Museums must re-define their own role
Interview with Ibolya Bereczki, president of the Museums Board of the Hungarian National Cultural Fund (NKA)
MúzeumCafé 22.
“Support for exhibitions, especially temporary shows, as well as scholarly work and publications is continuous. Comparing past tender announcements with those of the present, data sheets are becoming more detailed. Newly introduced inset sheets were included in the mechanism of the last tender decisions on applications for restoration and art work protection in 2010, as well as the tenders announced this year. We thought that more thorough preparation encourages applicants and allows members of the board to have a better understanding before making a decision. At the same time, professional activity in most provincial and national museums would be reduced to a minimum without the NKA. Five or ten years ago winning a tender represented supplementary income, while today it practically constitutes the financial basis of professional activity despite the fact that our strategy highlights that the NKA is a supporter of applications and not a basic financing body. One of the most sensitive areas involves protection of art works and restoration, which is also the main direction of the board’s strategy. While a protection project financed from the ministry’s budget a few years ago played an important role in this field, by now the NKA has remained on its own. Ten years ago the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund had tenders for instruments whereby social sciences institutes including museums could apply for technical equipment to assist research. That has not existed for a long time. The restrictions in 2010, which also severely effected the NKA, forced us to include the tender for equipment for collection protection in the tender for restoration, which has again meant some narrowing.