Beyond the law

National Museum, Prague

In 2021, I was in Prague, visiting the National Museum. Having taken the elevator to reach the cupola and get to see the beautiful city from above, I saw it had a bench. I remember being invaded by a strong emotion witnessing this small, discreet gesture of hospitality and kindness. The museum did not include the bench because it was obliged by law. It acknowledged that not everyone would be able to stand during the slow journey of getting to the top, so it wanted to make sure that people would feel comfortable and safe; they would feel welcome. When we honestly wish to open the doors to everyone (whatever “everyone” might mean), to share the experience with all those who are interested in being part, we are not conditioned by laws. We are ready to go beyond.

Of silent majorities. Of fear and freedom.

Once again, we´ll cross the Atlantic, just so that we realise how close we actually are and why we should be paying attention.

In July, I wrote an article for the Portuguese newspaper Público (see translation) regarding the what is now an extreme situation of banning books in US school and public libraries. I wrote at the time that the contested books normally relate to LGBTQI+ issues, race and racism, slavery, the genocide of indigenous people, religion. There are also numerous demands to move books about puberty from the juvenile section to the adult section… Similar situations are occurring in Brazil and other countries, being more or less reported in the mainstream media.

A recent report regarding the situation in the US, published by the Knight Foundation, showed some very relevant results: that 78 percent of people trust their public schools to select appropriate materials; it also found that “most Americans feel informed about efforts to ban books in schools, but just 3% of respondents said that they have personally engaged on the issue - with 2% getting involved on the side of maintaining access to books, and 1% seeking to restrict access.” (read more). What does this tell us? That too many people are aware, a few get involved in defending freedom to read in a democratic country, while a vocal, often violent, fringe is allowed to decide what everyone may read and where. Does it sound slightly familiar?

Guest post: "Diminishment", by Elaine Heumann Gurian

With Elaine, at the Kennedy Center, Washington DC, 2013

Short introduction: For a long time, Elaine was for me one of those people that didn't 'really' exist. Author of "Civilizing the museum", she had deeply influenced my thinking and practice, especially by coining the term "the museum 'and'". But she wasn't someone I could hope to actually meet, someday, somewhere. When in 2013 I found the courage to write to her, Elaine came to find me. And this says a lot about who she is. We´ve kept in touch since, occasionally, mainly through her letters to her pals. Last week, we got one more. It was a privilege starting my day by reading that letter. It was one more confirmation of how extraordinary she is a person. She generously allowed me to share it on my blog. Thank you, Elaine, for this and for so much more.

Diminishment
August 2024

Dear Pals,

I have not written in a while. More precisely, I have not sent a letter to my pals in a long time because I have written some that I rejected and did not send. But here I am again, now an 86-year-old female, hoping that my elderly experience might yield some ideas of generalized interest. I ruminate about the inevitable diminishment facing us all.

We (elders) have mostly gone into each day (unless we were sick or had an accident) with the expectation that we had the same capacity as the day before. However, we sometimes find these expectations wrong-headed, and we are surprised by our inability. Now and then, we can compensate for what is lost, but frequently, it is gone, and our calculus must be readjusted.

“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.