CENCOR hosting symposium on law, public policy to manage and protect cultural heritage
Convinced of the urgency to protect cultural heritage through collective efforts, the Center for Conservation and Restoration of Puerto Rico (CENCOR, in Spanish) along with its Education and Outreach Division will host the “First Symposium on Governance and Cultural Management in Puerto Rico: Toward a Public Policy,” from May 1-3 at the Aula Magna of the University of Puerto Rico Law School in Río Piedras.
The symposium, part of the “Cultural Heritage Conservation Month” events, will serve as a platform for in-depth discussions on the challenges and opportunities of protecting the island’s heritage, including historical buildings, sites, documents, art collections and archaeological sites “that form an indispensable part of collective memory,” organizers said.
“Since our founding, we have been proposing initiatives to emphasize the importance of protecting Puerto Rico’s legacy,” said Héctor J. Berdecía-Hernández, general director of CENCOR and director of the symposium.
“We’re convinced that during this symposium we’ll be able to reach a diverse audience that’s committed to joining us in this important feat,” he said.
The agenda features panels and discussions with scholars in law and public policy, and professionals in conservation, custody and management of cultural heritage.
There will also be a working session to identify pressing issues and develop short, medium and long-term action plans.
“The contributions of the participants will create the ideal space to develop proposals for an appropriate public policy that governs heritage management processes in Puerto Rico,” organizers added.
“The symposium aims to analyze the legal, official and institutional infrastructure that has supported our public policy on the management of our cultural heritage for the past decades,” said architect Pablo Ojeda-O’Neill, chairman of CENCOR’s Governing Board and symposium organizing committee member.
“It’s essential to establish new parameters of governance and administration for our cultural legacy so that it can survive and be preserved amid new economic challenges and future development of the island,” he said.
UPR Law School professor José L. Nieto-Mingo said, “Too often our assets are disposed of in processes in which there’s no transparency and in which citizens aren’t given the opportunity to have the necessary information to participate effectively in processes that could be carried out to protect assets.”
“The false dichotomy that’s often presented between the protection of our natural, historical and cultural resources and economic development has led many to promote development strategies based on the generation of economic activity at any price, including the destruction of our cultural heritage,” said Nieto-Mingo, who also directs the Built Heritage Division of the UPR Legal Assistance Clinic.
The symposium is backed by several UPR Río Piedras campus faculties, including the Law School, the Graduate School of Planning, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the PREI, and the master’s program in Management and Cultural Administration (MAGAC, in Spanish) of the School of Humanities, as well as the Interdisciplinary and Multicultural Institute (INIM, in Spanish).
Additional collaborators include the Puerto Rico Museums Alliance, the Puerto Rico Bar Association, the Puerto Rico Society of Librarians, the Foundation for Architecture, the Puerto Rico Archives Network (Archi-RED, in Spanish), and the American Institute of Architects, Puerto Rico Chapter (AIA Puerto Rico).
The event is made possible in part by an alliance with Humanidades Puerto Rico and the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the organizers confirmed.
