country
activities

Country Director
Jane Safer

Co-Directors in Hungary
Amy Módly, Linda Vadász

Chairman, Hungary Advisory Board
Andre H. Friedman

Consultants

Paxton Barnes, Grant Beglarian, Alexander Brody, Schuyler G. Chapin, Honee Hess, Michalann Hobson, Bradford Kelleher, Brian Lacey, Sharon Litwin, Peter Lyman, Pamela Myers, Ward Mintz, Jane D. Norman, Jillian Poole, Charles Ritcheson, Julius Rudel, George Stuart Sexton, III, Wendy Tiffin, Deborah Ziska

Activities Summary

In 1999, The Fund worked closely with the Hungarian Ministry of Culture, the Society of Hungarian Museum Professionals, and with the U.S. Information Service to provide a wide range of assistance to Hungarian cultural institutions.

Museum Education Conference In October, the first conference on museum education in Hungary brought together 200 museum educators and schoolteachers to share experience and plan for the future. Principal organizer of the conference was the Pulszky Society of Hungarian museum professionals. Fund directors Vadász, Módly and Safer played a major role as catalyst, planners, organizers and speakers. The Fund brought to the conference three outstanding American consultants as special participants: Paxton Barnes, Honee Hess, and Deborah Ziska. The success of the conference was marked by the participants’ enthusiasm for implementing new ideas and for initiating cooperative projects between museums and schools. There was also considerable interest in continuing the dialogue with future conferences on targeted subjects. The Ministry of National Cultural Heritage and the Ministry of Education provided principal funding for the conference.

Report: International Conference on Museum Education

Budapest Museum of Fine Arts As a direct result of the conference, co-director Linda Vadász with the assistance of consultant Honee Hess, facilitated an innovative partnership between the Fine Arts Museum and a 7th grade class in one of Budapest’s poorest districts. The children will first write to museum staff (from curators to guards) to learn about their jobs and will publish a school newsletter detailing what they have learned. Next, at the museum each student will choose a painting and research its history. The third stage of the project will be to develop a curriculum that integrates the museum’s 17th Century Dutch collection with the school’s language, history, art and music courses.

Hungarian Ministry of Culture and National Heritage László Baán, Deputy State Secretary of Finance for the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage visited the U.S. in June with a number of goals: to learn about the American system of public/private financing of arts and culture, to understand how government can encourage private funding, and to look at how American museums reach out to the community. The Fund arranged visits and Jane Safer accompanied the Deputy State Secretary to cultural institutions in New York and Washington. He not only found these visits useful, but invited Deborah Ziska,Press and Public Information Officer of the National Gallery, to come to Hungary to consult with the Hungarian National Museum on communications, increasing community involvement with the museum, and assessing plans for the use of interior space.

Hungarian National Museum The National Museum is undergoing major renovation. The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage requested that Fund consultant Deborah Ziska give highest priority to an evaluation of the public access facilities within the context of the renovation plans. In October, Jane Safer, Paxton Barnes, Honee Hess and local co-directors assisted Deborah Ziska with this evaluation. A comprehensive report was given to the Ministry.

The Ministry also requested that Ziska assess the communications and outreach activities of the museum. Given the limited time, Ziska could only do a cursory review. She recommended that further analysis would require an additional visit and proposed a plan in which the preliminary study could be done by our local co-directors.

Hungarian Ministry of Tourism Deborah Ziska’s recommendations for improving museum communications and outreach included a number of proposals that were beyond the capacity of a single Hungarian museum. We therefore approached the Minister of Tourism, Péter Deme (who is a member of The Fund’s Hungarian Advisory Council) about the Ministry supporting joint museum marketing initiatives. The Minister was enthusiastic about implementing several of these ideas including: marketing to the hospitality industry and taxidrivers, marketing at the airport, and an economic impact of the arts study. United States Information Service The Fund assisted USIS with arrangements of visits by Hungarian arts professionals to the United States. In meetings with the new U.S. Ambassador and new Cultural Attache we explored further areas of cooperation, particularly the possibility of jointly bringing American experts to Hungary to do workshops.

Franz Liszt Academy of Music Director of Student Affairs, Francsiska Ispán, visited New York, Boston and Washington D.C. in January under the aegis of USIS and The Fund. Her goal was to study the management of successful musical institutions in the U.S., especially those, which, like the Liszt Academy, combine a teaching conservatory with a major concert hall. Fund consultant Grant Beglarian, The Fund office in Washington and USIS, coordinated the trip. Amy Módly, Co-Director in Hungary, accompanied Ms. Ispán in New York.

Other Activities

The Advisory Council in Hungary met in October. The Council continues to give support with ideas, help in specific projects, and assistance in assessing and improving The Fund’s activities in Hungary. Jane Safer facilitated an exchange of playwrights between the New Dramatists Society in New York and Hungarian playwrights. New Dramatists is so pleased that they are considering expanding the exchange to playwrights from other Central and Eastern European countries. Jillian Poole has continued to consult via e-mail with the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra on issues of fund-raising and public relations.

Paxton Barnes consulted with the Natural History Museum and the Budapest Zoo. An environmental education journal requested permission to publish her conference talk. She will help the Deputy Director of the Natural History Museum with the arrangements of his USIS-sponsored visit to the U.S. natural history institutions.

Honee Hess will continue consulting on museum education issues via e-mail.