On 12 September 2024, the General Staff building of the State Hermitage was the setting for the first panel discussion of the museum section of the Saint Petersburg International United Cultures Forum.
“For many years we all lived amicably in an environment of triumphant globalism, tasting its fruits, both sweet and sour.Today the world is changing, sovereignty, both political and cultural, is on the agenda. This is a wonderful process that has already gone quite a long way, and it pressingly raises the question of how it is possible to painlessly combine the priority of one’s own culture with the needs of a global interaction of cultures; how to build co-operation on the basis of traditional values and historical memory, which are different for all peoples. At our Forum, we would like to assess the past and the present, and to try to look into the future,” Mikhail Piotrovsky, General Director of the Hermitage and President of the Union of Museums of Russia, said during preparations for the United Cultures Forum.
It was precisely to new formats of museum collaboration at interstate and interregional levels that the discussion entitled “On the way to Eurasian partnership” was devoted. The moderator of the gathering was Vasily Pankratov, Director of the Gatchina State Museum-Preserve. Participating in the conversation were Nasir Aldarmakim Chairman of ICOM in the United Arab Emirates; Ambika Bipin Patel, Chairman of ICOM India; Hayk Mkrtchyan, President of ICOM Armenia; Sirin Yuanyaidi, Director of the Kanchanapishek National Museum, Fine Arts Department of the Ministry of Culture of Thailand; Aida Alymova, Director of the Kurmanjan Datka Nomad Civilization Centre, Chair of ICOM Kyrgyzstan; and Walid Hamed Shiltag, the Arab League’s Ambassador to Russia.
The participants spoke about inter-museum projects that have been implemented in their regions in recent years. Those included an exhibition in the National Museum of India that featured exhibits from 51 museum collections in different countries. Also about the renovation currently taking place at the Kanchanapishek National Museum in Thailand: “In order to talk about how to preserve and develop traditions in the modern world, we need to create a new culture of presentation for new visitors, to change the atmosphere of museums,” Sirin Yuanyaidi stated. ”Previously they were orientated towards schoolchildren and students, now we are trying to attract the widest, most diverse groups of the population.” It is obvious that the experience of colleagues from other countries is irreplaceable in the development of the new strategy.
Among the main areas of co-operation cited were exhibition and educational activities, research and restoration work, the exchange of experience and of specialists, training of staff from small museums using large ones as a base, and so on.
It was said that inter-museum associations and partnerships are an effective tool for developing ties. Of course, these do already exist on the Eurasian continent, but their number is insufficient.
Regarding topics for joint projects, Aida Alymova proposed an interesting idea: the theme of unification through the linguistic kinship of different peoples, their common root culture.
The main idea and conclusion of the discussion was formulated as follows: we should look for points of contact, leaving politics out of the picture, move forward together and find new ways of interaction.
