Guest post: The ethical museum, by David Fleming

Image taken from Twitter @IcomOfficiel

I would like to begin by quoting from Janet Marstine’s book entitled The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics (2011, page xxiii):

“The traditional museum ethics discourse…is unable to meet the needs of museums and society in the twenty-first century”.

I will continue by quoting the statement on ethical behaviour that my Trustees at National Museums Liverpool (NML) discussed just last week:

NML statement on ethical considerations

In several areas of our work, as we find ourselves more and more reliant on funding from other than our own democratically-elected Government, NML’s commitment to behaving in an ethical manner at all times is leading us to consider carefully what decisions we should make.

Government reflections on access to culture

"MAP - The chartography game", a performace by the association A PELE (image taken from the website of the National Theatre D. Maria II)

The Culture White Paper (published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sports in March 2016) sets out how the British government will support the cultural sector in the coming years. It’s the first document of its kind in 50 years and the second ever published in the UK.

The document opens by quoting British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who states: “If you believe in publicly-funded arts and culture as I passionately do, then you must also believe in equality of access, attracting all, and welcoming all.”

European Culture Forum 2016

Andrej Isakovic / AFP / Getty Images

A short intervention today in the panel "Can culture help to overcome the fragmentation of society?". Read here

Refugees and museums: beyond an assistentialist attitude?

Artwork by Thierry Goeffroy / COLONEL at the Copenhagen Biennale

My recent article for the ICOM Portugal Bulletin.

Can culture make it?

Paper submitted to the Annual Conference on Cultural Diplomacy, which ends today in Berlin. A compilation of older posts and some new thoughts. Read 

The museum is a person: some post-NEMO thoughts

How do we get more involved? How do we take a stand? Aren’t we going to alienate some people if they classify the museum as ‘leftist’ or ‘rightist’, like newspapers? How far can we go? What are the limits? These are some of the questions I had the opportunity to discuss with colleagues attending NEMO’s annual reference, following my talk Are we failing? 

Are we failing?

My speech today at the NEMO Annual Conference (text and slideshare). Click here

Practicing, non-catholic

Photo taken from the website of the newspaper Expresso.

A cultured person for me is not someone with a deep knowledge on a number of subjects, someone who reads books, who goes to museums and to the theatre, who travels and knows the world. A cultured person for me is someone who does all this and more and tries to put his knowledge and experience into practice in order to help reconstruct the world, a better world. Being a cultured person is not something that comes naturally to us humans. It is a daily mental and practical exercise against our inner barbarity, against our ignorance.

Museum Next starts here

Christian Lachel, BRC Imagination Arts (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

It seems to me that the three words that were mostly heard at the 2015 MuseumNext conference were: emotion, stories, engagement. Words that clearly mark the change that has been taking place in museum attitude, aiming to establish, with the help of their collections, a better, more relevant and meaningful relationship with people - more people, different people, common people.

A presentation that was wholly dedicated to this subject was “Emotionalizing the Museum”, by Christian Lachel of BRC Imagination Arts. “Does the experience transform your guests and compel them to share it with others?”, Christian asked. And this is probably the right question to ask. Although the transformation we all so much desire to make happen might take time to be consciously acknowledged by individuals (if it is acknowledged at all), the compelling wish to share with others is a more immediate indicator of the occurance of a meaningful encounter. And the starting point is people’s heart, acoording to Christian. The process of creating an engaging experience is one from the inside to the outside and not vice-versa. One that aims to involve people through a meaningful story, looking then for the right tools and creating the appropriate physical environment for the encounter.

Christian Lachel, BRC Imagination Arts (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

Another issue that repeatedly came up was that of digital vs physical. At the same time that museums are racing to embrace the new digital tools and platforms in order to create more engaging and meaningful experiences, they often seem to take a step back, re-evaluating the advantages and strengths of the physical encounter.

An inspiring project of the Brooklyn Museum, the Ask Mobile App, has gone through these stages of thinking and evaluating (which are openly shared on the museum’s blog – a great example of professionalism, generosity, transparency and accountability that more museums should have the courage to implement). As Shelley Bernstein explained to us, at a time when the Brooklyn Museum is re-evaluating a number of points of contact with its visitors (its austere foyer, its confusing reception area, the lack of seating), it also wishes to improve their experience allowing them to ask on-site and in real time any question they might have regarding the objects or the exhibitions in general. The project is still being tested in its details and will be launched in June. 

Shelley Bernstein, Brooklyn Museum (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

At an earlier stage, the museum had members of its staff on floor and discovered that visitors loved engaging in conversation with them. Such a large museum would need a lot of people, though, to be able to cover all areas. In order to optimize the idea of the direct and in-real-time contact with a member of staff, they decided to turn to technology. A team of six people will be available to answer visitor questions sent through their mobiles using the Ask Mobile App. Evaluation so far has shown that people still consider this contact to be personal and the museum is confident that this will be one more way of fulfilling their mission of being “a dynamic and responsive museum that fosters dialogue and sparks conversations”. For one thing, the museum has discovered that people seem to take more time looking at the objects... looking for questions to ask!

Is there anything more personal and physical, though (and funny and inspiring), than being taken to a museum tour tailored to your needs and interests by Museum Hack? “I hate museums!”, this is how Nick Gray started his presentation. And he did hate them... once. Now all he wants is to share his passion for them with people who still hate them, people who feel that museums are not for them. A colleague from the Museum of Architecture and Design in Oslo called Museum Hack “our natural allies”. And aren’t they indeed! Nick’s favourite object at the Metropolitan Museum is the fragment of an Egyptian queen’s face. This is what he had to say about it (quoting from memory): “If these are the lips, can you imagine the rest? How beautiful she must have been? And although we don’t know who she is and which tools were used to make her, we know she’s made of yellow jasper. Yellow jasper was so-so expensive, that the only other object at the Met made of it is this tiny. In a scale of hardness from 1 to 10, where diamond is 10 and marble is 3, jasper is a solid 6. It makes marble feel like rubber...”. Aren’t museums f***ing awesome?!

Nick Grey, Museum Hack (Photos: Maria Vlachou)

My visit to the recently renovated International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum somehow put all these thoughts and ideas to the test. It’s a museum that greatly combines the physical and the digital, using technology in order to enhance the meaning of the objects, to share powerful stories and to engage the visitor – both emotionally and intellectually – in the discussion of quite sensitive universal questions. The three main chapters of the story are “Defending Human Dignity”, “Restoring Family Links” and “Reducing Natural Risks” and each space/chapter was created by a different architect, proposing quite distinct environments. One of the most touching moments for me was in the room that exhibits the gifts offered by prisoners of different conflicts to the Red Cross delegate in charge of their case. It made me think of the beauty, sensitivity, creativity and humanity that can still emanate after the horror of barbarity, brief glimpses of a renewed hope. I must say, though, that the most powerful moment was touching the extended hand of a witness on a screen, a gesture that would trigger their testimony. A brilliant conception, linking the physical to the digital and creating a profoundly emotional and memorable experience.

I must say that in almost every museum visit, presentation and discussion during the conference, there was an underlying issue for me: can museums fulfill their social and educational role, can they be relevant and engaging, if they don’t also clearly assume their political role? Right on the first day, Gail Dexter Lord introduced the concept of soft power as “the ability to influence behaviour through persuasion, attraction or agenda setting”. How can museums exercise this power? "We cannot take sides", colleagues often exclaim. Oh, but we do... Sometimes with our silence or by pretending to be neutral; more often with the objects we choose to show or not to show, the stories we choose to tell or not to tell.

More than taking sides, though, assuming our political role is to assume that there is actually more than one side to every story and to allow for space for these views to become known, to be discussed, so that citizens may get better informed, see their own views being challenged, meet and listen to the ‘other’, develop empathy and understanding, take a stand. Museums are not islands and, as Tony Butler (Derby Museums / The Happy Museum Project) said, “What’s happening out there is as important as what’s happening inside”. Isn’t it urgent, and doesn’t it make sense, that museums in the 21^st assume their role in promoting democracy?

Gail Dexter Lord (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

More on this blog:

What have we got to do with this?

What have we got to do with this? (ii)

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

The long distance between California and Jerusalem

The educational dimension

Silent and apolitical?



Links that might be of interest:

Black Cultural Archives

Brooklyn Museum blog

cogapp

Curators Without Borders

International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum

Locatify

Museum Hack

The Happy Museum Project

Uzeeum

What have we got to do with this? (ii)

Field Museum, Chicago (photographer unknown)

Last December, there was an intense debate among museum professionals in the US regarding the role of museums in the aftermath of the death of black people in police hands in Ferguson, Cleveland and New York. Our American colleagues felt strongly that museums are part of the cultural and educational network that works towards greater cultural and racial understanding. Did they refer specifically to museums with African American collections? Or museums situated in the communities where the events took place? No, they didn’t. “As mediators of culture, all museums should commit to identifying how they can connect to relevant contemporary issues irrespective of collection, focus, or mission.” (read the full statement)

At the time, I agreed with the most cautious position adopted by Rebecca Herz. I find it risky to encourage museums (any institution, really) to act irrespective of their mission, but, as Rebecca put it: “I personally believe that museums should align all actions with their mission, which should relate to collection or focus. And I think that a connection can be found between any collection and contemporary life, but that these connections need to be carefully considered and developed.” (read the post)

As I was following this very interesting discussion taking place on the other side of the Atlantic, on 15 December, an Iranian refugee stormed a Sydney café taking hostages. Sixteen hours later, the police intervened, killing the attacker as well as two of the hostages. Fearing reprisals against members of the Muslim community wearing islamic dress, the people of Sydney offered to ride on public transport with their Muslim neighbours who felt unsafe. I found out about this early in the morning of 16 December, through the Facebook page of the Immigration Museum. The museum shared the article of the Guardian and joined the rest of the Australians, taking a stand against prejudice and violence.

Taking a stand is not something simple, especially for an institution (as opposed to an individual). It’s not a decision that can or should be taken hastily, a response to the moment. It must be a “natural” move, the result of a conscious, structured and sustained policy of civic / political intervention, in accordance to the institution’s mission. It is also a great responsibility.

Last month, three young Muslims were murdered in their home in North Carolina, USA. At a time where newspapers were reporting that the motives of the attacker were still not known, the Arab American National Museum shared its heartbreak on its Facebook page regarding the loss of the three young people, thus implying that this was a racial crime. I thought it was too soon, I thought they were jumping into assumptions and that this was neither responsible nor helpful. I asked the museum if it made a statement for every murder in the US. Other people (not the museum) answered that the victims were Arab Americans, so the museum was right to react. I rephrased and asked if the museum made a statement for every Arab American murdered, if it assumed that the murder of every Arab American was a racial crime. I think that museums shouldn’t be jumping neither into conclusions nor into statements.

More recently, in Portugal, the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga published a statement regarding the destruction of archaeological treasures of the Mosul Museum by ISIS militants. It was a good surprise, as this museum, like most Portuguese museums, are not used to taking a stand publicly. One might argue that this was not exactly a political statement and that it was a rather “safe” matter for the museum; it might be. It also came at a time when specialists were still trying to figure out if the objects destroyed were the originals or copies; so it rather looked like a hasty reaction. I am more interested, though, in understanding if this was a one-time reaction or the first act in a concrete, long-term policy of acknowledging and assuming the museum’s civil-political-cultural responsibilities. It would be great if it was the latter, time will tell.

Still on this blog

What have we got to do with this?

The educational dimension

Silent and apolitical?

Preserving for what?

Being ‘just’

The long distance between California and Jerusalem

Preserving for what?

Imperial War Museum

On my second year in London, back in 1994, I could see the cupola of the Imperial War Museum (IWM) from my kitchen window. It was a beautiful view of a beautiful museum. To the surprise of many people, this is my favourite museum in London.

On my way to the first Congress of Military Museology, I was thinking that I never considered the IWM, which was going to make a presentation on that day, a military museum. To me, the IWM is a people´s museum (shouldn´t they all be?). A museum of the military and the civilians, of men and women, of grown ups and children, of human beings and animals (I am thinking of some of the exhibitions I saw there). It´s much more than dates, battles, tactics, types of weapons, treaties. It´s a museum that tells the stories of people whose lives were affected by war.

Promotional postcard of the First World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

The IWM presentation was included in a panel that would discuss the Military Museums and the the Great War Centenary. The first speaker was Maria Fernanda Rollo, a university professor and coordinator of the project Portugal 1914. This is a web portal, with very rich contents gathered with the collaboration of various institutions and professionals with different backgrounds, as well as the general public. The aim is to promote active citizenship, committed to the protection, preservation and safeguarding of a collective heritage, as well as to raise awareness of the importance of remembrance and the preservation of historical knowledge. “This is a virtual museum, that tells stories, where one learns with affection. It´s a museum that is alive”, said Maria Fernanda Rollo.

Promotional postcard of the First World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

I smiled when I heard this statement. Because, implicitely, Maria Fernanda Rollo was revealing to us her perception of museums: a dead space, a space where stories are not told, a space where affection doesn´t have a place. A perception which is widely shared by many people in our society at various levels (do you remember why painter Paula Rego wished for the museum of her paintings in Cascais to be called “House of Stories” and not “museum”?).  But I also smiled while listening to my good friend Gina Koutsika making her lively and stimulating presentation on the initiatives of the IWM for the commemoration of the centenary. Gina showed us how alive a museum can (and should) be, how full of stories and feelings, how close to the communities it serves. This is not a museum in the virtual world, it´s a real one, it exists.

Promotional postcard of the First World War Galleries at the Imperial War Museum

Once the debate started, my mind travelled to another museum visit, some ten years ago, at the In Flanders Fields Museum (Ypres, Belgium). Another remarkable museum in the town that stood in the way of the German army and was totally destroyed during the war. A museum full of human stories, where the visitor may take up the identity of one of the town’s inhabitants and follow his/her story during the war. The one thing that marked me the most, and that I never encountered in another museum since, was the most simple way of showing that one object could be many stories. By exhibiting a pile of white handkerchiefs, the museum told the story of the multiple uses of that one object: it could be a sign of surrender; or a way to protect oneself from lethal gases covering one´s nose; or something to cover one´s eyes when facing the death squad.

In Flanders Fields Museum

From Ypres, my mind crossed the boarder and went to France, to the Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux and its amazing project “Léon Vivien”. Good museums can find imaginative ways of putting their collections in good use, bringing them to life and connecting them with people. Léon Vivien is a fictitious character, a soldier, whose story is told on a special Facebook page through a number of objects, followed and commented by thousands of people. Good museums can do well both in the real and virtual word.

Eventually, the issue of remembrance came up in the debate. Lieutenant-General Mário de Oliveira Cardoso was another speaker on that panel and he quoted philosopher, essayist and writer George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Remember the past, preserve historical knowledge. Yes, that´s the aim of a number of insitutions, including museums. But why? What’s the purpose? Is it being achieved? Are the stories preserved and remembered just for their own sake or rather because they can be a link to the present, to current human stories, not only our own but those of others too? Can the stories preserved and remembered help me connect to the Other, make his/her story my own?

Europe is full of military, history, first and second world war, holocaust museums. They all aim to preserve the historical past and show the importance of rememberance. “Never again” is the motto we encounter in many of them. Are these museums aware that recently, following the atrocities that took place in Gaza, the cry “Death to Jews” was heard once again in some European cities? Have they reacted? Have they taken the opportunity to put their collections in good use and to show what is the purpose of preserving the historical past and remembering? Isn´t it precisely in a moment like this that museums should intervene publicly and contribute towards clarifying and shaping public opinion? Otherwise, preserving for what?


Other texts

Los jóvenes tienen que conocer esto para saber en que país están viviendo
Interview with Ricardo Brodsky, director of Museo de la Memoria (Santiago de Chile)

Le MuCEM ne doit pas devenir un musée pour touristes
Interview with Jean-François Chougnet, director of Musée des Civilisations de l´Europe et de la Méditerranée (Marseille)

Who funds the arts and why we should care
Interview with Charles Esche, curator of São Paulo Biennial

In circles

Nelly´s, Greek refugees from Asia Minor, 1925-27.

Two of my grandparents were born Ottoman subjects. My hometown, Ioannina, in the north west of Greece, had fallen to the Ottomans even before Constantinople, in 1430. Almost 500 years later, in 1913, it was liberated by the Greek Army and became part of the Greek State. Along the centuries, there had been a number of uprisings against Ottoman rule, but they were unsuccessful. They resulted in greater repression, which, in turn, fed the determination of the occupied.

My hometown had a strong multicultural background – Christian, Muslim and Jewish. I was born in 1970, too late to witness it, although its traces are found all around. My house today stands 200 metres away from either the muslim or jewish cemetary. Most muslims living on Greek territory had to abandon their homes and move to Turkey, a country they didn´t know, a place that meant nothing to them, following the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Orthodox Christians living in Turkey were forced to move to Greece. Friends and neighbours were separated for ever and I spent my childhood dreading the Turks. The last Muslim of Ioannina died in the 2000s, while the jewish community, almost totally annihilated during the Nazi occupation of Greece in World War II, numbers today about 50 people.

The first and last time I entered my town´s Synagogue - as it is almost always closed - was in 1993, for the commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of the deportation of the Ioannina Jews to Auschwitz. The person who sat next to me that day quietly cried through the whole ceremony. It was at that moment, in my early 20s, that I realized that History is much more than facts and dates in my books, as usually taught at schools and even at universities. History is the people that made it and the people that live its consequences, both public figures and, especially, anonynous individuals.

Whenever I travel, I always visit the Jewish Museums or exhibitions on the Holocaust in various cities, when there is one. I´ve seen some really good ones (Imperial War Museum, London; the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, Munich; Jewish Historical Museum, Amsterdam; Jewish Museum, Vienna; The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington), some not so good, in terms of museography, but nevertheless interesting because of the subject (Jewish Museum Berlin; Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens), while I really look forward to the opportunity of visiting some more, like the South African Jewish Museum in Cape Town. Through these visits I go back to the History of a People proud of their origins, who respect and preserve their traditions, no matter in which part of the world they live and, most of all, despite the persecutions they have suffered since... well, always.  I feel deep respect and admiration for them and I don´t seem to have enough of listening to the story again and again, both the good and bad parts.

Quiet often in these visits we are faced with the “Never again” lesson. This is, of course, one of the purposes of telling the story, the fact that History is repeated and that we need to learn from the past. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum actually takes a step further from the “Never Again” statement. It actively invests in studying, denouncing and preventing genocide around the world. It´s that museum that helped me come to terms with my feeling small, powerless, insignificant and taught me that we can all do something to prevent genocide: learn more and share it with friends and family. It does not mention Palestine, though.

And this is an actually bigger lesson, the real lesson, for me. One that shows that the “Never Again” will happen - again and again and again - because once we are confronted with it, we start calculating. We calculate the pros and cons for us personally, who we should openly support, when we would better keep silent and neutral, when we should assume a reconciliatory position. This is exactly what many politicians and common citizens alike have been doing since the beginning of yet another Israeli assault on Gaza, one which has so far taken many – mainly civilian – lives, destroyed many homes, left terrrible marks on human beings. Like all previous assaults. When a carnage like this is taking place (even more, perpetuated by the regular army of a democratic state), the first thing we have to do (we, the West, defender of democracy and human rights) is not to discuss the origins of the conflict, the rights and wrongs of each side. The first thing to do is to clearly, inequivocally, loudly condemn the assault and demand an immediate end to the carnage. Then we may, and must, converse.

It hasn´t happened, though. Apparently, we don´t value human life equally, so all European countries in the United Nations Human Rights Council may abstain (all of them!) from the vote to open an enquiry regarding alleged violations of human rights in Gaza; apparently, some “never again” situations are justified, so our governments may continue supporting and selling arms to the Israeli government; apparently, each case is a case and everything depends, so there are some “never again” cases where we, common citizens, may reserve the right to be more “balanced” or neutral.

Apparently, we don´t learn from what History can teach us, basically, that occupying, humiliating, terrorizing a People has never kept the perpetrators in power for ever and, most of all, it has never brought peace.

Until September.

The Attack

I read Yasmina Khandra´s The Attack a few year ago. It´s the story of an Arab doctor, Amin Jaafari, living and working in Tel Aviv. After a suicide attack rocks the city, Jaafari is called to identify his wife Sihem’s body, one of the victims of the attack. Little later, he’s confronted with the information that Sihem herself was the suicide bomber.

Khandra takes us with his beautiful, sensitive, incisive writing through the different stages in Jaafari’s emotional state and to his journey in search of answers: from the pain of losing his wife, to the incredulity when faced with the information that the woman he loved had committed such a crime, to the confusion and anger when realizing, little by little, that he was unaware of a number of his wife’s actions, thoughts and feelings, to the determination to find an explanation that could help him make sense and the return to a reality he had long left behind.

I loved Yasmina Khandra´s book because it shows that friendship, tolerance, understanding and coexistance are possible, they are one reality. And with this reality as a starting point, he slowly  takes us, following Jaafari’s quest, into that other reality, which exists right next to the first one, compromising it, questioning it, every single day: that of millions of Palestinians in the occupied territories or in exile; that of daily humiliation, dispair, hopelessness, pain, abuse, death, revolt; that of an arbitrary rule that bears terrorist suicide bombers, who are venerated as heroes and martyrs.

Khandra makes us question the first reality. Is it the product of convenient silences; of ignorance? Is it fake; fragile; unable to survive if the silence is broken? Or rather the result of strength and determination, of the informed and thus conscious wish for peace?

The director of The Attack, Ziad Doueri.

The film The Attack, by Ziad Doueri, opened this year´s Judaica – Festival of Cinema and Culture in Lisbon. I went to see it knowing that rarely or never are films as good as the books. The rule was more than confirmed.

What stroke me the most was how superficially Doueri dealt with the story. He was not able to give any depth to the characters, their feelings and views, and more than once I was left thinking that I was watching a soap opera. Furthermore, he decided to ignore Yasmina Khandra´s narrative when describing Jaafari’s quest into the territories and basically presented the Palestinian´s as nothing more than a big mafia. I got up as soon as the film ended, also puzzled about the ending that was totally different from that of the book. Just before I left the room, I was able to hear the film director explaining to the audience that the ending of the book was not convenient to him, so he chose a different one. Why didn´t he write the story he wanted instead of ruining Khandra’s?

A scene from the film The Attack.

Some days later I watched an interview with Doueri and I realized that there is probably more to it. Talking about his growing up in Beirut, about his liberal parents, about the Arabs’ taboos with regards to Israel, about how stupid ramadan is, I realized that Doueri, wishing to be progressive and open-minded and liberal, built his own version of The Attack with the intention to challenge the Arab point of view. To challenge by ignoring it, turning it into a caricature. Once again, why didn´t he write his own story instead of taking advantage of Khandra´s best-seller?

Coexistance, reconcilliation, the building of a common future is no easy thing. This is what Khandra tells us. This is what I feel when I have to talk to my son about the Greek-Turkish past and present. This was what tortured my mind when reading Jean Hatzfeld’s The Antelope's Strategy, Living in Rwanda after the Genocide. It might require some silences, but as a result of knowledge and understanding and not of ignorance. It requires strength, the ability to forgive without forgetting. It requires open-mindedness, the capacity to listen and weigh the arguments of the other side. It’s not easy; it’s very difficult and it’s complex. One needs to start by recognizing precisely that; and respecting it.

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? 

Being "just"

It´s curious that the first thing I read about the protests in Venezuela was not a piece of news in some newspaper, but pianist Gabriela Montero’s open letter to Gustavo Dudamel. In this letter she was saying:

“But I cannot remain silent any longer. Yesterday, while tens of thousands of peaceful protesters marched all over Venezuela to express their frustration, pain and desperation at the total civic,moral, physical, economic and human break down of Venezuela, and while the government armed militias, National Guard AND police attacked, killed, injured, imprisoned and disappeared many innocent victims, Gustavo and Christian Vazquez led the orchestra in a concert celebrating Youth Day and the 39 years of the birth of EL Sistema. They played a CONCERT while their people were being massacred.”

This is what made me look for news to see what was happening in that country. A few days later, another Venezuelan musician, Carlos Izcaray, en ex- El Sistema student, was making an online appeal:

“Through this medium I’d like to call on all of you to unite, with instruments in hand, to repudiate and strongly manifest against the rampant violence and human rights violations that are currently being perpetrated by the Venezuelan government on its own citizenry. Lets render our tribute of support to those who have exposed and given their lives whilst defending our Liberty. This basic right of all free people has now been unequivocally sequestered by a despotic and tyrannical Government, one that wishes to lead through fear, intimidation, and violence.”

These two musicians have chosen to live outside Venezuela, probably both for professional and political reasons. Gustavo Dudamel also lives and works abroad, but he maintains his ties with El Sistema and through it – or because of it – with his country’s government. So I read Mantero´s and Izcaray’s passionate declarations considering that the position from which they expressed their views need not be as diplomatic as Dudamel’s, who has to consider, apart from his own views, the context in which El Sistema is operating and its dependance on the Venezuelan government. I must confess, though, that I was not prepared for his disappointingly “diplomatic” statement to the LA Times:

“I'm a musician. If I were a politician, I would act as a politician for my own interest. But I'm an artist, and an artist should act for everybody.”

Dudamel expects (and accepts) politicians to act for their own interest? And artists for ‘everybody’? How are they acting for everybody? Who’s everybody? Are politicians who act for themeselves included?

A few days later, another controversy erupted, this time in New York, when artists, activists, professors and students associated to Occupy Museums, GULF Labor and other groups staged a protest at the Guggenheim Museum about labour conditions on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates, where Guggenheim is building its franchise. Two things stood out for me while I was following the development of this story. First of all, the fact that the Guggenheim did not bury its head in the sand, remaining silent and hoping for all this to go away. Unlike what is common practice here among politicians and cultural institutions alike, who behave as if they were  untouchable and immune to citizens’ criticism, Guggenheim director, Richard Armstrong, issued his own statements, made the institution’s position clear, did not shy away from any question (more readings at the end of this post). Cultural institutions do not (shoud not) stand somewhere above all common citizens, pretending to operate in a comfortable and protective vacuum, free of social responsibilities.

The other thing that stood out for me in this controversy was to find out that architect Zaha Hadid – who designed one of the stadiums in Qatar – feels that  “it’s not my duty as an architect to look at it [“it” being the deaths of hundreds of immigrant workers at the construction site]... I cannot do anything about it because I have no power to do anything about it.” (read here)

My mind flew to Ukraine. My friend and colleague Ihor Poshyvailo was writing on this blog last December: “ (...) 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. (...)”.

We’ll probably never know the names of the people who took these decisions and acted in those moments. People who are not “just a musician” or “just an architect”, people who are not “just public servants”, but who first and above all are citizens. They were citizens of an authoritarian state, risking their jobs, their personal safety, maybe their lives, maybe public funding if things went the other way - but probably not Hadid’s fees. They were “anonymous” citizens who felt they had the power and the responsibility to do something. And they did it. They did what they could.

Dudamel somehow seemed to be contradicting himself when he stated to the LA Times "(...) we are creating in Sistema not only musicians but better citizens”. If that’s what El Sistema does, then those young citizens should probably be shown by their elders that, when the moment comes, they should not hide behind “I am just a musician” statements.

More on this blog

Silent and apolitical?

The long distance between California and Jerusalem

More readings:

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel: 'An artist should act for everybody', The Guardian, 21 Feb 2014

Sistema in the crossfire, by Jonathan Andrew Govias

Guggenheim Responds to Saturday’s G.U.L.F. Protest Action, Hyperallergic, 24 Feb 2014

G.U.L.F. Responds to Guggenheim, Calls on Museum toOpen Its Doors to Free Public Assembly, Hyperallergic, 24 Feb 2014

Guggenheim Responds: Guards Paid Competitively, GuggAbu Dhabi Not Under Construction, No Public Forum, Hyperallergic, 25 Feb 2014

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).