How do we showcase our culture and make our museums more popular, asks Joseph Schirò, President of ICOM Malta.

What is ICOM Malta’s role?

Every local council or church wants to open a museum or have custody of a site, which is fine – but usually there is very little money to set it up professionally, especially if one wants to follow modern museum practice.

The International Council of Museums was created in 1946 – it operates globally for the preservation of cultural heritage and the development of museums and the museum profession. Committed to the promotion and facilitation of professional cooperation, ICOM has 117 national committees, 31 international committees and almost 30,000 members.

ICOM Malta, which was set up in January 2002, is one of the national committees and is made up of a group of professionals from the public, private and ecclesiastical sector.

ICOM Malta is the principal instrument of communication between the ICOM secretariat in Paris and its members in Malta. It ensures the management of ICOM’s interests, represents the interests of its members within ICOM and helps to implement ICOM’s programmes.

What are the main challenges that ICOM Malta is facing?

ICOM Malta’s biggest challenges are the dissemination of knowledge, the raising of public awareness of museums, and the advancement of professional standards in museum practice.

Every year, we organise activities connected with International Museum Day, which is celebrated worldwide. Every year International Museum Day chooses a theme and the slogan for this year was Museums in a Changing World: New challenges, New inspirations. To promote International Museum Day, ICOM Malta held various events in different museums, including a day tour for the young inmates of the Corradino Correctional Facility who from part of Y.O.U.R.S. (Young Offenders Unit Rehabilitation Services). The tour started at the Bighi Conservation Division followed by a tour of the Maritime Museum. The idea behind the tour was to promote culture to these young inmates and from the feedback that we got, it was a great success. I am convinced that if we promote more culture at the correctional facilities, the better the chances these people would have in being rehabilitated.

ICOM Malta has always tried to promote museums to the underprivileged or to people with physical impairments. In a past International Museums’ Day, we managed to organise a museum tour for the visually impaired, where they were given the opportunity to feel the artefacts and experience their beauty by touch.

Once a year, we also organise a conference with a theme which is of interest not only to museum professionals but also to non-professionals in the field. The central theme for this year’s conference is Environmental Control in Museums – the Friendly Approach and will be specifically aimed for the better management of historic houses, museums, sites, churches, archives, and private collections. The conference will focus on themes related to alternative sources of energy and passive methods of environmental control. The discussion and analysis on the environmental impact of climate control in museums will interest every person or organisation which maintains and holds a collection and so we will be promoting cross-fertilisation between professionals and non-professionals in the field. A call for papers has been issued and the conference will be held at the Maritime Museum at the end of October.

For its size, Malta has a disproportionate wealth of culture and heritage – what challenges does this present?

Probably the biggest problem in the case of Malta is fragmentation. Every local council or church wants to open a museum or have custody of a site, which is fine – but usually there is very little money to set it up professionally, especially if one wants to follow modern museum practice. Once the museum is open and the novelty wears off, it becomes static and stale and very little curatorship is done on the collection or site. The times of opening will always remain uncertain since the whole set-up depends on volunteers and in reality these museums end up more of a depository rather than a museum.

One of the vital aspects of cultural management is money. The percentage of the GDP which the Government of the day intends to devote for such activities in the future will be crucial. Currently, the percentage of the GDP is very high because of the EU structural funds which have been allocated for the restoration of various monuments and sites. But the future sustainability of projects such as the rehabilitation of Fort St Angelo and Fort St Elmo will depend on the infrastructure which will be built around them.

Again, every curator of a museum feels that the museum under his or her care is very important and ought to be visited by all the Maltese and tourists alike. This is being tackled through the organisation of heritage trails – however, I feel that not enough is being done to increase cooperation between the various heritage organisations involved in the sector.

On the bright side, it is heartening to see that everyone is realising that cultural heritage has both an economic and leisure value and the growth is being manifested in both the public and private sector.

Malta’s European Capital of Culture application is a good opportunity to promote local museums. Yet how will this promotion be sustained?

Malta is gearing up for Valletta 2018 and I am sure it will be a great success because many good ideas have already been fielded on various cultural activities. The organisers of Valletta 18 are being careful to promote cultural activities which will hopefully end up becoming repeat events.

Locally, we rarely get to enjoy visiting exhibits and exhibitions from abroad – vice-versa, exhibits from local museums are rarely loaned to museums abroad. How does ICOM Malta plan to tackle this issue?

ICOM Malta does not tackle issues of this nature but this doesn’t mean that we do not voice concern if we think that Malta is not enjoying exhibits and exhibitions from abroad or that we are not loaning exhibits from our local museums.

However, we do get exhibitions from abroad. At the moment Heritage Malta is showing an important collection of over 100 pieces from the Khalili Collection which is considered to be the world’s finest collection of Spanish 19th century damascene metalwork.

Next year, a big exhibition is being prepared by Heritage Malta and some very fine paintings will be travelling to Malta. Then there are other small exhibitions such as the current one at the National Museum of Fine Arts showing works on paper by Ali Sassu and mixed media pictorial works and aluminium steles by renowned Italian artist Giorgio Celiberti

However, one has to keep in mind that the organisation and expense involved in the movement of works of art is not negligible, especially to insure and secure the exhibits. There are also a number of risks involved.

Besides, during the time that the exhibit is being shown abroad, the country or museum which acceded to the loan is being deprived of it. I am saying this not to create a siege mentality, but every curator in every museum all over the world weighs all the plus and minus points before accepting to send an exhibit on loan and usually only does so after many negotiations and diplomatic exchanges.

Local museums attract a good number of visitors from abroad – but what is being done to attract more locals?

We always hear that locals do not visit museums all that often, but a lot is being done to attract the Maltese to the museums. This is usually done by organising events with a theme such as Life at Sea at the Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa. This event has now entered in the yearly cultural calendar and the participation has always been strong. The same goes for Lejliet Lapsi in Gozo and the Notte Bianca or Birgufest in Malta. These events attract locals and tourists alike and the attendance in museums is so strong that most museums organise exhibitions to coincide with these days.

Heritage Malta organises various tours and also has a family membership scheme which is proving very popular, with membership increasing every year.

Museums suffer the stereotype of being places that only older generations visit and appreciate. How can local museums be made more attractive to the younger generations?

Malta is passing through a renaissance in cultural appreciation and cultural management – the National Strategy for the Cultural Heritage document is testimony to this. The presentation, care, valorisation and accessibility to cultural heritage have been on the national agenda for more than a decade now and the changes that have been taking place are palpable. Museums have been reaching out to the public. This is not being done only by public entity museums but also by private museums and other NGOs.

Most museums nowadays organise special events for children – in fact, Heritage Malta has an educational unit specially set up to organise interactive programmes for them.

When exhibitions are put up in various museums, a children’s corner with activities is always prepared for them. Last year, I was one of the organisers of an exhibition on German Malta maps to coincide with an international symposium for map collectors and map scholars organised by the Malta Map Society in collaboration with Heritage Malta. During this exhibition, there was also a children’s corner. The editor of the International Map Collectors’ Society of London appreciated the idea and in his editorial of the society’s journal remarked that a children’s corner during exhibitions should be emulated by all the other countries when they set up their map exhibitions. So Malta is even being quoted for its innovative activities with children.

The number of good quality television programmes showing our cultural heritage has been increasing and the younger generations and children have not been left out. The young teenagers, who are perhaps the most difficult group because they might have other distractions, are also being addressed through Facebook, through events organised specifically for them inside museums, and through workshops on street art.

What role do people working in museums and visitor attractions play?

Our cultural heritage is Malta’s main selling point and the cultural activities being offered have reached a scale never seen before. Many curators, museologists and heritage managers go abroad to study, attend conferences and workshops and return with new ideas and entrepreneurship. As I said earlier, curators are continually trying out new ideas and events to attract the public and as with everything in life, some ideas are a success while others might not be that successful. But new ideas keep coming out.

People working in museums are also being given training on how to handle visitors and contribute to the visitors’ experience. Training has been the key and the results are paying off.

ICOM Malta Executive Committee

President: Joseph Schirò
Vice-President: James Licari, a glass, metals, stone and ceramics conservator within the Conservation Division of Heritage Malta
Secretary-General: Romina Delia, a Ph.D Researcher in museum/cultural heritage management
Treasurer: Jeannette Huij, a textile and carpet conservator within Heritage Malta
Member: Vanessa Ciantar, Curator at the National Museum of Archaeology
Lisa Attard, researcher at Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti
Jill Camilleri, a freelance textile and carpet conservator