Cultural recovery in Haiti: Text and photographs by Gary G. Yerkey
Pulling works of art from the rubble of buildings destroyed in a disaster may seem trivial compared with providing food, medical care and other humanitarian needs. But Cori Wegener, an associate curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, says that the rescue of what she calls a nation's "cultural property" is also critical, as it ensures a culture's recovery over the long term.
As international project coordinator of the Smithsonian Institution's Haiti Cultural Recovery Project, Wegener has been at the forefront of a movement that was launched in the weeks following the January 12, 2010, earthquake. Under the direction of Richard Kurin, the Smithsonian's undersecretary for history, art and culture, Wegener and a team of American conservators are struggling to recover, safeguard and help restore world-class Haitian artwork and other cultural property that was damaged in the earthquake.
The Broadway League funded the project with $275,000, with additional resources coming from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museums and Library Science. The U.S. Agency for International Development has set aside another $2 million.
