The meeting was organized by Raghida Dergham, the Founder and Executive Chairperson of the Beirut Institute. The participants in the online conference were Her Excellency Noura Al Kaabi, Minister of Culture and Youth Development of the UAE; the French politician Najat Vallaud-Belkacem who in 2014 became the first French woman to be appointed Minister of Education, Higher Education, and Research; Mikhail Piotrovsky; and the Lebanese actress, director and scriptwriter Nadine Labaki. They discussed the new challenges and opportunities for education and culture during the period of crisis and the pandemic.
In his contribution, Mikhail Piotrovsky spoke about the significance of culture today, observing that in an era of global instability, the role of culture as a “medicine” is especially important. When countries are growing increasingly separated and society disconnected, culture and museums should remain bridges connecting peoples. Mikhail Piotrovsky also touched on the topic of the preservation of the memory of war in the museum as a means of preserving historical merit.
