Reposted from The Art Newspaper

The terms of reference record that “the ongoing detailed audit of affected objects is likely to take longer” than the compilation of the
review’s report, suggesting that identifying the losses will be a complex
operation.
 The review is also responsible for recording “failures of controls,
processes or policies” which contributed to the losses and to make
recommendations for improvements. Significantly, they will also examine the
performance of the board of trustees to examine “whether actions taken or
not taken” were reasonable and whether improvements should be made.
 It was not until last October that the BM’s board of trustees, chaired by
former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne, received proper
information and began to take the allegations seriously. In January 2023,
the Metropolitan Police were finally called in to investigate and the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport was informed about the gravity of
the loss.
 The independent review will now liaise with the police. Bilson, the
museum’s head of security, is to be responsible for “coordinating support
for the criminal investigation”.
 Finally, the review will establish and carry out a program to attempt to
recover the antiquities, which may involve “civil litigation against
persons suspected of possessing missing affected objects”. This suggests
that further recoveries could take a long time.
 The report of the independent review is due to be presented to the next
meeting of the BM trustees, which is expected to be held in early December.
It will also be submitted to the secretary of state at the Department of
Culture, Media and Sport, Lucy Frazer, and her permanent secretary,
Susannah Storey. This indicates that the issue has caused deep concern to
the government.
 In the meantime, BM staff and external individuals have a duty of
confidentiality in assisting the review. The co-chairs will have “the right
of immediate and unrestricted access to all records, assets, personnel and
premises” to obtain information. Along with Osborne, the chair of the audit
committee of the trustees, Vivian Hunt, will also play an important role in
monitoring the review process.
 The review report “will be kept confidential”. The museum’s trustees will
only be able to publish it in whole or part with the approval of the three
co-chairs.

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Reposted from RAAJJE

The government has reached the decision to submit the text of the ‘UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property’ for approval from the People’s Majlis. President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih reached the decision to sign the treaty empowering the protection of cultural and archaeological objects, following a meeting with his Cabinet of Ministers held on Tuesday. The cabinet recommended to sign the convention, following discussions on a paper submitted by the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage.

The ‘UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property’ is a treaty that empowers the protection of cultural and archaeological objects. A total of 143 nations have signed the treaty so far. Prohibiting and preventing the illicit import, export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property has become crucial due to the ongoing loss of cultural and archaeological legacy impacting the studies of history and historical events of Maldives. Maldives' signing the convention will pave the path for easier efforts to prevent similar incidents from reoccurring and obtain technical assistance from UNESCO in these areas. The pact makes it more feasible for unlawfully acquired antiques and papers to return to the Maldives, in compliance with current laws and regulations. Further, it will facilitate the implementation of Act No. 2019/12 (Heritage Act) and the rules issued in connection with this act.

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Reposted from MA

The museum sector has been the target of several climate protests this week. Museums and galleries are on alert after protesters from the climate activist group Just Stop Oil damaged a painting at the National Gallery.

In the incident on 6 November, the two activists used emergency safety hammers to smash the glass protecting The Toilet of Venus (1647-1651) by Diego Velázquez. Better known as the “Rokeby Venus”, the nude painting was famously slashed by the suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914. The activists entered Room 30 in the gallery just before 11am to vandalize the painting. One of them then declared: “Women did not get the vote by voting; it is time for deeds not words. It is time to Just Stop Oil. “Politics is failing us. It failed women in 1914 and it is failing us now. New oil and gas will kill millions. If we love art, if we love life, if we love our families we must Just Stop Oil.” The room was cleared of visitors and the two protesters, named by Just Stop Oil as Hannan (22) and Harrison (20), were arrested by police on suspicion of criminal damage. In a statement, the National Gallery said: “The painting has now been removed from display and is being examined by conservators. “Room 30 was reopened just after 12.30pm with A Dead Soldier, Italian (17th century) replacing The Toilet of Venus.”

Just Stop Oil has vowed to continue with its strategy of civil resistance and direct action until the UK Government commits to ending new fossil fuel licensing and production. Meanwhile, activists from the environmental action group Extinction Rebellion demonstrated outside the Museums Association Conference 2023 in Newcastle-Gateshead on 7 November in protest at the fossil fuel stance taken by the Science Museum Group (SMG). The group's director Ian Blatchford was speaking at the conference. Protester Anne Blair-Vincent said: "I’m deeply saddened that the Science Museum continues to accept sponsorship from fossil fuel companies which are driving the climate emergency." The SMG has strongly defended its position on fossil fuel sponsorship, saying that energy companies will be key players in finding solutions to the climate crisis. In light of the protests, the heritage insurance group Ecclesiastical has urged museums and galleries to be vigilant and review their security arrangements, and to take proactive steps to protect artworks and exhibits from being targeted.

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Reposted from Equal Times

In September 2023, one year after the launch of the PROCHE project, Bart Ouvry, director of the Africa Museum, the former colonial museum built by Leopold II near Brussels, travelled to Kinshasa to strengthen cooperation and cultural exchange programs between the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Belgium.

Led by Célia Charkaoui, PROCHE is a project looking into the origins of the works and objects currently in the museum’s collections, the vast majority of which come from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Plundered by Belgian colonialists, these collections bear witness to a violent colonial past. Today, they could not only provide fertile ground for reconstructing history but also for reparation between the two countries.

This new cooperation is part of a wider series of programs launched by a number of European institutions, in France, the Netherlands and elsewhere, in response to requests from the countries colonized.

Although Belgium’s colonial rule of the DRC officially ended in 1960, when it gained independence, the country’s colonial history and its impact are as topical today as ever. In November 2022, the Congolese minister of culture, Catherine Kathungu Furaha, presented a decree, which has since been approved, calling for the repatriation of the goods, archives and human remains still owned by Belgium, the vast majority of which are in the collections of the Africa Museum.

The decree has led to the establishment of a national commission for the repatriation of these items, as well as more intensive exchanges between the National Museum of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Kinshasa and the Africa Museum. A future bilateral agreement between the DRC and Belgium is also being discussed.

While the repatriation of goods stolen during the colonial period is a key issue, the word ‘restitution’ in the DRC refers to a much broader concept. The term refers more readily to a long process involving not only the reconstruction of history but also the reconstitution of knowledge, particularly among local Congolese communities.

Five researchers are currently working in the archives of the Africa Museum as part of the PROCHE program, for a period of three months, to gather information enabling the history of the objects to be retraced, so that they can be handed over to the families, villages and communities to whom they belong.

The example of the Suku Kakuungu mask, currently on display at the Kinshasa museum as part of an indefinite loan from Belgium, shows that the choice of objects and the framework for their restitution should come from the DRC.

Placide Mumbembele, a professor at the University of Kinshasa and a specialist in restitution issues, explains that this loan, and the tensions it has reignited between certain communities, illustrate the extent to which the exchanges are still very unilateral. He suggests that this should be redressed, not only by including local Congolese communities in the discussions, but also by starting with the repatriation of one symbolic object per province, which amounts to 26 objects in all, as soon as possible.

More than just a physical transfer of looted objects, it is a matter of governance. For instance, an immediate symbolic transfer of ownership would reverse the balance of power, as the DRC would be lending the objects to Belgium, rather than the other way round.

The law passed in Belgium in June 2022, recognizing “the alienable nature of property linked to the colonial past of the Belgian state and establishing a legal framework for its restitution and return”, together with the Belgian King’s visit to Kinshasa, is viewed in the DRC as inadequate, and even as evidence of North-South relations still based on an unequal balance of power. The fact that archives (photographs, diaries, etc.) and human remains are excluded from the Belgian law on restitution reveals a clear lack of cooperation.

In this regard, Placide Mumbembele notes that in Europe, “restitution is still presented as a transfer from North to South, whereas it should be a two-way flow, an exchange of goods and ideas”. He mentions ways of addressing this, such as holding scientific colloquiums on Congolese soil, so that knowledge can also be spread from South to North, as well as inter-museum loans, putting African and Western museums on an equal footing.

Financing research and heritage conservation and preservation is another key issue, as highlighted by the scientific committee of the National Museums Institute of the Congo (IMNC). As Henry Bundjoko, director of the National Museum of the Democratic Republic of Congo, points out, “the expertise of the Congolese, through their knowledge of the terrain and communities, is crucial in filling the historical gaps left by colonization”.

The focus must therefore be on open dialogue, with multiple voices, between Belgian and Congolese museums, between their scientific experts, and also between Congolese civil society and Belgium’s institutions, which must be prepared to listen to this plurality of views.

Research into the origins of objects, access to archives and scientific work on the heritage that is still in Belgium are key to establishing equal and lasting relations; this work must therefore be assessed and implemented by Congolese researchers, who are in direct contact with the source communities.

With the launch of the SMART project at the Africa Museum, work is being done to promote “ethical management and the empowerment of museum and material heritage networks in the DRC”. The aim is to provide institutional support, through training, academic reinforcement and technical assistance, for Congolese museums and people in the cultural sector.

As part of the provenance research, the history of the objects that have been analyzed can now also be retraced, thanks to a small pink pictogram entitled “provenance”, which provides a complete history of the objects.

For Amzat Boukari Yabara, a Beninese-Martinican historian specializing in Pan-Africanism, the initiative is essential. Museums, he says, “should not be art museums but history museums”, with an objective that is educational, not a fetishization of exotic objects presented to Europeans.

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insurancetimes.co.uk/news/insurer-issues-plea-as-heritage-organisations-warned-of-increased-smash-and-grab-attacks/1445960.article

By Chantal Kapani - 30 October 2023

’Museums need to be aware of the risk when it comes to smash and grab attacks,’ says customer segment director

Heritage organisations have been urged to check their risk management strategies as cost of living pressures could drive more smash and grab attacks in the new year.

Speaking to Insurance Times, Faith Kitchen, customer segment director at Ecclesiastical Insurance, said such firms needed to be aware of the crime and that now was a “good window of opportunity” to look at how they can best protect irreplaceable items.

A smash and grab raid is carried out at speed, using extreme force to break through physical barriers to gain access to a property.

In instances involving heritage organisations, such as museums, theatres and galleries, burglaries are often pre-planned to target high value items.

Kitchen warned that such firms were “an attractive target for these crimes”.

“We have been raising the awareness [of these attacks] because of the speed it is carried out and the extreme force the thieves use to overcome physical barriers to gain access,” she said.

“Museums need to be aware of the risk when it comes to smash and grab attacks as they have been increasing over the past few years.

“Now is a good window of opportunity for [heritage organisations] to consider their risk management strategies and look how they can best protect the irreplaceable items.”

Damage

This came after the cost of living crisis was listed as the top concern for UK heritage organisations in Ecclesiastical’s Heritage Risk Barometer 2022.

Published earlier this year (23 January 2023), the barometer explored the top risks and key concerns faced in the heritage sector – these concerns included attracting local visitors, the recruitment crisis, responding to climate change and crime.

Kitchen revealed that another concern for these firms had been protecting artworks and artefacts from damage.

“We have seen protests against some iconic artworks, which [can] cause significant damage,” she said.

For example, climate change protesters from Just Stop Oil threw two cans of Heinz tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting at London’s National Gallery last year (14 October 2022).

Kitchen explained that organisations can protect themselves by implementing measures such as inspecting bags, working behind glazed panels and installing proximity alarm systems.

She added that staff can be trained to recognise and report unusual visitor behaviours.

The International Foundation for Cultural Property Protection's 25th Annual Conference, Seminar & Exhibits will take place in the architecturally and culturally rich city of Chicago, IL, June 15-19, 2024!

The Foundation's 2024 conference will be held at the InterContinental Hotel Chicago Magnificent Mile, with additional programming at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History. 

This not-to-be missed in-person gathering will include all-new conference sessions presented by industry leaders,  pre-conference educational offerings, excursions to several world-renowned cultural institutions, group meals, industry exhibits, out-of-the-classroom educational events at host institutions, and our traditional lineup of outstanding presenters, timely topics, and networking activities.

We hope that you can join us - you won’t believe what we have in store!

DISCOUNTED LODGING:

InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile - $279/night plus tax when booked through IFCPP

CONFERENCE REGISTRATION:

·         $645 - Attendee/Delegate Registration (early bird registration through Nov. 22)

·         $695 - Attendee/Delegate Registration (second tier early registration Nov. 23 - Jan. 31)

·         $775 - Attendee/Delegate Registration (regular, non-discounted registration Feb. 1 - May 17)

 

SCHEDULE-AT-A-GLANCE:

 

Saturday, June 15

Pre-conference cultural property excursions

 

Sunday, June 16

Pre-conference workshops

Group lunch

Welcome reception & exhibits

 

Monday, June 17

Conference welcome

Keynote address

Exhibits

Art Institute of Chicago Excursion – Presentations, Tours, Group Lunch

Optional group dinner

 

Tuesday, June 18

Conference sessions

Group lunch

Optional group dinner

 

Wednesday, June 19

Conference sessions

Field Museum Excursion – Presentations, Tours, Group Lunch

Optional group dinner

 

Note: Discounted hotels rooms available the nights of June 14-19

 

Register for the conference and discounted lodging here - IFCPP - IFCPP 2024 Conference, Seminar & Exhibits

 

Registration deadline: May 17, 2024

Reposted from BBC

There are tens of millions of items in the collections of Scotland's galleries and museums, but the whereabouts of thousands of them is unknown.

BBC Scotland News asked some of the country's most popular galleries and museums for records of items lost, stolen and missing.

The responses show that a wide range of objects, from ancient relics to expensive artwork, are unaccounted for.

It comes after 2,000 items went missing from the British Museum in London.

A member of staff has been dismissed, the Met Police have launched an investigation, and the museum has appealed for help from the public to recover the artefacts.

Many of the Scottish institutions contacted by the BBC suggested most of their missing items were the victims of poor record-keeping, rather than any criminal endeavours.

To misplace one life-size figure of a Japanese man in native costume is perhaps careless, but to do it twice is exactly what happened at Glasgow's Museum of Transport stores in 2018.

Glasgow Life, the body which runs the city's museums and galleries, lists both items as "unlocated to date".

Elsewhere in Glasgow, the Hunterian Zoology Museum had a dolphin skull stolen sometime between 2010 and 2021, while the city's "no mean city" reputation perhaps explains why a set of iron knuckle dusters went missing from the People's Palace in 2005.

Meanwhile, South Ayrshire museums reports that a "large bottle marked Poison" is missing from Rozelle House in Ayr.

In Edinburgh, Bute House, the official residence of the first minister, reported that a brass lamp was "missing" in 2016, while in 2020 a Georgian mahogany armchair was marked as "not found".

More than 4,000 items are reported as lost, stolen or missing at the National Library of Scotland, which includes book titles such as Among Thieves, To Catch a Thief, Plunder Squad and A Burglar's Life Story.

Other riskier titles, such as The Irish Kama Sutra and Sexual Anomalies and Perversions are also missing.

The National Museum of Scotland reports that a flying suit, goggles and flight jacket were stolen in November 1986 - a robbery perhaps influenced by the fact the first Top Gun film came out just weeks before.

Possibly the most valuable item currently missing from Scotland's museums and galleries is a £3m sculpture by world-famous artist Auguste Rodin.

Officials at Glasgow Museums said a plaster version of Les Bourgeois de Calais was purchased in 1901 but they are currently unable to locate it.

Among the other famous artworks "unlocated" in Glasgow is part of a painting of Sir Billy Connolly's banjo by artist John Byrne.

The 1974 work features Sir Billy's instrument propped up against a wall with a shadow over it.

It went missing in 2005, but John Byrne recreated the missing section and gifted it to the city in 2017.

Works by Thomas Gainsborough, Carlo Maratti, Sebastien Vrancx and Cornelis Vroom are all "unlocated" from Glasgow's collections.

In Aberdeen, a total of 1,330 artefacts and artworks worth almost £200,000 are missing from the council collection, including old coins, books, clothing, photographs and drawings.

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Reposted from Global News

A jellyfish-shaped sculpture was stolen in September during the Beakerhead event and Calgary police are still looking for it.

Police say the artist finished installing the sculpture around 1 a.m., on Sept. 16, at Millennium Park, located at 1220 Ninth Ave. S.W.

The work of art was completed with anchors welded to the overall sculpture and it was bolted into the ground.

Around 10 a.m., someone reported to police that the middle piece of the sculpture was missing, but the anchor that was welded to the sculpture was still screwed into the ground.

Police invite anyone with information, video or photos related to the theft of the sculpture.

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Reposted from Caribbean Life

Thieves have broken into the Barbados’ parliament and have stolen several historical artefacts including the suit jacket then Prime Minister Errol Barrow wore at independence ceremonies in 1966 but the trouble is no one has a clue when these items were carted away.

Police and parliamentary officials say the burglary was discovered this week during a tour by school students of the building’s west wing where artefacts in the parliamentary museum and the national hero's gallery are usually stored.

The problem is that the building had been condemned as unfit for use at the time, so it had been basically left neglected, meaning that detectives are unsure whether the items were carted away a week ago or way back in 2020 when it was deemed unfit for use until repairs the Nation newspaper reported this week.

Other items that are no longer in the building include shoes worn by Barrow, Barbados’ first prime minister and the man who led them to independence back in November 1966. Artwork and a musket gun belonging to Barrow are also missing. Other items listed as belonging to late Prime Minister Tom Adams and his father Sir Grantley Adams have also disappeared and no one knows when.

The items had been on display in two separate glass cases that staff and police discovered had been shattered. Parliamentary Clerk Pedro Eastmond said the investigations are continuing but for now “I am getting all the facts to give a report to the speaker. Until that is done, I prefer not to make any comment.”

Officials are now arguing that the items should have been returned to the national museum for safekeeping and public display once that area of the parliamentary building had been condemned. Officials think that vagrants who frequent the area on Broad Street might be the ones to blame. If this is the case, there can be little hope for retrieving these valuable and historical artefacts.

“This is a real shame. The west wing has literally been abandoned. It is the building where the opposition office was housed, and I understand it is in a deplorable state. It is a shame that you can have the artefacts of former prime ministers and our national heroes stolen from parliament which is supposed to be one of the most secure places in Barbados,” said General Secretary of the opposition Democratic Labor Party (DLP), Steve Blackett.

Blackett said that the situation is worsened by the fact that the Labor Party (BLP) had won all 30 parliamentary seats in general elections last year. “It speaks to the total abandonment and worse, yet they have not paid attention to that section because there is no leader of the opposition,” Blackett said.

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Reposted from Denver News

The thousand-year-old Indian statue sat in the Denver Art Museum’s Asian art collection for six decades, a gift from prominent New York art dealer Robert Ellsworth.

Sculpted around the 10th century, the 38-inch sandstone piece depicts a celestial woman beneath a mango tree. It was once part of the Ghatesvara Temple in northern India, built as a shrine to the Hindu god Shiva.

Indian archaeologists, for years, said this priceless work was stolen. Four years ago, the museum quietly handed the statue to U.S. law enforcement to be repatriated to India.

Denver Art Museum officials did not issue a press release. The artifact has been scrubbed from the institution’s website as if it was never there. Aside from saved webpages on Internet archives, there’s no public-facing evidence that the statue was once a part of the museum’s collection.

For years, the Denver Museum has carefully curated which repatriations and deaccessions — pieces removed from its collection — it chooses to publicly announce, a practice that goes against industry recommendations. Unlike some other institutions, it’s impossible in Denver to see which pieces, and how many, the museum has returned after foreign governments or U.S. authorities provided evidence that they were stolen or illegally trafficked.

Other institutions, including Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the San Antonio Museum of Art, provide detailed information for all works they choose to remove from their collections — though that practice still represents the exception, not the rule.

Art experts say this should be the gold standard, an important tool for transparency and accountability as a public institution with an educational mission.

“Museums should be telling these stories not just for the sake of transparency but because they are intrinsically important stories that tell us really deep and meaningful things about how we understand other peoples’ cultural belongings,” said Elizabeth Marlowe, a professor of art and director of Colgate University’s Museum studies program. “That’s central to any universal museum.”

A Denver Art Museum spokesperson, Andy Sinclair, said the institution follows all field guidelines, practices and policies for collections and deaccessions. The museum is focused, she said in an email, on adding to its online collection database. Information on deaccessions will be made available “upon request,” she said.

When the celestial goddess remained part of the Denver Art Museum’s collection, anyone could find its photo, description and provenance information on the institution’s website.

But at least as far back as September 2019, museum officials scrubbed the antiquity from the site. The link to its entry now says, “the requested page could not be found.” An archived version of the webpage can still be accessed through the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine.

The same is true for other artworks the museum has deaccessioned in recent years. A host of Southeast Asian relics donated to the museum by Bunker in 2016 also have vanished from the website amid the federal investigation.

Further ommissions include dozens of pieces donated or sold to the museum by indicted or convicted art dealers, such as Latchford and former New York gallery owners Nancy Wiener and Subhash Kapoor.

Latchford sold, loaned and gifted at least 14 works to the Denver Art Museum between 1999 and 2011. But his name no longer appears in any provenance section on the museum’s searchable collection database.

Museum leadership sometimes puts out press releases when it gives up artworks to U.S. authorities for repatriation to source countries. Those announcements include multiple objects returned to Cambodia since 2016, a collection of Indian works given back last year and older repatriations to Guatemala and a Native American tribe.

But pieces such as the celestial goddess garnered no public announcement. And the press releases for these repatriated pieces do not include accession numbers, provenance information or object descriptions — all key for academics, law enforcement and members of the public interested in researching a museum’s collection.

The Association of Art Museum Directors, an organization of museum leaders from the United States, Canada and Mexico, in 2010 issued a recommendation that member museums “publish on its website within a reasonable period of time works that have been deaccessioned and disposed of.”

The guidance is simply a recommendation, though, not a requirement.

Still, after the association published the policy, a growing body of museums have adopted the practice of maintaining a database with deaccessioned works.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston allows the public to see information about all 2,289 objects the institution has removed from its collection.

The museum includes extensive information about the items and their ownership histories. The institution deaccessioned a 7th-century Italian vessel, for instance, after New York authorities supplied evidence, it had been looted.

The object page outlines how the piece was illicitly excavated and sold to a New York collector before making its way into the museum’s collection in the 1990s. Museum officials note that the vessel was one of nine that came from a site that had been heavily looted and was later trafficked by a known illicit antiquities dealer.

“We feel transparency is important,” said Victoria Reed, the Boston museum’s curator for provenance. “We have a particular responsibility to our audience. We’re a public institution. If we decide to deaccession something, to remove it from public view, then we are accountable to our audience. We have a responsibility to share our thinking and information that led us to conclude what we did.”

The San Antonio Art Museum also faced this question in 2021 while repatriating objects to Italy. The simplest solution, museum leadership decided, was to keep the items on the institution’s website with updated details.

Researchers who want to study them will still be able to get information this way, since the museum can’t provide access to items no longer in its collection, said Lynley J. McAlpine, the San Antonio museum’s associate curator of provenance research.

“We hope that doing so will make information easy for people to find,” she said.

The Dallas Museum of Art and Cleveland Museum of Art also provide details of deaccessioned works on their websites. The Met in New York this month pledged to soon do the same for restituted objects.

Former museum directors and other industry experts say the Denver Art Museum should adopt these best practices as it continues to probe its collection for problematic works.

In recent years, the museum’s past questionable dealings with suspected or convicted illicit antiquity dealers have put a spotlight on the Mile High City’s preeminent art institution. In response, the museum last year hired a full-time senior provenance researcher, calling the work an “essential component of our commitment to ethical collecting practices.”

But the public, industry watchers say, continues to be left in the dark.

“It’s embarrassing,” said David Gill, a professor of archaeological heritage at the University of Kent in England. “It shows your curators have been recommending dodgy things for the museum. It shows the trustees haven’t really engaged in due diligence. It shows museums are actors closing a blind eye to the problem.”

The selective press releases, Gill said, seem to serve more as controlling the publicity.

“It’s all about, ‘We’ve done the right thing,’” he said, “rather than saying, ‘How did you get into this position in the first place?’”

While repatriations can be seen as bad press for a museum, they’re not antithetical to an institution’s mission, said Marlowe, the Colgate University professor.

“The Denver Art Museum could have a really powerful, honest display in which they say, ‘When we accepted these objects 30 years ago, we understood them differently,’” she said. “Telling that story of that broad shift in cultural values is a way to admit mistakes, show they’ve learned and bring audiences into the story.”

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