The City Council of Quart is definitively closing its reference museum without any objections

I have a special connection with the museum of the earthenware of Quart, in fact, it is a non-affiliated museum with a really interesting collection that has made for years a museum, an art center and a value-added space of the population And the fact is that any town can have civic and cultural centers, but not Museu de la Terrissa. I have seen the museum grow for decades thanks to the enthusiasm of an extraordinary batlle, Pere Cabarrocas, who first managed to form a collection and then make one, already at the time of the batlle Quim Cufí -another enthusiastic - and with the complicity of Enric Vilert - then president of the Diputació de Girona -, a reference space that was inaugurated in 2011 with everyone's enthusiasm. Around this project, and long before the building, pottery fairs and ceramic art competitions were organized with the complicity of Artesania de Catalunya - which I still do not understand how it is not under the umbrella of the Department of Cultural- and where I was juror and learned and grasped the contemporary and traditional importance of this variant of the art world. The truth is that it saddens my soul to see how strategic cultural facilities like this are closed, with rather precarious justifications, but it hurts me even more to see the sepulchral silence of the sector. The truth is that it was a very sibylline closure and without making any noise, completely hidden. Of those that Machiavellian politics usually articulates. I do a little data collection to put us in precedents of this unworthy act, for any representative who loves culture.

On December 9, 2020, El Punt Avui published the following: "The effects of the crisis are already beginning to be felt in the municipal coffers and one of the first victims in the Quart Town Hall has been the Museu de la Terrissa, which it will be closed for a while, from December 13, to reopen next year under a new concept beyond the museum and face it as a service for the economic dynamism and attraction of visitors to the municipality, as it has explained the councilor for Economic Promotion, Transparency and Cultural Identity, Jordi Batlle." The truth is that since then, the new model has been conspicuous by its absence and what the council has articulated is its dismantling to turn it into we don't know yet. There were a lot of possibilities, like having the tutelage at a distance of a successful model like the one advocated by the Terracotta Museu de la Bisbal, where the council of this town does see it as something essential. But no, Quart closes it, leaves it without a model and, to make matters worse, its director Joan Vicens Tarré was also charged without delay, declaring in 2020 that he was perplexed: "I did not expect the decision after ten years dedicated to managing this cultural equipment". The former director added: "It's not just a museum, we do a lot of school activities there, which are the essence, since the job is to claim this heritage around the earthenware we have in Quart. I think it's a drastic decision that affects the weakest sector, such as culture. If you had to decide what to close, whether a library, the municipal swimming pool, the sports hall or a museum, what do you think is the least popular? Well here it is you have," declares Joan Vicens Tarré, who is also the current director of the Association of Museologists of Catalonia.

I don't know, aside from the sun and the beach, Catalonia and the Girona counties have been particular about putting the cultural fact as an emblem of civility, education and culture to transform the perception of the citizens of this country. We hope that the painful action of a mayor who will run away, like everyone in life, can be reversed, that he does not have the impunity to carry the legacy of more than thirty years of work from his predecessors. And we hope that the elections will penalize actions of these characteristics. Knowing as we know that culture and museology is being rethought and that it is necessary to reach the new generations and foster new dynamics, the emotional and cultural breakdown that I suppose closing a museum should make us think. I didn't say anything in 2020 because you always have to leave a margin of time. Now the silence would be an accomplice to these actions of making politics with chicken flight. Does the Department of Culture agree? Does the culture delegation of the Generalitat de Catalunya agree? Does the museum sector agree? The population of Quart, a large part of which is currently a bedroom town, do you agree? I have my doubts.