elite and the cultured. Rather, regardless of social classes, race, ethnicity, cultural identity, and geography, the post-modernist identity of the museum allows it to reach to different people from different walks of life with different culture and identity, making it become a catalyst of cultural landscape regeneration. The museum is not only tasked to inform about what has been, but also to relate, express, and advocate certain subjective ideas and insights that grew as products of a past culture. It collects because it wants to retell, to inspire, and to pursue certain lessons that may be learned and relive in the present age. It is always a living reminder of a people’s past, the richness of their history, the uniqueness of their culture, and their unbounded heritage. This fact cannot be altered even by the onset of a new economic trend or a new social event. This innate character of the museum allows it to become a catalyst of cultural landscape regeneration. Conclusion The onset of globalization must not be taken as a threat that may wither institutions for arts and history such as the museum. Rather, it must be taken, just as what is happening, as one that enables the configuration of new audiences and communities, within contemporary international relationships and global processes, creating the possibility of rethinking for museums and heritage organizations, particularly in light of the changing policies and practices. With this position, the importance of museum as a catalyst for regeneration – even in the global sphere - is apparently seen, serving as a mechanism in making cultures and histories be known to various peoples and nations. This is supported by the fact that increasing international connections and global orientations have become the major trends in museum and heritage practice in the past decades reinforcing the fact of the museum’s character as a catalyst for cultural landscape regeneration. References Bennett, Tony, 1995. The birth of the museum: history, theory, politics. Routledge. Bianchini, F., 1993. Cultural policy and urban regeneration. Manchester. Cameron, Duncan, 1972. The museum: a temple of the forum. Journal of World History. Vol. 14, Issue 1, pp. 189-201. Curioni, Stefano Baia and Martinazzoli, Luca, n. d. Museum and urban regeneration stylization of the decision making process. Retrieved on August 10, 2008 from http://neumann.hec.ca/aimac2005/PDF_Text/BaiaCurioniS_MartinazzoliOK.pdf Falk, John. H. and Dierking, Lynn D., 2002. The museum experience. Whalesback Books. Grodach, Carl, 2008. Museums as urban catalysts: the role of urban design in flagship cultural development. Journal of Urban Design. Vol. 13, Issue 2, pp. 195-212. Karp, Ivan, Kratz, Corinne A., Szwaja, Lynn, and Ybarra-Frausto, Tomas, 2006. Museum frictions. Duke University Press. Leicester, 2006. Museums as drivers for regeneration: notes for keynote speech. 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