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MUSEUMS FOR CLIMATE ACTIONS: COP27 AND SHARM EL-SHEIKH MUSEUM

REIMAGINE MUSEUMS FOR CLIMATE CRISIS: We were at the Sharm-El Sheikh Museum in Sharm El-Sheikh, South Sinai, Egypt!
The only connection between COP27 and Sharm El-Sheikh Museum in this article is that they are located in the same place :)

This is the city of COP27 this year, as you know... All eyes will be here again in November. So what can be the connection of the subject which is of interest to museologists with this place? The answer is the role of museums in the struggle against the climate crisis. In fact, you may remember the exhibition prepared by the Glasgow Science Center during the COP26 process. Emma Woodham, Climate Crisis Program Director of Glasgow Science Centre, said that they wanted to raise awareness, inform, influence and support the process in parallel with COP26 for the exhibition in question. The exhibition, Reimagining Museums for Climate Action, features eight exhibits was developed by teams from Scotland and the rest of the UK, the United States, Singapore, Indonesia and Brazil. (It would be great if it was brought to the Sharm El-Sheikh Museum as a traveling exhibition, at least during the COP27 process.) Anyway... The agenda of COP27 is not different from the previous year or years. Whatever their area of ​​expertise, the common point of all is our future, our world. At this point, the narrative of the museums is important. While the functions of museums are increasing day by day, intercultural mediation remains at the forefront, so do museum translations and the source-target languages ​​used. Even if the types, missions, visions of the museums are different, they should adopt the common terminology on this subject, to gain speed in the meaning, comprehension and awareness process of its audience. 

The most important detail we need to remember is this: language (actually depending on this, "translation and semiotics") has a separating element as well as a unifying factor. Visitors do not think about something they do not understand, cannot think, and in time an experience they will see as a waste of time. Museum translations do not only include the concepts of 'source texts' and 'target texts' and do not necessarily consist of oral texts. It is foreseen that translation in museums is understood as a process of selection, displacement, exhibition and interpretation. For this reason, museum translations are of great importance in many subjects, including this issue.

Now let's talk about the Sharm El-Sheikh Museum! (We're pretty sure you will like the museum and its collections!) Although the idea of ​​the museum was built in 2006, the completion of the construction only takes place in 2017. The museum opened in late 2020 and is known as the first antiquities museum completed in Sinai. The construction budget of the museum is $52 million, or EGP 812 million. The museum has 3 exhibition halls, event squares, areas for the sale of local crafts and an open-air theater. The museum contains 5200 artifacts and has halls according to different themes such as the Grand Hall, the Civilization Hall and the Wild Life Hall. There is a variety of information available on the Ancient Egyptian Civilization, describing its wildlife, people, vehicles (such as solar barks), nature and occupations. 

Some museologist research around here :) The construction of the museum belongs to MADKOUR company. The company, based in Cairo, has been at the forefront for 30 years with its turnkey project management and services covering the entire process from design to plant initiation in many fields such as energy projects, infrastructure projects, industrial projects. In the museum, it was aimed to manage all of the lighting, security systems, energy management, heating, ventilation, air conditioning systems, signaling and monitoring systems, service and building control systems, interfaces, remote control, audio and video controls with a single system and worked with KNX Partner. The internal control mechanism in museums is of great importance for the storage as well as the exhibition of the works. For Sharm El Sheikh Museum, we can mention the Dimming Lighting Control System of the DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) system. (Normally one of the 3 most preferred options that we all know: 1) Light fittings with on-board dimming, 2) Dali – Digital Addressable Lighting Interface, 3) Bluetooth Mesh Technology.)


Highlights from Sharm El-Sheikh Museum:

As mentioned in the education at the University of Glasgow in our previous article titled "Categorization of Museum Visitors", museum labels should be intriguing and free from unnecessary informations. Well... We need to say this... While visiting the museum, you realize that you enjoy reading the labels within informations! (Interesting, yeah we know...) You read the next sentence with "curiosity." The museographic studies, the drawings, and the texts were intriguing. The museum objects in the showcases are grouped within themselves and presented to the visitor. In Arabic and English, an information text is included for each theme. Reading the texts does not bother the visitor, you read the next sentence in a fluent style with curiosity. Texts that blend essential information were preferred without keeping the visitor busy with excessive historical informations and irrelevant details.

Examples of Museum Showcase Labels:





Examples of Object Labels:



The interior lighting of the museum halls is quite stunning with soft views. Your eyes do not get tired during your visit. Moreover, when you want to take a photo (without flash, of course), nothing is reflected in the showcase (caused by museum display glass) or the object does not come out dark (surface mounted showcase lights), on the contrary, you can get clear photos - which is unfortunately not the case in most museums.





A separate ticket must be purchased for photography camera for personal use at the entrance to the museum. Even if you are a museologist -like us-, you must buy the ticket.


And we must say, the design of the coffin chamber of the daughter of King Pinedjem I (1070-1032 BC) was well-thought-out. The soft music in the background (almost inaudible), the movement of the curtains by creating a gentle breeze that the movement from behind the coffin, the tone of the lighting, the design of the visitor's point of view... everything is quite well-thought-out!
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