"Either...or" or simply "and"?

Nicholas Penny, National Gallery director (photo taken from the Guardian) 

Two museum directors in London announced this month that they will be stepping down as soon as their successors are appointed: first, Sandy Nairne from the National Portrait Gallery and then Nicholas Penny from the National Gallery. Two museum directors who are thought to have been very successful in this job.

Although neither has specified some special professional reason for stepping down (at least, my Google search hasn´t brought something up), Guardian´s Jonathan Jones believes the reason might be the increasing pressure on London museum directors due to populist expectations, a media assumption that every exhibition must be a hit and a political belief that galleries should provide not just well-run collections, but entertainment and education for everyone. And he states:

“(…) Are we about to see a new technocrat generation of museum bosses who keep their heads down, put PR first and do all they can to meet goals defined by politicians and the press? (…) That kind of pressure doesn't exactly leave much room to experiment. Museums cannot just be machines for entertaining us. They should have a quieter side where the art comes first, the crowds second and a scholarly side that reveres someone like Penny. This looks depressingly like the end of individuality in the museum world.” (read the article)

It´s getting harder and harder for me to understand why museums are still and constantly faced with dichotomies: objects or people; scholars or technocrats; quietness and reverence or publicity and accessibility. Does it have to be like that? Isn´t it possible to strike a balance? Can´t they be ‘AND’?

When reading Elaine Heumann Gurian´s ”Civilizing the museum” a couple of years ago, I remember experiencing a great sense of relief when reaching the chapter “The importance of ‘and’”. She was commenting on the American Association of Museums report Excellence and Equity (a report that was distributed to each and every museum studies student in 1993 at UCL, where I was studying). One reads:

“(...) This report made a concerted attempt to accept the two major ideas proposed by factions within the field – equity and excellence – as equal and without priority.” Further down: “(...) for the museum field to go forward, we must do more than make political peace by linking words. We must believe in what we have written, namely that complex organizations must and should espouse the coexistance of more than one primary mission.” And also: “It has occurred to me that perhaps my whole career was metaphorically about ‘and’.”  

We must believe in what we have written, that´s one point. And the other point is probably that we must go ahead and do what we write or talk about. Because it´s not impossible to do it. Who´s the best person for the job? Can it be one person only? Would teams which involve professionals with different sensibilities manage to reach multiple objectives in a more balanced way? Are we trying to set up this kind of teams? Is everyone heard equally?

“Publicity and accessibility are everything”, Jonathan Jones writes in a negatively critical tone in his article. Publicity might not be everything, but accessibility certainly is. Museums are for anyone who might be interested in them, but not all people approach their contents with the same level of knowledge or interest and with the same kind of needs. It´s a hard job, indeed, but, should museums wish to fulfill their mission, they need to have a quieter side and they need to have a celebration side. They need to please those who know and they need to enchant those who don´t know as much or who know nothing. It was as early as 1853 that British naturalist Edward Forbes wrote: “Curators may be prodigies of learning and yet unfit for their posts if they don´t know anything about pedagogy, if they are not equipped to teach people who know nothing.” Those people matter too. Those people might matter even more.

As I write about these dichotomies, one more need emerges for me as a professional, but as a citizen too. I would like to hear the voices of those responsible for managing our museums (and cultural organizations in general) regarding these issues. I would like to hear clear statements, I woud like to feel there is a vision behind them. I would like to know on what kind of plan I may base my criticism. Jonathan Jones is concerned about technocrats who keep their heads down, I am concerned about directors (museum, theatre, orchestra, library directors) who keep their mouths shut. I was in a debate some time ago where someone said “Fortunately, I was never asked to take up positions of directorship and that means I have always been able to say what I think.” Is this fortunate? Isn´t it profoundly worrying?

There is no doubt that there is a great difficulty in dealing with managers or directors with an opinion. In this kind of democracy of ours, someone who takes a certain position is expected to show a kind of ‘loyalty’ that stops him/her from publicly sharing their views (especially when contrary to a government´s positions). I am not defending that each and every issue, each and every disagreement, should be dealt with in public. Nevertheless, there are issues that concern us all. When the State appoints certain people to certain positions, I would like to know what´s expected of them. Once those certain people accept the job, I would like to know what they aim to do and how they plan to go about reaching the objectives. And if they feel that they are not given the conditions to do their job well or if they don´t feel they are up to what´s expected of them, I wish to know about that too. When two museum directors (in London or elsewhere) announce within two weeks from each other that they are leaving, I would like to understand why. When other museum directors (in London or elswhere), keep on staying despite the state of the affairs, I would also like to understand what´s keeping them.

Old friends, new friends

Seattle Symphony Orchestra with Sir Mix-a-Lot.

Some cultural organizations are interested in evaluating their programming and the ways they package and prmote it, aiming at diversifying their audiences. On the one hand, this is a necessary step towards accomplishing their mission. On the other hand, it is also a question of survival: how long will they exist for if they don´t manage to renew their relationship with people?

Is it sad when a museum closes? Why?

Toy Museum, Sintra, Portugal

About a year and a half ago, my Australian colleague Rebecca Lamoin wrote in this blog about the Queensland Performing Arts Centre´s effort to understand what was the institution´s public value. Crucial questions were asked: What is the most important thing we deliver to our community? Why does our community love us? What people in our city would miss if we weren’t here anymore?

There are a number of cultural institutions around the world collecting data (more than quantitative data) that may help them define and prove their importance in people´s lives. Why? Because it might not be obvious to everyone, especially tax payers and political decision makers. It would make sense, though, even if it was just an internal mental exercise to undertake such an assessment. It´s worth taking a moment from time to time and evaluating the success factors of our projects and the relevance of our offer for the people we aim and are supposed to serve.

These thoughts came back once the news broke of a possible closure of the Toy Museum in Sintra (greater Lisbon Area). It seems that the museum is no longer sustainable, due to cuts in State funding and a sharp decrease in school and family visits. Culture professionals were quick to react. “It´s a shame”; “It´s sad”; “A tragedy”; “A misery”; “My favourite museum”. And every time I was reading a statement like that, I was asking myself: “Why?”. Why is it a shame? Why is it sad? Why is it a tragedy? Why is this someone´s favourite museum? What lies behind this kind of statements? What is their substance? Who knows? Does the museum and the foundation running it know?

But these were not the only questions in my mind. I would be also interested to know what normal visitors – not just culture professionals – think of the possible closure. How many times have they visited this particular museum? Why do they value it? What will they miss if it does eventually close? And beyond museum visitors, what does the population of Sintra think and feel regarding the closure of a museum in the town centre? Are they worried? Are they upset? Are they ready to fight for it and demand support from the municipality and the State?

Questions are also raised regarding the museum´s management. How long has this been going on? Did the Foundation take into consideration the changing - and rather hostile - political and economic context in which it is operating? What kind of measures has it taken so far? What is their plan B?

I haven´t found answers to these questions so far in public forums. I only know of a public petition on an online platform which, at the time I am writing these lines, has got approximately 2600 signatures. The text focuses on the collection and quotes only the collector, for whom, naturally, the objects are of great importance. It´s really a statement in the first person singular. The photo illustrating the petition shows an empty museum with series of objects behind glass, reaching almost the ceiling. I was left wondering how someone could have thought that this - quoting exclusively the collector and showing an empty museum - is the right approach at such a difficult moment. An approach that might convince those who know and, especially, those who don´t know the museum of its value and importance.

The Toy Museum is not an isolated case, unfortunately, in a country whose government does not consider culture to be a priority. A couple of years ago, the case of the Cork Museum in Silves (South Portugal) was handled in much the same way. A museum that once won the Micheletti Award of the European Museum Forum (an award for innovative museums in the world of industry, science and technics), ended up closing and I have no information regarding the destiny of its collection. Other projects, also in the performing arts field, are struggling or even disappearing. I suppose my ultimate question is “What are culture managers in this country doing about this?”. There must be more than “Such a shame” and “Such a pity” statements, there must be more than petitions. This is simply not enough, our organizations deserve more from us. People in this country deserve more from us.

More on this blog

On public value

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.