Ruined: A Heritage of War from UNESCO to NATO with Lynn Meskell

The J. Paul Getty Research Institute is delighted to invite you to its annual Gaehtgens Lecture, which will be delivered by Professor Lynn Meskell (Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania). Titled Ruined: A Heritage of War from UNESCO to NATO, the event will take place on Saturday, November 22 at 3:00 pm at the Getty Center. For more information, please see the flyer above or follow the link below.

The event is free but registration is required:
https://www.getty.edu/calendar/ruined-a-heritage-of-war-from-unesco-to-nato/

This would also be a great chance to visit the new Guerrilla Girls exhibition that opens on November 18:
https://www.getty.edu/exhibitions/how-to-be-a-guerrilla-girl/

Abstract

This talk examines the roles of two intersecting international organizations – UNESCO and NATO – that seek to combat the fallout from ruin warfare and their respective aspirations for mission success. Within the international order, along a spectrum of peace and war, both are struggling to contain the conflictual status of cultural heritage. Heritage assets, once positioned as global goods throughout the 20th century, are being transformed into the weapons of war in the 21st. Charting these developments, Dr. Lynn Meskell asks: how have the celebrated sites of humanity’s collective past been instrumentalized into a new future of risk and ruin?

Photograph of Kiev, 2024, by Ankie Petersen