We invite you to read the interview with Piotr Rypson, PhD, Director of the Department of Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage on the opportunities for developing international cultural cooperation of Polish museums in the context of the EMYA2025, as well as the challenges faced by historical museums, such as the Sybir Memorial Museum, in a rapidly changing reality.

How do you find the role of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in supporting Polish museums, such as the Sybir Memorial Museum, in their involvement in international projects?

 The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage allocates part of funds to programs open to museums. This process is carried out through contests, proposals are evaluated by experts, programs are wide in scope — including initiatives implemented abroad. The most important will possibly be the “Inspiring culture” („Kultura inspirująca”) program, which supports projects promoting in an international way a rich and diverse input of Poland into a worldwide culture and art. It could be implemented by organizing events with the participation of leading Polish artists and culture researchers. Based on my observations it results in the relatively low number of truly inspiring initiatives in the last two editions. That is why I encourage presenting bold and clever ideas. The Adam Mickiewicz Institute participates actively worldwide — in fact, it is the center of competence. Its role is supporting initiatives in international cooperation of Polish institutions, including museums. Contact with the Institute would make planning of undertakings easier as it determines specified directions of actions. Sometimes bilateral agreements signed between Poland and other countries help here.

In my opinion, a map of the cooperation between the Polish museums and other institutions abroad should be analyzed here. Moreover, forms of support should be rethought as well. However, nothing can replace direct contacts between a museum in Poland and its partners worldwide. It is a basis of the cooperation which can be supported with finances or extra know-how tips of the ministry or its institutes.

What is the meaning for you of the fact that Poland is a host of the Conference and European Museum of the Year 2025 Awards Ceremony — the most prestigious museum event in Europe — for the second time in several years?

Please share your opinion regarding other activities that the museum sector should conduct in order to continue a dynamic development and increase recognition in Europe.

 EMYA Awards put the spotlight of the culture sector not only on distinguished and awarded institutions, but also the whole country. When both successes and hosting of such important ceremony and conference occur again, the whole sector naturally gains prestige and authority! The question is how to capitalize on such a credibility loan.

Polish museum institutions, especially the bigger ones, have got a stable basis that results from the political system of the country as well as the tradition of state patronage. There were enormous amounts of funds invested in the museum infrastructure during the last years. Although some incorrect investments and misconceived realizations were conducted, now we have a much richer institutional base being distinguishable in our region.

What is more, organizing interesting and involving projects not only to the local community, but also a foreign one (with increasing number of tourists from outside Poland) remains a major challenge today. There are museums, such as Wawel Royal Castle, which challenges with an enormous number of visitors, logistics of directing them into various visiting routes and making wider diversity of an offer. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum faces such challenges for completely other reasons on a daily basis.

While being a Chairperson of the National Committee of the International Council of Museums, I have noticed a low participation of the Polish museum community in life and activities of numerous museologists around the world. This organisation, still bringing together too low number of both institutional and individual members in Poland, has got a dozen possibilities around the world. They enable the beginning of a cooperation, internships, exchanging of exhibitions or experience, debates on key issues and problems regarding the museum sector. After all, an international cooperation is a direct contact with colleagues in other countries, common consultations, correspondence, visits or initiatives on exhibitions, researches or joint educational projects. This cannot be replaced by any ministry or town hall.

That is why museums organizers and their management should undertake their efforts in supporting study visits of employees in other institutions, the Polish as well as foreign ones. It is important to determine common thematic areas, which would be attractive to cultural events participants also outside Poland. Sharing exhibitions enables reducing their local costs, but most of all, it impacts on creating more attractive offers (choosing objects, education, marketing) and increasing the effectiveness of social impact.

Which opportunities do you see in taking advantage of the Polish presidency in the European Union in 2025 in terms of the development of the Polish museums cultural international cooperation?

 The Polish presidency concentrates attention on our country — which is a value in itself. Political elites visiting Poland can see everyday peaceful and calmness, rich culture, clean cities and mostly neat cultural institutions. However, the main “cultural topic” of the presidency is supporting young creators. Due to that, museums which can benefit from this (in its direct sense) are the ones dedicated to modernity or the ones seeing big opportunity for their own offers, including its historic character which is the result of inviting living creators to cooperation.

How do you find the role of the Polish historical-martyrological museums, such as the Sybir Memorial Museum, in terms of the rapidly changing international situation — in both global, European and local context as well? Do you see new challenges or missions for these institutions nowadays?

 Various kinds of remembrances constitute different dynamics of modernity. The pressure of extremely rapid social, technological or generation changes nowadays, bring various range of effects and challenges. Different in terms of remembrance of the Sybiraks deportations and their terrible time there, and different in terms of the Second World War horror, collective and particular martyrdoms of Poles, Roma people or other nations, or universal experience of extermination. Museums dealing with remembrance are obliged to fill the emptiness left by history witnesses by fighting against contamination of public space with lies, distortion of facts, especially including social media. The last one — as one scientist stated — is an analogy to the contamination of climate, water or soil — and it requires intensive waste removal treatment. In order to make the Sybir Memorial Museum as the particular example — experience of Poles (but also other nations) in the tsarist times and later on, in Soviet times, gives an enormous opportunity for updating these experiences in terms of nowadays Russian aggression against Ukraine. It is an educational and information potential, which — implemented while basing on knowledge and own collections — can be an important offer for abroad museum partners, especially with a Ukrainian partner.

Given your multidimensional museum experience, could you specify how museums can use artistic narrations for promoting their message, creating an international dialogue and reinforcing the European community — in accordance with the EMYA Awards?

 I will respond to this question shortly — the possibilities are endless! Maybe besides institutions located in places of mass exterminations, where silence enables experiencing the particular remembrance or exposition. However, using the imagination and talent of still alive artists often opens perspectives being impossible in the everyday practice of historians or curators.

What wishes or hopes would you like to express to the Polish museums, taking into account the fact of their increasing international role?

 I encourage to brave formulating offers and conceptions of the cooperation with foreign museums. As we have got an interesting and exceptional collections, efficient institutions — we should look for ideas being valuable both for Polish and foreign visitors, taking into account the specifics of the countries. The need of noting the presence of cultural heritage of inhabitants of the Polish lands, complicated cultural map of our traditions is an obvious Polish institutions responsibility. Some weak point is still a low number of joint projects between museums or regions — in common promotion of a particular region of Poland and around the world.

Public institutions, funded by citizens’ taxes should also support civil, democratic or inclusive processes — increased social citizens participation reinforces an institution.

However, most of all — in the world of blurred meanings, artificially generated pseudo-facts and intentionally produced distortions, where lies become a weapon of everyday struggle, both political and the one between countries, museums remain bastions of reliable education. It is conducted by specifying facts, presenting the complexity of history and fate, based on knowledge and real testimonies, documents, objects. In my opinion, this is their fundamental duty.

The interview conducted by Anna Tomas