Attention to cultural heritage is a great asset, wrote former curator Bram Peters in an opinion piece in this newspaper at the end of September. But, according to him, governments do not have to keep museums afloat at all costs. Peters wonders how much public money we still think a museum is worth.
In times of crises, heads have to roll, that’s what the former curator must have thought. It is perhaps commendable that he first thinks of the cultural sector, the sector in which he himself was active for years. But the arguments he puts forward cry out for a solid update.
About the authors
Anne de Haij is director of Stedelijk Museum Schiedam.
Catrien Schreuder is head of collection and exhibitions, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam.
Because anyone who pays attention knows that museums are in flux. They have long ceased to be the elite strongholds as Mr. Peters puts them out. Every museum in the Netherlands serves its own audience, and the curators are acutely aware of the society of which they are part when setting up exhibitions.
For one museum the focus is on the well-to-do seniors, other museums are strongly supported by a young vanguard of makers, and yet another mainly revolves around families and families.
The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam is regularly bursting at the seams with the energy that the residents of Schiedam-Nieuwland, -North or -East blow into our halls. Every weekend we receive dozens of young families who make art in our studio.
Celebrations and discoveries
We invest in the visibility of lonely elderly people by entering into partnerships with care homes. And it is often a party in our museum because we receive the young artists and their friends and families when they have their first museum presentations here. And just like in almost all museums, thousands of Schiedam school children and young people discover what art is or can be through educational programs every year. And children discover that they are part of a wider history or that their story is one of many.
And so, not only in Schiedam, but in all museums in the Netherlands, moving and disarming moments of encounter and inspiration take place every day. And if you pay attention, you will see that museums do not exist to sustain themselves, as Peters implies. Museums are the places where we practice how to deal with the world.
Crucial space
We practice dealing with and embracing multiple perspectives, we learn to look through the eyes of ‘the other’. We investigate what touches us, and why. We examine how things went in the past and what influence it still has today. We create a balance, make room for beauty or sharpen our thoughts. We look at our present from a bird’s eye view.
We do all this by showing the heritage that belongs to us, by showing through art how the world shapes and nourishes us. Museums are therefore precisely the collective places, the spaces for self-examination and imagination, which have become so scarce in the highly marketed society of neoliberalism.
knife stab
Museum employees put their heart and soul into counterbalance the screaming polarized debates, emphasize collectivity, organize meetings with the other and make room for aesthetics and nuance.
Not to maintain their museum, but from the conviction of being of value in the complex times in which we live. To argue that museums don’t matter in times of crisis, on the basis of a declining visitor trend, as Peters does in his article, is a stab in the back of a sector that came out of the difficult corona years badly and is now burdened by increasing inflation and now also rising energy prices.
Investing in museums that are ready to add value is not an unwise decision, but the best decision directors can make.