To honestly care

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.

Nevertheless, it was another point in Łukasz’s conclusions that made me intervene. It was the phrasing of point 3: “Building an image of a ‘green museum’ will reduce risks from climate activists”. I considered that it is not only a question of building an image (which sounded to me as “pretend to be green”) and that we shouldn’t refer to climate activists as a “risk”, also because they haven’t damaged any artwork, so far. It was clear, from the discussion and the overall presentation, that Łukasz didn’t mean it that way, so I suggested it could be re-phrased.

At that point, another colleague asked to speak and told us that it was not true that no object of art was damaged. She picked up her phone and showed us images of a person spraying and then slicing the canvas of Lord Balfour’s portrait at Trinity College, Cambridge. I apologised for not recalling this incident and I immediately looked for more information. I remembered the case, but I hadn’t associated it to climate activists. And, in fact, it had nothing to do with them: this act was by pro-Palestine protesters  (Lord Balfour was foreign secretary when he signed the Balfour Declaration in 1917, which paved the way for the creation of the State of Israel). I showed the information to our colleague; she didn’t find it necessary to update the other attendants who had listened to her intervention, so quite a few people left the session believing that climate activists have damaged at least one art object. I thought that this was neither responsible nor honest. Especially because I know that many, too many, museum professionals just read the big titles, like most other people do, and are convinced that climate activists are destroying works of art.

Talking a bit more with Łukasz about this point, he told me that another attendant had mentioned that a historical frame had been damaged in one of these actions and that it would take a lot of money to repair it. My reaction was immediate: Why repair it? Why not look at it as part of the object’s history and mention in the label how the frame was damaged? And, in the end, what is more important for me as a citizen and museum professional: museums repairing a frame (even if historical) or taking action against climate change?

This past weekend, I saw some of the recordings of the ICOM conference that took place in Lisbon early April, called “To the museums, citizens!”. Towards the end of the morning of the second day, in a rather short Q&A concerning two panel discussions, we had the opportunity of hearing a tour guide expressing his concern about wokism and its attacks in museums; informing us that “woke people” are a very tiny minority, not even representing young people; and calling climate activists young ignorants. He also suggested asking the rugby federation to help us learn how to stop the attackers. We also had the opportunity to hear a Portuguese lady studying at the University of Birmingham, questioning how we can deal with these attacks on works of art by green activists or the vandalism against statues; she also claimed to be very shocked by the fact that the statue of Father António Vieira (a defender of Indians and a critic of the Inquisition) was “scratched”, as she put it.

I have previously expressed my concerns regarding the lack of information and of empathy expressed by many cultural professionals in their public interventions. In the past, I wrote both about the vandalism of the statue of Father António Vieira (here), as well as about the response of museum directors, worldwide and in Portugal, regarding climate activists (here). Responses to these two questions from the audience at the ICOM conference were rather lukewarm, until our colleague Susana Gomes da Silva, Head of Learning at the Modern Art Centre of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, asked to speak. It is very much worth listening to her presentation (3:33:10 – 3:50:05 in the recording), but it is perhaps even more important to listen to her response (in Portuguese, starting at 4:02:10). Here’s the transcription:

“I wanted to add just one thing, because I wouldn't want to let these last questions go unanswered. Throughout history and civilisations, there have always been erasures and destruction of public heritage by ideologies that replaced others, this is not what’s new. And I'm not saying that I agree with acts of vandalism in order to prove anything at all. But there are some extremely important questions here. I think that the indignation we all feel when something is raped or violated should be proportional to the cause that provokes the violation of the thing itself. Because, in fact, the means used by climate activists or advocates of postcolonial critical readings are calls for our attention, which attack symbols we insist that they persist in the narratives told by our public spaces, and often by museums. And, despite not agreeing with the process, as I just said, I still, as a professional and as a citizen, have to pay attention to that act, which is an act that, in fact, is demanding that my indignation has the same amplitude for the cause as it is having for the result. Because what we need to be outraged at right now is the inaction in relation to climate issues, for example, and we should call upon ourselves, as citizens, to resolve them. In the same way that our indignation must be directed towards the symbols that persist in single narratives that often exclude others. And this is where we should be. And when, a little while ago, I spoke about listening and improbable dialogues, this is where I was saying that ‘This is the space that we, as cultural professionals, can occupy’. That is listening and discussing. Obviously, without promoting any type of destruction of heritage.”

A profound lesson, for all of us, in less than two minutes.

Originally published on Musing on Culture, 6.5.2024