Museums and contested histories: Saying the unspeakable in museums.
The worldwide community of museums will celebrate International Museum Day on and around 18 May 2017.
The theme of International Museum Day 2017 is Museums and contested histories: Saying the unspeakable in museums.
This theme focuses on the role of museums that, by working to benefit society, become hubs for promoting peaceful relationships between people. It also highlights how the acceptance of a contested history is the first step in envisioning a shared future under the banner of reconciliation.
By choosing to say the unspeakable in museums, the theme of IMD 2017 looks at how to understand the incomprehensible aspects of the contested histories inherent to the human race. It also encourages museums to play an active role in peacefully addressing traumatic histories through mediation and multiple points of view.
We invite cultural institutions of all types around the world to join in this celebration, which will focus on the link allowing for a vision of the future above and beyond taboo subjects and towards a better understanding of one another.