Introduction

On 7 September 2019, the 34th ICOM General Assembly adopted a resolution on ‘Measures to safeguard and enhance collections in storage throughout the world’.¹ The resolution—one of ICOM’s first on the subject of storage—was nevertheless considerably overshadowed by debate surrounding the new definition of ‘museum’, the main focus of which seemed to be the latter’s social role, and indeed, its political and activist roles. Today the collection is, from a de facto standpoint, no longer an essential criterion; as a result, many establishments without collections to speak of call themselves museums. Vigorously claiming the role of forum, as described by Cameron (1971), these institutions are taking the heritage approach, organising exhibitions, events, debates and more. Objects passing through these spaces come from other heritage collections—namely, museums with storage areas or warehouses, and from private collections.² Indeed, in order to function, establishments that act as subcontractors require a ‘stock’ of objects gathered together somewhere, in private or public storage. Also looking to outsource their storage in order to free up space for new exhibition areas or other uses, many older museums seem to be considering this approach as well.

The emergence of these new independent ‘conservation centres’, several of which are discussed in this issue—including the Museum Support Center of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, the Depot of the Museum Boijmans van Beunigen in Rotterdam and the Centre de Conservation et de Ressources (Centre for Conservation and Resources) of the MuCEM (Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations) in Marseille— in turn raises questions about museums. Like the Louvre’s new storage facility built in Liévin—200 kilometres from the museum, north of Paris—these establishments, while attached to their respective institutions, entail an entirely different structure and require a staff that is decreasingly tied to museums’ historical buildings.

Designed for the purpose of rationalisation, and, at times, resource-pooling between several museums, these storage facilities—which are increasingly open to visitors, including the general public—in turn challenge the definition of the museum. The museum had long been defined by its collections, as ICOM’s first definition of the institution in 1946 clearly shows: ‘The word “museums” includes all collections open to the public, of artistic, technical, scientific, historical or archaeological material […]’. Where, according to this definition, is today’s Louvre located? In Paris or Liévin?

Two primary categories thus emerge: museums without collections, on the one hand, and on the other, increasingly independent collections that are kept in storage (and occasionally exhibited). Consequently, storage spaces seem to be detaching from museums to become autonomous spaces in their own right—in such a way that the latter appear to sometimes neglect or obscure the ‘submerged part of the iceberg’ when it comes to its activities: the storage and preservation of objects in its care.

Yet these are the very elements that enable institutions to do their work; and it is the changes and reconfigurations they engender within museums that have inspired this issue dedicated to the current state of global collection storage.

These trends are both identifiable and quantifiable: figures that are now widely known convey the scale of what lies beneath the museum’s more visible, or ‘submerged’, structures and activities. Only a small fraction of museum collections is publicly displayed, with the remainder in storage: 70 to 80 per cent in art museums, 90 per cent in science museums, 95 per cent in ethnographic museums, 96.5 per cent in archaeology museums, and 99 per cent in biology and geology museums (Lord et al. 1989). Yet two out of three museums worldwide lack space; storage facilities are overcrowded in one out of two museums; and 60 per cent of collections in storage are not properly managed, according to the ICCROM survey published in 2011 and revisited in this issue by Catherine Antomarchi et al. However, despite their essential role in heritage preservation and their ability to capture the attention of the general public, museum storage spaces remain relatively under-researched, as policy-makers, stakeholders in the heritage sector and researchers continue to focus chiefly on public spaces within museums.

Still, things are changing in the world of storage,³ as the texts included in this volume show: new, outsourced, and sometimes shared buildings are being built; knowledge and skills in the domain of preventive conservation are being developed, passed on and discussed; professionals are adopting innovative approaches in order to anticipate space issues and to facilitate the movement of collections—partly in a bid to bring their practices into line with sustainable development standards, and partly to educate the public about the challenges of heritage conservation through storage areas that can be viewed, accessed and/or visited. The texts in this issue bear witness to the heterogeneity of storage facilities and models across the world—ranging from the high-tech warehouse that is home to thousands of objects, to the attic containing dozens of piled-up items—and shine light on the economic and environmental costs of art and heritage object conservation, as well as on the uneven distribution of resources required for the accomplishment of such missions.

The contributions in this volume also enable us to put this diversity into perspective by revealing common problems and risks—such as the floods that threaten Paris and India alike—and by underlining the solutions deployed in the preservation of art and heritage objects, as well as in the quest to find ways to study, showcase and ensure access to these objects: operations that are central to the very principle of storage, if not to museums more generally. By no means constituting an idle place where items from collections sit between two exhibitions, today’s museum collection storage is increasingly configured as a space that plays an active part in the conservation of items within collections—and as one in which the use of collections is more clearly defined and carefully managed with storage spaces more frequently placed on public display.

A brief history of museum collection storage

The question of storage facilities has progressively become a key consideration in museum policymaking. In addition to providing storage space, these facilities must enable the execution of all operations required for the movement of works: they should, for instance, feature loading bays and quarantine and packing areas. Collection management has thus become an essential function of museum work, whose logistics extend even to establishments that do not have storage facilities.

This approach, which is frequently taught in museology classes, has not always existed. In what may seem like a paradox, the concept of museum collection storage is intrinsically linked to museum audiences. During the period when museums were open exclusively to scholars or ‘literate visitors, those of a superior, but non-specialised intellectual culture’ (Gilson 1914, pp. 84-85), museums exhibited the greater part of their collections, much like an open-access library. A certain number of spaces were reserved for unpresentable objects, but they were few and far between. The museographic revolution that took place in the interwar period, and which was documented by the Mouseion journal (the precursor of Museum International), was notably centred around greater public accessibility; it therefore aimed to simplify museums’ exhibition systems, which would gradually be divided into two main sections: on one side, public exhibition areas open to all, and on the other, storage spaces open exclusively to scientists. Growing acquisitions would do the rest: a large number of establishments opened in the 19th century would run out of space in the following century. With initial storage spaces proving inadequate, new ones had to be considered. Very quickly, however, an order of public priorities favouring spaces open to the public—or those that could also be used for events such as cocktail parties by political leaders or company directors—began to emerge.⁴

In our interview, Gaël de Guichen—a leading figure in the domain of preventive conservation and museum collection storage—addresses this slow evolution of storage practices, which he still considers unfinished. In particular, he looks back at the founding role of the international museum conference held in 1977 at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. While its Museum Support Center is considered one of the world’s finest and most impressive conservation centres,⁵ the appalling condition of this venerable institution’s collection storage facilities motivated its then-Assistant Secretary Paul Perrot to embark on this project and initiate worldwide discussion on the subject.⁶ The case study from William Tompkins et al. in this issue discusses the Framework Plan that the Smithsonian began implementing in 2010 with the aim of improving storage conditions and anticipating issues caused by increasing collection volumes; their contribution clearly shows that proper management of collections in storage is an ongoing endeavour.

The majority of the texts featured in this issue of Museum International are case studies, most of which present current or recently completed projects: at the Museo del Prado (Prado Museum) in Madrid, Spain; Greece’s Acropolis Museum; the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural (National Museum of Natural History) in Santiago, Chile; and at museums in Belgium and India. These texts offer an account of how topical the question of storage is for museums and collections around the world; they describe how contemporary professionals come to grips with questions connected to conservation conditions, volume management and collection accessibility, and how these questions surfaced at their respective institutions as a result of relocations or events such as floods, fires and accidents. They also tell the stories of museums from the standpoint of collection storage.

However, while based on specific case studies and the current collection storage situation, these contributions also allow a longer history to emerge. For instance, the analysis contributed by Bart Ankersmit, Marzia Loddo and their colleagues on the evolution of storage practices in Dutch museums since the 1990s, and of the implementation of the government’s Delta Plan, provides a backdrop for the presentation of the Depot Boijmans van Beuningen—today considered one of the most innovative storage projects—by its Head of Collections and Research, Sandra Kisters. The concept behind the Centre de Conservation et de Ressources at the MuCem (Marseille, France), as described here by Marie-Charlotte Calafat, can be more meaningfully understood in the context of George Henri Rivière’s museological programme, his vision of the museum as an educational tool and his focus on the arrière-musée (hintermuseum)—in other words, laboratories and collection storage facilities. Meanwhile, the dynamics of the ‘museum storage exhibitions’ examined by Gaëlle Crenn can be placed into perspective by examining Warhol’s seminal exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1969. Staff members and authors Kate Irvin et al. retrace the history of the museum and this landmark exhibition, and probe the exhibition’s influence on their current approaches to collection accessibility.

All of these contributions suggest that the (hi)story of collection storage has yet to be written—and it is proving to be fascinating.

A blind spot in museum research

The vast majority of the essays in this issue are authored by professionals who are directly involved with the studied collections’ storage facilities; they are either responsible for storage spaces or for collections held in storage, or they regularly perform work there. It is for this reason that, in this issue, case studies outnumber more theoretical articles. Many of these texts are written by several authors, in the first-person plural, and/or in the form of experimental or project reports. Conversely, few researchers have thus far addressed the question of collection storage. When studying museums, humanities researchers generally examine their public faces. Krzysztof Pomian’s landmark study of world museum history (2020), which focuses on the history of collection creation without much concerning itself with the fate of works in storage, is one example of this approach. Between studies of collections (favoured by historians and art historians), studies of architecture and, above all, museum audience studies (which examine such aspects as the sociological profiles of visitors, learning approaches and visiting conditions), museum collection storage spaces and managers seem to have taken up residence in a blind spot. Conservators, mediators, restorers, and even guards appear to be rather thoroughly studied, unlike personnel working in collection storage facilities (managers, packers, technicians, preventive conservation officers, etc.), whose contributions generally remain under-researched.⁷

Nevertheless, the situation seems to be changing. New research projects are analysing behind-thescenes aspects of museum activities,⁸ with a focus on art and heritage conservation practices, using ethnographic methods that are often inspired by science and technology studies (see Beltrame’s research on the infrastructure of ethnographic collection conservation at the Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac (Quai Branly Museum) in Paris (2012), Jones and Yarrow’s study (2013) on the maintenance of Scottish architectural heritage, and Lépinay’s monograph (2019) dedicated to the ‘behind-the-scenes’ section of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg (Russia)). Meanwhile, in his ethnography of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (2020), anthropologist Fernando Domínguez Rubio dedicates an entire section to describing the Queens warehouse, which stores more than 95 per cent of the museum’s collection. Emphasising that ‘storage, not display, is the normal condition of art’, he describes the conservation techniques employed to ensure that the museum fulfil its primary purpose: to extend the lifespan of works, preserving them faithfully in spite of their continuous deterioration over time.⁹ Another recent publication providing evidence of this change is Museum Storage and Meaning: Tales from the Crypt (2018). Reviewed in this volume by Tiziana Beltrame, the collected essays edited by historians Mirjam Brusius and Kavita Singh examine new narratives that emerged as a result of collections in storage becoming visible, using case studies related by museum professionals and specialists from countries across the globe (including the United Kingdom, India, South Africa, Greece and Australia).¹⁰

This issue of Museum International thus contributes to the turn within the field, promoting a broader understanding of the museum—which is not limited to the sum of its public areas and exhibited objects.

A journey through the world’s collection storage facilities

To provide an account of these dynamics and of the main questions with regards to collection storage, we have decided to structure this issue around four main thematic perspectives.

The first group of contributions examines collection storage with a focus on its technical and organisational evolution. Ana Tomás-Hernández attempts to formulate her own collection storage management theory using a model based on ‘Technical Debt’, while Geert Bauwens and Estelle De Bruyn present the preliminary findings of an ongoing survey of energy-efficiency improvements in the collection storage facilities of several small Belgian museums. Numerous authors discuss the new management methods adopted by their establishments: Patricia Lucas Murillo de la Cueva and Isabel Bennasar Cabrera at the Museo del Prado, Maria Papadopoulou et al. at the Acropolis Museum, Athens, and Bill Tompkins et al. discussing the Smithsonian Institution’s collection storage. Stephan Freivogel et al. discuss Geneva’s ethnographic museum, while Sandra Kisters presents the new and much-anticipated Depot of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in the Netherlands. Collection storage is adapting in view of new ecological and environmental considerations, changes in classification methods resulting from the use of digital tools, and in response to the demands and expectations of the public.

The technical developments discussed in these articles reveal the increasing complexity of the work performed by collection managers and preventive conservation specialists. These developments are also tied to another, arguably more visible evolution in the relationship between collection storage and public engagement. As we addressed earlier, the creation of collection storage is closely associated with changes in the way museums relate to their audiences. This seems to be an ongoing shift: it is for the sake of the ‘public’—a term that seems far more persuasive in opening doors than the sole preservation of objects—that collection storage spaces have been strongly encouraged to welcome one and all. The second section of this issue discusses the change that has led museums to exhibit and interpret works in storage, using four examples. Gaëlle Crenn describes ‘museum storage exhibitions’ in three museums around the world (Australia, Germany and Italy), examining the displays employed. Kate Irvin et al., Liz Hide and Dan Pemberton, and Marie-Charlotte Calafat present three case studies, discussing the approaches adopted by their respective museums (the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, the University of Cambridge’s Sedgwick Museum of Earth Science, and MuCem’s Centre de Conservation et de Ressources in Marseille), in attempts to solve this particular equation between preventive conservation, public access and curatorial display.

The majority of the case studies presented in the first two sections are based on a Western approach to heritage management in comparatively wealthy countries (and museums). The contributions in the third section, conversely, offer a broader overview of collection storage around the world. At first, the problems they discuss prove identical—storing objects, ensuring their preservation and making them accessible—but the manner in which these are addressed differs considerably from one region to another. Planning methods developed in the Netherlands, at the national level, offer a particularly important case study from the perspective of the history of collection management, whose evolution over the course of the last few decades is discussed by Bart Ankersmit et al. Other, more specific solutions (notably, related to shared storage facilities) are analysed by Janusz Czop, who uses their implementation in Poland as a starting point; and by Belén Navazo Hourcade to discuss museum practices in one region of Norway. Collection storage questions are also conditioned by the type of heritage to be preserved, and the specific conditions required, as is the case in Claudio Gómez’s, Cristian Becker’s and Leslie Azócar’s analysis of Chile’s natural history collections. Subsaharan African museums face other challenges: ones related, for instance, to sometimes-difficult storage conditions, and, more importantly, to the abandon of certain secular local traditions. Gamaliel Njoya Ntieche examines the collection storage situation in Western Cameroonian museums through the prism of Western management, while Bély Hermann Abdoul-Karim Niangao presents the case of the Musée National du Burkina Faso (National Museum of Burkina Faso) and the role of Living Human Treasures in heritage preservation. Meanwhile, moving to the Asian subcontinent, the picture of collection storage in India painted by Kanupriya Sharma offers a glimpse of complex climate conditions, which partly explain the occasional differences in heritage preservation approaches taken there.

Founded in 1956 by UNESCO Member States and supported by 130 of its States, ICCROM aims to develop global and particular, country-specific solutions in the domain of preventive conservation, with a particular focus on museum collection storage. We thus decided to dedicate the final section of this issue to RE-ORG, a programme introduced by ICCROM in 2011 at the instigation of Gaël de Guichen. Ten years after its creation, RE-ORG remains one of the most dynamic and influential initiatives in collection storage reorganisation. Two articles in the volume discuss the particular initiatives undertaken under the auspice of this collection storage reorganisation project: in the first of these, Catherine Antomarchi et al. present the global results achieved in the 10 years since the programme was implemented, while the second presents Bako Rasoarifetra’s analysis of a case study from Madagascar.

(Re)defining storage

The definition of museum collection storage offered by RE-ORG’s creator Gaël de Guichen emphasises its relationship with the public: ‘The place where unexhibited collections are brought together in optimal conditions, ready to be displayed in galleries, studied by specialists, and, if possible, seen by the public.’ This definition clearly shows the rather unique character of a space that was initially intended exclusively for specialists, but that is increasingly encouraged (or forced) to make itself accessible to everyone, at least according to specific protocols. Therein lies the paradox of a space that is essentially associated with conservation and, to a certain extent, with the separation of collections from the world, but that is nevertheless gradually yielding to contemporary audiences—at the risk of occasionally forgetting those of tomorrow. In the end, it all amounts to a fine balancing act, as Guichen underlines in his interview.

Collection storage is changing and redefining itself—as are museums as a whole—through reorganisation, autonomisation, opening to the public and other initiatives. One of the reasons that storage is slowly breaking away from the museum is the latter’s altered relationship with audiences, research and collections. The last of these appear to be increasingly seen as commodity flows, outsourced to other operators that are sometimes situated hundreds or thousands of kilometres from museums—a model reminiscent of large corporations, with their offshoring and the ubiquitous logistics required to manage the flows of goods connected to their business. These movements of cultural commodities and new storage facilities (such as free ports in Switzerland), including those used by private collectors, are subjects that deserve more in-depth study, since they constitute central elements in the museum field as it currently stands. This flow and transport model seemed to reign supreme until it was abruptly interrupted by the pandemic in 2020. How will things appear in the years to come? One thing is certain: museum collection storage will continue to evolve.

Notes

1 Available on ICOM’s website: https://icom.museum/wp-content/ uploads/2019/09/Resolutions_2019_EN.pdf

2 For a recent and general discussion of the future of heritage collections, see Jacobi (2021). For a perspective on the role of collections within museums, see Mairesse (2021).

3 ‘Ça Bouge Dans les Réserves’ (Things Are Happening in Museum Collection Storage) to quote the title of an ICCROM event held in January 2021 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its Re-Org programme (a focus of one of this issue’s sections; see below). Also see: https://www.iccrom.org/lecture/ re-org-ca-bouge-dans-les-reserves

4 For a brief history of museum collection storage, see Griesser-Stermscheg (2014).

5 It was also one of the most aesthetic/photogenic of the existing collection centres: for instance, it was used as a set in Night at the Museum 2; it also appears in artist Camille Henrot’s film Grosse Fatigue, which was shown at the 2013 Venice Biennale and explores the question of accumulation: https://www. camillehenrot.fr/en/work/68/grosse-fatigue

6 The conclusions from this conference can be found on ICOM-CC’s website: http://www.icom-cc.org/10/documents/#. YLEQNaGxWUk

7 For more on collection managers, who oversee the movement of works and thus play an essential role in collection storage, see (in particular) Vassal and Daynes-Diallo (2016).

8 For more on the behind-the-scenes question, see Kreplak (2021).

9 As he writes: ‘The museum is the machine making it possible that paintings made of seeds and plastics, sculptures made of wax and latex, performances made of hugs, installations made of candies, photographs made of gelatin, or videos made of digital code, do not become undone by the blind relentlessness of things’ (2020, p. 17).

10 See also art historian Noémie Étienne’s study (2018), which introduces a critical view of methods used in the conservation of objects in storage through a study of Native American objects from the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), and problematises various types of agency attributed to objects by different cultures.