The US branch of the International Council of Museums (Icom), a non-governmental organisation dedicated to museums that works closely with Unesco, has published a statement supporting the Smithsonian Institution in the face of recent political attacks by US President Donald Trump and his administration.
“Museums exist because every generation inherits an unfinished story,” begins the statement, published on Tuesday (11 August). “Our responsibility is not simply to preserve objects or recount familiar narratives. It is to pursue evidence wherever it leads, ask meaningful questions and invite the public to engage with history in all its richness, complexity, triumphs and contradictions. Museums exist not to end conversations, but to begin them.”
The statement continues to express concern for the future of the Smithsonian, particularly given “recent congressional hearings and actions affecting the Smithsonian Institution”.
Political attacks on the Smithsonian have been ongoing since Donald Trump began his second term as president last year, an effort to suss out “woke” programming and to whitewash US history.
Just last month, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) appeared before congress and was grilled by Republican lawmakers over a White House report that had called the museum not “proudly patriotic” and cited its leadership as having “denigrated and displaced whites, males, Christians and Americans”. Later that same week, Trump ordered that signage be erected outside the NMAH, warning visitors of the allegedly skewed exhibits inside.
“Icom-US expresses its unwavering support for the Smithsonian Institution, its leadership, its governing bodies and the thousands of museum professionals who steward one of the world's greatest cultural and educational institutions,” the statement continues. “At moments when the role and independence of museums is called into question, it is important that museum professionals speak clearly about the principles that guide their work.”
This statement comes a little more than a month after Icom released an updated code of ethics, its first in more than 20 years, which explicitly highlights the need for institutional independence. It follows a similar statement of support from the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), published in July.
“Efforts to politicise how museums present history, art, science, culture and the natural world—and personal attacks on the museum professionals who carry out that work—threaten the integrity and independence of museums across the country,” reads AAM’s statement, in part.
“We stand alongside the American Alliance of Museums in affirming the essential role museums play in American civic life and the importance of safeguarding their independence, integrity and public trust,” Icom’s statement concludes. “Museums do not simply preserve our past. They help us understand it. In doing so, they strengthen our democracy, deepen our shared humanity and help us imagine a stronger future together.”
