Following a 2011 resolution adopted by ICCROM Member States on the reorganization of museum storage, in 2013 ICCROM launched a large-scale call for partners to implement RE-ORG projects worldwide. More than 40 Member States showed interested in the initiative, including the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Brussels, Belgium. Now, in collaboration with the Flemish interface centre for cultural heritage (FARO) and ICCROM, they have launched an 11-month project for museums based in Belgium and Luxemburg, which will include a workshop from 12 to 23 October 2015. Seven museums will be selected to participate: two from Flanders, two from Wallonia, two from Brussels and one from Luxemburg.
Earlier in April, a 5-day “training of trainers” event was organized with ICCROM and IRPA to train 10 Belgian professionals on the methodology. Half of them will be involved in the October workshop as assistants. This previous session was also an opportunity to welcome Veljko Dzikic from the Serbian Central Institute for Conservation (CIK), as he has been heavily involved with the RE-ORG South East Europe project held in October 2014 in Belgrade. All RE-ORG projects around the world are an opportunity to create a strong network of trainers who can support and spread the methodology, working together to improve museum storage conditions.
The objective of the workshop this fall is to create a team of 14 professionals who will be able to
- Successfully reorganize the storage of a museum using the RE-ORG methodology;
- Analyze the conditions of storage areas in museums, prepare an action plan and implement it;
- Train other professionals and provide recommendations to other institutions;
- Raise awareness for a wide audience (the media, decision makers, etc.) on the issues faced by museums with regards to collections in storage (at institutional and national levels).
The workshop will be followed by a distance mentoring phase, where all the participants will implement the methodology in their own museum. The expectation is that each involved museum will then go on to assist another museum in the implementation of RE-ORG.
For more information about the workshop visit the RE-ORG Belgium website in French and in Dutch. Applications for participataion by museum professionals in Belgium and Luxemburg will be accepted until 17 July 2015. Please note that the event will be in English.