Category: Uncategorised

By Quirijn van den Hoogen

It is generally acknowledged that the cultural sector was hit extremely hard by the Corona pandemic. Around the globe, public life came to a standstill and cultural facilities were shut down: libraries and museums, the musical theatres of West End, pop music festivals, and amateur culture such as choir rehearsals, were all impossible because of social distancing rules. All three spheres of what British policy researcher John Holden denotes as cultural ecologies, came to a standstill: the publicly funded, the commercial, and the homegrown culture. Those institutions that have re-opened, such as the museums in Rome this week, can only receive a small fraction of the visitor numbers of before 2020.

By Tooka Taheri

The museum, as an architectural typology, has its roots in the art collection which was typical of Renaissance Italy and its fascination with the past and products of antiquity. [1] However, it can be argued that its function as a cultural institution and a public service only began during the Enlightenment era. Prior to the 18th century, such collections were private and exclusive. Their aim was primarily due to their aesthetic value; for the pleasure and entertainment of the aristocracy and the wealthy. [2] In accordance with their enlightenment ideology, these private collections were opened to serve the general public. Thus, the museum was born: a building, renamed after the Greek ‘mouseion’ -μουσείο- , in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited. A prominent and early example is when Sir Hans Sloane donated his collection to the British government in 1753, with the note that it should be exhibited to all the people of Britain. This resulted in the construction of the British Museum, open and free to all.

This change of ownership, from private collections to public, had consequences, resulting in the typology becoming a cornerstone of public and civic life. Since its conception, the significance of the museum has only increased. Many of them are compelling works of architecture, designed by the world’s most renowned architects and designers. H. P. Berlage’s Kuntsmuseum in The Hague and Zaha Hadid’s The Maxxi National Museum in Rome are just a few notable examples. This both reflects and expands upon the institute’s credibility and prominence within the city and society. Furthermore, the museum has the power to influence and regenerate the urban fabric, as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and Tate Modern in London have done. Perhaps even more crucially, the museum is the conductor and curator of the individual’s particular experience of art in its many forms. This is supported by Anne de Haij, strategic advisor at Kunstmuseum The Hague, who mentioned the value a museum can have for people and for a community. She considers the cultural institutions as ‘vital for the mental and emotional health of our society.’ [3]

This significant position then comes to the fore at a time of the global pandemic. A situation which has had widespread drastic effects. However, at a time of great anxiety and difficulty, museums were forced to close their doors to the public. While a necessary move to protect the health of the population, it offers a sensible opportunity to ponder on the response of this cultural institution during this trying time as well as its role in society.

While the museum was physically absent from public and individual life, much like many other forms of interaction during the coronacrisis, there was a very strong digital presence. Online exhibitions, virtual tours, and a stronger presence on social media platforms became the new norm, practiced by many. From the National Theatre to the Royal Opera House, there are many institutes that have contributed their content online free of charge. [4]

This trajectory towards digital means, which has been hastened due to the current crisis, is by no means a novel initiative. As far back as 2005 the British Museum boasted of its partnership with Google, which brought forth the possibility to view 5000 if its objects online. [5] It cannot be denied that digital content has the potential to reach an audience that far exceeds the boundaries of any physical building. The director of the British Museum at the time exclaimed how ‘that Enlightenment fantasy, about 25 years ago became an internet possibility, and today, thanks to the Google Cultural Institute, it is a practical reality.’ [6] There are numerous benefits in having this digital platform. Its availability and accessibility fulfill some of the institute’s roles; both in terms of education and research as well as merely entertainment and curiosity. In this way it does perform the Enlightenment’s aspiration to bring art and education to the general public which is at the root of the museum’s conception.

It would perhaps be apt to ponder on whether this move towards online platforms has rendered the cultural institute’s physical entity as superfluous. Yet, in certain places museums are slowly opening their doors, mindful of protective measures to ensure the health of their staff and visitors. It is again possible to look around The Kunstmuseum, and The National Gallery in London will showcase its collection to the public once more. It would be mistake to portray their role as merely a tool for educational purposes. Museums are also about the experience of art, within the space, at a given time. The immersive quality of certain exhibits is intertwined with the experience of the space. To reiterate Robert Oosterhuis, research coordinator at the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science: these virtual and digital contents are no substitute to art and the experience it provides up close.[7]

The coronavirus pandemic has resulted in an increase in this interaction between individuals and the museum’s online content. Traffic on the British Museum’s website is now three times higher than before the crisis.[8] However, this does not translate to a replacement or substitution of the museum experience. It rather addresses a more urgent and humane need within society during the current crisis. A study of the cultural field in Turkey during the pandemic accentuates how this online presence of cultural institutions ‘have offered people the sense of hope and unity they need’. [9] The document affirms the role that culture and arts have in dealing with the difficulties of the global crisis and refers to them as ‘one of the great uniting and healing powers for the public.’

Therefore, it can be said that the role of the museum as an institute is manifold and applies at various scales. From education, research, and entertainment on an individual level to the scale of the community and the city as a whole. While digital and online content are of value, and have offered a significant and necessary opportunity during the coronavirus crisis, it only provides a partial fulfillment of a museum’s role in society at best. It is not a replacement for the experience of the arts.

Sources

[1] Pevsner, Nikolaus. (1976) A History of Building Types. London: Thames and Hudson

[2] Newhouse, Victoria. (1998) Towards a New Museum.  The University of Michigan: Monacelli Press.

[3] Interview with Anne de Haij

[4] https://www.culturalpolicies.net/covid-19/online-initiatives/

[5]https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/12/british-museum-google-cultural-institute-virtual-tour

[6] Ibid.

[7]Interview with Robert Oosterhuis

[8]https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/16/locked-down-europeans-flock-to-british-museum-s-online-collections

[9]The Uniting Power of Art and Needs of the Cultural Field During the Pandemic

By Polyxeni Fotopoulou

The time of the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the profound fissures of neoliberal capitalism.This pandemic discriminates against vulnerable people. This pandemic also allows and justifies state violence and constructs new modalities of living and co-existence under state surveillance tactics which demonstrate a problematic relation between the concept of freedom and security. To paraphrase Michel Foucault, this pandemic seems to be the utopia of the perfectly governed city (/society). In a more precise wording, it could be said that responsible for all the above is not the pandemic itself but the sociopolitical handling of it. Worldwide, presidents’ addresses highlight that we are all dealing with the same enemy. However, the only equal position that we have in the face of the corona crisis is that this virus threatens equally the health of all of us and our loved ones (Butler 2020). In this crisis we do not all have equal rights; homeless people are exposed to the virus, refugees are in camps unprotected without being provided with hygiene products, not everyone has equal access to health care, unemployment rises, there are more and more victims of domestic violence, there are more deaths of African-Americans than any other group in the U.S, there is racism against Asian people and populations are interpreted on the basis of a positivist and impersonal division between infected and non-infected bodies.

 Although the dichotomic conditions based on the sociopolitical dilemma of whose lives matter the most, solidarity between vulnerable people becomes their protective shield and a praxis of resistance against inequality. Collective initiatives of creating common spaces of solidarity and resistance emerged during the corona crisis shaping new social movements and collectives against these precarious conditions.

In historical moments of turbulent periods and great depressions, it is observed that spontaneous movements and collective actions emerge whose structure is usually not based on political parties ideologies and they deal with the precariousness of instability through alternative ways. I am referring to anti-fascist, anti-capitalist, anti- sexist, anti-homophobic and anti-transphobic collectives and movements which put clear boundaries against racism and they are in solidarity with vulnerable subjectivities. As Varvarousis and Kallis demonstrate; in a liminal period “sharing solidarity or horizontality are not introduced as indisputable a priori identity values. They emerge as the worth is experienced in practice in solving practical problems or in organizing collective actions”  (2017, 132). In other words, it could be said that in the initial phase of a crisis these collective actions function as initiatives of temporary relief of precarity. Particularly, in Commoning Against The Crisis (2017) Varvarousis and Kallis by focusing on the Greek Commoning Movement during Greece’s great depression (2009) present the idea of alternative commoning practices in periods of precarity claiming that these “new forms of commons follows a rhizomatic pattern” (2017, 129). Varvarousis and Kallis reflect this idea on Greek commoning initiatives and projects of austerity period such as the occupied squares by indignant citizens (Aganaktismenoi), communal kitchens and the occupations of Athens Metropolitan Clinic, Plato’s Academy, Empros,Vox, Scholeio, Hellenico, etc. where since the election of the current government (2019) the majority of them was violently evicted by police forces. Some of these commoning initiatives such as Aganaktismenoi (Indignant Citizens Movement) of Syntagma square (2010) became rhizomatic, namely “they have no center or periphery…and they are not stable but appear and disappear within a highly accelerating spiral” and others are still sustained till today and adapt to the new conditions such as the communal kitchens and occupations (ibid.,141-144) . While the Indignant Citizens Movement started as a collective spontaneous anti-austerity initiative, after a while the square was divided into the lower and the upper part(ibid.,138). This distinction had to do mainly with the “different functions of each zones”; the upper part in front of the Parliament was identified by protests “with the presence of nationalists or xenophobes” while the lower part was a space of “settlement, discussion and creation” (ibid., 138). In 2011, the presence of the Aganaktismenoi Movement in Syntagma square began gradually to weaken especially due to the violent intervention of police forces. Varvarousis and Kallis’ study shows us thoroughly how Greece, despite its deep rooted tradition in party interdependence, started to believe in the potentiality of heterogeneous assemblies with anti-capitalist and anti-racist character as well as in the existence of commoning initiatives outside the party orientation and hierarchy. The evolution of this phenomenon can be seen in recent movement of #SupportArtWorkers that started by people of the Greek art scene in May 2020 in the face of the corona crisis claiming support for the arts and cultural sector which has been particularly affected by the general lockdown.

Although the recent Greek extremely conservative government represents itself in local and international mainstream media as a great “rescuer” protecting Greek people from the “invisible enemy” some important visible facts are missing from this representation. Importantly, since the beginning of the corona crisis a number of significant shortages emerged in the public health care system such as shortages of ICUs (Intensive care units) and insufficient number of medical supplies, such as shortages of medical face masks, gloves and antiseptics. On top of that, according to the government decree which was published at the beginning of Covid-19 outbreak, due to the lack of medical staff in public hospitals doctors are forced to work overtime and to perform overnight duties without getting paid.

Furthermore, numerous professions that have been hit by the pandemic are not included in the two-month state support allowance. In particular, the Greek government is completely indifferent about the irreparable damage of the sector of Arts and Culture as theater performances, concerts, dance performances, museums and gallery exhibitions have been postponed until this summer. In the face of this precarity, in May art workers started on Avaaz webpage – one of the most known nonprofit organizations which promotes activist practices – an initiative of gathering signatures asking for solidarity support in their fight against the marginalization of Greek art workers. The movement appears on Facebook and in other social media with the hashtag #SupportArtWorkers, and art workers have already held a number of performances in public spaces and protest rallies in Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities publicizing their demands. (1)

The “Art Workers Initiative” claims three key rights: firstly the enactment of a long term support plan which will contribute to the economic recovery of Arts and Culture sector, secondly the radical reformation of Cultural workers’ rights, as especially musicians and songwriters have for decades been enduring the results of a flawed and non-transparent system, and thirdly the governmental decision for an immediate and precise plan of the gradual return of Arts and Culture sector as it has already been announced for other professional sectors. The #SupportArtWorkers movement is not connected to any institution, organization or party-based politics, it is a spontaneous initiative which through these demands pursues to claim the immediate relief of art workers’ suffering. The spontaneous gatherings of art workers in squares and public spaces through dancing, singing and performing acquire a festive, powerful and bodily character. The forcefulness, the peacefulness and the non-hierarchical principles of the #SupportArtWorkers movement reminds us of the pulse of the first period of the Indignant Citizens Movement. The Art workers’ movement either becomes rhizomatic or expands to claim further fundamental rights, at least for now it has achieved to create a solidarity circle and a common space of resistance where art workers claim their rights which have been depreciated by the Greek state. 

Some of us constantly live under the “feeling of precariousness” with a “damaged sense of future” related to the fear of unemployment, the “anxiety of illness and mortality” – especially if we do not have the privilege to be covered by health insurance – and the fear of the threat of violence (Butler & Athanasiou 2013, 43). In this crucial sociopolitical moment of high precarity, solidarity and collectiviness between us, the vulnerable, seem to be (once again) our only option.

References

Butler, Judith. “Capitalism Has its Limits”. Verso. March 30, 2020. https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4603-capitalism-has-its-limits.

Butler, Judith and Athena Athanasiou.“Dispossession: The performative in the political.” John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

Foucault, Michel. “Discipline and Punish: the Birth of the Prison.” Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage 1 (1995): 977.

Varvarousis, Aggelos, and Giorgos Kallis. “Commoning against the crisis.” Another Economy is Possible: Culture and Economy in a Time of Crisis, 2017, 128-159.