Alan Ducarre, Author at WFFM

Featured, PAST EVENT, WFFM

18 May 2025

Council and General Assembly Meeting of the WFFM Naples, Pompeii and Caserta from 15 to 18 May 2025

WFFM federations and associations will meet in Naples – Caserta for four days to exchange information and to visit the attractions in Naples and Caserta.

The preliminary program and registration form are available below:

Registration →

Non classé

15 February 2025

UPCOMING EVENT TEST

Featured, YOUNG FRIENDS

6 October 2024

The Young Council: a new international impetus for Young Friends

Created in October 2024 by the World Federation of Friends of Museums (WFFM), the Young Council is a group of Young Friends leaders from different national federations. Each member country of the World Federation can designate one or two delegates to represent young people involved in museum and community life.

The main objective of the Young Council is to promote international exchanges between Young Friends sections and to give impetus to a common dynamic on a global scale. It aims to structure and strengthen the commitment of young people within Friends of museums associations, by offering them a framework for exchange and cooperation.

The delegates of the Young Council also provide a direct link with the Executive Committee of the World Federation, ensuring that youth-led initiatives are integrated into a global vision. In this way, they participate in strategic thinking and actively contribute to the development of the Young Friends movement internationally.

A key moment for the Young Council is the preparation of the General Assembly of the World Federation, which will be held in Naples in May 2025. This year, the focus will be on ‘How to create and maintain links between Young Friends’.

The challenge is to identify good practice and strengthen synergies between the different sections around the world.

In addition to this event, the Young Council is in line with the strategic priorities of the World Federation, by developing collective projects and supporting local initiatives that contribute to the vitality and structuring of the Young Friends network.

With this initiative, the World Federation of Friends of Museums asserts its desire to support young people in their commitment to culture and heritage, by offering them a framework conducive to exchange, collaboration and innovation.

PAST EVENT, WFFM

13 October 2023

European Day 2024

“Your museum, our passion “

The European Day 2024 aims to celebrate Friends of Museums groups throughout Europe and to give the Friends of Museums visibility and more recognition in an event that is specific to them and not to be confused with those organized by museums.

Museum enthusiasts across Europe – united in national federations of Friends of Museums within a worldwide Federation – inaugurated the annual European Day of Friends of Museums on the second Sunday of October 2023.

The purpose is to raise the profile of Friends of Museums in Europe on a single day when each association highlights the actions it carries out throughout the year and raises the profile of their museum. On the 1st European Friends of Museums Day, Sunday October 13, we shall emphasize that museums are a heritage to be enjoyed by all and we have a shared responsibility for their preservation and promotion.

Over a thousand friends of museums associations all over Europe participate. They celebrate the importance of museums as custodians of heritage, as spaces of encounter, and cultural enrichment for all. They are driven by passionate individuals who want to share and spread their enthusiasm. They support their museums in purchasing works of art, financing exhibitions and projects, and taking on important tasks in cultural education.

World Federation of Friends of Museums, WFFM https://thewffm.org/

PAST EVENT, WFFM

17 February 2023

2023 WFFM GENERAL ASSEMBLY

On the year “Brussels, Capital of Art Nouveau”, the General Assembly of the World Federation of Friends of Museums was held in the Avenue Louise district of the town.

This artistic movement first appeared in Brussels at the end of the 19th century, before spreading rapidly to France and the rest of Europe.

From a cultural point of view, the meeting allowed the discovery of some emblematic monuments of Art Nouveau: the Horta Museum, the Hotel Solvay, the Hotel Hallet and the recently renovated Hannon House.

In addition to the institutional meetings, two topics have been the subject of conferences and exchanges: Young Friends of Museums and “Friends of Museums, influencers?”

After several preparatory meetings, the general meeting also approved the launch in 2023 of an annual European Day of Friends of Museums to raise the profile of Friends of Museums.

14 February 2023

“Brussels, Capital of Art Nouveau”

On the year “Brussels, Capital of Art Nouveau”, the General Assembly of the World Federation of Friends of Museums was held in the Avenue Louise district of the town.

This artistic movement first appeared in Brussels at the end of the 19th century, before spreading rapidly to France and the rest of Europe.

In addition to the institutional meetings, two topics have been the subject of conferences and exchanges: Young Friends of Museums and “Friends of Museums, influencers?”

After several preparatory meetings, the general meeting also approved the launch in 2023 of an annual European Day of Friends of Museums to raise the profile of Friends of Museums.

2 June 2022

General Assembly of the World Federation of Friends of Museums (WFFM) 2- 5 June 2022, Marseille

The founding of the World Federation of Friends of Museums in 1975, inspired by the International Committee of Museums (ICOM) and its structure, has met the need to create an international network of friends of museums to foster international cooperation among associations of friends of museums, promote their mutual understanding, exchange information and share experiences in order to intensify the life and development of these associations for the benefit of museums and the public.

In the fall of 2019, after the WFFM General Assembly was held in Montreal, the Fédération Française des Sociétés d’Amis de Musées (FFSAM) agreed in turn to organize it in May 2021 in Marseille, with the assistance of the Society of Friends of the Mucem, the year after the triennial World Congress of Friends of Museums that was to be held in March 2020 in Canberra and Sydney, Australia.

Unfortunately, the Congress was cancelled ten days before its opening due to international health restrictions imposed by the Covid pandemic.

For the same reasons, we had to postpone the General Assembly of the World Federation to June 2022. It is the determination of the preparation team during these two and a half years that allowed this meeting to be a success, with a dedicated site www.wffmmarseille.org , and its smooth running in the three official languages, French, English and Spanish.

We succeeded in welcoming, as we had hoped, about sixty delegates from fifteen countries, the presidents and representatives of the following national federations: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States; and representatives of the associate members from Luxembourg, Switzerland and Uruguay.

On this occasion, Luxembourg, Norway and Switzerland has returned to the world federation which they had left some years ago.

The Young Friends project has been a constituent of the world federation since 1984, strongly revitalized in 2014.

In Marseille, a third of the delegates represented Young Friends sections from seven countries, Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the United States; Young Friends, as usual, developed a specific program of meetings and reflection, here on the first two days of the general assembly.

After a privileged welcome in the vestiges of the Ancient Port, under the auspices of the Mayor of Marseille, the participants discovered the emblematic heritage sites of the city and its museums: the Préau des Accoules, a museum dedicated to children, the dolias of the Roman Docks, an in situ museum, the dazzling decorative arts at the Château Borély; the exceptional reserves of Marseille’s museums not open to the public and the spectacular ones at the Mucem’s Conservation and Resource Center, for the Young Friends; the exhibition on migratory objects, which are part of our civilization, at the Vieille Charité; the “Connectivités” exhibition at the Mucem, offering a global, Braudelian approach to the Mediterranean; the “Couleurs des Suds” exhibition of the painters of Provence in their setting at the Regards de Provence museum.

Two important moments for thoughts were shared during these meetings:

– A conference on “how to exhibit an idea”, given in the Eugénie room of the Palais du Pharo, by Barbara Cassin, academician and curator of the exhibition “Objets migrateurs, trésors sous influences”, explaining her conceptual museum approach to highlighting ideas, with the view of Nicolas Misery, director of the museums of Marseille.

– A striking and relevant round table on the help that digital technology can bring to the Friends of Museums, led at the Museum of History of Marseille by the young generation of experts, Bérénice Kübler, PhD student and teacher in Management Sciences at Aix-Marseille University and Bérénice Billiez, independent consultant in the fields of cultural mediation and digital communication.

Finally, the institutional meetings of the world federation at the Mucem, in addition to the exchanges held between the national federations, underlined, after these difficult years, the importance of a federating project of the Friends of Museums and reinforced the intention to launch an annual European day of the Friends of Museums to meet the public, around the same date and a common annual theme, in order to contribute to the emergence of a European public of museums.

Report of the French Federation