During International Museum Day, museums around the world are in the spotlight. This is a unique occasion to advocate for the causes that matter the most for us. For International Museum Day 2021, ICOM aim at:

• Advocate for museums as key drivers for recovery
• Reimagine the future of museums and their role in our societies
• Promote cultural exchange as a catalyst for peace among peoples
• Implement the UN Sustainable Development

Within these objectives of IMD2021 we are spotlighting the 12 museums and 20.000 museum objects of Artsakh occupied by Azerbaijan during the resent war.

People everywhere in the world are undergoing complex health and psychological affects caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the top of that People of Artsakh are severely affected by the war in all its means.

• How their lost museums will support their recovery while being occupied?
• How they will help the owners of these collections to reimaging the future?
• Eventually museums here come not to be catalyst for peace in the region.

Though the return of the museum collections to the people of Artsakh would promote cultural exchange and play a key role in establishing peace in the region.

Instead of contributing into the high values promoted by the Museum International Communities, Azerbaijan builds park of trophies, encouraging its own people unhuman treat, violation, hatred and torture. Every day we witness Azerbaijan falsifying, destroying and demolishing the Armenian cultural heritage as movable so not movable.

On this important day for all of us, we call on the International Museum Community to raise your voices for the protection of the cultural heritage regardless of its origin, ownership and location and the return of the occupied museums’ collections to their owners, the people of Artsakh.

We are living unprecedented times of tensions, pain and loss in different parts of the world and express our solidarity to the suffering humans and cultural heritage.

Even in this hard times, today most museums in Armenia and Artsakh offer different events to their communities within the IMD theme of this year “The Future of Museums: Recover and Reimagine” the full program of events. Museums are important tools as for protecting and transmitting the memory of past and present, but also for the recovery of their communities and building a peaceful future together.

On this day of International Museum Day, we wish everyone in the world peace, safety, health and joy.

Ani Avagyan

Chair of ICOM Armenia

Armenian poster here.

MEMO on Artsakh Armenian CultHeritage and its destruction by AZ