The Canadian Commission for UNESCO and the Canadian Museum of History: Working Together for the Protection and Promotion of Culture
Following the Second World War, Canada played a founding role in the creation of an international organization through which member states would help to shape a culture of peace through education, science, culture and information. This organization would come to be known as UNESCO. This year, seventy years later, UNESCO is marking the tenth anniversary of its Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Canada, with strong support from Quebec, was one of the Convention’s first signatories and played a leading role in adopting this international instrument, which reaffirms the rights as well as the importance of member states in establishing cultural policies in support of the Convention.
From June 3 to 5, 2015, the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO) will hold its annual general assembly at the Canadian Museum of History for the very first time. This is a great honour for us, and their choice of the Museum as a venue attests to the Museum’s many initiatives over the years in support of the goals and spirit of the Convention. CCUNESCO includes stakeholders from all areas of culture, communication, education and science. The general assembly will bring together 250 participants from across Canada, including the Canadian Museum of History, which is the only CCUNESCO member among Canada’s national museums, a membership which the Museum has held for several years.
The theme of the annual meeting — “Nurturing Culture(s) to Bridge Divides: Why? Now What?” — looks at stimulating member and partner engagement through concrete actions and initiatives, with the goal of creating a shared understanding of the constructive role culture plays in bridging societies.
Bronze arrowheads featured in The Greeks – Agamemnon to Alexander the Great are carefully arranged in a display case to simulate the location in which they were discovered. Photo Kerri Davis, Canadian Museum of History.
The Canadian Museum of History has an important role to play in bringing Canadians closer together, by helping them learn more about their country’s rich cultural heritage, no matter where they live. Our new exhibition The Greeks – Agamemnon to Alexander the Great is a tangible example of what an institution such as the Museum can do to support the goals of UNESCO and to reflect the ties that bind us all. As noted in the souvenir catalogue for this exhibition, “Almost every aspect of our lives today bears the imprint of Ancient Greece. Politics and philosophy, literature and the arts, mathematics and medicine, architecture and sports — all have been influenced by traditions developed or perfected in Ancient Greece. The Greeks – Agamemnon to Alexander the Great provides an extraordinary and captivating insight into how the ‘cradle of Western civilization’ came to be, how it changed the world and how it endures today in the hearts and minds of the Greek people.” We are all heirs of this incredible heritage, and exhibitions such as this showcase not only what brings us together, but ultimately what unites us all.
Greek conservator Asteria Kiliafi and Canadian Museum of History exhibition preparator David Thom install a gold diadem from the burial of a woman from Archonitko in Northern Greece. The artefact is featured in The Greeks – Agamemnon to Alexander the Great. Photo Kerri Davis, Canadian Museum of History.
Want to learn more?
UNESCO: http://en.unesco.org/
The Convention: https://en.unesco.org/creativity/
CCUNESCO: http://unesco.ca/en/home-accueil
The Greeks – Agamemnon to Alexander the Great: https://www.historymuseum.ca/thegreeks/