ICOM's new president is Italian: Alberto Garlandini to lead top museum body

Italy’s Alberto Garlandini is the new president of ICOM (International Council of Museums), the main body representing museums worldwide. Garlandini, a museologist and expert in cultural heritage management, was vice-president of ICOM before becoming president of the body, and was previously president of the Italian section of ICOM, a member of the board of directors of the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, president of the scientific committee of the Science Museum in Trento, and a member of the scientific committee of the Brescia Musei Foundation. He then served on the Italian ministerial commission for the reform of state museums and the national museum system.

Garlandini was appointed yesterday following the resignation of the outgoing president, Turkey’s Suay Aksoy, and will serve in the role until the election of a new board of directors in Prague in 2022. In his place, Zambian Terry Simioti Nyambe, former president of ICOM Zambia, has been appointed as vice president.

The new president sent a message to members in which he thanked former president Aksoy and took stock of the situation: “In recent years,” Garlandini wrote, “ICOM has experienced continued growth. We have faced difficult problems, learned significant lessons, and reimagined the present and future of museums and their changing communities. We have worked hard to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, to improve the social role of museums, to promote diversity and inclusion, to combat inequality and racism, and to protect endangered heritage. We must look forward with confidence and optimism following the example of the enlightened directors who founded ICOM in 1946, believing that museums and heritage were indispensable to creating a peaceful and prosperous world.”

“Pluralism, diversity, democracy and transparency have always been ICOM’s strengths,” Garlandini concludes, “and they are needed now more than ever. We need to strengthen our common vision and mission. The unity of ICOM and the museum community is the treasure we are committed to preserving and promoting. Let us move forward hand in hand toward our common goals.”

In the photo, Alberto Garlandini

ICOM's new president is Italian: Alberto Garlandini to lead top museum body

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