Hello, it’s been nearly a month since my last blog post- I’m a terrible blogger! Though I do have to admit this ‘bloggers block’ is lasting longer than I thought. Through work and personal commitments, I’m finding it harder than ever to post blog posts. Hopefully this blog post shall egg me on to write more posts! Now without further ado some Museum News from the UK and further a field.
UK & Ireland:
- The Museums Association has appointed new Regional Representatives. I’m happy to say that I have been chosen as one of the Northern Ireland Representatives. The other NI rep is Paddy Gilmore from NMNI. http://bit.ly/1qmMROS
- The MA is asking Northampton Museum Services to re-think on a controversial sale of a key item of their collection. If the item sells the museum service risks loosing accreditation and member status with the MA. This seems to be a worrying trend in museums in the mainland UK. Hopefully, this ‘trend’ shall not catch on in Ireland! http://bit.ly/1qyIvWL
- Congratulations to the six museums who have achieved Accreditation status! Included are Ballycastle Museum and Downpatrick and County Down Railway Museum. http://bit.ly/1o9tyFs
- The Museums Association are seeking Museum Studies student from throughout the UK to volunteer at the Conference in Cardiff in October. In lieu of conference fees you can help with the setting up and registration at the conference. http://bit.ly/1gARv6g
- The Ulster Museum’s new exhibition , ‘Costumes Parisiens,’ features fashion plates from pre WW1 fashion magazines from Paris. The fashion plates are on loan from the Chester Beatty library in Dublin. http://bit.ly/1pw86MU
International:
- It looks like not just museums in the UK are loosing accreditation because of artefact sales. A museum in Delaware has sold one of its most famous Pre-Raphaelite paintings to pay its bills. http://delonline.us/1imv6hB
- Sweden repatriates a 2,000 year old Peruvian Funeral shroud to a museum in Lima, the capital of Peru. The so called ‘Shroud of Goteburg’ (or Gothenburg) was returned as part of an agreement to return several ancient Peruvian textiles to Peru over the next seven years. This ethical ‘return’ of items asks questions of items of a similar nature in Irish museums. Should these items be returned to their indigenous owners? Or should they remain in Ireland? Only time will tell. More info on the shroud here: http://bit.ly/1obFQxk
- In Sarajevo, the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia has been commemorated. Even after 100 years the city still has ethnic tensions that were played out in the Bosnian war of 1992 to 1995. Only time will tell if these ethnic rifts will be healed. http://bit.ly/1maQrtN
- UNESCO reaffirms that a cultural site in the Crimea is Ukrainian, not Russian. This comes after the annexation of the Crimea by Russia was considered illegal by the United Nations. (The article is in the Cyrillic alphabet but translates with Google Translate). http://bit.ly/1qpCCtn