Recent past

Exhibition "Return - Traces of Memory", Lisbon

A few weeks ago I read Lily Hyde’s text Living Memory II, questioning the construction of narratives out of recent historical events. In this case, the armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine and specifically in the town of Slavyansk. A bit more than a year before, Hyde had talked to the Slavyansk Museum director, Lilya Zander, who was already collecting Trophies from an incomprehensible war. At that time, the museum director had said that “Our job is to tell the history of our region”, adding that “the museum is not trying to show ‘for’ and ‘against’. We’re trying to show the facts.”

Peacocks, ostriches and a third way

Anne Pasternak, Brooklyn Museum Director (Photo: Erin Baiano for the New York Times)

A few weeks ago, I read about six curators at the Canadian Museum of History who expressed ethical concerns about the purchase of artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Empress of Ireland. These concerns included the manner in which the artifacts were collected and the fact that the museum paid for artifacts from an archeological site. Not only were their objections dismissed, but the museum hired a lawyer and threatened them with legal action, were they to repeat their concerns to anyone else. According to the museum President and CEO Mark O’Neill, “Internal discussions like this are normal, and frankly, making them public is not” (read more). This statement left me thinking which would be the ‘OK’ subjects to discuss in public and, frankly, how come the conditions of acquiring objects for the museum collections is not one of them.

Refugees and museums: beyond an assistentialist attitude?

Artwork by Thierry Goeffroy / COLONEL at the Copenhagen Biennale

My recent article for the ICOM Portugal Bulletin.

Can culture make it?

Paper submitted to the Annual Conference on Cultural Diplomacy, which ends today in Berlin. A compilation of older posts and some new thoughts. Read 

The museum is a person: some post-NEMO thoughts

How do we get more involved? How do we take a stand? Aren’t we going to alienate some people if they classify the museum as ‘leftist’ or ‘rightist’, like newspapers? How far can we go? What are the limits? These are some of the questions I had the opportunity to discuss with colleagues attending NEMO’s annual reference, following my talk Are we failing? 

Are we failing?

My speech today at the NEMO Annual Conference (text and slideshare). Click here

The traps

National Coach Museum, Lisbon (image taken from Boas Notícias)

Last month, it was reported by several newspapers that in the first four months of the new National Coach Museum in Lisbon there were a number of accidents due to deficiencies in the architectural design. By 'deficiencies' I mean solutions adopted (or, if you prefer, architectural elements created) which become traps for the users of the space (yes, they exist).