Brazil museum director tells forum of fire-damage response

As a museum director, what would you do, after a devastating fire rips through the buildings of your workplace and claims important assets in your collection?

Alexander Kellner, director of the National Museum of Brazil, or Museum Nacional in Rio de Janeiro, shared how he and his team confronted such a crisis — an overnight inferno in 2018 — that gutted the 207-year-old museum. While they reach out for greater international cooperation in the museum's reconstruction, the director said they also think about how to make the museum more modern and inclusive.

Administrators of different types of museums around the world, like Kellner, were in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, for the Third UNESCO High-Level Forum for Museums. The forum, which ended on Friday, looked at how to make museums more people oriented and resilient in face of challenges through exchanges.