A century ago, in February 1920, a 35- year-old politician by the name of Enrico Mizzi stood up during a Council of Government session to propose the establishment of what was soon to become the Valletta Museum at Auberge d’Italie, now MUŻA.
This museum as proposed by Mizzi had been originally intended as an art museum proper given his mention of works of art and material culture that were then being brought together by the then inspector of fine arts, Vincenzo Bonello.
The Valletta museum was to become a historic museum inaugurated on Empire Day of 1925.
Beyond the timing of this statement, delivered on the eve of Malta’s first self-government constitution granted a few months later in 1921, Mizzi’s claim can be read and understood as a synthesis of the museological thought of the times, albeit presented in the vestiges of a political statement.
As Mizzi proposed the ideal historic container where the material culture then being recovered from the throes of colonialism had to be held in custody, the state was being called to act in line with national legislation protecting cultural heritage property then in place. Back then, the Valletta museum would be practically one of a very small group of museums on the island, most of which were run by the state.
Over the years and, since then, the Maltese museum ecosystem has evolved to include a mix of state-run, non-governmental and private museums besides those managed by the Catholic Church. The character of this ecosystem continues to be historical and object-centred, yet to engage with issues-based museological thinking that has seen museums all over the world engage in social issues such as the Black Lives Matter or the Museums for Future Movements.
The Maltese museum ecosystem that has taken shape over time remains by and large unregulated, unless through the material culture which it manages and holds in trust. As strange as it may seem, the Cultural Heritage Act (2002) has yet to regulate and, by consequence, recognise Malta’s museum institution and its ecosystem, be it public, private or non-governmental.
Indeed, while the framework for regulating the country’s cultural heritage is in place, and consistently improved upon with each and every amendment proposed since 2002, the museum institution continues to be conspicuously absent from Malta’s cultural heritage legislation save for three mentions.
The Maltese museum ecosystem that has taken shape over time remains by and large unregulated- Sandro Debono
The first of these may be found in the preliminary section listing the definitions of the various terms to which the act refers. The other two additional references to the museum institution are listed along with the functions designated to the national agency as resources to regulate or hold in trust (Heritage Malta).
There is no mention of status, standards and policies neither within nor around the Cultural Heritage Act. Indeed, in practical terms and as the current legal framework stands, any Maltese citizen can manage a museum institution with no binding obligations save for those which revolve around accessibility, care and conservation, among others.
The regulatory structures that can be explored further as potential case studies are certainly not lacking. The Estonian Museums Act (1996), for example, regulates the “activities of state museums, municipal museums and museums of legal persons in public law” and makes a clear distinction between central and county museums, introduces reporting mechanisms and is, in vernal terms, guided by museological and museographical principles that are absent from Malta’s national legislation (Museums Act, 1996).
Perhaps, a more appropriate framework to be studied in the case of Malta would be the French museum registration system known as ‘Musée de France’ by which museums registered with this title would enjoy the endorsement of the state and, thus, eligible to funding and access to expertise.
In order to qualify, the candidate museum would have to present an inventory of assets in its care and what can be described as a scientific project proposal outlining scope and purpose, including the museum’s organigram, statutes and other guarantees.
A similar museum classification system is the one enshrined in Hungarian national legislation (Act About Museum Institutions, Public Library Services and Community Culture, 1997, CXL), which classifies national museums, national specialised museums, thematic, regional and county museums. Hungarian legislation also recognises museum exhibitions and collections of public utility.
This long overdue regulatory framework would, by default, recognise the Maltese museum institution through the benchmarks it should be striving to comply with, the policies and standards it should be implementing and the resources it should have in hand in order to reach them.
The desired ambition for this regulatory framework should be that of providing the necessary support mechanism to bring about systemic change, rather than serve the purpose of a tool for control albeit also necessary in particular circumstances.
COVID-19 has exposed challenges and mismatches that were there way before the pandemic came along. This may be one of the more evident to address.
Sandro Debono, academic specialising in art history and museum studies