Cultural diplomacy is a phrase I have heard often during my museum career. It is used to describe an undefined and high-minded range of soft political activities undertaken by the leaders of cultural institutions, alongside their everyday tasks. It is certainly neat, but it brims with false promise.
Every good museum operates on a political level, of course. Collections build bridges between the past and the future, and links are created across cultures and ages. But a museum is neither an embassy nor an office of state. Museum directors for the most part are trained neither as diplomats nor as conflict negotiators. No war has ever started because of museums, nor has a museum ever prevented one from starting.
This is not an argument for an apolitical arts world, however. Today’s museums and collections must not only acquire, conserve, interpret and present objects. Given the state of geopolitics today, they have an obligation to focus on how design, art and creativity reflect moral and ethical value systems, and to question bias and political appropriation in all its forms.