July 17, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
Museums should be wary of participating in a new program run by the Association of American Museums, in Washington, in partnership with the U.S. State Department, writes Lee Rosenbaum, a freelance writer, on CultureGrrl.
“Should museums participate in a program that exploits their expertise to promote U.S. government foreign-policy objectives?” she says.
The program, Museums & Community Collaborations Abroad, will provide grants of $50,000 to $100,000 to three to five American museums in its first year. The money comes from the U.S. State Department.
The program is aimed at regions and communities that would benefit most from a better connection with, and understanding of, American people and culture, says Ms. Rosenbaum, quoting materials from the association about the program.
Ms. Rosenbaum criticizes the program’s request for proposals, which suggests “specific ‘project concepts’ for five ‘pre-qualified’ foreign museums, along with the foreign-policy objectives that the projects should promote.”
For example, the Shymkent Museum of Natural History, in Kazakhstan, has proposed a project designed to increase awareness of the country’s history among its residents. According to the proposal, the project fits in with U.S. foreign policy goals of encouraging a national identity among the country’s multiethnic, multireligious population.
“Let’s hope there are no takers,” she says. “Cultural ties can assuredly improve relations between countries, but not when they are conceived as an instrument of political propaganda.”
What do you think of this program? Does it threaten the independence of nonprofit museums or help expand museum programs around the world?
