When War Comes for the Museum

I Led the Rescue of Syria’s Cultural Heritage—Here’s What We Need to Do to Protect World Treasures from Politics and Strife

Protecting cultural heritage during crises and wars is a big challenge, especially if conflict erupts suddenly and consumes a country with violence.

As head of the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums in Syria during the worst stage of history for my country, I contended with this challenge firsthand. That’s why I know, in this moment, it is essential for Ukraine to choose the right strategy to protect its threatened cultural legacy. Not everything can be saved in such circumstances, but we have a scientific, moral, and humanitarian responsibility to provide all …

by Maamoun Abdulkarim | May 11, 2022

California African American Museum Executive Director Cameron Shaw

Running a Museum During a Global Pandemic Is Creativity Every Single Day

October 1, 2021

Cameron Shaw is the executive director of the California African American Museum (CAAM). A native Angeleno, she previously served as CAAM’s deputy director and chief curator; before that, she was …

How Museums Help Diverse Nations Reimagine Themselves

By Embracing the Ambiguity of Old Myths, the Best Exhibits Broaden a People’s Sense of Belonging

by Elizabeth Weiser | October 10, 2019

Museums are often dismissed as irrelevant diversions, as places apart, as tombs for pasts that don’t have much to do with the present.

But I study the world’s heritage museums—the …

A Mexican Cultural Center That Builds Bridges, Not Walls, With the U.S.

Tijuana’s CECUT Draws Southern Californians by Programming with Cross-Border Appeal

By Alan I. Bautista Plascencia | June 22, 2017

Each culture absorbs elements of cultures near and far, but afterward it is characterized by the way in which it incorporates those elements.
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Want to Find New Audiences? Keep Trying New Things

A Risk-Taking Arts Administrator Came to Texas, and Soon the Galleries Were Louder, Full of Med Students—and Open All Night

By Bonnie Pitman | June 22, 2017

Experiment—constantly and fearlessly, every single day.

That’s the best advice I can offer from my own career working in museums to connect the arts to different people, communities, disciplines, and places. …

Just Leave That Botticelli Near the Bike Rack

"Inside | Out" Makes Art Inescapable by Placing Major Works on the Street. Literally.

By Daniel Payne | June 22, 2017

The phone rang in the office of Salvador Salort-Pons, then Curator of European Paintings at the Detroit Institute of Arts. “I found a Van Gogh painting outside the public library, …

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