Notes of despair

Cannabis was legalised in the State of Colorado in 2012 and the first shops commercializing it opened in the beginning of this year. According to The Independent, more than half of Colorado voters believe legalizing recreational marijuana has been good for the state. At the same time, the newspaper reports that the authorities have got serious concerns due to the consumption of inappropriate dosages, either by inexperience or confusion. A college student died last month when he jumped from his balcony, after consuming six times the recommended dosage.

Show me the people

I often think that panels and labels in art or history museums fail to convey passion, marvel, joy, pride, sadness, despair, enthusiasm; to talk to people about other people; to create empathy, the need to read more, to find out more. The language is usually dry, academic, factual, incomprehensible – I am sure – to a number (perhaps the majority?) of museum visitors.

These thoughts came back to me while visiting the Benfica Museum in Lisbon. It’s the city´s newest museum, it opened its doors in July 2013 and has had almost 43.000 visitors so far (entry is not free, adults have to pay €10,00). Its aim is to tell the story of the club and its different sports - football being, of course, the one overshadowing every other.

There are lots of things to say about the museum, but I would like to concentrate on the message and feeling it conveys through written communication and the connections it creates to people.

This is clearly a museum for and about people. A museum about passions. It aims to tell a story in a way people, all kinds of people, will understand it and feel related to it and involved in it. With art or history museums in mind, I would say that the option here is not to simply narrate facts or to explain techniques. The option is to reinforce the club’s identity – by presentings its values, objectives, achievements, contribution to the country as a whole and to individual lives.

(joining of two photos)

When it comes to people, one finds in this museum both the ‘artists’ (football players, other athletes, coaches) and those who enjoy the ‘art’ (famous people and anonymous members and fans). Everyone´s thoughts and feelings have a place on the museum’s walls, nobody is more important than someone else. Thus, we find an installation with the faces of club members, as well as a special setting quoting writers, singers, actors and other public figures who support the club.

(joining of two photos)

“It’s different, it’s football”, you might say. “They’ve got money, it makes a whole lot of a difference”, you might say.

Starting from the latter, it´s not about money. It´s about attitude. Money may allow a museum like the Benfica Museum to use a number of audiovisuals and other expensive tricks that enhance the experience. But all museums, no matter how much money they’ve got, have panels and labels (and leaflets and websites). The language they use, the story they choose to tell, the people they address are options that have got nothing to do with money.

Does football appeal to more people than art or history or archaeology? At a first glance, maybe, yes. But if we give it a second thought, maybe art and history and archaeolgy have a big appeal too, but not when presented in museums... Maybe when a friend tells us a story and raises our curiosity; when we watch a report or documentary on television; when we read a piece of news on the Internet or Facebook. In other words, when we find ourselves in a comfortable context where someone is talking to us in a language we understand , shares his/her knowledge and enthusiasm about a subject wishing to communicate with us,  puts feeling into the narrative, makes it a normal conversation among people.

Can´t museums talk and write about art and history and archaeology and many other subjects conveying passion, marvel, joy, pride, sadness, despair, enthusiasm? Can’t they talk and write to people about other people? Can´t they create empathy, the need to read more, to find out more? I believe they do, some do, but many others choose not to. The need to impress and get the approval of our peers becomes in many cases the priority when making this kind of decisions. We say “We are here for everyone, museums are for people”, but the practice does not confirm the rhetoric.

The difference between the Benfica Museum and many other museums I´ve visited is that it stays true to its mission. It´s a museum for and about people and this is not just rhetoric, it’s something one may confirm in every option (more or less successful; more or less necessary) of telling the story. In the Benfica Museum I felt the people, I felt their passions, their pride, their anguish, their sadness, their joy. And that ended up keeping me in the museum much longer than I had initially expected.

More on this blog

Just like in football

Museums: new churches?

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.

What's in a word?

Folheto do World of Discoveries

How many times have you visited a museum that was not a museum at all? And just how upset does this make you feel?

After years and years of visiting museums, I am able now to identify some “signs” and avoid being tricked, but still, not always. And I am also thinking, of course, about all other visitors, non-professionals, who might not be able to “see the signs” and for whom the word ‘museum’ might be carrying a specific ‘promise’.

The abuse of the term is something we encounter in many countries; probably in all countries. A small collection of anything put on display and there you go, we have a museum and, quite to often, we charge for it... Can anybody open an establishment of some sort and call it a “pharmacy” just like that? And do people indstinctively call a restaurant “café” and vice versa (while there also exists, at least in Portugal, the hybrid definition “café-restaurant”), even if both establishments offer services withing the area of catering? Doesn´t each one have specific characteristics transmitted (‘promised’) to customers through the name they are called by?

My concerns about the use of the word ‘museum’ came back while listening to the presentation of a new project, World of Discoveries – Interactive Museum and Thematic Park, soon to open in the city of Porto (Portugal). The presentation was included in the seminar “Tourism and Cultural Heritage – Opportunities and Challenges” organized in Lisbon by Pporto dos Museus.

World of Discoveries is a private project that will aim to tell the story of the Portuguese discoveries, a chapter in the country’s history that attracts many people, both national and foreign. If I remember correctly, it involves at this moment 35 members of staff, including people with a background in museology. Presenting the project, Helena Pereira highlighted the team´s concern to offer a both enjoyable and educational experience, a rigorous presentation of the historical facts, a product of quality. The story is going to be told through multimedia devices, as well as through a journey in time that will take visitors through a number of especially created historical settings. The potential is enormous, of course, and the project is being developed in order to be able to guarantee its financial sustainability. Prices will be €8 (children from 4 to 12), €14 (adults from 13 to 64 years old – I always find it curious when certain venues define adulthood from the age of 13) and €11 (seniors).

Mapa no folheto do World of Discoveries

World of Discoveries has chosen to explain the nature of its offer as “Interactive Museum and Thematic Park”. It was actually presented as a new model of museum, that of the 21^st century, given the means which will be used in order to tell the story and which go beyond the display of objects. I don´t actually agree that this is a new model, as science centres have been using similar means for a long time now, that is exhibits specifically created to tell a story and not historical objects, which we find in science museums. And this is the point I would like to make: I haven´t seen so far a science centre calling itself a “science museum”. Why would an interactive interpretation centre be called an “interactive museum”?

According to the ICOM definition, “A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment”. The ICOM definition embraces a number of institutions which are not museums, but are considered as such, given that they assume a number of common functions and share concerns and objectives. Those institutions are science centres, planetariums, interpretation centres, zoos, aquariums, exhibition galleries maintained by libraries and archives, to name a few. Now, most of these institutions don´t change the way they are defined: a zoo is still a zoo, an archive is still an archive and an interrpeatation centre is... precisely that.

World of Discoveries is not the first case in Portugal to raise my concerns as to what is exactly being ‘promised’ to people, potential visitors, and if the use of the term ‘museum’ might be imprecise and potentially also misleading. A few years ago, I had questioned in an ICOM meeting the option of calling the Côa Museum, which was not open yet at the time, a “museum” and not an “interpretation centre”. There is a centre in Aljubarrota that bears many similarities, in terms of product/offer, but it is actually called Interpretation Centre of the Battle of Aljubarrota.

“What’s in a word?”, you might ask. Everything, I say. There is absolutely no intention on my part in raising issues of “quality” or “validity” here.  I have visited a number of very interesting interpretation centres, in Portugal and abroad, and although I am not a big fan of thematic parks, I do believe they can provide enjoyable, interesting and valid educational experiences to many people. But it’s in the name that lies the meaning, the promise, the creation of an expectation, the kind of experience one might have, the decision to have it or not, to pay for it or not. This is why I believe that things should be called by their name.

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

On 'multi' mode before the debate

Thought #1: On May 5, 2013 the Arab American National Museum was the first among various American museums to wish its orthodox friends Happy Easter Sunday on Facebook. I remember smiling and thinking that I’ve been living in Portugal for 18 years, but no museum ever acknowldged my being in this country also as an orthodox, celebrating special days together with dozens of other Greeks and probably thousands of Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians or Serbs; permanent residents in Portugal whose visit the museums would be very happy to receive, I am sure, but whose culture is not reflected in the museums’ collecting, programming or communicating policies. What kind of a relationship could/should be developed between the parts?

Thought #2: In Canada, immigrants acquiring Canadian citizenship give their oath as “new Canadian citizens” in a ceremony taking place in museums: the Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax, for instance, or the Canadian Museum of History (formerly known as Canadian Museum of Civilization - more readings at the end of this post) in Quebec. I have no idea what the content of the oath is, but when I first heard about this, I was touched by the symbolic choice of place, museums being (ideally) places that may be representative of our identity (or rather, our multiple identities) and those of others, allowing us to learn about each other, be with each other. I imagined these people’s stories, the stories of the new Canadian citizens, becoming part of the history of Canada. Could this be one way of forging a relationship?

Image taken from the website of the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

Thought #3: A couple of years ago, in a conference entitled “Programming for Diversity” which took place in Portugal, I was convening a panel that included an Iranian refugee. I remember him saying how much he felt at home when visiting the Gulbenkian Museum, where he could see objects coming from his country. I liked that idea of feeling at home, but I was left thinking if this is the only way of getting people interested and involved, by showing them what’s known to them. Can there be a relationship when one only looks for what is familiar to them? Is it a lack of curiosity regarding one’s “new home”? Or maybe the fact that the new home doesn’t feel like “home”? And why doesn´t it?

These loose thoughts and many more questions are coming up as I am preparing to moderate a debate this week regarding the relationship of Portuguese cultural institutions with the communities of immigrants and those of refugees now living in the country. Living in a society that is becoming increasingly diverse, I am often asking myself if there is actually a relationship, if there is an interest, to start with, on either side to come together, to be part of each other´s lives and if yes, what´s the best way of developing and maintaining this relationship. I am saying this because it seems to me that most iniatiatives (at least among the ones I am aware of) are one-off projects, assigned to a specific period of time that eventually comes to an end. The “festival-kind” of project, where ones come to perform and the others to watch the exotic and never meet again until... next time; if there is a next time. Is this worthwhile? Does it have any kind of impact? Should we aim for something else, something that might last more? Why? Who’s interested? And whose initiative should this be?

Museu d' Història de Catalunya, Barcelona. Catalonia in the 21st century, part of the permanent exhibition. (Photo: Maria Vlachou)

Looking abroad, we see big institutions operating within large multicultural societies (the Victoria and Albert Museum in London or the Kennedy Center in Washington, to name just two) dedicating big exhibitions and special programmes to specific communities and their cultures. The aim is to present a people’s culture and arts to anyone who might be interested, to promote learning and hopefully also some understanding about them. The aim is also to make that specific community feel included, and the truth is that this kind of exhibitions and festivals do attract large numbers of representatives of the celebrated culture. The question that remains is: then what? What happens to those people who came to learn and enjoy? What stays with them? Are there any changes in the way they perceive the culture they just learned about? And do people from the communities involved come back for something else? I gave the example of big institutions abroad, but the same could apply to smaller institutions within our borders. Are we developing projects and policies that might answer the question “Then what”?

Are immigrants and refugees a special group, different from others? Maybe not. They might be interested in what cultural institutions have to offer or not; they might have a habit of visiting / attending or not; they might feel represented or not; they might feel that this is for them or not; they might feel welcome or not; they might come or not; they might have the money or not. Just like anybody else. Unlike certain other groups of (underepresented) people, though, some cultural institutions – or projects - feel the need, from time to time, to ‘deal’ with immigrants or refugees. Maybe out of genuine interest, maybe because it is politically correct. My concern is that, most times, it seems to be a one-off thing, a “special event” or a “special project”, something that eventually makes the people involved also stand out as a “special group”, instead of promoting their being acknowledged as an integral part of our society, with whom the relationship should be of a more permanent nature. What once was “special” might not be anymore, things change. Are we following the change?

Ideally for me, cultural institutions are the place where a newcomer (like I was 18 years ago) can get to know what existed before his/her arrival, what is being produced at the moment and how he/she can leave his/her mark as well. They are places of constant negotiation and update. In order for this not to be something “special”, the work must be continuous so that the inclusion may come naturally.

Can it be? Is it possible? Is it happening? What does it take? These are questions for which I hope to be able to get some clues in Thursday’s debate.

More on this blog:

Setting the table

Further reading:

Whose history on display at new museum?

Civilization ends, history begins at Canada´s biggest museum

Museum of Civilization lifts veil on its new Canadian History Hall