DECLARAÇÃO DE CARACAS

Dentro da reflexão sobre a missão do Museu no mundo contemporâneo propiciada pela UNESCO, pelo Escritório Regional de Cultura para América Latina e Caribe (ORCALC), e pelo Comité venezuelano do Conselho Internacional de Museu (ICOM), com o apoio do Conselho Nacional da Cultura (CONAC) e da Fundação do Museu de Belas Artes da Venezuela, realizou-se o Seminário "A Missão dos Museus na América Latina Hoje: Novos Desafios", celebrado em Caracas, Venezuela, entre os dias 16 de janeiro e 06 de fevereiro de 1992.

A documentação museológica num museu local: algumas considerações

A museologia contemporânea tem sido repensada principalmente a partir da década de 70 devido a contribuição das ciências sociais e educativas que em muito fortaleceram a busca de um desenvolvimento técnico e científico. Esse tem sido um processo da maior importância para todas as ciências: de um lado a antropologia trabalhando com o conceito de cultura e bem cultural de forma mais abrangente, sem discriminar nenhum segmento social e de outro a pedagogia pondo em discussão a educação dialógica e participativa na qual o homem é entendido como sujeito histórico. Com as transformações da sociedade revelou-se mais evidente a necessidade de um fazer museológico de maior intervenção social. Oficialmente essa museologia participativa e comunitária legitima-se através de documentos como a Mesa Redonda de Santiago no Chile, Declaração de Quebec e a Declaração de Caracas, documentos fundamentais para a compreensão da museologia actual na medida que traduzem mudança do Pensamento Museológico contemporâneo. Mudanças que podem ser percebidas, de modo a melhor compreender a forma como o homem se relaciona com o bem cultural; o património cultural que passa a ser trabalhado não só por suas características físicas mas também por toda uma gama de informação que está para além destas e uma nova conceituação de museu e de museologia.

To think museology today

In the present text we intend to analyse 5 basic documents that translate the Museological Thinking in our century and that, chiefly, have led professionals of the area to apply this “science” in a less hermetic way and to understand its practice. The option to study and analyse the documents results from the fact that they influence present day museological practice and thinking. It is impossible to speak of museology nowadays without referring to one of these documents, not to mention a few nations that have even modified and/or created specific laws for the management of their preservationist cultural policy. Anyway, we are aware that this text intends only to carry out a preliminary approach to the documents, in the sense that the wealth of its content would allow us to slowx over an infinity of issues that they raise. I specifically refer to the documents produced at UNESCO Regional Seminar on the Role of Museums in Education, which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1958; at the Santiago Round Table in 1972, in Chile; at the 1rst New Museology International Workshop, in Quebec, Canada, 1984; at the Oaxtepec Meeting, in Mexico 1984; and at the Caracas Meeting in 1992. These are documents elaborated within the ICOM –International Council of Museums. These documents are the result of a joint reflection by professionals who seek the evolution of ideas within their areas of action, recognising that in order to do so it is necessary to leave the cocoon of the museological institutions and try to discuss their conceptual advances with professionals of related areas. It is important to be capacitated to reuse these advances in their areas of action. This is the recognition of the importance of interdisciplinarity for the museological context.

Who am I? An identity crisis Identity in the new museologies and the role of the museum professional

Whilst the title of this essay suggests more than one “new museology”, it was rather a licence poétique to emphasize the two major theoretical movements that have evolved in the second half of the 20th Century[1]. As a result of the place(s)/contexts where they originated, and for clarity purposes, they have been labelled in this essay as the “Latin new museology” and the “Anglo-Saxon new museology”; however they both identify themselves by just the name of “New Museology”. Even though they both shared similar ideas on participation and inclusion, the language barriers were probably the cause for many ideas not to be fully shared by both groups. The “Latin New museology” was the outcome of a specific context that started in the 1960s (de Varine 1996); being a product of the “Second Museum Revolution”(1970s)[2], it provided new perceptions of heritage, such as “common heritage”. In 1972 ICOM organized the Santiago Round Table, which advocated for museums to engage with the communities they serve, assigning them a role of “problem solvers” within the community (Primo 1999:66). These ideas lead to the concept of the Integral Museum. The Quebec Declaration in 1984 declared that a museum’s aim should be community development and not only “the preservation of past civilisations’ material artefacts”, followed by the Oaxtepec Declaration that claimed for the relationship between territory-heritage-community to be indissoluble (Primo 1999: 69). Finally, in 1992, the Caracas Declaration argued for the museum to “take the responsibility as a social manager reflecting the community’s interests”(Primo 1999: 71). [1] There have been at least three different applications of the term ( Peter van Mensch cited in Mason: 23) [2] According to Santos Primo, this Second Museum Revolution was the result of the Santiago Round Table in Chile, 1972, and furthered by the 1st New Museology International Workshop (Quebec, 1984), Oaxtepec Meeting (Mexico, 1984) and the Caracas Meeting (Venezuela, 1992) (Santos Primo : 63-64)