“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”

Suffragette being arrested in 1914.
(Image taken from The Independent. PA Wire/PA Images)

The title of this post are Ghandi’s words, quoted by Rebecca Solnit in her book “Hope in the dark”. Each era has its own, specific causes, while, at the same time we can observe and feel the development of others, coming from further back. Solnit reminds us that the stages identified by Ghandi unfold slowly and also that “Effects are not proportionate to causes – not only because huge causes sometimes seem to have little effect, but because tiny ones occasionally have huge consequences.” (p.61).

I have been thinking about the way activists of different causes are seen and treated nowadays. When I wrote a chapter for the book “The activist museum” (edited by Robert Janes and Richard Sandell), I remember opting for the definition of activism as it appeared on Wikipedia, since the dictionaries I consulted at the time often gave it an aggressive, violent tinge, which left me unsatisfied. Aggression or violence are not absent, of course, but they are not the only way of being an activist. Remembering an interview by John Berger, listening is an act (and in my mind, this is where activist actually starts, at being able to listen).

To honestly care

Photo: Maria Vlachou

When I attended the Balkan Museum Network conference last month, I had the pleasure of listening to Łukasz Bratasz, Head of the Cultural Heritage Research group at the Jerzy Haber Institute (Poland). His keynote speech was about “Sustainability-conscious management of art collections”. For someone like me, who knows the absolutely basic on environmental control in museums, it was a surprising and refreshing talk. Perhaps also for those who know more than I do. Because Łukasz shared with us the results of studies that show that objects are much less vulnerable to environmental variations than previously assumed and that there are other ways of managing art collections, with a significantly lighter carbon footprint.

Never again: how do you live up to a lofty mission like this?

Image taken from Vatican News (Photo: Agence France Presse)

Back in a 2014, in a post called “In circles”, I wrote that “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.”

How does living in a “declining democracy” feel?

Claudia Roth, German Minister of State for Culture, at Belinale.
Photo: Andreas Rentz | Geety Images (taken from The Guardian)

I was in an international group discussion a few days ago, where the subject was museums and declining democracies. We heard about the woes of Polish museum directors, widely reported in the international press (examples from 2017 onwards: here, here, here, here, here); we heard about museums in Hungary, expected to “interpret for the people the wills of the government” or getting censored because of a participatory art project depicting the President or, more recently, seeing a director getting sacked for ignoring the law against the “promotion of homosexuality”, which he had voted for when he was a member of parliament. We also heard about the Netherlands, where the extreme right has been attacking museum narratives for some time and is now trying to form a government, after winning the elections in November.

Culture prescribed

Les Kurbas Theatre, Lviv, Ukraine, 2022. Photo: Adriano Miranda

Attending performances of ancient Greek plays in ancient Greek theatres is an experience that always gets me thinking. I find particularly moving the stream of people heading towards the theatre to watch for the umpteenth time the same stories that tell us of love, hate, respect, arrogance, thirst for power, war, justice, revenge. Stories written many centuries ago about human nature and all that is good and bad about it. And then, once I look around me at all the people filling up the theatre, and also seeing them leave after the performance, I often wonder “So what? What now?”. To what extent people use the “food for thought” provided by the play to think about contemporary life, about themselves and others, their place in the world and what could be their contribution towards a better world? When I consider contemporary Greek society (and other societies), the way we take care (or don’t take care) of each other, I am reminded that the power does not lie in the play alone, but also, and perhaps even more, in the individual and what that person will (or will not) do with what was given to them.

We yearn for the future (still)

The façade of the National Theatre D. Maria II, Lisbon, 2020-2021

Two recent programmes on Portuguese public TV focusing on culture, as well as numerous meetings with professionals in the field throughout the year and in recent years, have intensified my concern regarding how this sector is understood and managed, what vision it projects and how it practices it.

Zia and Manuela were present.

RTCP conference in Portalegre, 7.11.2023

Professional meetings are, increasingly, a precious moment for those who can give themselves or manage to ask their managers for the time to participate. With more and more cultural professionals talking openly about mental illness, exhaustion, depression, senseless rhythms, these moments of encounter - when we can be together, hug each other, look into each other's eyes, smile, talk – are more than necessary, they are urgent.