Changing Headsets: The Impact of Museums on Social Thinking

Changing headsets: the impact of museums on social thinking

Delivered by
Viv Szekeres, Migration Museum, Adelaide
Helen Light, Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne

Two prominent Directors share their perspectives

Viv Szekeres:
In the last 30 years there has been a seismic shift in the way some museums operate and in the programs they present to the public. No longer the bastions of white middle class male privilege where precious or exotic things were housed, most museums now seek to represent a wider constituency and reflect a broader range of social, cultural and political issues. Given the history of the development of museums as institutions, the speed of technological change and contemporary economic priorities, can museums hope to reflect changes that have taken place in society let alone act as agents for change in social thinking? This paper will explore the issues and the challenges facing museums today.

Helen Light:
The challenge has been taken up by Jewish Museums in general, and by the Jewish Museum of Australia in particular, to become civic spaces of contested ideas and history, as places concerned with and responsible for helping shape identity and fulfilling social responsibilities for the public good.

They have taken an active role in contributing to the continuity of Jewish identity in light of the contemporary debate about Jewish identity in a post Holocaust; predominantly secular liberal democratic western world and with the tragic struggle within the State of Israel.