Lost marbles
Felicity Heywood's article - Flimsy case for world museum doesn't stand up (Museums Journal February 2009, p19) - was to the point. I agree that the idea of a virtual tour is no substitute to viewing the real thing. I do however think that it will be a great tool for educational institutions and for those that cannot travel.
As to British Museum director Neil MacGregor's point that if the museum could prove that traded copper was melted down to make the brass Benin sculpture, it could prove it had a right to keep the Benin bronzes... In other words, in ethical terms, phoney legalistic "ownership" always trumps colonial spoliation.
Heywood described MacGregor's tortured argument as "desperate and convoluted". Others might add that it exudes imperial nostalgia. But were we to agree to MacGregor's poor argument, then might he be equally open to returning the Parthenon Marbles to Greece?
After all the sculptures are made from Pendeli marble, a flawless uniform marble with a yellow tint from the Pendeli mountains, northeast of Athens.
Marlen Taffarello, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, London
Indefensible distress
I urge museum and gallery directors to refrain from staging exhibitions involving live animals. Animal Defenders International has recently asked the Camden Arts Centre to withdraw live peacocks from its current exhibition, The Need For Uncertainty, which features one peacock and one peahen in a barren cage, in an apparent attempt at "prompting reflections on worlds within worlds, on freedom and its limitations."
This is an entirely inappropriate and unnatural environment for these birds which will be constantly forced into the public gaze with no means to escape, something acknowledged as causing considerable distress and suffering in captive animals.
Furthermore, such exhibits do not raise awareness but rather desensitise and reduce sentient animals to mere objects of entertainment, an incredibly retrograde step.
Perhaps the most grotesque recent example was the starving stray dog that was left to die in Guillermo Habacuc Vargas' exhibition of Eres Lo Que Lees in Nicaragua. Surely it is the measure of the artist if they can provoke thought and interest creatively without resorting to cruelty or using live animals as props?
Some contemporary art is shifting towards the use of computer generated images or animal sculptures, rather than using live animals. For example, Banksy's 2008 Pet Shop exhibition in New York, following controversy in 2006 over his live painted elephant display for Elephant In The Room at the Barely Legal show in Los Angeles.
ADI urges galleries to avoid using living animals or trivialising the corpses of animals, for the purposes of entertainment and hopes galleries will set a more appropriate, creative and compassionate example.
Jan Creamer, chief executive, Animal Defenders International
World of humanity
I must admit to being highly amused by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's response to the idea of a Museum of Britishness. "A federated programme", "led by a small planning and coordination hub".
Could this really mean "Give us any money that may be going to spend on more 'strategic' posts similar to Renaissance in the Regions?" Before they use Renaissance as a model for a new project they should really take on board some of the criticisms of that project.
I am not at all sure that a Museum of Britishness would be a good idea for several reasons. Firstly we cannot afford it without cutting back on some of our existing museums and I fear that the loss would outweigh the gain.
Secondly it would be such a political hot potato in so far as how do you define Britishness? Views on this can be so extreme, so varied and so dearly held that whatever you did in a Museum of Britishness would infuriate and offend more people than it pleased, even if you set out with the prime objective of not offending anyone.
In fact that approach would probably offend more people than taking a mildly nationalistic traditionalist view of what constitutes Britishness as most of the people who would agree with a determinedly PC, all inclusive, multicultural approach would probably be put off by the very concept of a Museum of Britishness.
To meet their needs it would have to be "The World of Humanity" - an interactive audience-led community resource centre focussing on how the gamut of global cultures shaped this small top left hand corner of Europe with a few apologies for what its inhabitants did to them in return. In fact we tried the temporary exhibition model for this. It was called the Dome.
Nationalism per se is clearly a concept that has some very negative aspects. The best way to instil the positive aspects of national pride is by viewing the country's achievements in context, whether the aspect that you take most pride in is the rise of organised labour as shown at the soon to be reopened People's History Museum, the history of scientific discovery as shown by the Natural History Museum's Darwin exhibition or the Battle of Britain as commemorated in the aircraft at Cosford.
In taking these examples I have tried to suggest a range of socio-political viewpoints but realise that I have chosen examples only from England and I can feel the wrathful typing of those outside of England leaping to remind me that Britishness is not synonymous with Englishness - please accept my apologies.
If there is money going to raise the profile of Britishness then I believe that it should be fed ringfenced into existing grant distribution structures to minimise the amount of money wasted on bureaucracy. Museums across the country are well able to craft programmes and displays to that end without any need for a planning and coordinating hub however small.
Erik Blakeley, Staffordshire Regiment Museum, Lichfield
Felicity Heywood's article - Flimsy case for world museum doesn't stand up (Museums Journal February 2009, p19) - was to the point. I agree that the idea of a virtual tour is no substitute to viewing the real thing. I do however think that it will be a great tool for educational institutions and for those that cannot travel.
As to British Museum director Neil MacGregor's point that if the museum could prove that traded copper was melted down to make the brass Benin sculpture, it could prove it had a right to keep the Benin bronzes... In other words, in ethical terms, phoney legalistic "ownership" always trumps colonial spoliation.
Heywood described MacGregor's tortured argument as "desperate and convoluted". Others might add that it exudes imperial nostalgia. But were we to agree to MacGregor's poor argument, then might he be equally open to returning the Parthenon Marbles to Greece?
After all the sculptures are made from Pendeli marble, a flawless uniform marble with a yellow tint from the Pendeli mountains, northeast of Athens.
Marlen Taffarello, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, London
Indefensible distress
I urge museum and gallery directors to refrain from staging exhibitions involving live animals. Animal Defenders International has recently asked the Camden Arts Centre to withdraw live peacocks from its current exhibition, The Need For Uncertainty, which features one peacock and one peahen in a barren cage, in an apparent attempt at "prompting reflections on worlds within worlds, on freedom and its limitations."
This is an entirely inappropriate and unnatural environment for these birds which will be constantly forced into the public gaze with no means to escape, something acknowledged as causing considerable distress and suffering in captive animals.
Furthermore, such exhibits do not raise awareness but rather desensitise and reduce sentient animals to mere objects of entertainment, an incredibly retrograde step.
Perhaps the most grotesque recent example was the starving stray dog that was left to die in Guillermo Habacuc Vargas' exhibition of Eres Lo Que Lees in Nicaragua. Surely it is the measure of the artist if they can provoke thought and interest creatively without resorting to cruelty or using live animals as props?
Some contemporary art is shifting towards the use of computer generated images or animal sculptures, rather than using live animals. For example, Banksy's 2008 Pet Shop exhibition in New York, following controversy in 2006 over his live painted elephant display for Elephant In The Room at the Barely Legal show in Los Angeles.
ADI urges galleries to avoid using living animals or trivialising the corpses of animals, for the purposes of entertainment and hopes galleries will set a more appropriate, creative and compassionate example.
Jan Creamer, chief executive, Animal Defenders International
World of humanity
I must admit to being highly amused by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council's response to the idea of a Museum of Britishness. "A federated programme", "led by a small planning and coordination hub".
Could this really mean "Give us any money that may be going to spend on more 'strategic' posts similar to Renaissance in the Regions?" Before they use Renaissance as a model for a new project they should really take on board some of the criticisms of that project.
I am not at all sure that a Museum of Britishness would be a good idea for several reasons. Firstly we cannot afford it without cutting back on some of our existing museums and I fear that the loss would outweigh the gain.
Secondly it would be such a political hot potato in so far as how do you define Britishness? Views on this can be so extreme, so varied and so dearly held that whatever you did in a Museum of Britishness would infuriate and offend more people than it pleased, even if you set out with the prime objective of not offending anyone.
In fact that approach would probably offend more people than taking a mildly nationalistic traditionalist view of what constitutes Britishness as most of the people who would agree with a determinedly PC, all inclusive, multicultural approach would probably be put off by the very concept of a Museum of Britishness.
To meet their needs it would have to be "The World of Humanity" - an interactive audience-led community resource centre focussing on how the gamut of global cultures shaped this small top left hand corner of Europe with a few apologies for what its inhabitants did to them in return. In fact we tried the temporary exhibition model for this. It was called the Dome.
Nationalism per se is clearly a concept that has some very negative aspects. The best way to instil the positive aspects of national pride is by viewing the country's achievements in context, whether the aspect that you take most pride in is the rise of organised labour as shown at the soon to be reopened People's History Museum, the history of scientific discovery as shown by the Natural History Museum's Darwin exhibition or the Battle of Britain as commemorated in the aircraft at Cosford.
In taking these examples I have tried to suggest a range of socio-political viewpoints but realise that I have chosen examples only from England and I can feel the wrathful typing of those outside of England leaping to remind me that Britishness is not synonymous with Englishness - please accept my apologies.
If there is money going to raise the profile of Britishness then I believe that it should be fed ringfenced into existing grant distribution structures to minimise the amount of money wasted on bureaucracy. Museums across the country are well able to craft programmes and displays to that end without any need for a planning and coordinating hub however small.
Erik Blakeley, Staffordshire Regiment Museum, Lichfield
