The Art of Diplomacy

[Music] i think we've got a great topic to get us started uh this evening which is in the overlap of some concern of some concerns that the uh that the foundation has on the one hand uh the business of politics economics uh foreign policy and on the other hand the world of the arts and ideas and in this panel we'll be talking about cultural diplomacy an area in which those two uh come together sometimes come into conflict uh as well so i'm very glad that i can be joined this evening by her excellency sheikha al-mayasah

bin hamad bin khalifa al-thani of of qatar nicolas yatro manolakis the deputy culture minister of greece with responsibility for contemporary culture and tristram hunt the director of the victoria and albert museum in london and with some experience in politics as a uh former member of the uh of the labour party and a deputy minister uh a shadow minister uh in great britain so we've got a um a great panel who can talk about this on several several levels so what do we mean when we talk about cultural diplomacy so there's think that there's on one

level uh you can see it as a way in which through through accident or through design countries accumulate soft power we know that if someone knows and understands your culture if they respect it that oils the wheels of negotiation and it helps you as a nation to get your way in the world it also brings economic benefits it attracts tourism to you uh it opens up export markets but for countries themselves there is a a benefit the sense that your country is known and respected and admired in the world and so it's not just a

matter of a diplomat it's a matter for everyone in terms of how their country is perceived but culture can also be an area of dispute and sometimes diplomats need to intervene to resolve disputes ideas about what is acceptable for artists to say varies from country to country and system to system and channels of cultural exchange can be closed as easily as they are opened as we've seen for instance with russia lately which is formerly a great cultural nation involved in all kinds of uh dialogue and interaction which uh which now is not the case but

i'd like to begin um with you your excellency by talking about the experience of qatar i think in in my living memory i can think of no other country that has transformed its uh its sense of itself as a cultural nation in the world as much as your own and i would like you to i mean i've talked in the abstract about what some of the the benefits of those might be but in terms of for people living in qatar and for the way qatar is perceived abroad how has that transformation brought real and tangible

effects thank you for your compliments um i hope that if you haven't been to kata that you'd visit and i also thank achilles for his kind words and mareva who's here to for all the hospitality that we've received since we've gotten here but you asked me a very valid question given the importance of 2022 for qatar which is the first arab nation to host the world cup and in november that's made a lot of europeans very upset because there's no summer games but it's it allowed us to think about how we would prepare for the

world cup before the world cup came to us so when we won the bid in 2010 we started a program called the years of culture and the attempt for the the goal was to share qatar's history and culture and heritage to the world and bring the world to qatar so we always time the world cup in 2014 with brazil 2018 with russia and 2026 we're probably going to look at mexico and canada so the idea was to use this as a celebration and a vehicle to bring people together to create these conversations and dialogues and

allow people to really understand who we are and allow them to make their own judgments of what an arab nation could be like and how they can experience it and we have invested a lot on culture and that was a decision that began way before my time in the 19 late 1990s qatar was actually a very financially in a very bad situation and the country at the time my father was the emir and they decided to invest in culture and education and health as a way to invest in our human resources which are number one

uh priority so we have a few museums in place which i know you've visited most of them museums you're being very modest your excellency um so yeah i i think that's definitely been a strategy of ours and will continue to do so to empower people to express themselves and have a voice for themselves to tell their own stories to the rest of the world i mean you've spent billions in terms of uh building museums art acquisitions um other sorts of cultural infrastructure what kind of return does qatar get for that spending well i can give

you some examples we have some living examples here i have few people from the museums riya malfani she's our director of exhibitions she's exhibited major exhibitions with international curators and museum directors i have aisha suede who's a artist herself she's a designer she's participated in the london design biennale she just opened the lijuan design residencies yesterday we launched the poster for the world cup it's designed by qatari both and she also just inaugurated a tapestry in in france with them i can't remember the name of the the textile is one of the most important ones

in france so the results speak for themselves we have we have fashion designers we have filmmakers and at that recent khan film festival we won three awards supported by the doha film institute the national museum was an organic museum built in-house by local people whether they're clatteria residents we depended on ourselves it was much much harder but i think the outcome speaks for themselves and everybody who's come through to qatar has experienced an authentic experience it's um it's done based on demand you know when we opened our fire station which is a con conversa concert

conversion of an old fire station into an artist in residency we realized there's a lot of demand for fashion and design so then we opened our new incubator m7 where um we've had our dior exhibition last year and we're opening a valentino exhibition end of this year next year we have an exhibition on design by vitra as well as an exhibition on jewelry from around the world but that came from a demand basis there's a lot of applications to the fire station for fashion for design and technology so we created m7 and then we created

li wan and our next priority will be the vocational school for the arts because we know that the creative economy according to the un will contribute about 2.25 billion and it will create 30 million jobs for 15 to 29 year olds i'm a strong believer that skills today is going to be more important than a university degree for the future of our children and if you find a passionate skilled person willing to take on a career in the creative industry we're here to we'll be here to support them nicholas i wonder if i could bring

you in because you're the deputy minister with responsibility of for contemporary culture and there seems to be a real drive from greece at the moment to establish a position in the world where greece is known as a place that excels in in contemporary culture we all know the grease of antiquity and in terms of building an image of yourself abroad you don't need to do that work that's been done before but in terms of changing the way that people think about greece that's something that if you want that to happen that requires effort from the

greek government you're obviously doing it with a lot fewer resources than are available to uh to qatar which is a a fantastically rich uh country from uh from from but i think it would be fair to say that uh that greece isn't in the same position and so in terms of accumulating the the kind of uh cultural capital and soft power how is your approach different from from that of the qataris um thank you for this question it's actually very interesting but first of all i would like to also welcome everyone to athens and uh

here in greece on behalf of the ministry of culture and the greek government actually the idea here was not just to do this to accumulate soft power so i would take it one step back and i would take it to your initial comments and it's also about how you empower greek people greek citizens today how you foster creativity across the population how you actually care about the cultural professionals of today it is so it's not just about you know adding something to the cultural mix so that if visitors come you know they have more options

this actually is important and we are making steps and by the way you're all invited today to the opening of five different shows of the museum contemporary art just two blocks down from here but um it's not an end in itself so actually different i was listening to your excellency and um it's interesting different paths same stories so what is important to us is actually again skill building broadening the definition of culture so right now we also incorporate things like crafts and the creative industries in this mix which was kind of like one of an

orphan until now at least in in greece um trying to figure out how digitization will will change the landscape of course all of that excuse me will add value will increase the clout if you want of greece greece is a country that has been capitalizing on this culture for years in terms of the if you compare the size with the actual you know strength of the country but this is not enough oh this is not water can i this is your history whilst you uh once you take a drink uh there tristan maybe if i

could bring uh you in because we've heard from two representatives from government but you run an institution the victoria and albert museum now you don't take direction from government about what to do but it's obviously an instrument of soft power for britain in the world that's involved in shaping a particular view of it how do you as a as is this something you think about as a director in terms of how you change perceptions of your country through what you do yes and i think that's actually a strength there are moments in the lifetimes of

nations when the actions of their governments do not necessarily make them popular around the world those stages having cultural institutions which are not regarded as agents of government is very very important um and so having independent trustees having independent directors uh having independent voice connected to those cultural institutions in a way which i would say is quite unique to britain and probably america is not the case in in france or germany and recently in poland we've seen a director lose their job so having that autonomy in the long run which is also around our universities

the bbc the broadcaster our artistic community is really powerful so that i think as we've also seen in other governments at other periods that the trajectory of a democratically elected government and their public policy doesn't necessarily always impact the soft power of a nation because actually those cultural institutions have enough identity and rhythm and autonomy within them to kind of keep an image of a nation separate and uh distinct and i think that's an important part of our settlement um in the uk i think i'd say the other thing which about sort of soft power

and the role of institutions and and museums is that particularly in the the shadow of the acropolis is the the important work we have to do whether in the uk or america or other parts of the world of sustaining those democratic institutions and democratic culture and civil society within the country itself because i think there's fragility within our own countries at the same time as we're suggesting around the world that these are values and systems that other countries could look to we have to make sure we're also supporting what we're doing in the uk is

that is i mean you were talking a lot about using culture as a way to build your local population in terms of skills but also in terms of these more civic things which tristan was talking about is that also a concern of yours here i agree um actually i think that also it's uh and i think also the pandemic kind of showed the role that the state uh and democratic institutions can claim should play in the art world and we saw other models like for example the american one which is not that much supported by

the state and that you know the the the problems that that created so i think it is very important that you set up a framework you kind of like said you know the rules and the ground rules and this doesn't mean that all of a sudden everything is being done being operated by the state that's not the point but actually i think this is one of the big differences in the last years that um the state was absent from at least the contemporary art scene of greece and so thankfully and we're very grateful that there

are great um you know private institutions and other organizations that can fill up this void but is this enough should be that enough and the answer i think for me is very clearly no because um you need the state as an enabler you also need the state to to kind of also bring everyone together in in a way that unfortunately nobody else can do this i mean this is a job this is why states are designed you know to do that so you need that and when it's absent you feel the void and you know

uh the problems that this absence creates now um i don't know i'm sure they're going to be more rounds uh but just about you mentioned also about diplomacy um and i mean it's kind of difficult for me not to talk about kind of like you know we're in the acropolis museum you know not to talk about the elephant in the room or the elephant in the museum um so i think that's the next session great but it's also about sometimes issues cultural issues and these are emerging uh around the world things that have to do

with patrimony things that have to do with you know the colonial past of several countries or how certain things ended up in certain places i'm trying to be super easy here um you know these are questions that are actually now blending in the broader discussion about let's say diplomacy and culture so it's not just about you know i'm gonna um you know see an italian movie and be moved by it and maybe then i'll travel to venice and it's not about you know like buying a french you know kind of a piece of fashion or

something like that it is becoming becoming much more complex and complicated and actually sometimes not the driver of diplomacy but it can be also like an inhibitor tristan you have some experience in uh in this field as well but not as a as a state actor but um i mean we'll um i think we'll come on to the marbles in the next panel but in the victoria and albert museum you have a the moctada collection a series of treasures which are from ethiopia which um it's not really in your gift to give them back because

that's a matter for government and not for you as a museum director but you have to deal with this you still need to exercise diplomacy in balancing yourself between the the government who provides you funding uh between public opinion between uh the interested parties from from ethiopia and i wonder if you could tell us about how you go about achieving this kind of diplomatic balance between those between those forces when it's not really your decision to make about what happens to those i mean i think museums and cultural institutions do have this ability to move

in spaces where elected governments don't always have um the the capacity uh to do so and actually there's a there's a beautiful example of the collaboration between the v a um and the museum of islamic art in in doha and qatar around a very disputed colonial collection which goes back to clive of india and beautiful artifacts from the mogul past which uh entered the the family collection there which was then sold by the family which was then uh uh purchased uh by qatar which was then put on loan at the vna and as now but

so you can have through the histories of objects which often have multiple and disputed pasts you can actually build up these these quite close and interesting relationships within that in a sense you you want to mobilize governments at the right point and where you have an engage and active and considered embassy it makes all the difference and where you have um governments that believe as the greek government and the qatari government believe in the power and importance of culture then then you've got an opening and so what in a sense what you want to do

i think as a museum director is fly beneath the radar as much as possible um and build up those partnerships and and relationships because in the long run particularly for a country like the uk with a complicated past which is under great deal of scrutiny at the moment being open and receptive around the history of collections seems to be a really important part of the kind of relationships we want to build in the future and do you think that that it can also be a way um in terms of that kind of honesty or other

senses in which a museum puts itself out into the world do you think that can also be a way sometimes that britain can excuse foreign policy mistakes or can can at least the kind of damage that would be done to another actor who didn't have the same reputation in the world can be lessened by i i i i don't think we're that sophisticated um um in this in contrast to the french i mean the french are ruthless uh about this in a very brilliant way and they they utilize hard power and soft power the sale

of jets and the building of museums at the same time in a way which is absolutely remarkable um and actually um when when we look at other you know european nations and and their strategic ability to use that and and so that works very well whilst it's working very well but when it goes wrong and we're the reputation for example of france to fall in public affection um then suddenly those those institutions and museums which are so closely affiliated to the state become problematic hopefully and i think really here of the bbc or something like

that which is both british but also i hope regarded as separate and distinct from the state and that's important your excellency in terms of um when you spoke about the benefits that your program of museum building cultural development in qatar you spoke very much in terms of domestic terms and what it means for your uh for your people and for you their future but at the beginning of the program and actually throughout do you think about how that's shifting the way that the rest of the world thinks about qatar or is that just a secondary

effect for us the priority has always been domestic you know there are other examples in the region that chose a different approach but there's always going to be a domino effect you know if you invest in in your people and in projects in your own country there will be a curiosity for people to want to learn about what you've done or how you've done it we get a lot of countries now that come to us and ask us to consult them on how they should build their museums because mainly with the successes of the i'm

sorry it's okay you need more water i think he might need more water uh islamic art museum and then especially with the national museum i think the innovation we peaked in innovation with the national museum you know the combination of objects video with jean novell's interiors that took us 10 years to figure out and we were deeply criticized you know we were delayed we are you know opening but we wanted to make sure that all the voices you know tristan was talking about how they're independent from government but that's today the victoria and albert are

the names of the king and queen of of england you know so they were they created this museum to begin with as they did with the collections um so yes our government leads the vision we have the national vision of which we are all aligned um but the the local communities whether their qataris or residents are very much involved for the national museum as an example we held multiple workshops across all the subjects whether we agreed or disagreed whether historically it was accurate or not that was something we would evaluate later consulting with professors from

universities with experts that are whether in qatar or not um and that was a process that that we took and um you know the national museum opening coincided with the launch of our fashion trust arabia awards so we had a huge gathering of people in all disciplines from fashion art design architecture and i know a lot of people who didn't accept the invitation later called and said we want to come we're missing out that will come next time you know this is an annual gathering we have it every year and we will continue to grow

and develop organically we're not we're under no pressure of you know competition we don't look at what other people are doing in terms of oh they're going to do something bigger or larger or whatever you know we know our 25-year plan we've achieved 17 years of that and we recently announced our two future projects which are the art mill and the lusail museum very distinctly different but this will be our global outreach museum if you like you know if we if i look back to the 18 years that past i would probably categorize the first

part as focusing on heritage and identity because we looked at the islamic art museum we're a muslim nation we wanted to celebrate the whole of the islamic world and make sure young generations know about the glories of different civil in different cities and empires within the islamic world we're opening an exhibition on baghdad we have some loans from the benaki museum in greece and that will open in october of this year it will talk about 500 years of the abbasid empire then we have the national museum and we have meth that confirmed our identity and

heritage we're muslim arab and qatari and now we open the sports museum which is a sports and olympic museum you know we're in athens so it's when we did an exhibition in 2013 we had 800 loans from greek museums so we have a you know now a reputation of trust museums from all around the world are willing to let alone our objects and we've also acquired collections where we're willing to lend museums from all around the world and it's that i mean we've said it's primarily for a domestic audience but it's that bringing tourists into

the kingdom as well and the benefits of that in terms of cultural dialogue and economic benefits for sure like i can give you an a different example of a project that i had no involvement in which is the restoration of our olsuk suguagov which is called suguagev because people the water used to come right in and people used to stand and merchants would sell their products wagov in arabic means standing and when we just renovated that we had we got two million visitors because you know people want authentic experiences they don't want to go and

see the same thing in different places people are done with that they want to experience new things they want to experience nature traditions you know we've invested a lot on food and and innovating our own cuisine to the you know to the ways that you can make them presentable to the world we've had successful entrepreneurs opening their own restaurants so yeah and so that we're also working on a children's museum i started that when i had no children so i'm hoping to open it before my children are no longer children it's been a 15 years

in the making but we'll open the first part in the fall of this year just before the world cup so we're really excited about that nicholas tourism is obviously incredibly important for the greek economy it's probably one of its most important uh industries and we talked a bit about changing perceptions of what greek culture is but surely a lot of people come for the columns and for the ruins and not so much perhaps for a kind of edgy contemporary art how do you propose to to change that idea abroad about what greece is i think

that um once people are here they are able to discover more than you know they thought that they would meet uh you know in terms of bringing in terms of bringing new people first of all we know that cultural tourism is a very important part of tourism globally it's more than a third of that it's cultural tourism and also we've seen how um different uh places around the world have actually invested in um in culture be it you know things like festivals that are being repeated so they're being institutionalized or like big destinations um and

through culture they actually attracted more more and more people so for example you know the canned festival is a great example of that can in itself wasn't that you know attractive no offense but so the film kind of festival is what actually made it what it is so i think that changing the narrative is very important and incorporating things in this narrative um that are authentic again i was listening to to your excellency and again different paths same story you know i've been listening for a long time athens is the new berlin hopefully nobody will

say this during this conference um or after that so athens is athens berlin is berlin they're both wonderful cities so sticking to who you are not trying to paint a different picture not trying to you know hide the little you know like satellite dish in the back and the little solar panels there and trying to make it a fake picture of what athens is or what greece is and actually you know say that this is athens and it has this and it has the other and um you know you can walk through it and you

can explore it and you can listen to the noise and the sounds and the melodies and you can smell the beautiful spices and the food that is being you know cooked but also you can you know you can also you know walk around and just explore that and this word of mouth studies says by the way indicate that word of mouth is the most important tool that you can use to bring more people in so what do you need for that one is this authentic experience and the other one is better and improved services so

that is the other thing we are investing in because you know someone can come once but if this experience is not a positive one then these people are not going to come again and you want repetitive visitors because these are the visitors that actually appreciate the place they understand the place they come to love the place and this is actually the kind of relationships you want to build through tourism uh ladies and gentlemen in about ten minutes you have the opportunity to ask uh some questions of your own so do uh start thinking if you'd

uh like to ask anything of the panelists but we've been talking a lot about a lot of positive effects of of cultural diplomacy but there's also it's it's a two-way street and uh cultural diplomacy can also be used as a means of punishment for a pariah state or it can be used as a way to um to apply pressure on a honest date to achieve uh particular political ends and i'm thinking uh of the most recent time that we've seen this happen in terms of russia since it's invaded the ukraine its artists are not welcome

in international forums uh future collaborations between institutions like museums uh have been uh have been cancelled people have been disinvited from laboratory bodies etc so russia which is a great and proud culture and uh uh and a great exporter of its culture is suddenly totally outside of uh of the club with the hope of achieving a political end uh in ukraine but that does also mean that we are all deprived of the great treasures of russian culture that we don't get to see in museums or in cinemas or through its participation in film festivals um

etc so it is a complicated uh it's a complicated matter but tristan i mean do you think that the decision is the right one that we say we for the moment we won't accept um you know we wouldn't accept a show made up of russian loans or we wouldn't have the bolshoi to dance at the royal opera house uh so long as it's active in ukraine i think it's so difficult because we we've wrestled with this question in some international forum that i belong to where russian colleagues were removed from the the forum and there

was a debate about are they invited as individual cultural leaders are they invited there as representatives of their museums and it goes to my earlier point how close are those museums as organs of the state and you can see in certain russian situations that some museums are very closely allied as sort of voices and vehicles of the state so if you're there to sanction the state and criticize the state you're going to move across all areas if you know god forbid we had some terrible fascist government in italy would one necessarily think as it were

you know the ufc should be banned or you know the the vatican different museum should be banned and and there that that space between the state and the institutions becomes very very um important i think um that each case has to be addressed differently we we had an exhibition uh on on on carl faberge um and actually faberge's workshop in in london on in the uk and we came under some pressure to to cancel that um exhibition and curtail it and i felt very strongly we shouldn't because the story of carl faberge was on the

one hand yes an account of imperial easter eggs and the romanovs and russia but it was also the story of a cosmopolitan individual it was a story of war and revolution and refugees and all of those components we're now seeing play out um in terms of the aftermath of the invasion so i think you do have to address it institution by institution and issue by issue and only today i saw you know a russian tennis player who had been banned for being russian is now allowed to compete in one of the tennis competitions and it

also in a sense works the other way which is that you get pressure and we certainly can see this in some countries whereby as it were states want to do something and so it's easy for them to tell cultural institutions or sporting bodies or educational institutions to do things whilst they themselves can't necessarily make the difficult decisions and there you see the kind of inverse of that of that state authority i hope my political background has given me enough not to fully answer the question but we can ask another politician what about here in greece

is is the culture ministry here putting pressure on organizations not to work with russian partners first of all as policy makers you have to make tough decisions and what we tried to do here from the beginning was first of all to make a distinction between individuals and state entities and there are also some practical issues involved in this so i'll give you an example a little known fact that i hope that gradually will make it a better known fact is that one of the largest russian avant-garde collections in the world is actually in greece in

thessaloniki is the kostakis collection so the kostakis collection very regularly lends a lot of works to the trethyakov in moscow so should uh we allow should i sign the paper during this war is the ship a state museum or a private league it's a state museum it's a greek state museum in a state russian gallery so you have two state institutions so should we sign you know the piece of paper saying you know yes during this war we will be lending you this paintings um we're blending this paintings into the treaty of and for me

the answer was clear and it was no we shouldn't but at the same time we never blocked any russian artist to perform and that was very important to us on the contrary actually we have this interesting effect that we've been actually talking a lot about um russian artists that are being persecuted by the current government in russia so they are trying also they are also fleeing um you know uh the country these are these are also other victims of the war and the other thing we tried to do was let's say that the positive which

is we felt that this is a terrific opportunity to showcase and highlight ukrainian culture so what we're doing is that for the last 100 plus days because unfortunately this is how long the war has been going on every week almost we have something to do here that has to do with ukrainian culture so we've organized the visits of ukrainian refugees to the contemporary art museum we've um we've shown ukrainian films we are now organizing a talk between greek writers and ukrainian writers we're we um i met with the ukrainian deputy minister of culture in venice

in the biennale and we're now organizing an exhibition about greek um you know the greek cultural past of ukraine so we're bringing awareness we do concerts and all the benefits go you know to to ukrainian refugee children things like that so we try to do this and at the same time yes let's say that the things that had to do with the russian state institutions are being frozen uh your excellency you've been on the other end of a sort of an action like this in terms of the blockade from your neighbors when all kinds of

economic and social channels were closed including cultural ones uh as well and i wondered what role did culture play in in terms of like what was it like being on the other end of that but also do you think that can also be a way to resolve a situation like this through making cultural links yeah i want to go back to your earlier point because i think we've got to stop the double standards you know currently there's not just one war going on there's more than a war in the world and so i think that

the beauty about art and the power of culture that it brings people together and um for us during the blockade there's a lot of artists and you know that came out from it and they and we expressed peacefully they expressed peacefully their their emotions of nationalism and and that wasn't just for qataris it was also the residents and we are a multinational country um so i think the culture i mean that's if you just look in the room you see people from different backgrounds different incomes different nationalities and art is that platform that allows people

to come in from all backgrounds and engage in a conversation we never closed our doors on anyone we're always open we're always open to discuss with different artists from different countries different beliefs and we are always using our neutral platforms in our museums because every museum we have has a temporary space in addition to other spaces that we have and we try to celebrate the diversity of cultures i mentioned the year of culture as a legacy for us for the world cup this year we're celebrating minasa which is middle east north africa southeast asia and

we are celebrating so many different countries with music dance food exhibitions i mentioned the exhibition about baghdad we have an exhibition on palestine with the palestinian museum we have an exhibition on nomadic uh culture because we're very proud of where we came from and that will be at the national museum and that looks at north africa southeast asia and the gulf we also have an exhibition on al jazeera 25 years because it covered so much news it was you know we we made the bbc reopen the bbc arabic because as soon as we see arabic

closed um you know we launched al jazeera arabic and now bbc arabic is back on online so there's so much for us to celebrate and diversity you know arabs make up uh all faiths you know they're not just muslims and the largest muslim country is not an arab country it's indonesia and next year we're celebrating qatar indonesia so we're you know we're excited with our variety of programs but in terms of achieving that rapprochement after the blockade with what role did culture play in that or was that simply a matter of old-school diplomacy in terms

of trade balances and uh you know another so we we as a government we never um as our government we didn't stop any artists from locating countries to participate in any of our awards whether the film institute with the grants that we give to filmmakers or the fashion trust arabia with our fashion grants and we did get applicants actually some chose not to be fearful and came others were fearful and not and did not come but that didn't come from us you know we were always open for dialogue and in our collections we represent all

gulf nations um in our in our you know whether it's the islamic art museum the national museum or the mata arab museum of modern art so i think you're asking the wrong person because we're so open to people in terms of our nation like i think qatar is really a meeting point if you want sports you have the best sports events if you want culture you have you know variety i mean for me my favorite festival you're mentioning like traditional arts is the dao festival and that's uh qatar our culture village they run that dow

festival annually this year they're gonna run it for one month usually they run it for ten days and they're gonna time it with the world cup and it talks about our tradition when men would go for months pearl diving and it's the woman who took care of the household this is the woman who who you know fed the children uh crazy animals so when people talk about women rights today it makes no sense to us because we've always had rights as as a community as a culture because islam dictates that woman has equal rights to

men so it's it's breaking these misconceptions you know like you say qatar is a rich country i'm telling you in the 90s we were in a very bad financial situation and it was a bold decision from my father at that time to invest in gas fast forward you know 30 years the whole world is looking for energy because of the current crisis that between russia and ukraine so i think if you have a conviction and an intuition to do certain things because you feel that this is the right thing for your country then and you're

in a position to do that i think that's the way the best way forward and i think people should continue to talk to each other even when it gets difficult i suppose we've just got time for one more question i'll ask that to you tristan do you think that cultural dialogue is going to be key in terms of resolving a sort of normalization of uh of relations with russia once the the war in ukraine comes to an end well i i think the shakers point about double standards is is interesting and a challenge because some

within the international four of museum directors where this conversation was taking place sort of reflected upon american museums and the iraq war um and whether there was any response to them um and their role within that um and i i think i think there there does have to be a sort of richer appreciation of some of the kind of uh nuance surrounding that um i mean i i don't i don't think culture will solve the problem uh of uh putin's invasion uh of ukraine i think hard power will stop that one way or another probably

got time for a couple of uh questions from the audience uh if anyone has them i think we've got hand mics around are there any oh this gentleman here at the front hello good evening uh your excellency good evening uh i have a question for tristan if it may it relates to the elephant in the room so i'm sorry to put you in that place but let's presume you weren't the you weren't in charge of the vna but you were in charge of the british museum or if i may put it a different way if

you were hired as a consultant to give advice on what's the best way to get the elgin marbles back home where they belong how would you propose to achieve that i know the complications between the board of trustees of the british museum and that they're not really under the auspices of the british government but perhaps if you become a labor government yourself you may have some influence it is it is more likely that lord elgin himself would return here well i don't want to preempt the next conversation but what is what is clear is that

it is not up to the trustees of the british museum there is a piece of legislation from 1963 which says that the trustees of the british museum cannot de-accession items in their collection unless they are ruined beyond repair an exact replica go to another national museum in the uk or will not be removed to the detriment of scholars and the public and so the only way this changes is if there's political will to change the legislation to allow trustees to make the decision and have the autonomy over their collections and and my view because i'm

in the same situation because the act that governs the victorian albert museum is based upon the act that governs the british museum and so my trustees are not allowed to de-accession any items from the collection and that has to be a political decision and so this has to be led by political actors who i think should give trustees the responsibility to say yes this should be in our collection and you could make a very credible case as tiffany jenkins will later about why the parthenon sculptures should be in london but you should be honest and

open about that or you should say no we don't think they should be here for the following reasons and we'll enter a conversation about restitution repatriation at the moment trustees do not have the power to do that so you have this ping-pong between government and trustees but the law is clear trustees cannot do it so you need to change the law and i think it's important that trustees operate under the law i think that's very important so this needs to be a political decision we have time for one more question hi so we run the

prepicter photography prize that is on sustainability and a lot of times when we tour the exhibition we go to a lot of countries around the world and some of them have quite strict censorship laws i won't point any out if you look at our past exhibitions you might guess which ones i'm talking about and we oftentimes refuse to take out artists because it's 12 uh series per per exhibition um and and we refuse to take out the artists from the the exhibition because we think that the story that the 12 are telling together um will

will not tell the full story if the 12 are not there so what would you do in in the place um of us if you if this i guess this is for all of you if you were touring this exhibition and you were asked to maybe remove one artist or remove one image from the from the exhibition your excellency would you like to she was looking at me she was just too polite to put me on the spot well you know um censorship is the other word you used that's a matter of perception you know

what you think is censorship i don't think is censorship and we're very clear with the artist and curator when we choose our exhibition you can do this but you can't do that matt last year we had the coons exhibition the first question he asked is why didn't you show the the work that uh you know why did you censor some of the works we didn't censor the works we worked in collaboration with maximiliano the curator who i believe has also curated this show and jeff who's an old friend and he said listen what we're interested

in is to empower people with your works of art and let them know about different techniques and technologies you've used to accomplish these things we're not interested to uh you know to get people to um you know to create a negative impact or reaction because that's not what art should be doing in my opinion we like to bring people together we like to inform them and educate them so if i know that that's your position and you feel very strongly about it i probably wouldn't work with you and if you respect my morals and values

as a person who's in charge and responsible of bringing art from all around the world and i was telling your minister deputy minister here i first got first got introduced to contemporary greek art in germany at documenta at castle i didn't even realize how much diversity and you know great artists that uh greece had that was the first encounter so it's a choice that you make as the you know owner of this project whether you want to be flexible in taking works of art to different places and many places even in new york i lived

there for a while there are some exhibitions that they asked pieces to be removed so it's not just an arab muslim middle eastern thing it's a question of values that will govern your institution and we're very very strict about that thank you we're almost exactly on time so there will be a five minute uh break now while we uh while we reset things and then in the next panel we're going to come to the straight for the elephant to the elephant thank you to all the panelists thank you [Music] you