International Network of Museums for PeaceINMP Board Meeting The Hague, 21-23 May 2010
Coordinator's Message November 2009 - HERE
A meeting of the board of the International Network of Museums for Peace (INMP) took place in Geneva (Switzerland), 19-21 June 2009. The meeting, which was attended by 12 board members (from various European countries, Japan, India, and the USA) took place in the International Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and was hosted by its director, board member Roger Mayou.
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International Network of Museums for Peace |
HISTORY
The International Peace Museums Network was created in 1992 during the International Conference which brought together for the first time the management and staff of peace museums, anti-war museums and similar institutions worldwide.
What is a Peace Museum?
When you first hear of a ‘peace museum,’ you may be slightly mystified or perhaps even a bit skeptical. It is easy to imagine what goes into a war museum, but what can you put in a peace museum? And if the peace movement is to be represented in a museum, does that mean it is being relegated to the past?
Through exhibitions and educational activities, peace museums aim to help build a ‘culture of peace’ in the here and now. One of the strengths of peace museums is that they can reach out to and involve a broad general public, many of whom might not be involved in the peace movement per se.The International Network of Museums for Peace is a worldwide network of Peace Museums that share in the same desire to build a global culture of peace.
The Conference was held in 1992 in Bradford (England) and arranged by a British association, "Give Peace a Chance". Over 30 representatives from peace museums in 10 countries (including Australia, Japan and the United States) met up to exchange experiences and make a start on future cooperation.
The objective of this network is to create links between peace museums, related institutions and individuals worldwide to encourage exchange of information, material, exhibitions, set up joint exhibitions to spread know-how etc. It also intends to encourage the creation of more peace museums in other parts of the world.
Four more conferences have been held since this first encounter. The second conference was held at the Austrian Centre of Studies for Peace and Resolution of Conflicts, the headquarters of the European Peace Museum as of the year 2000, in Stadtschlaining (1995). The third encounter was arranged by a number of Japanese museums in Osaka and Kyoto (1998) with the motto "The contribution of museums to world peace", whilst the motto of the fourth Conference was "From memories of war to education for peace", and was held in Ostend (Flanders, Belgium) in the spring of 2003 with the assistance of the Flemish Government.
The fifth Conference was held in Gernika-Lumo, Spain and was hosted by Gernika Peace Museum.
The theme of the fifth conference was "Peace Museums: A contribution to remembrance, reconciliation, art and peace"
We chose this motto because the Gernika Peace Museum, like many other peace museums throughout the world, wishes to make a small but valuable social contribution to remembrance - since they are often located in places of remembrance (as in Guernica), to real and lasting reconciliation between "victors and vanquished", to art (as a form of expression of events and the hope for a better future - Picasso's "Guernica" being one of the world's best examples), and to the culture of peace in general.
The Conference covered three main topics in relation to the theme.
1: The contribution of art to a culture of peace.
2: Peace Museums, seeds of reconciliation in the world.
3: The importance of remembrance to build a world in peace.
The members of the network keep in touch and exchange information via a newssheet, 15 of which have been published to date. The newssheet is sent to over 125 peace museums, similar institutions and other persons active in such fields.
The international network was also very much involved in drawing up the first peace museum directory, known as Peace Museums Worldwide. It was published in 1995 by the United Nations Library in Geneva, a second edition was produced in 1998, and there are plans for a further edition in the near future.
In December 1998, the green light was given for the International Peace Museums Network to receive NGO status in association with the United Nations Department of Public Information in New York.
The general coordinator of the International Peace Museums Network (and editor of the newssheet) is Peter van den Dungen, of Bradford University's Department of Peace Studies.
