ABSTRACT
Museums have always made claims about their universalist aims. During the Enlightenment, they strove to be microcosms of the macrocosm, by building compendia of information encompassing all of creation. The nineteenth century saw the growth of more specialised ‘universal museums’ which presented surveys of art from all the major civilisations, in urban centres throughout the Western world. But by the late twentieth century, a host of factors ranging from post-modern political and intellectual thought to an energised linking of national identity to cultural property (often with corresponding restitution claims) challenged the assumptions of the ‘universal museum’.
This chapter presents an ‘odd and impractical little dream’ for the future of museums that hopes to bypass contentious and conflicting claims over cultural patrimony through common stewardship of collections. It is a dream of better utilising the vast number of objects in storage facilities of large museums and archaeological sites through sharing these objects in expanded, long-term international partnerships. Such a sharing of collections would allow museums to re-address their universalist aims in an updated manner: being universal now not through the breadth of their collections, but through the breadth of audiences they serve and the connections they forge across nations of the world.
There are many hurdles in the way of realizing this dream. National legal restrictions stand in the way of such long-term exchange; long-term loans may fall short of current patrimonial demands; immunity from seizure laws is imperfect; the uneven distribution of museum infrastructure and capital mean that some locations might remain excluded from what becomes a ‘rich man’s club’. But the dream is built on the hope that in decades to come, we might have a true sharing of cultural patrimony as we address legal and attitudinal blockades that keep the dream from being realised.
