Sydney Ideas

A panel presents fresh perspectives on museums approaches to human rights and the Holocaust, exploring and explicating contemporary international debates. Experts from various disciplinary backgrounds alongside museum practitioners analyse, challenge, and critically assess existing approaches, while considering possible future directions for these increasingly influential institutions. For while human rights museums with a Holocaust core or theme proliferate internationally, this burgeoning area of museology has not yet been subject to systematic scholarly study. By comparing and contrasting the unique combination of advocacy (human rights) with memory (the Holocaust), the ARC Linkage project Reverberations: The Holocaust, Human Rights and the Museum is setting the agenda for theory, practice, and policy with regard to human rights and Holocaust museums in the 21st century. Chaired by Dr Avril Alba, a Senior Lecturer in Holocaust Studies and Jewish Civilisation, and Director (Acting) of the Museums and He