Unveiling Shadows of the Past: A Museum’s Quest for Cultural Reparation

What are the challenges of working with museum collections composed of ritual, funerary objects, religious artefacts that seem to be taken out of their contexts and treated without regard to their nature? Davide Quadrio spoke about this at the MARTA event of the museum competence development program for Lithuanian museum workers working with ethnographic collections and sacred art, and in an interview with Lithuanian readers he shared his thoughts on the transformation of museums, the restitution process and the development of auditoriums.

Photo by S. Samsons/Moments of the meeting of Lithuanian museum workers with Davide Quadrio

– Tell us about your museum and the path you took, which led to a different approach to museum collections from an anthropological aspect. What challenges did you face?

– My career started in China when I was 21 years old. I returned to Italy in my 50s. Thus, my entire professional life was developed in an international environment. It has influenced not only the way I understand art, but also the way I see the people I work with. When I arrived in Italy, I was “stuck” in Italy due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, and I could no longer return to China. I had to start from scratch in a completely different environment than I am used to. At that time, I was invited to work at the Oriental Art Museum in Turin, which exhibits collections from other cultures, including Middle Eastern art and objects from China, Japan and South Asia.

When I arrived at the museum, I spoke with its previous director, I asked what his strategy was for the next four years, what his plan was, how he wanted to work with the collections. I realized very quickly that a museum is still a kind of repository where collections are kept for scientific purposes or simply to preserve them. I respect this point of view, but I think that we must follow the direction announced by the International Council of Museums (ICOM) a few years ago, that the museum must become a place where it is good to be and a space into which modern life also enters.

I decided to start with the staff team – the closest people who work and “live the museum”. Some of them have been working here for almost 20 years, but they did not know Asian art at all, they had no professional education in this field. In addition, applications for participation in various programs were not submitted. I had to create something in just a month and a half, but I lacked the right team. I asked the foundation that manages the museum to assign a producer to help us. In less than a month, we held an exhibition where a new sound composition called “The Great Void” could be heard.

Over time, the atmosphere of the museum changed: from a place whose essence consists only of objects, it turned into a space where people – both those who work there and those who visit – can simply be, experience, feel. Perhaps sometimes not fully understanding what and why led to such a radical change. This feeling is common. The museum, in my opinion, must have a healing effect – not only for visitors, but also for the people who work in it. I wanted to return the sense of experience to the museum, to create educations for the soul, to raise questions so that we would want something more. This process has only just begun, but the change is already palpable.

– How has your team’s attitude changed? Was it difficult to share my vision with her??

– It was very important for me that the employees were not afraid to accept their failures. The most important thing is to notice it when you make a mistake. For example, when running a project, you see that you have reached 60%. your goals, but you understand that it could have been better. Because it’s all a process. At the beginning of the project, you don’t know all the details about the venue, the people, the audience, so you can’t achieve perfection. This requires experience.

Photo by S. Samsons/Moments of the meeting of Lithuanian museum workers with Davide Quadrio

I am guided by the idea that the team is constantly improving, so you need to try not to create tension for people, but just to help get rid of it. Employees need to feel responsible, but that responsibility should not overwhelm them. This requires a lot of balance. In addition, changes must take place not only from the “top to the bottom”, but also from the “bottom to the top”: without the will of the museum staff to make radical changes, such an effect of openness cannot be achieved.

– Let’s talk about restitution – the return of exhibits to their former owners. Do you tell where objects come from in your museum?

– I think it is very important to find out whether a specific collection and objects should be exhibited here. Restitution is a complicated matter, and a lot depends on how the exhibits got here. If the process was related to aggression, you need to be ready to return those objects to where they came from. And you don’t need to be afraid of it. It is important to create a story about these exhibits in your museum – even if we no longer have them, the stories of the objects must remain. This only makes them more interesting. This is a very nice way to preserve them.

Museum exhibits are a wonderful thing, they have a lot of energy. After all, it is one feeling when you see an image of an object in a drawing or a photo, it is quite another when you look at a real thing. If, say, an ancient sculpture has been returned to where it came from, I in my museum, telling its story, can reveal the reason why we no longer have it. People who visit us can later go to her place of origin and see her there. And there is nothing wrong with that.

On the other hand, it is necessary to take into account a specific object and a specific moment. For example, we have a wonderful collection of Tibetan paintings. Once a representative of the Tibetan Museum came to us, with whom we discussed what should be done with these exhibits. He was glad that these paintings are in our museum, because they currently have no way to preserve them. Therefore, it is necessary for the clause to discuss about each object whether it should be returned or not.

Another example is your museums accepting collections from Ukraine to protect them from the war. Our museum is also considering such possibilities – accepting collections from war zones. I think that organizations like our museum can become like a gateway or a channel of exchange: while maintaining respect, we can offer others our help, safe spaces for objects or even people.

– Who is the target audience of your museum and what ways are you trying to reach them? Or are you open to all?

– I try to be very practical in my activities and do everything step by step. When I came back to Italy after 30 years, I didn’t know what to expect, because I had never had a long-term job or experience in an institution here. I had no idea what people knew about Asia. One got the impression that practically nothing is known about Eastern art in Europe. If a culture does not come from Germany, France, Italy or Spain, it seems very vague to people and is perceived only in general terms.

When I started working, I noticed that only elderly people come to the museum – it was strange to me. The first thing the team and I did was bring in curators to work with ritual and sound. And that was the turning point. We decided to create a very strong program related to ritual electronic music. But the goal was not to hold concerts.

The performer was invited to choose himself where to perform his performances. They were performed on the stairs, in the hall, on the balcony or terrace. Sometimes the performer moved around the whole museum and the visitors had to move together. I noticed very quickly how our audience is changing. I began to see older people and families among the crowd. The diversity of visitors has increased, which is always a good sign.

Now, I am focusing on two things at the museum: firstly, I want to change the museum’s permanent collections, and secondly, I try to focus as much as possible on communication – attracting young people and expanding our audience. And now I can do it because I have a team that I am very happy with!

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