“Narrative Museums” and Curators’ Rights: The Protection of a Museum Exhibition and Its Scenario under Polish Law
Since at least the 1990s, museums have expanded to cover a variety of societal functions, often enabling inclusive and participatory spaces for critical dialogue about the past and the future, and bridging together various narratives and cultural experiences, contributing to social cohesion and reconciliation. The new functions of museums, involving novel technological forms of display and communication, pose several legal questions concerning the management of such institutions, their resources, and exhibitions, including issues of copyright and other intellectual property rights. While referring to a recent case concerning an alleged infringement of the moral rights of the authors of the …
On Defining the Participatory Museum: The Case of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk
This article seeks to contribute to the current debate on the new definition of the “museum” – a debate which led to turmoil at the 2019 ICOM General Assembly in Kyoto. With reference to the case study of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk (MSWW), it analyses the new and very successful genre of the narrative museum, a genre which arguably fulfils the core elements of the definition currently being discussed by ICOM. In this regard, it brings into focus the paramount importance of community involvement in creating and managing narrative museums – an aspect that has been virtually absent in the academic and media debates over the nature of the MSWW and its programme. By pointing ou…