The Andalusian Government dismisses the director of the Archaeological Museum of Granada, accusing him of lack of consideration to administration | Culture | EUROtoday

With 144 years behind it and a century in its present location, the Renaissance palace of Casa de Castril, within the Albaicín of Granada, which homes the Archaeological Museum of Granada, takes two steps again for each one ahead. It is without doubt one of the worst-equipped museums in Andalusia, with an exhibition restricted to 3 rooms that show solely 120 items. And its warehouses have cataloged round 80,000 objects, whether or not full models or fragments of them. The newest episode has been the dismissal of the nonetheless director Manuel Ramos – he’ll lose his place when his successor is appointed by free designation – resulting from lack of consideration to administration, in response to the Andalusian Board, and in addition lack of belief. However, greater than 110 researchers from the schools of Granada, Almería, Alcalá de Henares and La Laguna have signed an announcement expressing their “deepest confusion at his incomprehensible termination.”

The dismissal of Ramos has angered professionals within the sector. The researchers who’ve signed the assertion affirm that he “has carried out excellent professional work both in the internal and external management of the museum. Cultural dissemination and dissemination activities have been considerably invigorated.” Also that “it has contributed to promoting the development of archaeological research, facilitating access to materials, actively participating in projects (…) also uniting researchers and professionals not only from Granada but from the rest of the State and even internationally.”

The museum closed in 2010 resulting from its poor conservation circumstances and it took eight years for the central and Andalusian governments to seek out the 640,000 euros it value to reopen it. In October 2021, its then director retired and there was no new supervisor till 5 months later. Now, a yr and 9 months later, the Andalusian Government dismisses Ramos Lizama. The Culture delegate of the Andalusian Government in Granada, Fernando Egea, explains that in these two years many “important issues have been left unaddressed in terms of personal and file management, as well as budget execution. Many of these issues have been addressed by the delegation because the director did not do so. And we have had to make the decision to stop it.”

Manuel Ramos doesn’t need to go into particulars in regards to the causes for his dismissal. “I decline to go into that, but I do defend my professional management in the field of conservation, research and dissemination.” He remembers that till a few months in the past, the museum workers didn’t have any specialised technician aside from him. It was made up of the director, two directors, two orderlies and the safety workers within the room. A few months in the past a conservator joined. With these means, Ramos defends, “the effort in dissemination and dissemination and the work with researchers has been very notable.”

Fernando Egea responds that dismissals are nonetheless a traditional choice within the discipline of freely appointed appointments, as a result of the whole lot is predicated on “the trust of the delegate” and this was not the case. The museum “has a very important project underway and this person is not involved in that commitment, which has been decisive,” he feedback. The venture is to broaden the three present rooms to some extra. The disagreement is that what appears to the Board to be an acceptable constructing, that Renaissance palace, appears that approach to virtually nobody within the archeology sector.

Other controversial dismissals of the Ministry of Culture

This new dismissal is added to the remainder of the dismissals promoted by the brand new Minister of Culture, Arturo Bernal, concerned in controversy and which have additionally been strongly opposed by the sectors concerned. The most up-to-date case was the stunning alternative on the Contemporary Art Center of its head for the final 13 years, Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes, by Jimena Blázquez, at first of final November and with out following the Manual of Good Practices in Museums and Art Centers which establishes a previous public tender. The hand-picked appointment – the division argued that this code is a suggestion and that the Board just isn’t obliged to comply with it – led to the resignation of the advisory fee of the Sevillian museum and a letter of rejection from all of the modern artwork associations of Andalusia.

The direct appointment was additionally the strategy chosen by the ministry – with the earlier particular person in cost, Patricia del Pozo, on the head – for the dismissal in 2019 of Rafael Doctor as head of the Andalusian Center of Photography (CAF), which he agreed to in 2017 by public contest. Doctor described his alternative, in the course of his contract, as “an act of political violence exercised against the cultural sector.” In his case, the dismissal was additionally accompanied by criticism from the cultural sphere. In 2022 and in the course of the Seville Book Fair, the alternative of Eva Díaz Pérez on the head of the Andalusian Center of Letters additionally brought about shock, and subsequent indignation within the sector. Nor was the appointment final July of the brand new director of the Alhambra, Rodrigo Ruiz-Jiménez, to switch Rocío Díaz after her appointment as advisor to the Board. Bernal’s proposal acquired the abstention of the three members of the Government who’re a part of the board, who questioned his profile, as a enterprise advisor, for a administration place of a monumental advanced.

In actuality, the issue of this archaeological museum, as defined by Mercedes Murillo Barroso, professor of Prehistory and Archeology on the University of Granada, goes far past one particular person or one other or a kind of open room. In addition to the already talked about scarce provision of specialised personnel, the Casa de Castril, about to show 5 centuries previous, has a really troublesome, or a minimum of very costly, adaptation to present museum necessities. The air-con of the rooms may be very poor, the constructing doesn’t meet the minimal accessibility circumstances and doesn’t have areas comparable to a cloakroom, library or meeting corridor, though an exhibition room has been tailored to perform as such.

Much of the museum’s heritage catalog is saved in areas within the Alhambra, which additionally periodically requests that its deposits be launched. For this cause, and in response to the opinion of the Culture delegate, who feedback that the present constructing is an acceptable place for the museum, Mercedes Murillo asserts that “the future of the museum involves a new strategic project of updating and expansion, which implies a comprehensive renovation of the current building”, which represents an important financial funding “or a new one”. “Opening new rooms in the same conditions as those that already exist would be returning to the type of museum that existed in 1974, 50 years ago. It would be opening an ancient museum,” explains an archaeologist who prefers to not give his identify.

For this cause, Murillo continues, “Ramos’s work has been impeccable. He has energized the informative activity with conferences, workshops and activities aimed at adults and children and has also opened the museum to researchers. He has done everything that could be done because, in short, he has recovered a museum that was quite dead.” Ramos is a museum curator and an official for 35 years of the Junta de Andalucía, the place he has labored within the Museums of Almería, Málaga, the Alhambra and the Museum of Granada.

Currently, there’s a public name open to fill the place, which expires on the finish of the month. However, and with the deadline nonetheless open, Fernando Egea has already introduced that he is aware of who will direct the museum sooner or later as a result of “there is a person who has already applied and meets the requirements,” he says.