We visited Geneva for the very first time at the end of June, and to soak up its omnipresent internationalist vibe thought it was important to visit the European location of the United Nations. We took Bus #8 to get a sense of the city and then rode it through the city centre to the “Nations” stop and got off. We joined fellow tourists to traipse across the fountains, admire and take pictures of the massive sculptural installation of a broken chair and gaze at the United Nations building behind the fence.
The complex is set in a park-like setting, so we walked and discovered an unusual ornate building, the Museum of Ariana, which houses a ceramic collection, and further stumbled upon a seated and cross-legged Gandhi statue, with various flower offerings, very much like that might be done for a Hindu god.
We returned to the climbing sidewalk and made our way to the International Museum of the International Red Cross and Crescent. I was astounded to discover an immersive public art project that combined larger textual boards with questions regarding the pressing social, political and ecological problems of our time, from growing inequality, the climate crisis, the impact of artificial intelligence and ongoing conflict and violence. These questions were interwoven with the humanitarian values and approach of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent, which, despite the ubiquity of the organization, were still interesting to observe, such as neutrality and impartiality, which seemed so incredulous in our opinionated and polarized world. Vivid photographs that captured peoples and landscapes and told stories of the impacts of these problems were interspersed in the installation, which was physical in that it was made exposed wooden frames set up on a small hill that we climbed into and explored.
We decided to go into the museum and, despite being advised that we had sufficient time to view the permanent collection and the temporary exhibition, of which the al fresco installation was only a sample, we missed an exhibit on climate risks in entirety. We began with the exhibition of the photographs which offered large, vivid and arresting images from photographers from around the world, documenting, contextualizing, historicizing and staging stories, vignettes, scenes from everyday lives that illustrated the power of human(e) experience.
We then explored the exhibition of the intriguingly told history of the International Red Cross and Crescent’s humanitarian work, including its origin in providing humanitarian, medical care in conflict zones, and its evolution. Beyond mobilizing urgent care, this also includes support, advocacy, and humanizing the victims and survivors often dehumanized in war and ethnic and political conflict. This includes the logistics and administration behind humanitarian work, symbolized by an exhibit that illustrated the card-keeping drawers of yesterday’s archive as well as another that was a wall-to-floor exhibit of photographs of orphans of the Rwandan genocide, which provided visual documentation to identify and place of children can include the horrifying yet salient task of connecting photographs to bodies. Another exhibit, a powerful form of witnessing and active listening to people’s stories, involved the spectator ‘touching’ the hand of the depicted storyteller, who described a poignant vignette and the impact and role of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent in their lives, yet another effort of humanizing humanitarianism.
We left the museum at its closing, the last ones to file out, into the late afternoon of a Geneva weekday, grateful for the serendipity of our visit. We are frequent museum-goers, and yet this was both unique and moving. For me, the museum deepened the need and significance for intercultural and international understanding and collaboration precisely given the economic, environmental, political and technological challenges that the museum foregrounded in the public art installation. Some of the questions, around creativity, care for oneself and others, the value and use of artificial intelligence, and the ethics and politics of our responding to those more acutely affected by these challenges, echo concerns that I raised in a presentation at an Interculturalism Conference in Lille, in early June. I didn’t find answers there specifically; and yet, since the conference and viewing this exhibition, I am pondering more of intercultural and international collaboration and any framing of a global mindset, seemingly so valuable for learners and leaders alike. I believe that beyond the specific entanglements and expectations of bridging cultural divides of communication and collaboration that interculturalists actively pursue, we should also and simultaneously think of expand the vision and scope of our work to include human and humane intercultural and international engagements, in humanitarian endeavours and beyond.
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