European Museums in an age of Migrations_newsletter#03

MARCH, 2012 issue #03 æ don’t miss in this issue  Questioning the Development of European Identity/Identities, by G. Postiglione  The First Mela Brainstorming in Naples, by A. De Angelis  The Invention of the Savage, by S. Gamaire  Mela forthcoming events Photo: Extract from ‘See something or say something: London’ by Eric Fischer æ focus on One year is gone since the Mela Kick off Meeting; it has been a start up period and an important phase for the development of preliminary investigations. The Mela Project is now entering a particularly dynamic phase, its active core, which encompasses the organization of several events, art exhibitions, conferences and the release of the first Mela intermediate publications. This Spring is going to be an intense Mela Brainstorming season. Gathering scholars, museum practitioners and artists, these events are meant as operative opportunities for sharing theoretical and practical findings, individuating key issues and networking. After these meetings, that are supposed to foster the Project development, the Mela Partners will join in Copenhagen to share preliminary findings and plan the next research activities. A public event on May 31st will gather scholars and museum operators to enhance a participative debate about the research themes, and open the discussion to a wider public. We invite everyone who is interested in the development of the Mela project to participate, as well as to respond to the Call for Papers related to the Mela International Conferences. While the website will provide updated information, the Mela Newsletter will follow these events reporting main contents. This issue presents the preliminary findings that Mela Partners developed by progressing research activities, exploring publications and exhibitions, participating and organizing international events during winter time. The Postnational Museum. An Insight from a Keynote Presentation The idea of postnationalism is well established within the field of sociology and political theory. Proponents have argued that many contemporary societies are characterised by greater global connectedness than ever before in terms of migration, finance, trade, travel, information technology, popular culture, and media. Recent decades have seen an increasing transfer of all kinds of power to supranational bodies. Advocates of the theories of postnationalism and globalisation have therefore argued that the importance of the nation-state – both politically and conceptually – is being diminished. At the same, critics of globalist approaches counter that the nation-state continues to be a powerful force and that we are witnessing resurgence of nationalism, localism and in some cases extremism, particularly in relation to politics, culture, and identity. In-between these two poles there is a third position which argues that the concept of postnationalism does not necessarily signal the end of the nation because globalisation coexists with, and is materialised through, the frameworks of nationalism and localism. Taking this one step further some recent studies have made the case that we should be wary of applying a priori categorisations - such as global versus national or macro and micro – to the museum. Rather it is argued that we need to look for those moments when notions of the global, national and local are produced, assembled, and material- ised within social and cultural practices like heritage and museums. My work argues for the continuing relevance of ideas of postnationalism and globalisation to the national museum. It is a timely moment to be thinking about national museums and their futures, particularly in the European context which gave rise to the idea of national museums in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In recent months, we have seen extensive discussion about the future of the very idea of European Union due to the economic crisis in the Euro zone. Inevitably this is testing the political, cultural and historical bonds between many of the European countries as well as involving nonEuropean superpowers like China. Many of the same issues at the heart of the economic crisis have parallels in debates about the future of national museums in an increasingly globalised and connected world. For example, we might ask if the nation-state is still the primary unit of reference for economies, citizens, museums or visitors. How do we make sense of the increasing interdependence and interconnectedness between nation-states – economically, politically, and culturally? Is it more appropriate to focus now on those things which nation-states, their peoples, cultures, histories and economies have in common rather than what is distinctive and different about them? What does all of this mean for a sense of national identity and citizenship, both politically and culturally? Is the national museum still a powerful force in shaping and producing people’s understanding of their place in the world? Will it be in the future? While acknowledging what is new about our contemporary moment and its potential implications for national museums, I also make the case for a longer historical view by pointing out that many of the features associated with postnationalism and globalisation (for example, migration of peoples, ideas and objects, hybridity and exchange between cultures) have been integral to the modern museum since its inception. The modern museum is one of the practices which developed in European societies as an attempt to ‘manage’ and make sense of issues of diversity, difference, and exchange within and between cultures as encountered through colonial exploration and exploitation. During the latter part of the nineteenth-century the European national museum was also mobilised as a deliberate attempt to marshall a wide range of different cultural, ethnic and place-based identities into a nationalist framework. This was undertaken as part of nation-building processes with a view to engendering a notion of shared national heritage and allegiance. I argue that we can therefore think about issues associated with postnationalism not only as a twenti- the national museum’s institutional identity as part of the nation-state apparatus mitigates against the adoption of some of the features associated with postnationalism in other areas of society and culture. In this respect, I consider what the national museum as a cultural form has to contribute many of the features associated with postnationalism and globalisation have been integral to the modern museum since its inception eth and twenty-first century phenomena, but as highlighting a problematic with a longer genealogy. Viewed in this way, the sorts of challenges frequently associated with postnationalism and discussed in relation to contemporary museums do not represent a radical discontinuity so much as a reframing of long-standing tensions and dynamics inherent in the national museum as cultural form. At the same time I also question whether to wider debates about postnationalism. I conclude by considering whether the historical roots of European national museums in the emergence of specific notions of public, democratic culture in the late eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries makes a significant difference to debates about their role in various national contexts today. Rhiannon Mason, ICCHS, Newcastle University. This is a brief summary of a keynote paper presented at a conference ‘The Museum 2011’ held in Taiwan (Nov. 2011). Questioning the Development of European Identity/Identities. A Report from the European Commission Conference in Brussels Is a common European identity emerging? Or are several diverging European identities disclosing? If so, which shape is it, or are they, taking? Concerning both policy and research, which implications the development of European identity/identities have for the European Union? These were the questions triggering the debate during the meeting of the representatives of the ongoing Research Projects funded by the European Commission under the 6th and 7th Framework Programmes, who joined in Brussels on February 9th, together with a selected community of scholars and members of various European Parliament Committees and EC Directorates-General. The conference about ‘The Development of European Identities: Policy and Research Issues’, co-organised by the European Commission and Prof. Robert Miller from Queens University in Belfast, was an opportunity it is fundamental to understand the nature of political and cultural European identity/ identities for a direct – thus more effective – discussion among the different involved actors, providing and comparing insights from the Research Projects directly or indirectly related to the questions of European identity, sharing findings but also advancing further doubts and questions. The preliminary answers provided by the debate bred new queries; we report here the most meaningful. The singular or plural nature of European identity is only one of the necessary questions to explore in order to ground new challenging proposals for the future of Europe. It is not possible to take for granted the legitimacy of the argument about the merging or diverging of the discussed identity/identities; it is previously fundamental to understand the nature of these terms, their meanings and their references to the concepts of European awareness and citizenship. In particular it is necessary to clarify the interrelations that occur between political and cultural issues in building and promoting European identity/indentities. When analyzing the Political European Identity it is important to consider its crucial relationships with Economical decisions and actions – the ‘Europanization’ of Europe has been mainly driven by an economic process: far before the mobility of people, EU agreed about the mobility of goods! Furthermore, an evolution of some of the terms of the discussion would be necessary: when speaking of the forthcoming European Union, it is not possible to refer to the Nation-state model, though most people (also during the Conference) still do. Regarding the Cultural European Identity, the value and the features of the debate are evidently not clear; also the fundamental role of cultural institutions in building and promoting European identity/identities still appears uncertain. These considerations were demonstrated during the Conference by the prevailing presence of the representatives of the Social, Economic and Political Sciences, if compared to those within the Humanities. It is important to mention another evident absence: the debate never included the millions of migrants populating the contemporary Europe – according to statistics, between 10%-15% of ‘Europeans’ are ‘Migrants’ – whose presence is a crucial factor for the development of European identity/identities. In these peculiar aspects we individuate the relevance of the contribution of the Mela Project, assessing the role of museums as ‘identity agents’ in the improvement of a new and inclusive European awareness, overcoming the Nation-State model and opposing a new and more welcoming approach to the classic ‘Festung Europa’. In this framework, without a lack of some utopian thoughts, EU could play a meaningful role in promoting the creation of new forms of political structures based on humanism and sustainability. Gennaro Postiglione, Politecnico di Milano. æ Mela related: one book Krankenhagen, Stefan (ed.). 2011. “Exhibiting Europe”. In Culture Unbound, vol 3, Exhibiting Europe. Conference Proceedings from Exhibiting Europe Project: Exhibiting Europe. The Development of European narrative in Museums, Collections and Exhibitions. Oslo, 07-09 April, 2011: Linköping University Electronic Press. Photo: Palazzo della Arti (PAN), Napoli Museums, Migration, Memory and Citizenship. The first Mela official Brainstorming At the Palazzo delle Arti in Naples, March 14th, the Mela group coordinated by Iain Chambers will conduct a seminar on ‘Museums, migration, memory and citizenship’, the first official Mela Brainstorming with Mela Researchers (A. De Angelis, B. Ferrara, G. Grechi, M. Orabona) together with M. Quadraro and C. Ianniciello , as well as contributions from Iain Chambers, Lidia Curti, Tiziana Terranova and Mara De Chiara, along with other artists, curators and academics. The Seminar will provide Researchers and Partners with ‘food for thought’, a fresh look on local and national museum realities viewed through the lenses of migration, memory and citizenship. Structured around memory/ies, (his)stories and mobile citizenship, sustained in sound, song, participative art and digital technologies, the Seminar, conducted in both English and Italian, is divided into four sessions with brief introductions by the Researchers, longer talks by invited guests and informal discussion. Iain Chambers will open the discussion by re-opening the museological archive, giving voice to the often unauthorised demands of postcolonial and cultural studies and their entwining in the contemporary challenge of migration, and the ‘diaspora’ of both bodies and communication fluxes and technologies as they traverse museum stud- ies.The morning sessions will largely focus on issues of collective and participative art, as well as on experimental (museum) communities. These themes will be explored in the contributions of Federica Timeto (Researcher, expert of visual art, postcolonial and gender studies), Danilo Capasso (Architect, MAV – Archeological Virtual Museum in Ercolano), a.titolo (a collective art project by Lisa Parola and Luisa Perla, art curators), and Antonio Perna from SUDLAB (Art Gallerist, expert in digital and communication technologies).In the afternoon sessions, the topic will be extended to issues of migration, literally and metaphorically, through an exploration of concepts such as ‘migrating modernities’ and ‘mobile citizenship’, as well as ‘migrating images’, and the ‘mnemotechnics’ of the new media. The contributions of Giacomo Sferlazzo (artist, founder of the Museum of Migration in Lampedusa with ‘Askavusa’ cultural association), Gianluca Gatta (anthropologist of migrations), and Giuditta Nelli (artist, of art duo ‘Impossible Sites dans la rue’, visual art and social commitment), as well as Nicola Angrisano (Insu TV, Naples independent ‘telestreet’) will be introduced and commented on by A. De Angelis, C. Ianniciello and B. Ferrara. Alessandra De Angelis, Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’. The third volume of Culture Unbound. Journal of Cultural Research dedicated a thematic section to the proceedings of the international conference held in Oslo in April 2011, promoted by ‘Exhibiting Europe’. By investigating the link between processes of migration, musealisation and Europeanisation, this Reseach Project is focused on the narration of Europe, which is one of the greatest challange for museums, because of its cultural, historical and political implications that overcome a national approach. This theme represents an open question crossing the contemporary debate, questioning the role of museums as arenas for discussions, instead of simple repositories of culture. The contributions collected in the volume investigate possible innovations in museum studies and practices, dealing with the narration of Europe under the pressure of globalization and migrations. The book thus proposes different perspectives over a European identity, put on display in museums: from building a network of European Routes of Industrial Heritage, to investigating the potential of digital exhibitions, narrating the difficult memory of conflicts, critically analyzing the project of a future House of European History in Brussels. Margherita Parati, Politecnico di Milano. The report, released as an Open Access publication, can be downloaded from the Mela website in the Publication Area. æ Mela partners: università degli studi di napoli ‘l’orientale’ The Mela Consortium consists of nine European organizations of recognized experience at an international level. Project partners have been selected to combine appropriate knowledge and rooted research background, in order to efficiently cover all the expertise needed to achieve the project objectives. The working group was built on a thematic rather than a geographical structure, to create a large interdisciplinary network specialized in the main research domains. This Newsletter issue intends to present the Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’. The ‘Orientale’ is the oldest school of Sinology and Oriental Studies in Europe and has a strong tradition in language, cultural and social studies. Since its very beginning, in 1732, the ‘Orientale’ has set itself up as a centre for learning, developing comparative approaches to questions of culture, histories and present day policies. The Department of Human and Social Sciences provides the context for contemporary interdisciplinary and intercultural studies, where a progressing tradition in cultural and postcolonial studies has continuously devoted research to migration, memory and the mutation of social and cultural formations within a European and extra-European frame. Working with literary, audio-visual and musical languages, critical attention has consistently been devoted to understanding the political and poetical affects of such languages in configuring cultural memories, and the subsequent institutional practices that sustain modalities of historical identification and cultural belonging. æ Mela related: one project Photo: Palazzo Pepoli Vecchio, Bologna (picture by Oscar Ferrari, www.europaconcorsi.it) Museum of the History of Bologna. Through the Pages of the City In the prestigious Palazzo Pepoli Vecchio, renovated through the combined effort of Mario Bellini (architecture), Italo Lupi (graphic system) and Massimo Negri (museological storyboard), on January 28th the Museum of the History of Bologna opened to the public. The project was conceived within the ‘Genus Bononiae’ program, promoting the cultural and artistic valorization of the city centre. The museum proposes a didactic path, that takes the visitor on a journey across the history of the city, illustrating the transformations from Etruscal Felsina to contemporary age. The core of the exhibition is the glass tower in the interior square, working as a junction, a crosswalk and an exhibit space. The exhibition setting derives from the graphic and communicative reinterpretation of the diorama model; the result of this logic is similar to a big graphic tridimensional layout, made of luminous panels displaying words and images connected by a metallic framework, aimed at highlighting the most significant contents, the protagonists, the works of art and the objects narrating the history of Bologna. This structure allows to frame, to underline and to compare works of art and duplicated sculptures, texts and images, video works and objects. This journey through the pages of the history of the city is punctuated by installations, spectacular incursions and visionary digressions proposing out of scale provocations (the arcades room), and investigating the relation between real and false, the duplication theme (the reconstruction of the street, as it was in the past), the immersion in the virtual dimension (the flow of the channels reproduced through the new technologies), the re-interpretation of the space (the transparent elements illustrating the battles through large graphic prints and projections, the canopy in the center of the room symbolically tracing the “sacred” perimeter, or the library). The final part of the exhibition moves to the contemporary age, then to the ‘extemporary age’, where the visitor can listen to the voice of some exceptional Bolognese citizen, and eventually leave his own testimony, impressions, proposals. This tool, integrated with the multi-user geoblog called ‘Emotional Paths’, opening a dialogue between the citizens and the visitors, is the most innovative technological device employed in the museum; this sort of growing archive of events, memories and thoughts is meant not only to enhance the experience of the visit, but also to foster the participation of the people to the construction of the identity of the city, through the vital contribution of everyday life.Through the integration of the voices and memories of the citizens in the narration of the city, the museum develops its main aims, related to the valorization of a specific local identity and the promotion of the sense of belonging. Raffaella Trocchianesi, Politecnico di Milano. While rethinking their place and role in the contemporaneity, the most important Ethnographic Museums in Europe are developing significant networking efforts. Driven by several EU funded projects, such as RIME (Réseau International des Musées d’Ethnographie) and READ-ME (Réseau Européen des Associations de Diasporas & Musées Ethnographiques), providing a framework for research and exchanges of information and experiences, these cooperation programs are meant to support the evolution of these museums from repositories to places for intercultural dialogue, fostering a new approach to the encounter among different cultures, and redefining the relationships between collections, curators and visitors. The second edition of the READ-ME project, ‘[s] oggetti migranti’, headed by Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico ‘Luigi Pigorini’ in Rome, specifically focuses on the possibility to enhance the role of museums in the reduction of intercultural conflicts, through the intensification of the dialogue with the peoples of the world represented in their collections. Technical-scientific workshops, organized by the different institutions involved, will promote direct interactions between the representatives of migrant groups and the exhibited objects, for example by inviting Diaspora associations to experiment the ‘adoption’ of selected artifacts from the museum. The contemporary reading of these ‘migrant objects’ is meant to revise their testimonial value and to valorize their cultural meaning. The results of these experiences will be finally illustrated in the temporary exhibition that will be held in Rome in September 2012. Elena Montanari, Politecnico di Milano. Promotional Postcard of the Project ‘[S]oggetti migranti’ The Invention of the Savage. Always the Same on the Front of the Stage More than an exhibition, ‘Human Zoo. The Invention of the Savage’ (November 2011 June 2012) at the Quai Branly museum in Paris is an important cultural milestone. For the first time around the world, the subject of exhibiting humans is being handled in a public and accessible space. This practice started in the 16th century in the private sphere of the royal court; it expanded to circuses, zoos and reconstructed villages throughout Europe, America and Japan until the mid-20th Century. Such an exhibition is a major event for the museum itself. After initial hesitancy on the part of the director, the exhibition has given way to a whole program of activities on the subject, including film screenings, and even an international symposium (January 24-25). On a larger level, the exhibition can also be viewed as a powerful statement in the fight against racism in France; the general curator is none other than Lilian Thuram, president of the active foundation ‘Education contre le racisme’ (http://www.thuram.org/site) The lead-in text describes the exhibit as a journey in a theater between the ‘stage’ and the ‘wings’ of this phenomenon. However, contrary to the appealing introduction, this balance is neither respected in the exhibit’s scenography, nor in its discourse. From a design point of view, the visitors do æ Mela network Within the Research Centre ‘Espaces Humains et Interactions Culturelles’ (EHIC, Université de Limoges/Université Blaise Pascal), the Research Group ‘Citoyennetés, Empires, Identités, Politiques’ is developing different theme ‘routes’ focused on three directions: migrations, routes and representations; state politics and power migrations; diversity and creativity. Through an annual seminar, the multidisciplinary team – bringing together historians, sociologists, political and civilization experts coming from different linguistic regions – develops conceptual tools creating and strengthening national and international networks. htp://ehic.univ-bpclermont.fr/ Building on Oxford’s strength in migration studies, the Oxford Diasporas Programme (ODP) includes researchers from three migration research centres and other departments across the University. The programme consists of eleven projects looking at the social, economic, political and cultural impact of diasporas (transnational communities of people dispersed from their hoMeland) through a wide range of disciplinary perspectives and research methods. htp://www.migration.ox.ac.uk/odp/ not have any impression of passing behindthe-scenes. Instead, the prominence given to posters, postcards and films perpetuates the role of visitors as a spectators. Only some mirrors try to make them reconsidering their own definition of the ‘self’ versus the ‘others’. The repeated use of this strategy throughout the exhibition threatens to reduce any reflective power into mere aesthetic entertainment. In terms of content, the substantial research effort to insert collections into contexts has to be applauded. Unfortunately, however, the exposition fails to give voice to those on display ‘by telling their diverse and forgotten stories’. By choosing to focus on some individualities, such as Saartje Baartman, well known as the ‘Hottentot Venus’, the exhibit continues to put them into relief rather than rehabilitate all the others. Of course, she is an exemplary case and it was non possible and not desirable to deal with all the characters who were exhibited. Nevertheless, while during the symposium some researchers quoted the diaries left by exhibited peoples, these were still under exploited in the Branly exhibition. Instead, the ‘Venus’ case is quoted at least three times. For such a little space, the visitor may feel as going round in a circle. Despite these criticisms, it cannot be denied that this exhibit has taken important steps towards fostering a much-needed dialogue. While the process of differentiation by which human peoples define themselves is universal and inescapable, the hierarchical organization of these differences is not. As such, it should always be questionned and challenged in public spaces. Sarah Gamaire, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. Towards a Postcolonial Museum. UNO Contributions for ‘estetica: studi e ricerche’ The Mela group in Naples has recently edited a special number of the journal estetica. studi e ricerche (to be published in 2012), devoted to the ‘postcolonial museum’, with contributions by Mela local researchers and other guests from the academic world. This collection involves an attempt at interrogating canonical museum and archiving practices, to introduce the reader to both existing and ‘to-come’ museums alternatives. Here the ‘postcolonial museum’ seeks to promote more radically epistemologically informed forms of cultural and museum performances, rather than merely restrict its concerns to display practices. As Lidia Curti points out in her afterword (Beyond White Walls. A Network of Possibilities), what is at stake here is also the ‘language’ of museum, seen as a complex ‘performative’ ritual, more than a dualistic display device. Themes of cultural and historical memory, contemporary political struggles over subjectivity, different museum experiences as well as issues of migration, migrating memories and fluid archives are at the heart of this special issue, which itself becomes a prototype of that ‘critical space’ of questions, interrogations and thoughts evoked by Iain Chambers (editor with A. De Angelis and G. Grechi). The aim is not to offer counter-narratives of colonial and neocolonial display practices, but rather to suggest new forms of archiving, as well as critically to re-think the relation (and the supposed separation) between History and memory/ies, the Past and the (many) presents. The past, as Chambers suggests, is seen as ‘vibrating archive’, rather than a fixed object of enquiry serving to ‘re-cover’ the past. Through dismantling positivistic assumptions of progress and modernity, the present is introduced as a ‘stranger to itself’. The issue is divided into three sections ‘The Postcolonial Challenge’, ‘Future Archives’, and ‘Excavating Museum Spaces’ framed by Chambers’ foreword and Curti’s afterword. It includes articles from: S. Carotenuto, I. Chambers, L. Curti, A. De Angelis, M. Esposito, B. Ferrara, V. Gravano; G. Grechi, C. Ianniciello, M. Orabona, A. Piccirillo; and two collective articles, by M. Parati, G. Postiglione and C. Pozzi, and from G. Gatta and G. Muzzopappa. Alessandra De Angelis, Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’. A Lively Season of Mela Events This Mela events season is starting with a rich series of Brainstorming, opening with Research Field 02, now taking place in Naples at Palazzo delle Arti, where a selected group of researchers, critics and artists will debate about ‘Museums, migration, memory and citizenship’. In April Newcastle University will host Research Field 01 Brainstorming: the Mela Partners will meet other scholars and museum æ Mela ongoing RESEARCH FIELD 01 International Conference ‘Placing’ Europe in the Museum: people(s), places, identities. Promoted by Newcastle University DEADLINE ofthe Call for Papers: 30 March 2012 RESEARCH FIELD 02 Mela Brainstorming Museums, Migration, Memory and Citizenship. Promoted by Università degli Studi di Napoli ‘L’Orientale’ 14 March 2012 | Naples, Italy | Palazzo delle Arti Napoli RESEARCH FIELD 01 operators to discuss about ‘Museums, migrations, and identities’. At a few days (and few kilometers) distance, the Research Field 03 Brainstorming will take place at University of Glasgow, where the debate will focus ‘European heritage, migrations and new media’. The season will terminate with a Mela General Meeting in Copenhagen. Further information on www.Mela-project.eu æ Mela related forthcoming events Conference: Museum Utopias - Navigating the Imaginary, Ideal and Possible Museum Conference: Multiple Dialogues: Interpreting Ethnographic Collections in the 21st Century Promoted by the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester 27 – 28 March 2012 Leicester, UK | Museum Studies Building Museum Ethnographers Group (MEG) Annual Conference 16 – 17 April 2012 Edinburgh, UK| National Museums Scotland Conference: IME Final Conference ‘Identities and Modernities in Europe’ Symposium: How Migration Challenges Notions of Society: Culture and Migration The ‘Identities and Modernities in Europe’ (IME) project, funded by EC under the 7thFP 28 March 2012 Kingston-upon-Thames, UK | Royal Kingston Suite, Antoinette Hotel Part of the lecture series EUNIC/UNIQUE Thoughts: Public Discussions on European Issues. 26 April 2012 Dublin, Ireland | Goethe-Institut æ Mela related active call for papers Mela Brainstorming Museums, Migrations, and Identities Promoted by Newcastle University 20 April 2012 | Newcastle, United Kingdom RESEARCH FIELD 03 Mela Brainstorming European Heritage, Migrations and New Media: Networks and Collaborations across Museums, Libraries and Public Cultural Institutions organized by University of Glasgow 23 April 2012 | Glasgow, United Kingdom Call for paper: History of Science in Museums. Science & Education Thematic Journal Issue. Promoted by The Attic, the virtual home of the School of Museum Studies’ research students. DEADLINE: 31 March 2012 Call for paper: New journal MIDAS (Museum Interdisciplinary Studies). Collecting contributions to the first issue. Promoted by Centro Interdisciplinar de História, Culturas e Sociedades da Universidade de Évora, Portugal Call for paper: City Museums: Collisions | Connections Promoted by CAMOC. Vancouver, Canada DEADLINE: 15 April 2012 Call for paper: ICME Annual Conference 2012: Commodifying Culture? Cultural Villages and Living Museums. Promoted by ICME Namibia, Africa DEADLINE: 15 May 2012 DEADLINE: 31 March 2012 Mela Workshop and Public Event The next reasearch meeting of the Mela Consortium to share reserach advancements and develop further activities. 30 May -1 June 2012 | Copenhagen, Denmark Call for paper: Bridges and Boundaries: Reframing Professional Education for Museums + Heritage? Promoted by ICTOP. Amsterdam, the Netherlands DEADLINE: 15 April 2012 newsletter editors: Francesca Lanz and Elena Montanari graphic design: Zetalab.com legal notice: The views expressed here are the sole responsability of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. Find out more details about Mela Related Events into the Mela website project duration: March 1, 2011 – February 28, 2015 coordinator: Professor Luca Basso Peressut coordinating organisation: Politecnico di Milano IT project no: EU FP Grant Agreement No 266757 research area: SSH-2010-5.2-2 contract type: collaborative project