Moffat Mungazi
Chiedza Zharare
Correspondent
THE role of museums has changed globally. These days, museums serve as more open, inclusive, and accessible forums for discussion and debate rather than just being locations for gathering, preserving, and storing artefacts.
Current trends and changes in communities are directly and indirectly impacting, framing and affecting museums and museum work.
In adapting to the new conditions and new possibilities, museums now stretch, bend and reinvent the known institutional formats of what a museum is thought to be.
Faced with challenges of rapidly changing social, cultural, economic spheres and the environment as well as climate change, museums are responding by devoting themselves to the awareness campaigns and aligning themselves towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
They are in the service of society and its development in the pillars of environment, economy, society, and culture.
From the definition by International Council of Museums (ICOM), a museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage.
Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability.
They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing” (ICOM, 2022).
In the postmodern world, museums are now acting as powerful and influential media to give awareness to the public about their surroundings.
Through observing societal trends like climate change and the destruction of nature, migration, large scale conflicts and wars, museums can provide useful tools for navigating and charting the potential relevance of addressing such issues in the current national, regional and international settings.
Driven by strong indigenous presences, in particularly the Americas, the Pacific and now also on the African continent, museums are developing inter-, trans-, and multidisciplinary, holistic approaches and methods, and embracing world views, cosmologies and epistemologies, which understand and interprets objects and collections within a framework of a fundamental connectivity and inter-relatedness of all things, all beings (Sandahl, 2019).
Be that as it may, this era of rapid technological and social change, museums are also adapting to remain relevant. They are embracing digital technologies, expanding their reach through online platforms, and addressing contemporary social issues through their exhibits and programming.
It is also a yearly norm for museums world over to commemorate International Museums’ Day as a way of remembering the role of museums globally.
Mutare Museum is joining the rest of the world in this endeavor by offering free entry to the museum on Sunday, May 18, 2025 from 9am to 5pm. As museums celebrate 2025 International Museums’ Day, with the theme: “The future of Museums in rapidly changing communities’, let us reflect on the importance of museums in educating the public in all aspects of life be it socially, economically, politically and environmentally.
Chiedza N Zharare is a Curator of Antiquities, at Mutare Museum, and can be contacted on +263774104041, email: [email protected].
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