Following the recent devastating floods in Valencia, ICOM is calling on museums and national crisis management committees to update their emergency plans for museums and cultural institutions. ICOM is asking Museums to identify the works of art that need to be rescued first in a crisis.
The recent floods in Spain are the latest in a series
of disasters that have hit more than twenty countries in recent weeks. ICOM in collaboration with its national
Committees in Austria, the Czech Republic, Japan, Mali, Nepal, Poland, Romania, and Spain are trying to assess the damage in each country and identify new needs arising
from the climate crisis.
Flooding poses a serious threat to museums,
endangering both their infrastructure and the preservation of collections, said the International Organisation in a statement. Humidity and water are some
major threats to artworks and museum collections. The Museum Council expresses its deep concern about the
devastating floods that have recently affected communities worldwide, already affecting almost every continent
in the world in the last year alone.
The situation in Valencia has not yet been fully assessed, but in the Czech Republic,
the
extensive floods of 1997 and 2002 left their
mark on the country and its museum community. The flooding impacted
some thirty buildings belonging to galleries or museums and caused
damage amounting to some €50 million. It took Czech museums and galleries more than a year and a half to recover
from
the disaster.
Based on this experience, some institutions have developed contingency plans and have shared experience with other crisis-facing institutions.
In 2021, ICOM's
International Commission on Conservation (ICOM CC) published Guidelines for the Rehabilitation of Cultural Heritage for
Objects
Damaged by Water based on experience from floods
in Central Europe, China, and India aimed at museum professionals around the world.
For its part, the ICOM National Committee in Austria has set up a working group with regional museum associations, including the Federal Ministry of Culture, the Austrian Emergency Platform for Museums and Archives, the Austrian Commission for UNESCO, the Federal Office for Monuments and Sites, the Austrian Armed Forces and Blue Shield Austria. The aim of the group is to produce a publication on emergency planning for museums and cultural institutions, bringing together all the relevant information available from international organisations in a useful, comprehensive handbook.
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Image: In the Czech Republic, the extensive floods of 1997 and 2002 left their mark on the country and its museum community. Credit: Matěj Baťha
