Museums should do more for minorities

Even more immigrants and sexual minorities should visit Danish museums; not only as visitors but also as organizers of their own exhibitions. This is the opinion of Uffe Elbaek, the new Culture Minister.

“Museums should become more open to the society and start telling people more pungent stories like those about gays and immigrants”, the radical Minister declared in an interview with the Politiken newspaper.

Museum should reflect the society. “I am a homosexual. When I visit the National Museum (Nationalmuseet), at the exhibition dedicated to the history of Denmark I can see reflection of my homosexuality only in one place”, Uffe Elbaek says pointing to the photo where marriage of the first same-sex couple who registered their relationship in Denmark, is depicted.

Yet the Director of the National Museum, Per Kristian Madsen, believes that the museum has already focused on minorities. He points out that above all else, the National Museum runs projects where children talk about their cultural traditions. “However, standing still is definitely not acceptable. Therefore, we do our best to provide our visitors with most detailed picture possible”, he says in an interview with DR Kultur.

Museum of Copenhagen (Københavns Museum) is one of the museums where exhibitions dedicated to sexual minorities and immigrants have been a great success. Jette Sandahl, the Director of the Museum, believes that the fact that art and culture do not reflect us only as human beings is a closed issue. Thus, she totally supports the new Culture Minister in the issue.

“I believe museums should be a reflection of the whole nation, of our civil self-determination. If a person feels like an outsider in a museum they will not come there again”, Sandahl says in an interview with DR Kultur. She thinks that this detailed picture which museums should present can be implemented in different ways. For example, the Museum of Copenhagen might employ personnel from those districts of the city where there live people who visit museums very seldom.

“We must be wide open to the society. All citizens should have an access to culture; otherwise we would betray our democratic duty. I believe we are able to do even more than we do now”, Jette Sandahl says.

 

 

Original text, photo: DR.dk