A hand holding a lightbulb in front of a dawn-colored horizon.

Call for Papers now open – Museums and/in Crises?

January 30, 2024 /

For its annual conference Museums in Danger the International Association of Transport and Communications Museums is inviting innovative and forward-thinking paper presentations on the manifold areas of the topic.

Museums in Danger revolves around museums in times of multiple global crises: the accelerating climate crisis, wars and the possibility of destructions by warfare. Budget cuts e.g. in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. And other threats through cyberattacks, theft, public demands or natural disasters keep shaping the challenges museums face today.

We are asking: How does this effect our museums? How are transport and communications museums uniquely able to respond to these crises?

We are especially interested in the effects of threats to the security of our work and collections, the relationships with other countries and museums, and their economic and ecological impacts. Additionally, IATM is looking for responses and preparations to extreme weather events or specific attacks, and how museums serve as guides and places of orientation for their audiences.

Share your best practice and ideas with us!

We welcome innovative formats and ideas for brief and concise presentations of 15 or 30 minutes in length. They should encourage discussion and new ways of thinking. Submissions are open until Sunday, 31 March 2024.

Your presentation will be held during IATM’s 47th Annual Conference Museums in Danger from 8 to 11 September 2024 in Finland. During the conference we will visit several museums! Among them the Finnish Railway Museum in Hyvinkää, Mobilia – Finnish Museum of Car and Road in Kangasala, and the Finnish Aviation Museum in Vantaa. In Tampere we’ll visit the Lenin Museum and the Vapriikki Museum Centre with the Finnish Postal Museum. The post-conference tour on 12 September will take us to the Forum Marínum Maritime Centre in Turku.

Find the complete Call for Papers (including submission guidelines) here.

For further information on IATM’s 47th Annual Conference please visit our conference website.