Interview with H.E. Ms. Cliona Manahan Ambassador of Ireland

sibility to look for new horizons in the bilateral relations between my country and the Czech Republic.

I have been working for the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs of Argentina for 40 years. Prague is my fi rst post as ambassador. Before, I was posted in Brasilia (twice), Pretoria, and Washington DC. Besides that, as a diplomat, I have had the opportunity to visit many other places on offi cial missions. The opportunity (to experience diff erent countries) is one of the most interesting aspects of our profession.

I don‘t think that ambassadors´ lives are as exciting as those of journalists or explorers. We don‘t usually have ‘adventures’. My professional memories are more related to long negotiations and the satisfaction of reaching a fi nal agreement. Or to the participation in high-level visits, when it is essential to be very attentive to the smallest details. However, now I remember that once in Zimbabwe, the hotel managers were supposed to pick me and my family up in the middle of a nature reserve but they did not show up. We got lost in the jungle and had to spend the night in the vehicle, without any water or food, surrounded by hyenas and other animals. But we survived.

The beginning of the Coronavirus pandemic was quite complicated. Many Argentinian tourists were stranded in the Czech Republic due to the cancellation of fl ights and the uncertainty of the changing regulations. Fortunately, we had a lot of support from the local authorities and fi nally, little by little, we were able to help them reach airports in other countries, since there are no direct fl ights between the Czech Republic and Argentina or South America. We even rented buses to transport people to Frankfurt.

Bilateral relations are excellent. There is great interest in Argentina due to its size and variety of landscapes, as well as its high-quality food products; like beef and wine; and cultural activities, including tango, literature, and cinema. And soccer, of course! Furthermore, around 70,000 people of Czech and Moravian descent live in Argentina, the second-largest community in the Americas after the USA. The Argentine is, to a large extent, the result of immigration and we are very proud of the contribution made by the Czech people to our identity.

Without a doubt - carrying forward and trying to achieve all the projects that we have in our minds. We, ambassadors, can have many ideas, even good ones (ha-ha!). But international relations, like other sectors, are full of unforeseen events. We can work hard on a project, an agreement, or a meeting, which can then be cancelled at the last

With family

minute. It is quite complex to integrate the wills of so many players involved. But we always continue trying. In my case, my work-life balance situation represents a challenge too, I must say. I have three children and my wife of more than 30 years is a Brazilian diplomat herself, which is quite unique as it is not easy to reconcile both careers.

The diplomatic profession has changed dramatically in recent decades due to the IT revolution. When I started working, back in the 80s, it was quite a challenge to get access to information. On the other hand, today the challenge is to identify the most accurate information amongst hundreds of sources. Also, diplomats were traditionally expected to be discreet in their activities, but today we are asked to use social media to showcase our work. Therefore, my recommendation is to incorporate the new tools that technology off ers but also maintain a balance, respecting the ‘good old traditions’ of our profession.

Clearly, we are living in an unforeseen time period. We thought that we were on the path to a world with greater stability, peace, and development, with possibilities to allocate more resources for health, education, the environment, and technological transformation. However, in recent weeks we have gone back a hundred years and have instead faced a horizon of military confrontation and mistrust. Therefore, my fi rst wish is for peace and dialogue, and to return to a path of understanding. With regard to the bilateral relations between Argentina and the Czech Republic, my wish is to succeed in developing the full potential of our complementarities. Despite the geographical distance, (my wish is that) new technologies will allow us to develop further links in areas such as software, biotechnology, genetics, nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, new materials, alternative energy sources, and peaceful use of nuclear energy, among other things. In short, a whole constellation of sectors in which Argentina and the Czech Republic have much to do jointly and to off er to the rest of the world.

Text: M. Zisso; Photo: Argentine embassy

On the occasion of the National Day, the Ambassador of the Argentine Republic H.E. Mr. Roberto Alejandro Salafi a hosted a reception at the Prague New Town Hall.

From left: H.E. Mr. Roberto Alejandro Salafia, Ambassador of Argentina and Professor Daniel Nývlt, Masaryk University

From left: Mr. Michael Stimmson, H.E. Mr. Jordan Parvanov, Ambassador of Bulgaria, and H.E. Mr. Antonios Theocharous, Ambassador of Cyprus

From left: H.E. Mr. Roberto Alejandro Salafia, Ambassador of Argentina and H.E. Ms. Martina Mlinarevic, Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina

From left: H.E. Mr. Roberto Alejandro Salafia, Ambassador of Argentina, Eva Anderová, and Meshulam Zisso

From left: H.E. Mrs. Anna Azari, Ambassador of Israel and H.E. Mrs. Maria-Antoaneta Barta, Ambassador of Romania

From left: H.E. Mr. Taejin Kim, Ambassador of the Republic of Korea, H.E. Mr. Rastislav Káčer, Ambassador of the Republic of Slovakia, and H.E Mr. Grégoire Cuvelier, Ambassador of the Republic of Belgium

From left: Mr. Anton Strniša, H.E. Mr. Patricio Alejandro Utreras Díaz, Ambassador of the Republic of Chile, Mrs. Brenda Utreras, Mrs. Bernadette Cuvelier, Mrs. Suyeon Kim, Mrs. Atsuko Suzuki, and Mrs. Erna Alice Kvile

From left: Mr. Anton Strniša, Mrs. Atsuko Suzuki, H.E. Mr. Hideo Suzuki, Ambassador of Japan, and Mrs. Svetlana Codreanu

From left: H.E. Mrs. R. Leonora Rueda, Ambassador of Mexico, Meshulam Zisso, and H.E. Ms. Cliona Manahan, Ambassador of Ireland From left: Arsis Nova choir, Javier Antar and Patricie Poráková (dancers)

Text: Martina Hošková and M. Zisso; Photo: Jakub Přecechtěl and Zuzana Bönisch

The National Gallery Prague has the largest collection of art in the Czech Republic, presented in eleven diff erent buildings in the city and beyond. The most interesting works are available online too, thus contributing to the ever-growing accessibility of the collections. Since 2021, the prestigious position of the Gallery´s general director belongs to Alicja Knast, a culture manager from Poland. She told us about her professional dreams, interdisciplinary approach in culture, and National Gallery investment plans for the next fi ve years. As she puts it, “In terms of inventing or reinventing an institution, the sky is the limit.”

I am constantly being deeply impressed by the way the Czech people feel and communicate about their country’s culture and heritage. The quality of the public media has also made quite an impression. Unfortunately, that would not be a positive comparison for Poland, the country I was born in. Cultivation of proper discussion and juxtaposing diff erent opinions and perspectives sounds like a banal observation, but that is a cornerstone of fostering critical thinking amongst viewers and listeners.

I have always dreamt about being able to organize a museum in the way I strongly believe in: open and accessible for all. So far, I succeeded in Poland in various set ups, and I did want to try in a diff erent legal environment. The Czech Republic was an ideal choice. Very far in terms of the cultural heritage dating until 1918, but very close after that to the Polish. I might perhaps mention that I was approached by a head-hunter around the time I was about to start my post in Prague to consider another position in Western Europe. However, I did not follow that path. In this dynamic, fl uid world galleries and museums also have to be more adaptive. The sky is the limit in terms of inventing or reinventing an institution. It requires a good recurrent diagnosis of the needs of the given audience so that you do not fall into a routine of purely fulfi lling the expectations. The most challenging part of being the general director of the National Gallery Prague is making sure I am present in all NGP locations to be able to see the team members in their own work environment and support them in a way they deserve.

Actually, I have never been a regular musicologist in my life. I was interested in the connection between visual arts and their infl uence on composers in choosing a type of timbre, psychoacoustics, and musical cognition, but above all in the art of making musical instruments. During my work at the University of Plymouth, I have closely encountered neuroscientists working on vision and gesture and it turned into a mind-opening experience showing me that we are whole as human beings. The divisions between visual arts, music, and movement are blurred, although present in Western culture since the very beginning of the refl ection on human activity and capacity. It was only strengthened during the Enlightenment, but today we know that it is not how we, humans, are creative. I am a student of the late prof Jan Stęszewski who fostered interdisciplinary approaches in students. I do not think that we will make more music-related exhibitions. Besides, the role of the director is to inspire and facilitate, and not make specifi c exhibitions, so at the end of the day, it is a curator´s drive and passion that is important, not the director´s.

The National Gallery was not fortunate to have a purposebuilt space. Even though we have 33,000 sq m exhibition space in total, nothing that belongs to NGP really fulfi ls the needs of a contemporary gallery or museum. I am focusing on several investment plans, namely Jinonice depository,

Alicja Knast

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ADVERTISEMENT Trade Fair Palace reconstruction, and digital transformation of the entire institution. I am working with the team on one coherent project where all the three components will have fi nancing and prospect for realization. In the area of programming, we are very intensively working on accessibility to our program and facilities. By that, I do not mean accessibility for people with disabilities. We understand accessibility in a broader sense since the pandemic showed us that digital content is very much needed and expected. There is no way back from that. Our fi ve-year strategy is now waiting for approval from the Czech Republic Ministry of Culture.

Actually, the eff ort to bring back the memory of the presence of the Jews in the entire Polish history and to foster understating of this presence was very urgently needed. Before establishing POLIN in 2004, Polish heritage institutions were very much focused on the Holocaust, but it was only the result of the fact that during WWII the death camps were built on Polish territory. In the Czech Republic, the situation is diff erent. The aspects of Jewish life, culture, and events of WWII are all well present in the public domain, so unlike in Poland, that would be perhaps unnecessary to establish this kind of an exhibition here. Also, art history is driven rather by phenomena, not based on ethnicity.

Of course… my ongoing adventure is learning Czech. I simply love the sound of the Czech language. My dream is to truly learn this language to have a better understating of where I work and live. I am quite fascinated by the etymology of Czech words too. Besides that, I work on completing my PhD studies at the London Metropolitan University. I also happen to have a very bad habit of reading too many books at the same time, depending on my switching interests or work needs or inspirations I just had.