Allard Pierson director Els van der Plas: “The look could be a bit fresher”
For a year and a half, Els van der Plas, former director of the National Opera & Ballet, among other organizations, has been at the helm of the Allard Pierson Museum. She took over from Wim Hupperetz, who stepped down in 2021 after 12 years as director. What direction does van der Plas want the Allard Pierson to take? “The museum could do with a fresher look.”
You were previously director of the National Opera & Ballet and the Bonnefanten modern art museum in Maastricht. So how did you end up at an archaeology museum at the UvA?
“I very much wanted to return to my ‘roots.’ I was trained as an art historian and for a long time I wanted to do something with science, a university, or a museum. And I love ‘old art.’ At the Bonnefanten I also had to watch the money. I like the content better, so when a position as director at the Allard Pierson became available I thought, ‘That’s perfect.’”
It’s been a year and a half since you took over as director of the Allard Pierson. What is your impression of the museum?
“Well, a lot of people associate the Allard Pierson only with archaeology, but that has long since ceased to be the case. Of course, since 2018 we also have Special Collections that date back to the 15th century city library. I do think the positioning of the museum is still somewhat unclear. I don’t think it’s a university museum because it’s mainly Dutch cultural heritage rather than a purely university-related collection. However, I officially report to the director of the university library, which is not always ideal for quick decisions.
However, the university provides a tremendous source of scholarship with research that could tell us things about our collections, which I think the museum could make even more use of. I have found that the collection is a treasure chest, where you discover new things every time. We can get so much out of it if we use all that academic knowledge to do so.
I can imagine that the association you mention with archaeology gives the museum a rather stuffy image. Are you afraid of that, too?
“The appearance of the museum could be a bit fresher, yes. You also have to be very ‘hip and happening’ if you want to break through the image of a medieval city library. That’s why we want to involve students more, for example, because they are definitely not stuffy. Students are so active and energetic and find all kinds of things. So we give lectures here, students collaborate on exhibitions, and we do an annual project with museum studies.”
“We also want to look at collections more from the ‘here and now.’ For example, next year we are going to stage an exhibition on natural history using the magnificent collections of the Artis Library, which we also have at our disposal here. We are zooming in on the relationship between humans and nature. How did we ever get into this climate crisis? We learned that the way humanity looks at nature stems in large part from Christianity. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, says that as humans you are allowed to control nature. That, of course, is hugely influential in how people interact with nature.”
So you want to respond more to current events. In doing so, do you also want to convince visitors of your views?
“We do want to stimulate, that's what I'll call it. Make people aware, for example, of the relationship between humankind and the climate. That's why we also want to attract contemporary artists. In our exhibitions on cartography (maps and plans) a while ago, for example, we opened with the contemporary visual artist Gert-Jan Kocken and closed with artworks by the Surinamese artist Remy Jungerman.”
“In fact, in 2024 we are also going to do a study of everything we have here that has to do with Suriname, including Surinamese history, but especially focused on the relationship between us Dutch and Suriname. This ranges from books and prints to theater and pieces of music. We have also hired a junior curator to help us look at these pieces in the right way.”
“With that, we are very much engaged in the decolonization of collections, together with the Slavery Museum that is being established as well. I strive not just to tell ‘who published that book at that time,’ but to show ‘what does that book tell us, and especially what does it tell us now.’”
That is potentially difficult, though, aligning our colonial past with the pieces in the Allard Pierson. How do you deal with material that might have been obtained “incorrectly”?
“We are currently engaged in a major four-year investigation to trace the provenance of as many archaeological objects as possible. Each time we ask the question, ‘How did we get this? Did we do something wrong in obtaining this at the time?’ We are not going to wait for the police to show up on our doorstep.”
“We would also like to proactively return objects to Italy and Turkey, for example, if they are entitled to them. It is often possible for countries to lend such objects to the museum because they don’t always have the space or financial resources themselves.”
“But after nine years, we did finally succeed in returning the ‘Crimean treasures’ on loan to us from Ukraine, and not to the museums on territory annexed by Russia. This was an incredibly interesting case for museum professionals and lawyers ever since the occupation of Crimea in 2014.”
Not only does the whole Crimean Treasures case seem like a tough one to start with, you were also dealing right away with the post-corona period, where museums did not fare well in terms of visitor numbers. How did you deal with that?
“I started in April 2022, right when exhibitions had begun to slowly pick up after the coronavirus pandemic. We wanted to set up beautiful, transhistorical exhibitions as soon as possible, but because of corona, we're still trying to get the programming right. It is also a money issue.”
“The UvA is fortunately a reliable funder, but I find the whole subsidy system in the Netherlands very unstable. Sure, even as a cultural institution you have to keep the business healthy. But as I also said to the newspaper Parool, institutions often only receive subsidies for four, two, or sometimes one year and then they have to write another lengthy application. That makes the cultural world very uncertain for cultural institutions. For example, during the tenure of State Secretary of Culture Halbe Zijlstra, the Muziekcentrum Nederland and the Theaterinstituut were already cut.
The entire collections of the Muziekcentrum Nederland and the Theaterinstitut are now here. We are making an effort to use them, for example with live performances. We also have a studio for digitizing the old tapes of those institutions, so we want to use that studio for radio and podcasts. On Museum Night, we already had a live interview with an audience. And I also want to do something with more famous people. I always have a vision in mind for all projects. I hope I can get people excited about that. That way we can get to that fresh spot on the horizon together.”
