Broken clay pots

"Some use for your broken clay pots", by Christoph Meierhans, at Maria Matos Theatre (Photo: Jan Lietaert)

Last week, I saw at Maria Matos Theatre “Some use for your broken clay pots” with Christoph Meierhans. Inspired by the ancient Athenian system of ostracism, where a political leader who became too powerful could be sent to exile, Meierhans wishes to propose a new system os democracy, a new constitution which, he believes, will also produce a new type of citizen.

I followed his theory with interest and he left me thinking: do we, as citizens, actually need a different system in order to ‘ostracise’ or disqualify bad or incompetent politicians? Can’t we simply, within the rights that are given to us from the current system, not vote for them? 

Guest post: "Museums in Ukraine: Learning to be with the people", by Ihor Poshyvailo (Ukraine)

My friend and colleague Ihor Poshyvailo´s museum, the Ivan Honchar Museum in Kyiv, published the following post on Facebook on 30 November: “Ivan Honchar Museum supports the national protests against the government policy and police crimes against the student protesters, and encourages people to join the current people movement for the democracy. Do not be indifferent - come to the Maidan! We can only win being together!". I was deeply impressed with such a bold statement by a national museum and asked Ihor to share with us his thoughts on the role museums can play in their societies at historic moments, such as the ones currently going on in Ukraine. I have no words to thank Ihor for this beautiful text. mv

Photo: Bohdan Posyvailo

On December the 1st, my American colleague and friend Linda Norris published the post If I ran a museum in Kyiv right now in her blog The Uncataloged Museum. It was a prompt response of this museum expert, well-known in Ukraine, to the riot police night attack on the peaceful protesters, mostly students, in Kyiv. A wave of demonstrations and civil unrest began in late November due to a massive public outpouring for closer European integration in Kyiv and was named ‘Euromaidan’. It was claimed by Guy Verhofstadt, Member of the European Parliament, former Prime Minister of Belgium, to be the biggest pro-European demonstration in the history of EU. Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary at the United States Department, underscored that Euromaidan is symbol of the power of civil society: “It is about justice, civil rights and the people’s demands to have a government that listens to them, that represents their interests and that respects them.”

In her post, Linda puts herself in a Ukrainian museum director’s shoes and offers a program of action in three museum spheres: representing community values and ethics, serving the community, and collecting. In particular, she would make a public statement, take a look at the ethical practices and transparency of her own museum, throw open the museum doors and invite the public in for free.  Keeping the museum open early and late, she would have cups of hot tea ready, provide a warm place for reflection and contemplation, and find a space in the gallery for people to write or draw about their hopes and fears; encourage participants to think about Ukraine as a nation, about beauty, truth and complicated histories. Even more – she would permit and even encourage the staff to take part in the protests if they so desired. If Linda was the director of a history museum, she would be out collecting lots of potential exhibits for the future, starting from Tweets and Facebook postings, oral histories, flags, banners and hand-made signs and photographs to metal barriers,  face-masked helmets and police uniforms, and even home-made antidotes for tear gas.

Photo: Bohdan Posyvailo

Indeed, a simple, effective, and seemingly common reaction for a typical American or Western Museum. A museum which is 'about', 'for' and 'with' people. Such was the topic for discussion proposed by my another great colleague and friend Maria Vlachou at the European Museum Advisors Conference in Lisbon last year (here). Serving the community is especially important for modern museums, which are becoming active agents of communication, operating not only explicitly at the level of objects of history, science, culture, education or entertainment, but also at an implicit level, approaching spheres of power, ideology, values​​, and identity.

But for me, in the context of recent events in Kyiv, the combination of words ‘museum with people’ gains a new, special meaning. This seems quite a clear, even banal, phrase. But is it common for Ukraine and other post-Soviet nations? Do our museums want, can and know how to be with people today? Especially in a period of social uprisings and political tensions, in unusual situations, which require from a museum an open and honest look into the eyes of its current and potential visitors, of the communities it represents.

It happened historically that most museums in Ukraine are state-run and, therefore, they depend ideologically, economically and administratively on the government. So, how should they behave in a deep conflict between government and society? I hope for many museums the answer is theoretically obvious – same as for army and riot police soldiers who took the oath “to serve their people”. Do Ukrainian museums remain indifferent observers of the breath taking and internationally covered events at Independence Square? How can they be responsive and inclusive to the needs of the society and communities they represent and serve?

Photo: Bohdan Poshyvailo

Ironically, at the moment the President of Ukraine Yanukovych was visiting the Museum of Qin Terra-cotta Warriors in China and writing a review in the book of honourable guests, ICOM Ukraine and a number of Ukrainian museums were issuing public statements condemning unexpected crackdown on peaceful protesters and the pulling out of an association pact with the EU. The Directors Council of Lviv Museums coordinated protest statements of a number of Lviv museums. One of the oldest ethnographic museums in East-Central Europe – the Museum of Ethnography and Crafts in Lviv – displayed a banner on its balcony saying "We support the demands of Euromaidan". In Kyiv a dozen museums made their public statements, including the Museum of Kyiv History which is run by the City Hall and depends upon the Mayor of Kyiv, whose headquarters were taken by the protesters. Pavlo Tychyna Memorial Museum (located closely to Maidan) opened its doors to protesters and proposed them tea, rest and cultural programs. The Historical Museum-Preserve "Tustan" in the Lviv Region asked people on facebook to bake honey-cakes, "Knights of Goodness", write a message of support and send them to the freezing activists. The Ivan Honchar Museum, which glorifies the eternal traditional virtues of the Ukrainian people – freedom, faith, honour, democracy and humanism, shifted its educational programs to Euromaidan. It launched a series of flash mobs (such as the installation and decoration of the main Ukrainian traditional symbol of Christmas – Didukh ("the spirit of ancestors") - at the foot of the monument of Independence) and organized folk celebrations, dancing and singing at the epicentre of the protest area.   

Virtually all museums in Ukraine are government run and funded. Of course, there is a worry regarding possible repercussions. We know about the director of the famous Territory of Terror Museum in Lviv, who was summoned for questioning at the Investigation Department of the prosecutor's office as "a witness" to events at Euromaidan. We heard the story of a Kyiv metro driver who was fired just for telling his passengers how to find the shortest way out of the blocked central stations and join the protesters. We heard about dismissed commanders of the riot police forces in some regions, whose soldiers refused going to Kyiv and attack the protesters.

Photo: Bohdan Poshyvailo

Of course the Tahrir Square syndrome is still vivid in the memories of many museum professionals, but I think the Ukrainian Euromaidan is a great chance for many museums to test their ability to be with the people. I saw this need in twinkling eyes of peaceful protesters in the past three weeks.  And I drew the conclusion that in order to be with people our museums should not necessarily do extraordinary things, the should firstly listen carefully to the pulse rate of their nation and open their doors to frozen hearts.

Ihor Poshyvailo is an Ethnologist with a PhD from the Institute of Art Studies, Folklore and Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences(1998). He is the Deputy Director of the National Center of Folk Culture “Ivan Honchar Museum” (Kyiv). Co-moderator and co-organizer of international museum management seminars (since 2005). Participant in the International Visitor Program (USA, 2004), Global Youth Exchange Program (Japan, 2004) and The World Master’s Festival in Arts and Culture (Korea, 2007). Curator of international art projects, including the traveling exhibition “Smithsonian Folklife Festival: Culture Of, By, and For People” (2011), “Interpreting Cultural Heritage” (2011), “Home to Home: Landscapes of Memory” (2011-2012). He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Smithsonian Center of Folklife and Cultural Heritage (2009-2010) and a Summer International Fellow at the Kennedy Center (2011-2013). Ihor wrote another post for this blog in 2012, entitled Reinventing and making museums matter.

Guest post: "Building memories", by Ricardo Brodsky (Chile)

Ricardo Brodsky, Director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago de Chile opened the Museums Association conference in Liverpool on 11 November. The photo posted by the museum on Facebook made me feel sorry for not having been able to listen to his speech. But I got in touch with Ricardo and he was kind enough to send me his text and to authorize the publication on this blog. Here we present an edited, shorter, version, but there is a link in the end for those wishing to read the whole speech. mv

This is our September 11, the starting point of the story to which I will refer and which inspired the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (MMHR) in Chile.

1. Memory

Memory is not a nostalgic exercise about the past. Memory is our identity, what we are. We could say that memory inhabits us in such a way that it defines our ideas about the present, our values and our perception of the future.

In his text La Muralla y los Libros (The Wall and the Books), Jorge Luis Borges talks about Emperor Shih Huang Ti, who built that Chinese Wall and instructed, at the same time, that all books prior to him be burned. With the Wall he intended to protect his country from external enemies and he burned the books because his opponents turned to them when it came to praising their ancestors. We witnessed this during the Pinochet years, when the country’s institutions were destroyed, people disappeared, books were burned and the people linked to the popular culture and history were banned because, in a way, it all represented an epic which had to be abolished.

I use the word “abolish” and not the word “oblivion” on purpose. The kind of memory we are talking about is not equivalent to the storage capacity of a hard drive disk in a computer where everything is registered with no hierarchy. The opposite to memory is not oblivion but abolishment, elimination. Memory works with exemplary events, with what allows us to reap lessons, give a sense to the experience lived. Memory is, therefore, a higher step beyond trauma and the feelings of despair, loneliness and depression that memory can cause. Memory is what allows life to continue, for hope to come back, for us to get back on our feet again. With a narration about our past and a bet on our future.

2. Connections

At the MMHR we work with material that is extremely complex and sensitive: truth, justice, victimization, memory, reconciliation, repairing. These are all ideas that question us permanently and force us, over and over again, to go over the concepts that are the basis of our work. It is impossible, though, to understand our institution if we do not understand the process from which it originated, as well as the social and political needs that were meant to be met.

On September 11, 1973 began one of Chile’s most traumatic political experiences. The armed forces, headed by a military junta of commanders in chief, staged an armed uprising against Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government, installing a cruel dictatorship which lasted 17 years, suppressing legal rights and committing grievous human rights violations, resulting in the death and disappearance of more than three thousand people and the political arrest and torture of around forty thousand more, plus exiling almost a million Chileans.

Seventeen years later, following the opposition’s victory in a plebiscite held in 1988 to prolong the Pinochet government, a complex and difficult transition to democracy began, which included facing the thorny debts left by the dictatorship, not only in the social and political sphere, but especially in the area of our society’s moral recomposition, that is to say, the sphere of truth, justice and human rights. The democratic government’s human rights policies have centered around four basic pillars or demands: Truth, Justice, Reparation and Memory.

3. Truth

Once democracy was recovered, the first effort in human rights policies in Chile was the quest to establish the truth about the most serious human rights violations committed during the Pinochet dictatorship. Two Commission were established, involving people with high credentials, which affirmed that the human rights violations committed by state agents were massive, systematic and had been approved at the highest level of government at the time. This affirmation, supported by the existence of proof and irrefutable testimonies, allowed the country to know the truth about the existence of more than 3.000 detained-disappeared and executed and also allowed a very relevant second step to take place, which was the opening of the possibility to establish reparation policies for the victims and their families. In 2003, a second commission, set up to investigate the cases of people who suffered political imprisonment and torture, recognized 38.254 victims of torture.

Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile (Photo: MMDH) 

4. Justice

The struggle for justice in the transition process has been the most difficult and polemic aspect. Since the end of the military regime and until 1998, judicial investigation made, as a general rule, scant progress and it was normal for the courts to apply an amnesty decree law passed by the military dictatorship. In 1998, in the wake of Pinochet’s arrest in London, ordered by Spanish judge Baltazar Garzón, new conditions began to be generated which have produced, slowly but gradually, some progress in judicial investigations, which have allowed for the identification of those directly responsible for human rights violations. Today there are 1,426 active cases, of which 1,402 deal with disappearance or killing. However, only 66 agents are serving prison sentences, among them key figures in the DINA (National Intelligence Department) and CNI (National Intelligence Agency); 173 agents have been sentenced but are not in jail, for various reasons, and there are also 528 agents whose prosecution has been completed, but have still not received a definite sentence.

5. Building memory

In this context, the government of Michelle Bachelet created in 2010 the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, as a project of moral or symbolic reparation to victims of the dictatorship and as an educationial project, in order for the new generations to understand the value of respect for human rights.

Museum of Memory and Human Rights

The Museum of Memory and Human Rights, where Chilean society symbolically fulfills its duty of memory, looks directly at its past and responds to the right of memory for victims of the dictatorship. Its origin can be found in the recommendations of the report of truth of 1991 and in the 2004 statement by UNESCO that the archives of various human rights organizations in Chile are part of the world’s memory.  In addition to this, there is a demand by the organizations of relatives and victims of human rights abuses. It holds the largest collection of documents, photographs, objects, testimonies and films about the dictatorship in the country and exhibits them to the public, trying to produce empathy with the victims and the revival of values and lessons from the experiences of human rights abuses. The victims groups are actively involved in its life and they feel included.

The MMHR’s mission is to “make known the systematic violations of human rights on behalf of the Chilean State between 1973 and 1990, so that by ethically reflecting on memory, solidarity and the importance of human rights, the national will is strengthened, in order to prevent actions which affect human dignity from ever being repeated again”.

Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile (Photo: MMDH)

What is the place for this museum in Chile’s society today?

Pierre Nora has said that the Places of Memory are constructions that seek to “stop time, block the work of oblivion, fix a state of things, immortalize death, materialize what is immaterial in order to lock up the maximum number of senses in the minimum number of signs”. In that sense, the MMHR has the mission to recover and preserve the tracks of that traumatic past, give testimony of the sufferings, so that public knowledge about what happened may break into the circle of silence and impunity and emphasize the need to prevent something like that from happening again. In other words, the Museum of Memory, as an expression of a public policy of reparation, is the State’s main gesture of moral reparation to the dictatorship’s victims: this is where the history or the biography of each one of the victims is found or built and where their dignity, that was snatched away from them, is given back to them. The MMHR has turned into a reference point for our country and our region, similar projects being constructed in Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia.

Having said that, I must also say that it is a project located in a land of controversies. Every museum that deals with traumatic stories is aware of the tension between history and memory, between the explanation of the events organized chronologically and the subjective experience of memories backed up by a testimony. The museums of memory have, precisely, the challenge of conjugating that tension, so the testimonies may be exemplary and representative, transcending the mere personal experience or that of the groups directly affected. Only by solving that tension in a positive manner can the message be universal and link the demands of truth and justice with a broader democratic imaginary.

According to some, the Museum of Memory and Human Rights’ museography coincides with what Pierre Nora calls the memory’s transformation into history, that is, “it completely relies in what is most precise in the track, what is most natural in the remains, what is most concrete in the recording, the most visible in the image”. Certainly, visitors face the tracks of the past, the faces of the disappeared, the La Moneda bombing, the testimonies of those who were tortured, the anguish of the families. They are forced to live an experience of apprehension, of compassion, empathy and emotion. But they also find the documents, the legal files, the bands and decrees that lead to an experience of confrontation, of analysis, of comparison, of visualizing the context in which violence took place. The museum, in this sense, proposes a tale, a narration able to convey sense, starting from a feeling of empathy with the victims.

The founding of the MMHR generated a wide controversy in the country from day one. These are precisely the topics of this conference. How do we deal with sensitive and controversial issues in an institution which must present a story that is still alive in Chilean society, since many of its main actors are still holding public posts and the Chilean families are still watching or suffering the consequences of that period?

The critical attitudes toward the Museum of Memory either deny the existence of the violations of human rights or justify them, invoking the need to fight an alleged war against a threat represented by marxist parties. There is lighter criticism from other groups, accusing the museum of distorting history by showing only one aspect of the dictatorial period (human rights violations) and fragmenting time, thus, not allowing people to visualize the causes of the military dictatorship. In brief, the critics point to the museum’s partiality when it includes only one vision of the period, that of the victims. This would mean that the narration is not as objective as it should be and, most of all, it would not allow us to know why the political crisis of 1973 took place, culminating in a coup d’état and in human rights violations.

Installation by Alfredo Jaar at the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (Photo: Cristóbal palma for the newspaper El País)

For us, the issue is summarized by stating that the Museum´s mission is to promote public awareness about the seriousness of the human rights violations during the Pinochet period, and that awareness does not have a political or electoral purpose but a moral one, that is, to transform the respect for human rights into a categorical imperative in our coexistence, whatever the context in which it takes place.

The museum cannot pretend to establish a univocal reading of the past. On the contrary, its perspective is to open multiple reading possibilities. It is important to emphasize that the MMHR is perceived as a living museum, open to the reinterpretation of experience and, therefore, provides an important space for contemporary art. Proof of this is the presence of artwork in the permanent exhibition, such as Jorge Tacla’s poem written by Victor Jara in prison and Alfredo Jaar’s work “The geometry of conscience”, that suggests that dialoguing is a tribute to the victims.

Read the whole speech here.

Ricardo Brodsky Baudet is the Director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Chile since May 2011. He developed a project at the Museum of Memory as a space for reflection and extensive public education, giving more importance to the collection and the permanent exhibition and giving a prominent position to the visual arts and various cultural events related with memory and human rights. He was the first Secretary General of Federation of Students under the dictatorship. Executive Secretary of the Foundation "Chile 21" in 1992 , the Foundation "Proyectamérica" in 2006, and founding director of the "Foundation for Visual Arts Santiago"; organizer of the first Triennial of Chile (2009). He was a consultant for cultural policy of the National Council for Culture and Arts, Chile (2004-2007). He has held positions in government from 1993 to 2010. Head of the Division of interdepartmental coordination of the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency (2007 -2010), Chilean Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg (2000-2004).

Please define "danger"

Musée d' Orsay (Photo taken from Louvre pour Tous)

Last week's debate on photography in museums, organized by Acesso Cultura and ICOM Portugal, did not fullfil my expectations. And I consider this to by partly my own fault. I took my role as convenor to be mainly one of a regulator. Having shared my own positions on this subject publicly – in this blog, in the blog Mouseion, in the portuguese newspaper Público and also in the portal Louvre pour Tous - I thought that this should be the moment to give the opportunity to our guest speakers and to our colleagues in the audience to exchange views, clarify ideas, share their vision for museums in the 21st century. Because the current context of discussing photography in museums is that of discussing museums' relationship with people in the 21st century.

The Metropolitan Museum campain "It's Time we Met" used photos taken by visitors in the museum.

The debate took a different turn, concentrating mainly on copyright issues and the commercial interests and pressures behind the EU directive for Free Access to Public Sector Information. Very little was asked or said about visitor-photographers and how current portuguese legislation limits (or not) their contribution in promoting museums. There were some concrete questions regarding this issue – such as “What is meant ‘promotion’ in this recent regulation (here) and do visitors who take and share photos in the social media are actually criminals?”; or “Isn’t current legislation incompatible with the fact that two national museums and two national palaces are now on Google Art Project?” – but they were left unanswered. The lack of direct answer might be an indicator itself of an incapacity or unwillingness to consider these fundamental points, but, as a convenor, I should have insisted for a clear answer - that was the purpose of the debate, after all - but I thought I would engage in a personal dialogue with the speakers, so I didn't (mea culpa).

Images widely available on the internet. Authors unknown or... not easy to find.

Towards the closing of the debate, another very relevant question came up: can the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage actually control what people do with their photos and is this the actual purpose of the new regulation? What is today the society museums are supposed to serve? At this point, we were informed that it is very difficult to control and that the regulation has mainly got a dissuasive purpose.

Posters made by Musée Saint-Raymond, Musée des Antiques de Toulouse.

So, once again, visitors, people, ended up not being the focus of our discussion. Objects were. In line with this, another interesting moment in the debate was a question regarding the manipulation of images of works of art – like the image used for the promotion of the debate. Opinions differed: from seeing absolutely no harm in this kind of creative use of works of art, as masterpieces have got their one life; to identifying a danger in making available good quality images – like Rijksmuseum and other museums around the world are doing at the moment – highlighting the responsibility of museum professionals to safeguard and protect.

I enjoy museums which make us feel welcome, free, inspired, part of. I appreciate museums which have got a good sense of humour and are not afraid to show it. I admire museums which are not cut off from what´s going on around them in society. I respect museums wishing to connect with the outside world, to discuss and not to impose. I see no danger in this, I see no lack of respect; I simply see relevance and a sense of mission.

But, most of all, I feel so pleased when seeing people enjoying museums and sharing their joy (more or less creatively). Is there a better sign of a mission accomplished?

KLM ad. The Rijksmuseum was the first to share it on Facebook.

The Louvre, my son and I

Photo: Thomas Struth

My son was 7 the first time I took him to Paris. The deal was that we would only visit one museum per day (memories of my 5-year-old brother constantly whining and complaining that he was tired or hungry, until he declared to our parents “No more museums!”, made of me a more ‘calculating’ mother...). When the time came to go to the Louvre, the deal became even more specific: we would stay for one hour and we would see three Greek things I had chosen for him and the Mona Lisa, his choice, as they had talked about her at school.

I was talking about this in a class last week, when we were discussing if it's a good or bad thing that people might just wish to take a walk in a museum. And are all people who seemingly take a walk actually doing just that? If anyone had observed us in the Louvre, they would have seen a mother rushing her son from one room to the other, paying no attention to the wealth and beauty that was surrounding them. The truth is that we had a plan, a very personal and specific plan. And when we eventually got out of the museum, we were happy to have done what we had planned to do.

This is a recurrent issue in this blog: the quality of the museum visit, as wished by curators and by the people themselves. When John Holden defined the three types of guardians in his essay Culture and Class, he wrote about the cultural snobs, the neo-mandarins and the neo-cosmopolitans. He defined the neo-mandarins as those culture professionals who advocate for access, but they want to be the ones to decide what is worth having access to. I believe this is the category most of us fall into. We wish the best for visitors, but we are not ready to admit that visitors also know what´s best for them. We wish to impose an agenda, when visitors come with their own, one we don´t always accept as valid and significant, unless it somehow fits our own standards.

Wishing the best for visitors and doing our best to deliver it is what we are really here for. But there are two different ways of doing and expressing it. There is the neo-mandarin version and the neo-cosmopolitan one. It was during the course of the above mentioned class that two very concrete examples came to my mind.

In the beginning of this year, soon after he took the post of deputy director at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid, João Fernandes was interviewed by the spanish newspaper ABC. There was a statement that particularly drew my attention: “We want the spectator to be more lucid, demanding and critical when he is confronted with the work of art, [we want himt to] think and [we want] this not only to serve the purpose of saying that he was there.”

I understood, of course, what he meant to say, I just didn´t like the way he said it. I didn´t like the use of the expressions “we want” and “spectator”, I felt that ever so present wish of the neo-mandarin to dictate, to impose.

A couple of months later, I was reading Elaine Heumann Gurian´s Civilizing the Museum. And I came across this: “We are no longer preachers to the great unwashed; we are united as partners with our publics and their families. We must help our audience, which touchingly believes and trusts us, to become more skeptical and demanding.”

So, it seems to me that the wish is the same expressed by João Fernandes. The words, and eventually the ways of doing it, are quite different. Heumann Gurian speaks of a partnership; she takes the role of the helper and casts away that of the preacher; she feels the responsibility deriving from the trust placed on museum professionals by the public.

In what concerns the relationship between museums and people, it isn´t like there is a checklist and visitors have to do or learn a number of things before their visit may be validated as worthwhile by some higher authority. Even when curators aim to do that, they don´t actually succeed, they just keep many people away because they don´t feel comfortable and welcome. The museum is a place where people go to learn, be inspired, get surprised, be moved, have a good time. Museum staff is there to make sure they do their best to create the conditions for this to happen. It may all happen at once or partly or not at all and not necessarily the way museum staff had planned it. I believe though that the final evaluation should consider the needs and expectations of the visitors themselves and not just those of the curator. The museum is a shared territory.

The reconquest

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts, Washington DC (Photo: bigbirdz on Flickr)

In Ancient Greece, drama was part of what, nowadays, one would call pop or mass culture. Ancient Greeks would fill their theatres in the thousands. They would bring food with them, as they would spend the whole day at the amphitheatre. They would eat during performances and they would throw food or shout at the actors if they didn´t like what was being presented. They would also intervene, ask questions or express opinions regarding the plot.

Meet Rosa Shaw

Rosa Shaw (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

Meet Rosa Shaw. She’s the first person to greet us when we enter the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. She’s one of the memorial’s guards and one of the institution’s faces. She’s polite, she has a good sense of humour, she’s helpful. If someone looks lost or confused, she doesn’t wait for them to ask for help, she approaches and tries to see if she can be of assistance. The uniform could cause some inhibition to the visitors - a permanent concern among those of us working in the communications field – but, looking at Rosa and the way she does her job, it becomes clear that, more than a question of aspect, it’s a question of attitude.

Rosa makes me think of many guards I have encountered in museums. People who look terribly bored and tired; or people who avoid eye contact when we enter a room and then follow us closely, although we are the only visitor in that room; or people who might be loudly discussing family or union problems, paying no attention to visitors. Guards of this kind make me think of how much more interesting their job could be, and how big the benefit for the museum or the cultural institution they serve, if they were given appropriate training and different responsibilities - more responsibilities - than just sitting on a chair or standing at a corner, looking stern and bored, having as little interaction with visitors as possible.

Guards at the Brooklyn Museum (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

I am saying this, because I’ve also had other kinds of experiences. A couple of years ago, I joined a guided tour to the Pastrana Tapestries exhibition at the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon. As soon as the tour was over and as I was heading for the exit, I overheard a guard having a conversation with two ladies, explaining everything one needed to know about those works of art, but with an enthusiasm and commitment that equaled those of the education department staff. And in a language that was much more accessible than that of the texts on the panels. More recently, while visiting the El Anatsui exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, I overheard two guards exchanging views regarding one of the works of art on display. It was a pleasure listening to them. Later on, one of them greeted a small group of visitors and offered to take their photo in front of one of the works, so that they could all be in it. The whole atmosphere was light and friendly and informal, I felt that it made such a big difference.

Museum guards might look silent and stern, even threatening some times, but they have eyes and feelings and opinions regarding the works that surround them. The Washington Post published a very interesting piece on Washington museum guards a few weeks ago (read here), where they would talk about their favourite work of art and the reasons why it is their favourite. One of them also mentioned how working in a museum awakened her interest in art and consequently made her look at all things in a different way. Reading their interviews made me think of how much I would have enjoyed having a direct conversation with them, both as a visitor and a professional.

Front-of-house staff in cultural institutions (whether guards, ushers or box office assistants) are some of the most important people in the team, in terms of institutional marketing. They are the face, they are the voice, they are the attitude. They are the ears too, as they get closer to the visitors/audiences than most of the administrative staff ever get. Front-of-house staff have a decisive role in the shaping of the quality of the whole experience of visiting a cultural institution. A disappointing exhibition or a performance that turned out to be a disaster will not make people keep away for ever; people take a risk and know that it might not fulfill their expectations. On the other hand, if someone is not well treated, if they come across staff who are impolite or in a bad mood, who lack information, who are unhelpful or show that they don’t care, this might definitely determine if someone will come back or not. Even when we have to make a choice between two interesting exhibitions or two interesting shows, it’s very probable that customer care, the place where we feel that we are better treated, will make all the difference in our decision.

Despite their strategic position and role, though, front-of-house staff get to be very neglected by management; underestimated too. They are not given the appropriate training in public relations and customer care; they are not given information about what it is that they are guarding or selling or taking people to their seats to see; quite often, they are not even given important information about what’s going on in the institution, in terms of programming or timetables or prices/discounts or other practical information the public might be looking for (have you ever experienced the discomfort and embarrassment of a Front-of-House member of staff who can’t answer a logical question or, worse, who is informed by a visitor on what is happening in the institution he/she is working for?); they feel frustrated by the fact that their opinion is not taken into consideration, even when it concerns visitor opinions or comments which they are simply passing on, as they are the ones who hear or receive them.

Front-of-house staff don’t ‘just’ guard or ‘just’ sell or ‘just’ answer the phone or ‘just’ take people to their seats. They are a valuable part of the team, they are the most visible part. They are the ones that welcome people in, talk to them, promote the institution – not only its contents but also its vision and principles. It seems only too obvious and natural to me that they would be given the tools to do their work and to do it well. Rosa seems to be pleased in doing her job. And it’s  certainly a pleasure to watch her doing it.

'Just' a museum, 'just' an artist?

Artist Ahlam Shibli at Jeu de Paume (Photo: LP/ Philippe de Poulpiquet, taken from the newspaper Le Parisien)

I had written here before about my experience twenty years ago visiting a history museum in the town of Halifax (UK). I was totally shocked when, in one of the photos on display, I saw Cypriot resistance fighters against British rule being identified as “terrorists”. At the same time, I suppose I realised at that moment – I was 23 then – that there existed people who told that same story in a totally different way. The men on the photo coudl have killed their loved ones, who had been sent there by their country to defend a legitimate, in their view, authority.

Anyway, no matter how shocked I was, I didn´t threaten to put a bomb in the museum, I didn´t even start a petition to close the exhibition. Which is exactly what has been happening in Paris in these last weeks as a response to certain photos on display which form part of the exhibition Phantom Home, at Jeu de Paume, by Palestinian artist Ahlam Shibli. Why? Because certain people feel that exhibiting photos of Palestinian suicide bombers, and referring to them as ‘martyrs’, is a way of glorifying terrorism. Needless to say, I find the reactions and threats of the pro-Israeli groups totally unacceptable. But I must also say that they don´t come as a surprise, do they? The topic is sensitive, it is controversial, and those who claim to be surprised by the fierce reactions of certain circles or who are warning us about the return of censorship (read Emmanuel Alloa´s article La censure est de retour) are naive, to say the least, or simply not honest with themselves and with others. There´s nothing new or surprising in these attempts of censorship, they happened before and they´ll happen again in the future. But this is not what I wish to talk about.

I praise museums that have the courage to tackle difficult and controversial subjects. Museums should be doing exactly that: challenge our ‘stories’, present the ‘other side’, provoke debate, make space for it. Frankly, I am not sure if this was Jeu de Paume´s aim.

One reads on the museum website regarding the exhibition: “Death, Ahlam Shibli´s latest series, especially conceived for this retrospective, shows how the palestinian society preserves the presence of ‘martyrs’, according to the term used by the artist. This series witnesses a vaste representation of those absent through photos, posters, panels and graffitis exhibited as a form of resistance.” The museum seems to be perfectly aware that the use of the term “martyr” might be controversial and attributes it to the artist herself. On the other hand, the artist is being quoted in Emmanuel Alloa´s previously mentioned article as claiming that “My work is to show, neither to denounce nor to judge.”

Exhibitions, in my opinion, don´t ‘just’ show. Artists don´t do that either. Exhibitions and artists make statements. The French Minister of Culture seemed much more affirmative to me in her public statement and didn´t seem to run away from what was really the issue: “This claimed neutrality may be shocking in itself”, she said, “and give rise to bad interpretations, since it doesn´t explain the context of the photos, which is not just that of loss, but also that of terrorism.” (read the full press release here).

Death nr. 37, by Ahlam Shibli (Photo taken from the blog Lunettes Rouges)

The Ministry asked the museum to complete the information made available to the visitors in order to, on the one hand, clarify and better explain the purpose of the artist and, on the other, to distinguish the artist´s proposal from that of the institution. The Minister was under attack from all sides. Personally, I don´t see why a museum should set itself apart from its choices in the way the French Ministry seems to be suggesting. What should be really clear is why it chooses to present its audience with exhibition A or B, how it fits in its mission and programme, what it aims to communicate, what kind of thinking and discussion it aims to promote.

I can´t say it´s clear for me what Jeu de Paume really aimed to do through this exhibition or why it has chosen to present an artist who ´just wants to show´. I checked again and again on the museum website, looking for a parallel programme that would complement the exhibition with talks and debates. Nothing. Finally, a debate was announced, organized by the Museum and L´Observatoire de la Liberté de Création, “in reaction to the controversy caused by the exhibition”, that would discuss issues such as the freedom of artistic representation, the responsibility of the institution that exhibits works that cause a controversy, the freedom of the visitor to have access to the works and the the freedom of expression in all its components (read here).

This is all great. This is exactly what should have been planned beforehand and not as a reaction to a controversy. And it should have gone even further than a general discussion of freedom to create, freedom to exhibit, freedom to visit. This exhibition raises other important and very specific issues.

I would expect Jeu de Paume not to pretend that it had not expected a huge controversy when Palestinian suicide bombers are referred as martyrs. I would expect the artist to wish not “just to show”, as if she was ‘just’ a reporter, as if she didn´t take and exhibit these photos with the purpose to make a statement. I would expect both the museum and the artist to truly wish to provoke a debate, to push the boundaries, to create the space to discucss what is history, identity, conflict, justice, resistance, a terorist act or a terrorist state. This is about the palestinian issue and there´s nothing ‘just’ about it.

More on this blog

The stories we tell ourselves

Silent and apolitical?

The long distance between California and Jerusalem

More readings

Marie-José Mondzain, Artiste palestinienne : liberté pour l'art au Jeu de Paume (Le Monde, 21.6.2013)

Chez soi : la photographe palestinienne Ahlam Shibli au Jeu de Paume (on the blog Lunettes Rouges, 7.6.2013)

G.W. Goldnadel, France/Jeu de Paume: double honte (Israël Flash, 21.6.2013)

Marta Gili: Je refuserai toujours la censure au Jeu de Paume. Interview of the Director of Jeu de Paume (Le Figaro, 24.6.2013)

Guest post: "From 'Museo' to 'Useo'", by Jorge Barco (Colombia)

Medellín is Colombia´s second largest city. For some, it´s still synonymous of the drug cartel. For others, it´s the example of a city which, through cultural and social policies, managed to lower its criminality rate and show its inhabitants new paths for their development, as individuals and as a community. Recently, I read an interview by Jorge Barco, Director of the Education and Culture Department at the Modern Art Museum of Medellín. I was very pleased when he accepted to write for Musing on Culture and to share his thoughts on the role cultural institutions, and museums in particular, may have in the development of a new relationship between creation, heritage and life in community. mv

Colectivo Impar (Photo: Andres Sampedro)

“La estabilidad que estamos construyendo ahora es afectivopráctico y no material, un inmenso laboratorio de la imaginación, aprovechando de toda grieta que se puede encontrar para dar cuerpo a lo que sentimos dentro” Las Grietas

Maria Vlachou´s invitation to write for her blog, as well as ICOM´s invitation to participate in its next conference in Rio de Janeiro, is an opportunity for me to start organizing some ideas which have motivated big part of my thinking as manager, educator and activist in the museums of the Antioquia region (Colombia) in the last seven years. 

Today, it makes sense to think about the role cultural institutions – museums in particular – may have as places where one may redefine a new relationship with creation, heritage and life in community. Museums – in a role that is definitely becoming close to that of ‘cultural centres’, in the case of Medellín – have an important role in the promotion of educational, cultural, and exhibition programmes, which go beyond the walls of the institution and reach slums and distant settlements; while in their interior, they continuously reinvent the forms of relating to their visitors through expanded education (Edupunk), the new focuses of cultural management and networking.

On its part, the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín (MAMM) – located in the last four years at an old iron foundry workshop – has been consolidated as a strategic place in the country, for its exhibitions, but, mostly, for its educational and cultural programmes. It´s the appropriate place to ask the following questions:

What are the guidelines for this work? What are the elements in order to start creating a new institutionality and definition of what we historically call a ‘Museum’?

Looking for answers for these questions makes me suggest the construction of trust as one of the guiding principles: a fine, persevering and delicate work of texture and community involvement, which is being developed together with collaborative projects and by working in network, which may be registered in the mapping of a more and more expanded cultural scene. The LABSURLAB project is just one example of how an initiative which originated in MAMM was converted into an international network of activists who work around the notions of art, science, technology and communities with a biopolitical focus.

LABSURAB (Photo: Checho)

Through the mapping of the projects being developed on the ground, we are creating relationships between the cultural agents of the city, the region, the continent and the world, trying to bind social, identity and professional groups, as well as institutions, universities, enterprises, projects and communities, for the mobilization of ideas. The mapping of cultural projects is a fundamental instrument in the processes of contemporary cultural creation.

Another line of action is directed to the exploration of new definitions of what we normally call ‘cultural management’, aiming to attribute to it its whole creative power, through open models which allow to reinvent the relations of creation, circulation and appropriation; recognizing that – just like it happens in the case of artistic practices – in cultural projects a big part of the work is based in the same management. Inevitably, this situation makes us also rethink the roles and relationships – between those who create, those who receive, those who educate, those who exhibit and those who manage –, while there is, at the same time, a transformation of the disciplinary fields.

There is one more element which links our work as cultural activists to the technologies, apart from the mere technical aspects: the tools offered to us by this movement involve new formats for collaborative creation, education, management of projects, activism, reorganization of the work and the production of common goods. The cultural and artistic processes related to digital culture are today territories of limits, fronteers and exchange and the museum is a strategic place, from which one can activate these processes.   

An additional guiding line has been taking us towards the generation of creative dialogues between the museum and the independent movements and initiatives, from artistic residencies to music circuits and bars, to non conventional spaces of non formal education, with the objective to carry out projects from cooperation and mutualism.  The purpose has been to generate environements of dialogue, co-creation and opportunities for both spheres (institutions and movements).

MAMM Education and Culture team (Photo: Clara Botero)

From this perspective, the function of the museum is global and, at the same time, local, offering a place of encounter between multiple layers and occupations of contemporary creation, making possible the development of sujbectivities. A place of encounter, work, production and research, apart from a place for exhibiting and promoting, where all elements mix and feed and from which a new institutionality and space may emerge, which I propose to provisionally call ‘Useo’.

Jorge Bejarano Barco works in the museum sector of the Antioquia region (Colombia) since 2007. He is the Director of tghe Department of Education and Culture of the Museu de Arte Moderno de Medellín. In the past, he worked in the Museo de Antioquia, in the Museums Network and in the Municipal and Departmental Councils of Culture. He participated in the creation of independent projects and networks which brought together the arts, sciences, technologies and communities (see here and here and here). He was invited to lecture at the Cátedra Medellín-Barcelona, the Encuentro Internacional los Museos en la Educación organizaed by the Museo Thyssen Bornemisza in Madrid, at the Master en Gestión Cultural y Economía de la Cultura de la Universidad de Valladolid, at the Facultad de Diseño y Arquitectura da Universidad de Buenos Aires, the Festival de Cultura Digital de Rio de Janeiro, the Festival Internacional de la Imagen (Manizales) and the Universities of Antioquia and Jorge Tadeo Lozano (Bogotá). His interests today focus on the research on cultural production, philosophy of the media, expanded education, proposing dialogues between institutions and movements, from collaborative networking or the redefinition of a series of actions which join arts and cultural activism.