Research project
Museum Lab
How can we learn from museums and their in cutting-edge practices in ethics, collecting, display, technology and interpretation?
- Duration
- 2024 - 2025
- Contact
- Laurie Cosmo
- Funding
- Dutch Ministry of Education Startersbeurs
- Partners
- Wereldmuseum Leiden
- Stichting Stolpersteine Amsterdam
- Foundation Herdenking Jodenvervolging Leiden
- Rijksmuseum Boerhaave
- Early Printed and Rare Books, Leiden University Library
- KNIR (Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome)
- NIKI (Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut)
Upcoming workshops
The Museum Lab offers workshops during the spring semester of 2025. Each workshop will be in collaboration with a different museum and address another aspect of museum practice.
-
27 Feb: Presenting the wonders of early modern encyclopaedic collections in Leiden
-
xx Mar: Rethinking the Wereldmuseum Leiden through Indigeneity and Contemporary Art
-
24 Apr: Collecting sustainability and climate change for Rijksmuseum Boerhaave
-
7-9 May: Commemoration in the city: Engaging with the Stolpersteine in Leiden and beyond
Up to 20 students can take part in each workshop, with sign-up being on a first-come-first-served basis.
Upcoming Conference: 'Museum Legacies and Why Museum History Matters'
We will host a conference about museums with important histories shaped by their founders, collections, politics, or locations. It will explore how these museums' legacies have been passed down and viewed over time.
International keynote speakers will be invited, and there will be a special session for student participation.
The event is organized in collaboration with Leiden University and museum and academic partners in the Netherlands and globally.
More news on the conference will soon follow.
Upcoming Book: 'Benchmarks: The Rise of Modern Museums in the 1930s Netherlands'
In the 1930s, five modern art museums were founded in the Netherlands, each making a bold statement with new buildings, experimental art, and avant-garde displays. This rapid growth of modern museums in a small country on the edge of Nazi occupation is a unique European case. Focusing on Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Kröller-Müller Museum, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Van Abbemuseum, this book explores their ambitions, collections, and international connections that helped shape these important cultural institutions of the 20th century.
The book is edited by Dr. Laurie Kalb Cosmo and Dr. Mary Bouquet and its publication is planned for Winter 2025/2026.
Related research
15 February: Conference presentation by Laurie Kalb Cosmo, "Accommodating New Expressions and an Increasing Public Commitment to Art: The Emergence of Museums of Modern Art in the Netherlands" for Panel on "Presenting Contemporary Art in Museums, ca. 1880-1930: Temporary Exhibitions, Institutional Networks and Collecting,” at 113 Annual College Art Association, New York, NY USA.
15 January: Public Lecture by Laurie Kalb Cosmo, “Liberation and Creativity: Jewish Artists and Philanthropists in Rome Between 1870 and 1938” at Museum Casa di Goethe Rome, in association with exhibition Max Liebermann: An Impressionist from Berlin.
6 December: Contributors Meeting for Edited Volume on Modern Museums in the 1930s Netherlands. Moderated by Prof. dr. Kitty Zijlmans (Emeritus Leiden University).
22 November: Roman Museum Legacies – Dialogue with dott.ssa Francesca Cappelletti, director of the Galleria Borghese. Moderated by Laurie Kalb Cosmo. KNIR (Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome/Royal Dutch Institute in Rome). https://www.knir.it/en/evenementen/roman-museum-legacies-dialogue-with-dott-ssa-francesca-cappelletti-director-of-the-galleria-borghese/
3-9 November: MA Museum Studies Excursion to the NIKI (Nederlands Interuniversitair Kunsthistorisch Instituut/Netherlands Interuniversity Institute for Art History) for the course Museums of the Future: Ethics, Responsibilities, and Practices (with funding from Leiden University Study Abroad).
18 September: Roman Museum Legacies – Dialogue with Francesco Stocchi, Artistic Director of MAXXI. Moderated by Laurie Kalb Cosmo. KNIR (Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome/Royal Dutch Institute in Rome). https://www.knir.it/en/evenementen/roman-museum-legacies-dialogue-with-francesco-stocchi-artistic-director-of-maxxi/
28 May: Roman Museum Legacies – Dialogue with Andrea Viliani, Director of the Museo delle Civiltà. Moderated by Laurie Kalb Cosmo. KNIR (Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome/Royal Dutch Institute in Rome). https://www.knir.it/en/evenementen/roman-museum-legacies-andrea-viliani/
*The museum history research conducted in Rome by Museum Lab Director Dr. Laurie Kalb Cosmo has been sponsored by a two-year (2023/2025) Museum Fellowship at the KNIR (Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome/Royal Dutch Institute in Rome ).
Transnational histories through historical and present-day interpretations of the Hindeloopen rooms, by Dr. Susanne Boersma
This study locates artefacts from the Hindeloopen rooms in different museums and studies the presented and known contexts of these unique objects. What do we know about the context in which the object was collected? What was and is the role of these artefacts in the different museums? What can we learn from the journey of the artefacts and their materials? And how are the different histories of these artefacts and museums possibly intertwined? Following these questions, this study assembles an overview of the Hindeloopen rooms and sheds light on the history of museum collections and their relation to local, national and global histories.