Assessment of Museums in the Kurdish Region of Iraq
Stuart Gibson
UNESCO
To liaise with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), artists, collectors, and cultural, educational and museum specialists with the aim of ascertaining the current status of the museum sector and in particular museums resources in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
ii. In collaboration with the museum specialists and the relevant Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) authorities propose general features for a development strategy for museums in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
iii. provide recommendations adhering ...
Purpose of the Mission
i. To liaise with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), artists, collectors, and cultural, educational and museum specialists with the aim of ascertaining the current status of the museum sector and in particular museums resources in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
ii. In collaboration with the museum specialists and the relevant Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) authorities propose general features for a development strategy for museums in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
iii. provide recommendations adhering to the highest internationally accepted standards to specific Kurdish museums and government authorities; and deployment strategies for such recommendations when reasonable.
Mission Organization and Objectives
The mission was organized around a series of meetings over a three week period with government officials (Regional Departments of Antiquities, the Ministries of Tourism, Culture, Finance, and Education), Hero Ibrahim (wife of the Iraqi President), management of the Museum of Antiquities Erbil (see Appendix I, Preliminary Survey Museum of Antiquities -Erbil), the Erbil Citadel (see Appendix II, Preliminary Survey Erbil Citadel), the Kurdish Textile Museum (see Appendix III, Preliminary Survey Kurdish Textile Museum), the Sulaymania Museum (see Appendix IV, Preliminary Survey Sulaymania Museum), Sarai Museum Project (see Appendix V, Preliminary Survey Sarai Museum Project), the National Museum Amna Suraka (see Appendix VI, Preliminary Survey National Museum Amna Suraka), the Dohuk Museum (see Appendix VII, Preliminary Survey Dohuk Museum), private museums (see Appendix VIII, Preliminary Survey Folklore Museum - Dohuk), museum specialists, private collectors, gallerists, private individuals interested in the museum sector in the Kurdish Region of Iraq, and artists (see Appendix XI, Selected List of Mission Meetings).
Mission Outcomes
Overview
The museum community in Kurdistan has recently undergone a modest renaissance. While much of Iraq has been engulfed in political chaos, Kurdistan has enjoyed relative calm and experienced an economic resurgence of late. Over the past decade Kurdistan has also reaffirmed its cultural identity and spiritually rearmed itself. The museum community has also begun to stir and take stock of itself, its rich heritage, and its potentials. The community has begun to reach out to the international community as it reclaims its important position as a cultural centre. The museum community is today committed and exceptionally determined to emerge from the past traumatic decades into the 21st century revitalized and forward-looking.
Nevertheless, the museum community in Kurdistan faces daunting challenges - challenges readily acknowledged by the Kurdish museum community and government. The level of training and museological expertise available today in museums in Kurdistan is below recognized international standards. The cataloguing and registration of collections is currently a network of disparate approaches which impedes object security, the sharing of information, and scholarship. Museological scholarship, especially regarding collections, is for the most part absent. Conservation expertise, while acknowledged as essential, is weak and generally unavailable to many museums. Security (objects, buildings, staff, and visitors) in most museums is dangerously sparse or non-existent. The museum community is currently a ‘mind-set’ where museology is generally equated exclusively with archaeology at the expense of the broader cultural diversity that defines Kurdish identity and history. Addressing all these challenges will require tenacity, determination, myriad resources (human, financial, and political), and a certain balletic finesse. If all the stakeholders in this challenge assume a common commitment focusing on identifying realistic goals, prioritizing needs, and seeking demonstrative and sustainable results, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that the seemingly impossible will be realized.
It should be stressed that this report does not in any way purport to be a comprehensive assessment, rather a preliminary analysis and it should be interpreted as a starting point for the work ahead.
Administration and Management
- In 2006 Kurdistan, following a general practice in the Middle East, established a Ministry of Tourism placing the Department of Antiquities under it, with each province in Kurdistan having a Directorate of Antiquities reporting to the Department of Antiquities. The underlining logic behind this model is the assumption that the Ministry of Tourism is better positioned to generate revenue, primarily through the development of tourism and foreign investment in tourist sites, which would by extension support archaeology and museums in Kurdistan. The placement of antiquities and museums under the Ministry of Tourism raises serious concerns. The inherent priorities of tourism are not necessarily aligned with those of museums and archaeology, and in some respects the priorities of one are at odds with the other -witness the recent disagreement between the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage (SBAH) over the reopening of the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad and the irreversible intrusion of 'tourist facilities’ at the ancient site of Khennis (Duhok).¹
- Anecdotal evidence suggests that policy decisions are often out of touch with the realities ‘on-the-ground’ in museums and thus fail to improve the quality of museum life. Many government policies and programmes tend to be unrepresentative of, and unaccountable to, the museums they aim to help. Programs designed exclusively by government agencies are often prioritizing the interests of the agencies, not necessarily those of museums. The museums are often not involved in the decisionmaking process in substantial ways, and as consequence the interests of museums are often fundamentally irreconcilable with the interests of the ministries and government agencies.
- Most museums in Kurdistan reflect an organizational model prevalent throughout the Middle East whereby museums are perceived primarily as buildings housing objects. As consequence, museums are too infrequently imagined as vibrant meeting places between the general public, scholarship, objects (archaeological and otherwise), and ideas.
- While the management of individual museums and government agencies have a general appreciation of museum management's function, there is not always a complete recognition of the full implication of management’s role, the breadth of its responsibilities, and the modalities for realizing strategic decisions.
- Most of the museums have common needs and are emerging from similar organizational and administrative environments. There are numerous areas where the sharing of information and resources are not fully exploited. It cannot be overly stressed that the integrity of museums is to a great degree dependent upon their cooperative relation with other museums (domestic and international). Such cooperation encourages scholarship, joint exhibitions, and in some circumstances the sharing of resources - al! of which contribute to a museum’s smooth functioning.
- Most museums in Kurdistan - following established tradition in the Middle East - are currently focusing primarily on cataloguing and the conservation/preservation of their collections. Less attention has been historically applied to public programs (education and educational outreach, visitor services, publications, exhibitions, etc.). While the latter functions are readily acknowledged as important, there appears to be some lingering confusion as to the placement and inter-relation of these activities in the overall organization and functioning of museums.
Financing
- Kurdistan receives seventeen percent of the Iraqi federal budget (adjusted by the federal government for expenditures paid directly by the federal government on behalf of Kurdistan). The Kurdish Council of Ministers and the Department of Planning in consultation with Committees from the Kurdish Ministry of Finance determine the allocation of funds received from the Iraqi federal government. Education and health are given priority. Budget and fiscal decisions on the local level …
¹ The Iraqi Government recently decided to relocate the SBAH to the Ministry of Culture. The KRG is also considering moving the Kurdish Department of Antiquities to the Ministry of Culture.
Stuart Gibson
Assessment of Museums in the Kurdish Region of Iraq
UNESCO
United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Mission Report: Assessment of Museums in the Kurdish Region of Iraq
Stuart Gibson
Mission Report
Assessment of Museums in the Kurdish Region of Iraq
24 March - 15 April 2009
