Speaker
Description
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has declared its 2022 theme as ‘The Power of Museums’. This is declined in three lines: The power of achieving sustainability: Museums are strategic partners in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. As key actors in their local communities, they contribute to a wide variety of Goals, which include fostering short-circuit and social economy and disseminating scientific information on environmental challenges. The power of innovating on digitalisation and accessibility: Museums have become innovative playing-grounds where new technologies can be developed and applied to everyday life. Digital innovation can make museums more accessible and engaging, helping audiences understand complex and nuanced concepts.
The power of community building through education: Through its collections and programmes, museums thread a social fabric that is essential in community building. By upholding democratic values and providing life-long learning opportunities to all, they contribute to shaping an informed and engaged civil society.details.
These themes will be commented in the light of how crystallographic communication to the public can express these super-powers towards the society. Crystallography has in fact changed the way in which scientist see the material world, and this has migrated to the vision that people have of structures (Figure 1). The case of the Museum of Cristallochimica at the University of Parma [1] will be taken as an example.
Figure 1. Structural model of NaCl at the Museo di Cristallochimica in Parma
[1] A. Bacchi, C. Massera, M. Tegoni, 2014, CRISTALLI!, MUP Editore, ISBN978-88-7847-475-8
