History
When the Matignon agreements were signed between the representatives of France and New Caledonia, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, the Kanak leader of the independent movement, had mooted a proposal to set up an Agency for the development of Kanak Culture with the objective of promoting Kanak linguistic and archaeological heritage, promote Kanak handicrafts and the arts, encourage cross-regional interactions and evolve design and conduct research activities. This plan was implemented after Jean-Marie Tjibaou was assassinated, to assuage local feelings. The French President ordered that a cultural centre on the lines suggested by Tjibaou be set up in Nouméa. The "Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre", which identifies Kanak culture and identity, was formally established in May 1998. However, based on a competition for designing the centre dated to 1991, the work was assigned to Renzo Piano and it was constructed between 1993 and 1998. The inaugural cultural director was Emmanual Kaserhou and the museum curator Susan Cochrane. The project was quite controversial because of its luxurious and monumental nature.
Read more about this topic: Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In the history of the human mind, these glowing and ruddy fables precede the noonday thoughts of men, as Aurora the sun’s rays. The matutine intellect of the poet, keeping in advance of the glare of philosophy, always dwells in this auroral atmosphere.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)