Art historian Joanna Wasilewska, who ran the Asia-Pacific Museum in Warsaw for a decade, was formally notified on Tuesday of her dismissal, which was due to alleged financial irregularities, which the target has already denied.
The dismissal order was issued by Adam Struzek, of the right-wing populist Law and Justice party, and current president of the Mazovia region (where the country’s capital is located), who at the end of 2022 ordered a review of Wasilewska’s management of the Art Museum. Asia Pacific.
Meanwhile, the museum director, who has worked at the museum since 1992, called a press conference in which she denied all the accusations against her and defended her being a victim of political withdrawal, linking it to the proximity of the Polish legislative elections scheduled for October 15. de Otobro, and its past of persistent resistance to the interference of political authority.
“Most of the reasons given for my dismissal are weak, and some of them are ridiculous,” Wasilewska told the newspaper. “They failed to find any serious violations.” Art newspaper. “I have for years opposed political interference in the internal affairs of the museum, such as appointing incompetent people to the position of deputy directors.”
His departure sparks controversy in Poland, where many of his colleagues in the arts sector and museums signed a protest petition, according to the British newspaper “Daily Mail”. Art newspaperIt was already signed on Friday by more than 800 people. The controversy takes on an international dimension, with positions taken by many museum directors from other European countries, such as the Australian anthropologist Nicholas Thomas, director of the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge, who reacted to the news by saying that “the cultural sector in Poland was shaken by the dismissal of a real museum director, “She was appreciated by her colleagues across Europe.”
Thomas currently coordinates the European Ethnographic Museum Directors’ Group, which the person in charge of the Asia-Pacific Museum has recently been appointed to chair. A group meeting was planned for Warsaw, which will not take place now, as Wasilewska will not be able to take on the role.
Guido Gressels, honorary general director of the Royal Museum of Central Africa, in Tervuren, Belgium (known today as the Africa Museum), also considered Wasilewska’s dismissal a “shameful gesture” and noted that “it was not expected that this kind of event of political interference and disrespect for labor laws would occur.” In one of the member states of the European Union.
“It pains me to say that my country is a place where things like this happen, but they do,” said Vasiliewska herself, who has already begun steps to challenge her dismissal in court. Which highlights that “in spite of everything, there are still many wonderful people in Polish museums who struggle against this reality”.
But for the petition signatories, one of the most troubling aspects of this decision is that it was instigated by regional politicians whose parties stand in opposition at the national level. And with the repeated interference of the current Law and Justice party government in the cultural sector, the involvement of the opposition forces in removing Vasilevska’s concessions, as the petitioners say, “has confidence in the promises and declarations of the opposition parties, which were expected.” To stop attacks on academics and cultural professionals.”
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