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Louvre artworks to be moved amid flood fears

France’s culture minister announced on Friday that the world-famous Louvre museum in Paris would be transferring its reserves to a location in northern France, amid fears that flooding of the Seine river could destroy the artworks forever.

Published: 13 September 2013 17:14 CEST
Louvre artworks to be moved amid flood fears
The Louvre museum, on a sunny day. But what happens if Paris floods? France's culture minister has announced the museum's undergrounds will be moved out of harm's way. Photo: Zoetnet/Flickr

The collections, currently stored underneath the museum, will be moved to a location managed by the Louvre in the city of Lens, in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of northern France, Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti announced on Friday.

Speaking during France’s National Heritage Day, Filippetti said she had called on the culture ministry, the regional government of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, and the management of the Louvre to enact a “complete overhaul” of how the reserve collections were stored.

SEE ALSO: Calls for natural disaster aid as Seine floods

A spokesperson for the Louvre on Friday told The Local that of the museum’s roughly 460,000 works of art, only 35,000 were on public display, meaning a significant number of pieces could be at risk in the event of a flood.

For years, authorities in the French capital have been readying the city for a catastrophic deluge, reminiscent of the Great Flood of 1910.

VIDEO: Second victim swept to death in French floods

“Will we have a once-in-a-century flood? That’s for sure,” senior Paris official Serge Garrigues told Le Monde in March.

“The only question is when. A really big flood would last between 10 and 20 days, during which time we wouldn’t be able to do anything, except survive,” he added.

“And any return to normal couldn’t be expected before 45 days,” he said.

SEE ALSO: Lourdes clean up begins after 'disastrous' flood recedes

For his part, Eric Defertin, in charge of crisis management for the city of Paris, warned that “in principle, the streets of Paris are protected up to a [water] height of 8.62 metres, i.e. the same level as in 1910.”

Any more intense flooding than that, though, would place the inhabitants of the city of light in serious danger.

As a result, officials have devised an emergency plan of action, code-named Operation Evagglo, which was tested on December 6th after Parisien experts visited parts of the eastern United States hit by Hurricane Sandy in October.

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ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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