letters of invitation
protocol for bodies of standing wishing to invite the Museum
The Museum maintains no premises, employs no staff, and cannot, in the ordinary sense, be visited. It can, however, be invited. From time to time a city learns that it holds part of the collection, or suspects that it might, and wishes to make the matter official. This page exists so that it can.
standing
Invitations are received from bodies of standing: municipal councils, embassies and consulates, ministries, port authorities, and — where a case can be made — institutions of comparable gravity. Private individuals need not apply; they are already welcome to encounter the collection on the same terms as the practitioner, which is to say by paying attention.
The Museum receives invitations; it does not solicit them.
what an invitation cannot do
An invitation confers no annex. Annexes are established retroactively, by encounter — eight or more within the place concerned — and no correspondence, however senior its letterhead, can substitute for the walk. What an invitation confers, if accepted, is a walk. Should eight encounters occur in the course of it, the annex will have been established by the encounters, not the invitation, and the inviting body's contribution will be entered in the register as hospitality, noted.
Bodies whose jurisdictions are already annexes may nevertheless invite; such an invitation is received as a state visit, the nomenclature committee having approved the term and the accession committee not yet the substance.
the protocol
Article 1 — form. Invitations are submitted on Form 8-DIP, completed in full, under covering letter on the official stationery of the inviting body. Seals are welcome.
Article 2 — place, not works. An invitation is extended to a place, never to particular 8s. The inviting body shall not disclose the location of any 8 known to it: a disclosed 8 is a delivered 8, a delivered 8 is not an encountered one, and the Museum's admission is attention. Disclosure voids the invitation, though the Museum will keep the letter.
Article 3 — the sealed register. An inviting body that believes it knows what it possesses may enclose, under seal, a list of the 8s in question. The seal is broken only after the survey has concluded, and the enclosed list compared against the register of encounters. Discrepancies in either direction are entered in the minutes. The Museum notes, without criticism, that the counting of 8s has to date been its own responsibility alone, and it would be glad of the company.
Article 4 — warranty of non-fabrication. The inviting body warrants that no 8 has been created, commissioned, restored, refreshed, repainted, straightened, or otherwise improved in anticipation of the Museum's visit, and undertakes that none will be (Axiom 9: found, not made). The Museum is aware that it cannot verify this. It maintains no laboratory for the dating of 8s and would decline to operate one if it did, holding as it does that a museum which will not touch its collection has no business carbon-dating it. The warranty is therefore relied upon as given, which is why it is required in writing. The Museum's precedents in this area are confessional — its first formal deaccession, in the matter of the crêpe (Paris), was volunteered by the practitioner — and the committee expects no lower standard of a ministry than it enforces upon its own breakfast.
Article 5 — languages. Invitations may be submitted in any language. The committee has ruled elsewhere that the 8 survives translation, and extends the presumption to correspondence.
Article 6 — the survey. The conduct of any survey remains with the Museum. The survey follows no itinerary and observes no programme; the route is not disclosed in advance, including to the Museum. Representatives of the inviting body may accompany the survey; the pace is set by the 8s.
Article 7 — logistics. The Museum proceeds on foot, at its own pace, and historically at its own expense. Offers of hospitality are neither required nor refused. Motorcades are respectfully declined; the collection is at eye level.
Article 8 — reply. Invitations are acknowledged on receipt and answered by ruling of the committee, without appeal. No timescale is given for the ruling, and none should be inferred from the acknowledgement.
form 8-DIP
application for the extension of an invitation to the Museum
To be completed in full, in ink, by an officer of the inviting body, and submitted under covering letter on the body's official stationery. Each declaration is to be initialled in the box provided; seals are welcome.
Invitations, with enclosures, may be addressed to the offices at hello@8museum.com; enquiries may be directed to the same address. Original documents are preferred, by post or courier; a postal address is issued upon request, and submission by electronic means carries no disadvantage. A register submitted under seal may take the form of an attachment which the covering letter asks the Museum not to open; the Museum will not open it. Receipt is acknowledged in all cases.
Correspondence received enters the Museum's archive and may in time be exhibited as part of its diplomatic record; the form itself, being made rather than found, can never be accessioned to the collection. Signatures and seals are displayed only with the signatory's consent.