The Regular Spring Assembly of the National Committee of ICOM Serbia was held in the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on Saturday, March 22nd, 2025, starting at 10 a.m. The session was opened by the president of the National Committee of ICOM Serbia, Tatjana Mihailović, PhD. The Spring Assembly is one of three Regular sessions of the Assembly of the National Committee of ICOM Serbia that are held each year. In addition to this, there is a ceremonial session associated with the awarding of ICOM awards in May and an annual session scheduled for December to summarize the results of the work.
After introducing the participants to the agenda of the session, Tatjana Mihailović, PhD, put the Minutes of the last December Assembly of the National Committee of ICOM to the vote. She then introduced the attendees to the content of the Report of the Work of the National Committee of ICOM Serbia for 2024. She highlighted the permanent increase in membership, which currently has around 520 individual and around 30 institutional members. She particularly highlighted the activities of the Ethics Team and its work on monitoring changes and implementing the new Code of Ethics. She also presented the newly established Awards Committee. She informed the participants about certain delays in the work of the Pension Committee. She then presented the work of expert groups, such as: the Glass Group, the CIDOC Group, museums in web ecosystems, costume groups, CECA groups, etc. Finally, she emphasized that the report also included the segment of social engagement, i.e. that ICOM supported the demands of students in the blockade and the demands for the General Staff building. After the adoption of the work report, the Financial Report for 2024 was presented and adopted. Then, the meeting moved on to the adoption of the draft Work Plan for 2025.
Marija Radin, editor-in-chief of the magazine of the National Committee of ICOM Serbia, presented the separate issue of the 20th issue of the magazine, which contains an overview of all museum exhibitions in 2024, calling it a chronicle of the work of museums in Serbia. The separate issue mentioned 232 new exhibitions from 75 museums and 45 cities and 10 new or reconstructed permanent museum exhibitions. She shared with those present the challenges faced by the Editorial Board and how complex the data collection system was. After presenting the content of the separate issue, Marija Radin took the opportunity to invite the gathered colleagues to participate in publishing the issue that will represent Serbia at the 27th ICOM General Assembly in Dubai. After Marija Radin’s presentation, a debate broke out about the work of the ICOM Awards Committee and its comparison with the work of the Committee of the Museum Society of Serbia.
Lidija Milašinović, Serbia’s representative in the Regional Alliance of ICOM SEE, shared her experiences from the conference of the Regional Alliance of ICOM SEE for South-Eastern Europe, which was held on 7 and 8 May 2024 at the Kikinda National Museum. She emphasized that the importance of being present in the ICOM SEE group is reflected in maintaining permanent contacts between museum experts in the region, which can significantly facilitate all research efforts abroad. She announced a new ICOM SEE conference to be held this year in Nova Gorica, Slovenia.
This spring session of the Assembly of the ICOM National Committee of Serbia was marked by the establishment of the INTERCOM working group. Lidija Milašinović, Director of the National Museum of Kikinda, is one of the initiators of the idea to launch a new INTERCOM working group, which will operate within the framework of the ICOM National Committee of Serbia. She said that INTERCOM is a group for management and governance in museums, which, in addition to organizing additional education for people in management positions in museums, would also have a control role, that is, it could react in the event of the appointment of inadequate personnel to the position of museum director or when the institution’s credibility is violated by the institution’s manager. The participants agreed that one of the tasks of this group should be to prescribe desirable management strategies. Lidija Milašinović introduced the attendees to the directors and other experts who have joined the INTERCOM group so far and invited everyone interested in museum management to join.
After the conclusion of the working part of the assembly, the participants went on a tour of the Žiča Monastery and the medieval town of Maglić, where they continued their constructive discussions and exchange of ideas, enjoying the rich cultural heritage of this area.