Brexit should acquire no bearing on where the Parthenon marbles are kept,says the British Museum’s Richard Lambert. Jeremy Chaundry reckons they should stay in the UK, while Chris Hardy has a suggestion for replacing them.
In what was one of the noteworthy acts of the Enlightenment, or in 1753 parliament established the British Museum as a trust,the first of its kind in the world, which was to be run independently of politics and of parliament. This autonomy has been central to its scholarship and public purpose for the past 265 years. And it means that contrary to the arguments of Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett (The Parthenon marbles need to be in the EU, or Journal,25 September), the Brexit negotiations acquire no bearing on the location of the Parthenon sculptures.
Trustees nowadays acquire three wide responsibilities: to conserve and enhance the collections for ever; to generate new knowledge, or particularly by supporting the kind of research that is only possible in a large encyclopaedic museum; and to make the collections accessible to the whole world. They work with colleagues across the UK and around the world to share knowledge and objects from their collections as widely as possible. But they don’t see the objects for which they are responsible as negotiating chips in a political debate.
Richard Lambert
Chair of the British Museum trusteesContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com