2024 Conference

SCHEDULE

The Museum at the Frontier: The Challenges of Armenian Border Museums in Post-War

4:35-5:05  p.m.

| Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2024 at The Broad

In recent decades, the global community has faced significant challenges in preserving cultural heritage. It is important to acknowledge the need for enhanced global governance and international collaboration to address this issue. Organizations such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe have prioritized cultural heritage in advancing peace, security, and human rights. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that the challenges faced by numerous conflict and post-conflict regions have highlighted the limitations of existing international and local frameworks designed to safeguard heritage. Such frameworks encompass a range of mechanisms, including policies, jurisdiction, and international law. The importance of implementing stronger protection measures, particularly at the national level, is highlighted due to the widening of risks to cultural heritage beyond conventional threats such as armed conflict, cultural erasure, and natural disasters. These risks now encompass the growing impacts of climate change. In 2020, Armenia faced a new challenge with the Azerbaijani-Nagorno-Kharabakh war in addition to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The military events resulted in many settlements in the Republic of Armenia becoming border areas, which affected civil infrastructure and cultural assets, including cultural institutions and museums. This presentation will discuss the state mechanisms and toolkit to overcome the crisis in the field of culture, such as trainings, new policy, and perspectives that have been implemented by the state. I’ll discuss the private mechanisms as well, such as the influence of international organizations (ICOM, UNESCO, the U.S. Embassy, etc.). The aim was to improve the management of heritage during times of crisis, with a particular focus on museum collections. The presentation discusses the challenges faced by Armenia in managing museum crises, highlights the progress made in addressing these challenges, and suggests collaborative strategies for local communities and international institutions to manage heritage effectively during crisis situations. It is important to discuss the current structure of heritage protection from an academic perspective and outline future perspectives for a more comprehensive system.