International Council of Museums

And anytime a, a, a museum or an art gallery is designed, there are architectural considerations and standards now in the museum and art gallery community for design, sight lines.

There is the International Council on Museums, uh, which we call ICOM, uh, back in the '80s started developing standards for museums and galleries.

Uh, a lot of museums, uh, and galleries adopted those standards, um, and still do to this day.

Over and above that, um, there is certainly much more higher level of training for security staff.

And it was in this capacity that you were the scientific director for a global study exploring museums and public funding.

Now, this was a research project initiated by ICOM's International Museum Research and Exchange Centre.

And part of your brief was to explore whether decreases in public funding for museums are a worldwide trend or confined to certain regions and countries.

And what did the study find, Michelle?

Well, first, thank you so much, Carol, for permitting me to be with you today.

So our research, which lasted for over two years, was based on data provided by 59 ICOM national committees, as well as 1919 selected museums around the world chosen for their diversity, plus an important documentary component is demonstrated.

with only a very few exceptions.

Public funding has declined globally, especially after the 2008 financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.

And this is something that I thought a lot about just as I was working on this book because I visited so many medical museums.

So the International Council of Museums, or ICOM, they have a guideline that says that human remains of questionable provenance should not be displayed under any circumstances.

But this is often not actually used in practice because the Indiana Medical History Museum, for example, even though they have these really lovely narrative descriptions that help challenge and push back against the, the idea that these remains are oddities or curiosities, they...

The human remains in their collection are actually from former patients of Central State Hospital.

You know, I have a lot of cases pending right now on my desk where the criminals were caught, but they managed to unload the artworks or the jewellery in advance and they're not talking.

Last year, the International Council of Museums announced a new initiative with Interpol to support some of these smaller cultural institutions that you've been talking about.

Given the spate of thefts in France in particular... that doesn't seem to be working terribly well yet.

How advanced is this?