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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More on this blog

The stories we tell ourselves

Silent and apolitical?

The long distance between California and Jerusalem

More readings

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

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

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

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

Guest post: "I come from here", by Zeina Soudi (Palestine)

I met Zeina Soudi last month in Lisbon, thanks to Laurinda Alves. They´re the managers of Dialogue Café in Ramallah and Lisbon, respectively. In two hours we managed to talk about a number of issues, but what particularly caught my attention was Zeina´s quest for her identity. Born in Lebanon of Palestinian parents, she first visited Palestine as a Jordanian national.  It took her another 10 years to obtain a Palestinian ID. The question "Where are you from?” was always difficult to answer. Although the Palestinian context has, naturally, its own specificities, various parts in her narration will strike a chord with many of us and raise our awareness regarding issues of culture, identity, roots, ‘us’ and the ‘other’. mv

In Zeina Soudi´s passport.

“Where are you from?” was a question that I was asked a lot when I was younger. It was a question that confused me for years and I couldn’t answer without having to think about it. Usually the answer was a muddle. You see, I am the product of third-culture kids. I was born in Lebanon and lived in Malta and Cyprus till my late teenage years before moving to Jordan. I am a Jordanian citizen of Palestinian origin. But at that time I had never lived in Jordan or been to Palestine. Palestine was just a fantasy land that my parents talked of and I saw on the news. So being a foreigner in these countries, the question “Where are you from?” was a question I always dreaded being asked, although it should be one of the simplest questions anyone would have to answer.

My journey to affirm and reaffirm my identity took a lot of twists and turns, confusion and restrictions; starting with the question “Where are you from?”.

I spent my last two years of school in Amman, and even though I did get a sense of belonging, there was still something missing. There was a little part of me that I still needed to find to feel complete. So after I finished school, I decided to go to Palestine alone and enroll in university there. This decision was going to be the start of a very difficult journey. This was in 1997.

As you know Palestine is still occupied. And going there means I had to have a permit from Israel which proved to be more difficult than I ever imagined. When I finally got the permit the first time, I made it half way through the borders, but was denied entry at the Israeli borders. When I questioned why, they replied “For security reasons”.

Security reasons? How much of a security threat can I be by going to university to major in English Language and Literature? That didn’t matter to them. They stamped “Entry DENIED” on my passport and sent me back to Amman. These 2 words on my passport changed the course of my life. I was only 18 years old at the time. It wasn’t until years later that I would find out why I was such a ‘security threat’.

I came so close yet still far away. It reminded me of A Letter to His son by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani:

“I heard you in the other room asking your mother, 'Mama, am I a Palestinian?'. When she answered 'Yes', a heavy silence fell on the whole house. It was as if something hanging over our heads had fallen, its noise exploding, then - silence. Afterwards...I heard you crying. I could not move. There was something bigger than my awareness being born in the other room through your bewildered sobbing. It was as if a blessed scalpel was cutting up your chest and putting there the heart that belongs to you...I was unable to move to see what was happening in the other room. I knew, however, that a distant homeland was being born again: hills, olive groves, dead people, torn banners and folded ones, all cutting their way into a future of flesh and blood and being born in the heart of another child... Do you believe that man grows? No, he is born suddenly - a word, a moment, penetrates his heart to a new throb. One scene can hurl him down from the ceiling of childhood onto the ruggedness of the road.”

But I didn’t give up so easily. And I tried again and again until I got a permit and finally went to Palestine.

Architectural draft of the, under construction, Palestinian Museum, which will be dedicated to the exploration and understanding of the culture, history and society of Palestine and the Palestinian people. Read an interview with the museum director here.  

I was slowly learning how many different identity cards us Palestinians are forced to have.  And these different identities determine which road to take or city you can go to. For example, I wasn’t allowed to go to Jerusalem, where I am originally from. We Palestinians are forced to be separated and categorized according to where we are from and the color of our identity cards.

After the second Intifada broke out, I decided to stay in Palestine to finish my degree; that’s when I became an “illegal-alien” in my homeland and spent 8 years in an open air prison, unable to travel for fear of being permanently denied entry to my homeland. I was persistent on planting my roots here, just as my parents, grandparents and great grandparents did. Even though it felt claustrophobic at times, and I felt like giving up, I finally got what I wanted. I affirmed my identity on paper. I took my right to a Palestinian identity card, and I became “legal”. This was my way for resisting this injustice. This was my way to affirm my identity. This is probably why to the Israeli occupation I was a security threat.

And here I am still today, sitting at home in my living room, with all my friends, all different colored ID cards, different passports, those who were born in Palestine and those like me raised in different countries. We all walked a different path in life. But we all have one thing in common, we are all persistent. We all refuse this injustice. We all refuse to be categorized. We all wake up every day and say NO to the occupation.

And at the end of the day, when somebody asks me “Where are you from?” I can easily say: “I Come From Here”.

Zeina Soudi is currently managing the Dialogue Cafe in Ramallah. The Dialogue Cafe is an open video-conferencing network that brings people from all walks of life, around the world, together to exchange ideas, knowledge, and experiences, dealing with different cultures, societies and traditions. Zeina previously worked in NGOs dealing with human rights and social development, as well as projects dealing with Palestinian Art and Culture. She started out her career as an English teacher.

Guest post: "The political museum", by David Fleming (UK)

David Fleming is a museum professional I greatly admire and respect and he has deeply influenced my thinking on the role of museums. Some years ago, Josie Appleton criticised his option of coming into museums because this was his way of trying to change the world by saying “An admirable aim, of course, but maybe Fleming should have become a politician or a social worker rather than a museum director.” [in Watson, E. (ed), Museums and their Communities, p116]. I, personally, am glad David came into museums and actually became a museum director. And it is with great pleasure that we publish in this blog a shortened version of his speech The Political Museum, given at the INTERCOM Conference in Sydney last November. The complete version may be found at the end of this text.  mv 

Photo taken from the website of National Museums Liverpool

1.   Introduction – the myth of neutrality

It is a tradition in museums that we are, or should be, apolitical, by which I mean that museums should not involve ourselves in the power relationships that characterise society. It’s not our job to get embroiled in the world of real people, real events, controversy and opinion. What we ought to do is use our knowledge and expertise to assemble and care for our collections, and to present them in a neutral fashion for public benefit, floating on a cloud of scholarly virtue, hovering well above the mundane realities of human life. In fact, to keep doing what many museums have attempted to do for most of the time since they were set up.

It is, of course, the height of hypocrisy, and, indeed, is utterly vacuous, to claim that museums have ever been ‘neutral’ about anything. All the basic tasks that we undertake - researching, collecting, presenting, interpreting – are loaded with meaning and bias, and always have been; these tasks are the museum’s methods of serving up to the public what the people running the museum wish the public to see. Museums are social constructs, and politics is a cornerstone of social activity – you can’t have one without the other. No matter what type of museum, no matter what it contains, decisions have been made by someone about what to research, what to preserve, what to collect, what to present, how to interpret; and decisions have been made about what not to do, what not to research, what not to preserve, what not to collect, what not to present, what not to interpret.

I’m not altogether certain why some museum people, and others, have seen such value in portraying ourselves as disinterestedly pursuing knowledge, as though by doing so we avoid the risk of becoming political. The issue isn’t “is it right or wrong for museums to be political?” but “all museums are political, why do some pretend that they’re not?”.

2. The political museum in action

a) Old Model

After their conquest of Greece in the 2^nd century BC, the Romans used triumphal display of objects to show the superiority of Roman to Greek culture. This was a technique continued throughout the ages, by the Christian Church, by Charlemagne, by the Venetian Republic, by Napoleon, by the Nazis, and by many others – in all these instances any aesthetic appreciation of the objects displayed was probably subservient to the political power message. Some of the great museums of Western Europe are particularly good examples of the Old Model Political Museum, with their displays of imperial plunder and their casual assumption of European superiority over other peoples. The political nature of such museums has been revealed in the justifications for the existence of “universal” museums, a concept which came to renewed prominence in 2003 with the Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums by the directors of a self-selected group of big European and US museums. The Old Model Political Museum is best characterised by its stealth. It is political, but it pretends it isn’t – it pretends that it is merely orthodox and truthful. It is a museum that would thrive in George Orwell’s Oceania.

b) New Model

Photo taken from the website of Tuol Sleng Memorial Museum.

Today, the New Model Political Museum is overt and campaigning, in particular in the fields of human rights and national identity: The National Museum of Australia (Canberra), The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongawera (Wellington, New Zealand), District Six Museum (Cape Town, South Africa), Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (Phnom Penh, Cambodia), Museum of Genocide Victims (Vilnius, Lithuania), Museum of the Occupation of Latvi (Riga, Latvia), The Museum of the Romanian Peasant (Bucharest, Romania), The Vietnam War Remnants Museum (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam), DDR Museum (Berlin, Germany), to mention a few. There are lots more museums of the type that seeks actively to redress a situation where power politics have left some people disadvantaged at best, oppressed and victimised at worst.

A couple of weeks ago I received this email from the Director of the Memorial Resistance Museum in Santo Domingo: “I just created a new petition and I hope you can sign. It's called: We are fighting for the right to the truth and justice for the victims of the dictatorship of Trujillo.”

I went to the website and found the following: “We ask the General Attorney of the Dominican Republic, Mr. Francisco Dominguez Brito, to enforce the laws and the international treaties on human rights, defend the rights of young people and Dominican children to truth, defend the right to justice for the more than 50 thousand victims of the dictatorship of Trujillo, the survivors and the relatives of the victims. We demand the fulfilment of the decision of the Dominican courts, that protect us from the vindication of the regime and the figure of the dictator, and for a Commission of Truth.”

This is the political museum in full flow.

In conclusion, there is a gap between the active, campaigning museums that we have been looking at, and those that go about their political business more discreetly, but the gap is superficial. I would argue that most museums are political, and it is naïve or dishonest to pretend otherwise. We shouldn’t regret this, as though there is a better, neutral state somewhere to which we should aspire – it is human nature to be political, and thank goodness it is.

David Fleming´s full keynote speech may be found here. The Museum of Liverpool, one of the museums under David´s direction, was awarded last month the Council of Europe Museum Prize for 2013 by the Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). PACE said “The Museum of Liverpool provides an exemplary recognition of human rights in museum practice." (read here)

Further readings

The political museum professional, by Suse Cairns

Places of encounter, by Maria Vlachou

Silent and apolitical?, by Maria Vlachou

Check also:

International Coalition of Sites of Conscience

David Fleming became Director of National Museums Liverpool in 2001. He has overseen a radical change management process that has resulted in Liverpool audiences rising from around 700,000 per year to 3.5 million, at the same time increasing markedly in diversity. He has advised a number of governments, museums and municipal authorities, both nationally and internationally, on national museum strategy, project management, exhibition design and museum governance. He has published extensively on museums and lectured on museum management and leadership, social inclusion, city history museums and human rights museums in more than 30 countries. He is Founding President of the Federation of International Human Rights Museums (FIHRM), Vice-Chair of the European Museum Forum, and Chairman of ICOM’s Finance and Resources Committee. He is a past President of the UK Museums Association and has served on several UK Government committees and task forces.

The stories we tell ourselves

When I was 11 years old and our car broke down during a visit to Constantinople, I was very surprised that a number of people came to assist us and they neither gave up nor did they attack us when they found out we were Greeks (we were supposed to be hating each other). At the age of 12, I was shocked to hear in a foreign documentary that Alexander the Great was an imperialist and a people´s murderer (everybody was supposed to admire and acknowledge his greatness). At 19, again in Turkey, in Smyrna, I felt puzzled when an old fisherman started crying when he found out we were Greeks and said he was from Crete (wasn´t he supposed to speak greek then?). During that same trip, arriving at Afyonkarahisar, I felt disturbed when I saw in the central square a statue representing a battle between a Turk and a Greek, the latter being on the ground (the Greeks were supposed to be always on their feet). At 23, while visiting a history museum in the town of Halifax (UK), I felt outraged when I saw photos of fighters of the cypriot resistance against british rule where they were being identified as “terrorists” (they were supposed to be honoured by everyone as heroes).



Afyonkarahisar, Turkey (Photo: mv)

These are some of the moments when ‘my story’ was challenged. The clash was considerable at all of them. Useful, as well. Because, as the surprise, the shock, the puzzlement or the outrage subsided – but, also, the more I traveled, the more people I got to know – I was becoming more and more conscious of the existance of more stories, apart from mine, but which related to me too, they came to complement my own, at times contradicting it. There have been more moments like these, but now they are somehow ‘expected’, they are welcome, they bring the pleasure of discovery and knowledge, they provide an approach, a different understanding, without necessarily resulting into an agreement.

In one way or the other, museums of all kinds tell stories, make interpretations. Almost 20 years ago, I was starting my studies in museology. In my first readings, preparing my first courseworks, I often came across references regarding the fact that people acknowledged the ‘authority’ of museums, were looking for the ‘truth’ in them, trusted them and recognized their importance, even those who didn´t visit. At that time, it seemed to me that that´s how it should be and I recognized the enormous responsibility this trust brought upon museum professionals when interpreting collections, an interpretation that should be ‘objective’. Almost 20 years later, the museums I like the best are those which don´t consider themselves to be an ‘authority’, don´t aim to be ‘objective’, accept the plurality of narratives (coming also from non-specialists) and are not afraid to provide space for them to be expressed and shared. The museums I like the most are those which question themselves and question me, question ‘my story’.

A recent visit to the Musée do Quai Branly, my first, made me think again about these issues. I remembered all the controversy that surrounded the creation of this museum, that brought together the collections of the ethnology laboratory of the Musée de l´Homme and of the Musée des Arts de l´Afrique et de l´Océanie. In the words of President Jacques Chirac at the inauguration, this museum represents the rejection of ethnocentrism, of this unreasonable and unacceptable pretension of the West to hold within itself the destiny of humanity. It represents the rejection of the false evolutionism that claims that some peoples remain in a previous stage of human evolution and that their so-called “primitive” cultures are merely worth serving as objects of study for the anthropologist or, at best, as an inspiration for the Western artist.

In the period that preceded the opening of the museum, a survey was carried out with the aim to find out what was the public´s point of view regarding its creation. The results, presented in the article Du MAAO au Musée du Quai-Branly: Le point de vue des publics sur une mutation culturelle, allow us to conclude that the citizens´ worries and expectations concentrated on two issues: should Quai Branly be an art or an ethnology museum; and should it be a museum about colonialism or rather a kind of full stop in an uncomfortable and painful story and a new starting point. These same issues were the object of reflection and criticism on behalf of the specialists too.

In Quai Branly´s permanent exhibition I found an art museum. A museum that invited me to simply contemplate and appreciate beautiful objects. This wasn´t what I was looking for and I don´t think that through this kind of approach one manages to “reject ethnocentrism” and elevate the cultures of other peoples to the status they “deserve”. The permanent exhibition does not actually tell any story, much less that of the creation of this collection.

(Image taken from the Musée du Quai Branly website)

Nevertheless, Quai Branly offers much more: temporary exhibitions (those, yes, inquisitive, perplexing, surprising, such as, at this moment, Exhibitions: L´invention du sauvage), conferences, guided tours, workshops, cinema, theatre, dance, music. A very rich parallel programme that aims to complement the permanent exhibition, explore it, scrutinize it, to actually bring cultures to dialogue (the museum motto is Là où dialoguent les cultures).

Even though, I felt that there might still exist a ‘but’. I felt that the dialogue might just be between ‘our’ culture and ‘theirs’ (and maybe even a kind of apology, ‘ours’ towards ‘them’). In the article The Opening of the Musée du Quai Branly: Valuing/Displaying the "Other" in Post-Colonial France, of 2006, one can read that the museum was conceived and built without getting in touch with the minorities, except in the week of inauguration – a marketing manoeuvre, according to an interviewee -, in order to guarantee a positive response. On the other hand, in The Public Sphere as Wilderness: Le Musée du Quai Branly (which dates from 2009 and is a very interesting account of the museum´s first years of existance, with an extensive list of references in the end), we can see that, at the time, just one third of the museum visitors were tourists (meaning ‘foreign tourists´), while among the rest, 60% were frequent museum goers and 40% a new museum-going public, attracted by the links the museum provided between them and their cultures of origin. These are the statistics. In a very entertaining session with an African storyteller on a Sunday morning, I just saw white families. In the photos that illustrate the brochure of the March-May programme we also see just white audiences. Could this be a coincidence?

(Photo: mv)

Although the challenge of shared ‘authority’ is common to all museums, I always felt that the task was somehow more complex in what concerned history or ethnology museums. Museums which deal with life stories, with political events, with traumas, conflicts, hatred, with ‘us’ and ‘the others’, with people. I always visit them with the enormous curiosity to find out if they accepted the challenge and how they dealt with it. By coincidence, a few weeks before visiting Quai Branly, I watched this video with Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie about “The stories Europe tells itself about its colonial history”. Knowing the ‘other’ is hearing his voice. In the first person. And in order for this to happen, an encounter must be provided. This is what good museums know how to do: create spaces of encounter. Of dialogue as well.

Still on this blog

Places of encounter

More readings

Angela Charlton, Human Zoos: Quai Branly Museum Puts Humans On Display

Edward Rothstein, French Museums Atone for a Colonial History

Jeremy Harding, At Quai Branly

Jonathan Jones, To Timbuktu and beyond
Lisa Karlsson Blom, Mikela Lundahl, Haunted museums: Ethnography, coloniality and sore pointsMike Murawski, Object stories: Rejecting the single story in museums

House with a roof but no foundations?

The brazilian portal Cultura e Mercado announced last week that the House of Representatives is going to create a commission in order to analyse the Proposal for an Amendment to the Constitution, that recognizes access to culture as a social right. In the same piece of news they were talking about the Culture Voucher bill, according to which each worker who earns up to five times the minimum salary will get a monthly subsidy of R$50 (approximately €22) in order to be allowed access to products and services in the visual and performing arts, audiovisual, literature, music and cultural heritage.

I was very curious about this project. I thought about practical issues (is it going to be a card from which the value of the products will be discounted, a voucher booklet, will it be exchanged in establishments that accept to be part of the initiative, will workers have to present receipts…?), but I mainly thought about the objectives and expectations of the project.

I found some answers in the final draft of the bill:

“Art. 1 It is hereby instituted, under the management of the Ministry of Culture, the Worker´s Programme of Culture, aimed at providing workers with means in order to exercise their cultural rights and have access to cultural sources.

Art. 2 The Worker’ s Programme of Culture has the following objectives:

I – To allow for access and fruition of cultural products and services;

II – To stimulate the visitation of establishments that provide the integration of science, education and culture; and

III – To encourage access to cultural and artistic events and performances.”

In another article in Cultura and Mercado, entitled Democratização do acesso à cultura (Democratization of access to culture), I read a critical analysis of this proposal. The author, Roberto Baungartner, presented statistics such as: only 13% of Brazilians go to the cinema at least once a year; more than 92% have never been to a museum or art exhibition; 78% have never attended a dance performance. Some of these data are also mentioned in the Culture Voucher official video.

Roberto Baungartner believes that this initiative, apart from benefiting culture itself, will create more jobs and revenue, it will reduce violence and will increase, in what concerns demand, the production chains involved. He also believes that it will make brazilian companies more competitive in the international field.

Once again, I don´t find the objectives and expectations to be realistic and well structured. I always have serious doubts that democratizing access to culture is something one can take care of, first of all, with measures like this one, that seem to be leaving aside the main issues in what concerns access.

In Baungartner´s article we can also read that more than 90% of brazilian municipalities have no cinema rooms, theatre, museums and cultural spaces in general (he actually mentions that the 6000 cinema rooms Brazil once had are now reduced to 200). So, my questions are the following:

- Without the necessary spaces and cultural habits related to the programmes these places normally offer, can we really believe that a R$50 subsidy is what´s missing in order to create access?

- It is very promising that a government is willing to recognize the social right to culture (it is actually a human right) and to consider it in the constitution amendment. Nevertheless, it needs to be clear for all what is ‘culture’, how it is produced, by whom, where, and what is necessary in order to provide access to it (both in what concerns production and consumption). I say this, because the Culture Voucher official video, quite well done, presents, in the meantime, a vision of what culture is quite concentrated in the so-called ‘high culure’, access to which – for the majority of the people who never go to the cinema, to a museum or to the theatre – is not provided, in the first place, with a R$50 monthly subsidy.

At a time when cultural institutions are looking for ways to share the responsibility of managment and programming with actual and, mainly, potential audiences, through the recognition of various forms of cultural fruition and the creation of conditions that would facilitate access to it, the brazilian initiative seems to ignore recent developments and trends and to be limited to issues that, in my opinion, are important but secondary in this discussion. It is, nevertheless, an interesting initiative, probably innovative, that has produced a large amount of consensus among the different agents that will be involved in it and from which many people will certainly benefit. It will be interesting to follow its development and be able to compare the results against the initial objectives.

Silent and apolitical?

Photo: Maria Vlachou

One hundred million sunflower seed made of porcelain, each one created individually by more than 1600 artisans. Do they look inoffensive? ‘Apolitical’? Well, they aren´t. Actually, it was the progressive discovery of the political meaning in this work by Ai Weiwei that thrilled me when I saw it in Tate Modern last October.

Ai Weiwei, Chinese artist and political activist, was detained by the Chinese authorities on April 3, when he was ready to board a plane. Nobody heard of him for weeks. There were no formal accusations, except some rumours about economic crimes. His wife was able to see him more than a month later, in the presence of two guards. He looked well physically, but was visibly nervous.

Photo: Reuters

Ai Weiwei´s world, artists and museums of contemporary art in many countries, reacted to his detention. Among other initiatives, Tate Modern projected on its façade the phrase “Release Ai Weiwei”; artist Anish Kapoor called on museums and art galleries all over the world to close for one day in protest; Cuban artist Geandy Pavon projected Ai Weiwei´s portrait on the Chinese consulate´s wall in New York; the Guggenheim Museum started a petition online that has already been signed by more than 140.000 people (read about the various initiatives here). Last week, Philip Bishop wrote in the Guardian that museums are not doing all they can. Signing a petition is not enough, he was saying, museums should make their support for Ai Weiwei more visible, namely through their homepages. And in the same newspaper, Hari Kunzru was questioning the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts´s silence, which is now exhibiting the famous terracotta warriors, and was hoping that this unique opportunity to raise awareness about the Chinese artist´s detention wouldn´t be lost.

In the middle of all the worries expressed at an international level, the statements of some museums directors that museums “don´t do politics” (read the interview with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts director) or that museums “don´t do protests” and that “they are apolitical” (read here about the statements of the Milwaukee Art Museum director and the reactions of other professionals) are disappointing, to say the least. Of course museums do politics: when they decide what to exhibit or not; when they allow for dialogue or not; when they choose their partners; when they turn a blind eye to issues such as human rights and freedom of speech, claiming to be ‘apolitical’. Both at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Milwaukee Art Museum there will soon open exhibitions on China. Clearly, both directors are doing politics.

There are museums whose nature clearly associates them to political (and social) issues: the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Ottawa or the Museo de la Memoria y de los Derechos Humanos in Santiago de Chile; the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington (deeply committed to the prevention of genocide, but where the word ‘Palestine’ is not mentioned even once); the District Six Museum in Cape Town, to mention only some, very few. In general, history museums that cannot (although sometimes they wish and try to…) escape their nature. Nevertheless, any declaration of neutrality would be false.

Are art museums exempt? But… can they be? Neither the nature of their collections (art is not neutral, it´s not apolitical) nor their businesses allow for it. Curiously enough, the Guggenheim Museum, that started the online petition in favour of Ai Weiwei, has found itself involved in a case related to human rights. The New York Times announced back in March, together with a number of other media, that more than 130 artists had decided to boycott the new museum being built in Abu Dhabi, due to the working conditions of foreign workers involved in its construction (conditions that became widely known some time ago through the CBS programme 60 Minutes, but which have also been registered on the site of the Human Rights Watch). The artists demanded an immediate independent inspection and threatened not to participate in any events neither to sell their works to the future museum. The situation isn´t easy for the Guggenheim Museum, that aims to build a collection from scratch for this new museum, mainly dedicated to artists from the Middle East (some of the most prominent figures are part of the protest group). The Museum´s answer may be read here.

In a post I wrote last year, entitled Places of encounter, I quoted David Fleming, president, at the time, of INTERCOM (the ICOM international committee for management): “Gone are the days when museums have to stand aloof, pretending they are not part of the society they are supposed to serve, carrying on oblivious of their surroundings as though the culture they display has no political or social relevance. Museums need not be neutral spaces – they can be so much more”.

Life is not apolitical. Art is not apolitical. How could museums be? Museums that truly wish to be part of society and to get its support are not silent nor neutral nor apolitical. Museums that have a notion of their mission do not become irrelevant.

Article 27

This week I came across Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights twice in my readings. The artivle says: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”

The first time, it was in the book No Culture, No Future by Simon Brault. Brault in the director of National Theatre School of Canada, Vice-President of Canada Council for the Arts and President of Culture Montréal. His book concentrates on issues related to cultural participation. In the first chapter, “Culture as a forward-looking sector for the future”, the author presents the development of cultural policies in countries such as France, Great Britain, the United States, as well as Canada, he reflects on the conditions of artists, on the economic impact of culture and on its funding. It is in this context that he refers to Article 27 and the right to freely participate in cultural life, a right that justifies governmental involvement in supporting culture.

The second chapter of the book, entitled “Culture as an essential dimension of the human experience”, presents the author´s vision of culture, as a lifeline, as not only a factor that forms and defines every human being, but also one of civilization and progress. Brault refers here to The Values Study, carried out by the Connecticut Commission on Culture and with the support of Wallace Foundation, that presents the results of approximately one hundred interviews with citizens with different levels of cultural participation. The aesthetic experience, as well as cognitive, political and spiritual values are common among the interviewees, but they also give importance to the impact of cultural participation on the connection between mind and body, gaining an appreciation of ethnic and generational differences, also mentioning notions of identity, self-esteem, pride and dignity. Brault reflects on all those factor that form barriers to cultural participation (social, educational, financial and other practical – lack of time, transport, etc.) and presents a number of examples of cultural institutions that aim to provide better access, contextualizing their offer, simplifying the language they use, promoting encounters between artists and the public, but also using surtitles in opera, with live transmissions of the shows at cinemas, performing outdoors and completing the experience on the social point of view (restaurants, bars, shops, etc).

I found out in this second chapter about the Belgian Association Article 27, that brings together a number of cultural institutions and whose role is considered exemplary in the area of cultural democracy (I did not find the association´s site, but there is a reference to it here). The Association offers free tickets or tickets at a very low price, in many cases tickets that hadn’t been sold, to all those that have financial difficulties and cannot attend the performances. Currently, the Association is considering extending the offer to other types of cultural and artistic activities, apart from the performing arts. This is an initiative that makes sense and may even generate some revenue, but it concentrates in the elimination of the financial barrier, which doesn´t seem enough to me in order to consider its action fundamental for cultural democracy. The big issue here is not money (it may also be part of it), but mental and cognitive barriers.

Simon Brault embraces the declaration “Elitist culture for all”, by French director Antoine Vitez, and claims that, apart from supporting, protecting and funding excellence in art, it is important not to forget to develop the demand. In the third chapter of his book, he presents the city of Montreal as a case study of the creation of a cultural development policy in a city that wishes to be seen as a metropolis.

Simon Brault´s book didn’t tell me something new. But it is a well-written book, by someone who believes in what he´s doing and does it with passion and dedication.

I found the second reference to Article 27 in Sharon Heal´s editorial in the October issue of Museums Journal (the monthly journal of Museums Association). In September it took place in Liverpool the inaugural meeting of the Federation of International Human Rights Museums. The Federation brings together museums that deal with issues of slavery, human rights or the Holocaust, museums whose mission is also to educate and campaign for the respect and against the abuse of human rights. In her editorial, Sharon Heal claims that dealing with these issues should not be the exclusive responsibility of museums whose subject is directly or obviously related to them. Evoking Article 27, Heal reminds us that cultural rights are human rights and believes that all museums must look at their local communities and try to understand if there are people in them that are financially, intellectually or socially excluded. And if there are (we know there are), don´t museums have the obligation to do something about it?

Up to now I had not thought about the issue of cultural participation and audience development with reference to Article 27. We are all so worried about proving the value of culture and convincing governers, sponsors and the society in general of the importance and need to support it, that all too often we forget that cultural participation is a declared right. Thus, the starting point, as I claimed in my post Who deserves to be funded? (II), should be different: it should be about facilitating access (physical, cognitive, financial).

Freedom of speech

On the 4th of October I had the opportunity to attend the symposium Identity, Fredom and Violence, that brought together at the municipal library of Santa Maria da Feira Iranian lawyer and activist Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, and Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, author of the Mohammed cartoon that caused a huge wave of violence in 2006.

(Photo: NFactos - Expresso newspaper)

I confess that my expectations were high. Freedom of speech (and its limitations) is something I think about frequently, without being able to reach definite conclusions, that may be applied to every case. It seems that when we discuss this issue each case is a case. Thus, I was very curious to see what direction would be given to this debate between an artist that ‘dared’ to represent the Prophet Mohammed and a muslim and human rights advocate.

My expectations were not fulfilled. Shirin Ebadi and Kurt Westergaard gave two parallel speeches. And both the convenor, journalist Carlos Magno, and the audience (including some journalists) did not notice (or did not understand) a statement by Shirin Ebadi that could have created a touching point between the two presentations and resulted in an interesting debate. Shirin Ebadi clearly said: “The Convention on Human Rights guarantees freedom of speech for everyone, but there are exceptions: when it refers to racist propaganda, hatred or incentive to war. Thus, a cartoon representing Prophet Mohammed with a bomb in the place of the turban constitutes a human rights violation. The same with the reaction of part of the muslim world towards the cartoon.” This statement was somehow ‘ignored’. Both Carlos Magno and Kurt Westergaard referred to the clash of civilizations, the conflict between christianism and islam, the need to defend our way of living (the european).

Since then, I´ve been thinking that, instead of taking advantage of incidents like the one of the cartoon in order to take a step further towards meeting the ‘other’, we continue to opt for simplistic and convenient interpretations and to talk about the clash between cultures. Am I, a European and a Christian, in conflict with Shirin Ebadi, Iranian and muslim? Isn´t she fighting for freedom of speech much more than I am? Isn´t this a value we share, one that defines and unites us?

I read again excerpts from a book I had read last year and enjoyed a lot, because I thought it was enlightening and balanced. It´s called

The Fear of the Barbarians: beyond the clash of civilizations and it was written by Tzvetan Todorov, a Bulgarian philosopher living in Paris. The chapters of the book are: Barbarism and civilization; Collective identities; The war of the worlds; Steering between the reefs (here he analyzes events such as the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, the publication of the Mohammed cartoons by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten or Pope Benedict´s speech at Ratisbon University); European Identity.

So, Todorov says in his first chapter: “A civilized person is one who is able, at all times and in all places, to recognize the humanity of others fully. So two stages have to be crossed before anyone can become civilized: in the first stage, you discover that others live in a way different from you; in the second, you agree to see them as bearers of the same humanity as yourself.” And he continues: “Getting those with whom you live to understand a foreign identity, whether individual or collective, is an act of civilization, since in his way you are enlarging the circle of humanity; thus scholars, philosophers and artists all contribute to driving back barbarity.”

Knowing the ‘other’ means at the same time respecting him. And to respect is to exercise self-regulation. It doesn´t mean denying our rights (such as freedom of speech), but learning how to exercise them responsibly. “Responsibility limits freedom”, says Todorov. Between having and exercising a right there is a long way, in which one must consider possible consequences within a certain context.

The cartoons published by the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005 had been commissioned by culture editor Flemming Rose, a kind of a manifesto against self-censorship caused by fear of the Muslims. They came at a time where xenophobic, and especially anti-muslim, feelings were becoming more and more obvious in Danish society. Four years earlier, parliamentary elections had led to a coalition supported by the Danish People´s Party, which proclaimed “Denmark to the Danes”, “Islam is a carcinoma, a terrorist organization”, “There´s only one culture, ours”. Thus, we have on the one side the right of a cartoonist to provoke through his art (what is the art of the cartoon if not criticism through provocation?) and, on the other the responsibility the exercise of the right of freedom of speech brings to the editor of big newspaper within a certain context.

Does this discussion demonstrate a clash between cultures? Could we ever say that among Europeans and/or Christians there are no acts of barbarism and among Asians (in this case) and/or Muslims acts of civilization? Wouldn´t it be, thus, more correct, considering Todorov´s definition, to talk about a clash between civilized and less civilized people, regardless of their nationality or religion?

By way of epilogue: I read on the internet that in February 2006 that same culture editor, Flemming Rose, told CNN that his newspaper was going to publish satirical cartoons with reference to the Holocaust that were going to be published by an iranian newspaper. Jyllands-Posten was trying to get in touch with that newspaper so that the publication would take place simultaneously. Later that day, the editor-in-chief of the danish newspaper informed that under no circumstances would Jyllands-Posten publish the Holocaust cartoons and the following day he announced that Flemming Rose was taking an indefinite leave.

Places of encounter

Photo taken from the website Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças

Last Saturday I saw Pororoca, the latest work by brazilian choreographer Lia Rodrigues, presented at Culturgest. Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Danças was formed 20 years ago. In 2007 it started a new project, Centro de Artes da Maré, at the Maré favela (slum area) in Rio de Janeiro, a place deprived of cultural institutions. That´s where Pororoca was created (an indian word for a natural phenomenon caused by the meeting of river and sea water, known in english as a bore) and that´s where the programme Dance for All takes place, offering free lessons of corporal expression and contemporary dance. The company carries out its activity in partnership with a NGO that aims to prepare the favela youth for university and promote art and education projects. The inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro´s rich zone book by email and a mini van picks them up and takes them to the favela, where they attend, for free, the company´s shows, together with the local population. And thus, 'pororoca' takes place... “We are not here thinking that we are solving any problems or making a better future for all... What we aim is to build 'places between’, where one can meet, get to know and socialize with the ‘other’”, explained Lia Rodrigues during the conversation that followed the show.

The choreographer´s statement reminded me of another, by Daniel Barenboim, one of the founders of West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a project that involves israeli and palestinian musicians, as well as musicians from other arab countries and Iran (although not an arab country, one in conflict with Israel). So Barenboim said: "The Divan is not a love story, and it is not a peace story. It has very flatteringly been described as a project for peace. It isn't. It's not going to bring peace, whether you play well or not so well. The Divan was conceived as a project against ignorance. A project against the fact that it is absolutely essential for people to get to know the other, to understand what the other thinks and feels, without necessarily agreeing with it”. One of the highlights of this orchestra, created in 1999, was the concert in Ramallah, on August 21, 2005.

Museums are also places of encounters, they create a space to meet the other and debate different realities, although many times they are seen ideally as neutral places. I thought about that when I visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Apart from presenting one of the best exhibitions on the Holocaust, the museum is actively involved in the prevention of genocide, through temporary exhibitions (at the time of my visit they had one on Darfur), through the project World is Witness, which bears witness to acts of genocide all over the world (except Palestine...), through publications and various other initiatives.

One more place of encounter was created in another museum related to the Holocaust, the Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam. The exhibition free2choose questions the limits of basic human rights, such as the freedom of speech, and confronts visitors with situations where fundamental human rights clash, threatening, in some cases, the security in a democratic society.

There are many more examples. The International Slavery Museum in Livrepool, the District Six Museum and Robben Island Museum in South Africa, the recently inaugurated Museo de la Memoria y de los Derechos Humanos in Santiago de Chile, the National Museum of the American Indian and Japanese American National Museum in the USA, Te Papa in New Zealand, to mention only a few. I see them all as places of encounters, for the celebration of diversity, difference, tolerance.

In the end of last year, during the annual meeting of INTERCOM (the International ICOM Committee for Museum Management), an international group of museum professionals endorsed the Torreón Declaration, in the homonymous mexican city: “INTERCOM believes that it is a fundamental responsibility of museums, wherever possible, to be active in promoting diversity and human rights, respect and equality for people of all origins, beliefs and background”. David Fleming, President of INTERCOM, wrote in an article in the Museum Practice (Issue 49, Spring 2010) regarding the declaration: “Gone are the days when museums have to stand aloof, pretending they are not part of the society they are supposed to serve, carrying on oblivious of their surroundings as though the culture they display has no political or social relevance. Museums need not be neutral spaces – they can be so much more”.

Those who attended Lia Rodrigues´s performance at Culturgest filled up the room where the conversation would take place after the show. Many people had to stand, others sat on the floor; there were various questions regarding the presence of the company in the favela, relations with the local community, the violence, the hope, the future. I felt once again that providing places of encounter, together with discovery, is what mainly gives sense to our work. Neither museums, nor theatres or orchestras or dance companies are social workers, therapists, peace forces, politicians, lawyers, priests... But they are (can be) 'places between’, places of encounter. And when this happens, the moment is special, for those who worked to make it happen and for those participating in it. This is what remains, what completes us, what makes us grow a bit more.