Never before has the Memorial Museum had to appeal to its essence: Resistance.
Closed since March last year, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out in the country, it faces the biggest challenge that attacks the livelihood of most museums in the world alike.
It is estimated that 13% of museums worldwide will not be able to open their doors due to the health and economic crisis caused by the new coronavirus.
The picture looks so discouraging that the Louvre Museum, located in Paris, France, one of the most famous and visited on the planet, lost in 2020 70% of its visitors and its revenue fell by about 90 million euros compared to 2019.
An AFP report reported last week that American museums can now sell their works of art to make up for their losses due to the pandemic caused by the deadly disease.
As early as April 2020, the American Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) lifted this ban and authorized for two years the sale of works of art to balance the budgets.
Last September, the Brooklyn Museum, already in financial difficulties before the pandemic, put 12 works up for sale with the aim of creating a maintenance fund for its collection.
The director of the Memorial Museum of the Dominican Resistance (MMRD), Luisa de Penya Díaz, acknowledges that the organization has been hit hard by the preventive measures applied to prevent infection by the virus.
The maintenance of the facility and payment of employees has been significantly affected. “Employees have resisted because they feel committed to the institution, we have continued together, and this needs to be acknowledged,” he added about how near-zero revenue has hampered the museum’s operation.
hard tests
D’Peña Díaz is aware that there are still months of hard testing left for the MMRD and other country museums, as there can be no talk of a reopening as long as the escalation of contagion by the Covid-19 persists.
Despite this inevitable reality at the moment, with its income almost zero and some services suspended, museography wastes optimism about the future of the entity created ten years ago to collect, organize, preserve and display the assets of tangible and intangible heritage of the resistance during the dictatorships in the Dominican Republic, especially the one that headed by 30 years Rafael Leónidas Trujillo (1930-1961).
“On top of all this we have stood our ground thanks once again to the support of the community, friends and donations we receive,” the MMRD director expressed.
She recalls that in the beginning they also fought a titanic struggle to make the project a reality. It refers to the remnants of the Trujillo dictatorship and to some people who served in the regime of the Twelve Years of Joaquín Balaguer (1966-1978), opposed to the operation of a museum with these characteristics.
“We have wanted to be silenced many times, these sectors that participated in state crimes and human rights violations,” said the specialist in management, economics and financing of culture.
D’Peña Díaz trusts in the preservation of the museum because there are more people who are thirsty for justice to know the truth and who claim their right to historical memory.
“I have no doubt that we will survive, beaten, just like all museums, and it will cost us to get up again, but we will reopen our doors, and students will return to museum, because we have filled a void.” , he indicated.
Back to its origins
The MMRD currently operates virtually, which the collections expert considers a return to its origins, as this is how this museum arose, located on Carrer Arquebisbe Nouel in the Colonial City.
He acknowledges that virtual does not replace face-to-face, but they have developed a series of programs and activities through social media and its website, with a very positive response from the population.
He mentioned that they hold educational workshops, talks, podcasts, contests and trivia on the networks, in addition to the program “A day like today ten years ago”, designed to rescue the activities carried out during the first ten years of operation of the MMRD .
“People are super excited, because although the virtual does not replace the face-to-face, it has more reach and is reaching more people. We have multiplied our reach through the virtual,” explained the museologist.
Although in quarantine, they also plan to celebrate the ten years of the museum and the 60th anniversary of the execution of the Trujillo shooting next May.
For the anniversary they will open exhibitions in much of the country. “The resistance is on its feet,” exclaimed D’Peña Díaz, after pointing out that it has been 10 years well fought to establish a museum whose collection was declared on July 31, 2009 “Memory of the World” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).