British art historian and museum director, Neil MacGregor, said that artifacts of historical and cultural significance, that are displayed in most of the major museums around the globe, should not be returned back to their country of origin.

The director of the British Museum, during an address at the University of Western Australia, came to the defense of international museums where indigenous and ancient objects are displayed.

He believes that, due to the escalating globalization of the world, the concept of travelling exhibitions will become more important to modern societies that are more involved in learning about the history of the world and understanding the future of cultures.

MacGregor said that the value of an object is to give details about its history to as many people as possible, and describes the present to as many people as possible, that may not be achieved by it being returned to the place where it was originally made.

In Australia, Perth is to open the first collaborative project between the British and Western Australia Museums, the “Extraordinary Stories from the British Museum”;  the British museum director is looking forward to the five-year partnership with WA, which will see many extraordinary and culturally important artworks appearing outside of London for the first time.

The celebrated author said that in the four or five decades, people have migrated from around the globe in all directions by tourism and people travelling for business, they now have in most cities, populations that are by no means local and in some cases are entire global.

The 65-year-old MacGregor was appointed Chair of the World Collections program in 2008 for training international curators at British museums.

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