The Quart Artisan Potters Association warned of the closure of the Quart Museum in April

The Associació de Terrassers Artesans de Quart is an organization that brings together the sector's professional guild and is one of the most active organizations in the municipality. In fact, it is what currently - and for many years - supports the cultural dimension of the population, apart from suffering the de facto closure of the museum and the systematic abuse of a local "government" that denies the closure of the 'equipment, despite the evidence. Well, the Quart Pottery Association sent an open letter in April in which it summarized in a perfectly understandable way what is happening in this facility. Different sources consulted by Bonart have rectified this letter which highlights, apart from negligence and carelessness, the systematic lies of a council that advocates what it does not do, nor believes and that, even worse, demonstrates a lack of alarming humanistic and cultural sensitivity. A phenomenon that unfortunately happens too often in different populations of the country. Cases like the one of the Coromines Foundation in Sant Pol de Mar, among others, are beginning to be repeated too often. The Associació de Ceramistes de Catalunya was also disappointed by the municipal response after collaborating with it since 2018. One of its members, who wishes to remain anonymous, commented: "Of the 10 exhibitions of contemporary ceramics that we organized with the former director, the mayor of the town never came, nor did he show the slightest interest." Apart from all these events, the unfair dismissal of its director Joan Vicens Tarré is still pending. In addition, the council has just released a statement in which it is clear that I have not contacted them in two years, when in 2020, following the news in El Punt, I was able to speak at length on the phone with the councilor of culture, a contact that the owner of Can Marcó provided me with at the time. The result is a chain of nonsense, nonsense and fallacies in order to justify what cannot be justified. In addition, the activities that in the statement they say they have generated to boost the cultural and pottery sector make the most neophyte in the sector blush. It's embarrassing.

We reproduce in full the letter that the Association sent to the council of Quart on April 7, 2022:

Open letter to the government members of the city council of Quart.

Towards the accumulation of facts that we have experienced in the last two years, from the Association of Artisan Potters of Quart, meeting in the board of directors on 04/07/2022, we agree on the need to send this document to the whole and in its entirety of the various councilors of the municipal government.
As it was published on the City Council's portal last 10/13/2020 in the presentation of the brand "Quart, terra que inspira", it "seeks to preside over the references of our municipality in its acts and in its writings , since we want the name of our town, historically linked to the earth and the mud, to preside in an incontestable way, and at the same time inspire our villagers to feel identified with it and in this way to be able to have a foundation solid projection towards the future". These are the words of the city council.

From the association, we have made efforts and dedicated resources to defend and collaborate with the City Council so that the town of Quart maintains this pottery heritage, and does not disappear along with the last potters. After many months of different meetings with technicians, councilors and the mayor, months in which we have acted with patience and collaboration and with the belief and confidence that the commitments that both the councilor for economic promotion and the mayor have conveyed to us would be true , we need to express our concern in writing. A concern that grows daily due to the real risk of the deterioration of Quart's cultural heritage.

We call to awaken awareness and cultural awareness of those who have their responsibility in their hands. We call at the same time as we denounce these facts:

● We denounce the way in which the management and organization of activities is being carried out at the Museu de la Terrissa de Quart, considering that it is increasingly moving away from the philosophy for which it was created: a place with purposes cultural, where objects relating to the world of art, heritage and culture are stored and exhibited.

● We denounce the distance between "saying and doing", or the lack of compliance with the commitments made by the City Council with the Association. empty words

● We denounce the absolute lack of sensitivity and negligence towards the protection and maintenance of the cultural heritage, property of the village and given by the people of the village, exhibited inside the building of the Museu de la Terrissa. Loving and protecting the people's culture and history should be an obligation for those responsible for its management, not an option.

● We denounce the indifference and lack of will in revitalizing quality cultural activities in the municipality, as well as the loss of subsidies that would provide a solution to the revitalization of these activities.

Let's take the following facts as an example:

1- The town council of Quart, represented by its councilor for Economic Promotion and its Mayor, have not kept their word that the Association of Potters would participate in the decision-making of the activities and projects to be carried out at the Museum of the Terrissa

2- the City Council has left aside the revitalization of the Museum of Terracotta, no exhibitions, talks, presentations or any other activity related to earthenware, ceramics or the dissemination of history are organized of our municipality or in general the promotion of quality culture. No investment in the promotion and prestige of our town's cultural heritage.

3- We are particularly concerned to see the lack of interest and indifference shown by the City Council, in not having any contact with Artesania de Catalunya. They were informed by the association and asked to contact them as we had done. Artesania has a direct line of subsidies to town councils for the revitalization of the museum, these subsidies covering the entire cost of the staff needed to keep the museum open. There is a subsidized option to keep the facility open, and that does not generate a problem of financial resources.

4- The request to participate in projects presented by the Association related to Art, such as Art & Gavarres, with a minimal cost to the City Council, is not accepted

5- The request to participate in projects presented by the Association related to clay courses in schools is not attended to and not even answered, even though it entails practically no cost to the City Council

6- The request to participate in projects presented by the Association related to cultural exchange with potters from Finland is not attended to or even answered.

7- In the exhibition hall, playful activities are carried out with creatures where they can enter and exit by sliding, without any kind of protection or barrier to the rest of the exhibited pieces, many of them next to the areas of step

8- The collaboration proposals that come to us from the City Council seem to be constant improvisation, made hastily or without any prior planning, with little possibility of margin even to schedule them. We perceive a result of very low cultural content and faced with faces "in the gallery" and not really to give value or empower its protagonists.

9- We have not been informed about the evolution of the project of the works of the Museum, despite the fact that it was one of the specific commitments that was transferred to us at the time when all the associates and pottery families transmitted the our concern that, due to the ignorance or lack of knowledge of those who carry it out, a beast was made in this building.

10- And finally, as an example of the great need to culturalize Quart, or of its great deculturalization, you can see an exhibition hall of the Museum used as a gym with self-defense classes, dynamic activities and 'impact, without even removing from the room the fragile hundred-year-old pieces that are part of the museum's collection -many of them ceded by pottery families-, showing zero respect for the memory of our ancestors, in the culture, traditions and ways of living of the town of Quart.

We convey, then, our lack of confidence in the words, in the acts, and in the actions related to the conservation of the cultural heritage of the town of Quart that the town hall conveys to us.

WE DEMAND, an awareness of this real situation, a change of priorities and that the culture of the people is given the attention it deserves. As long as this does not happen, from the Association we consider that any effort in new collaborations is an unnecessary waste of energy in the time and dedication of the associates, and we will focus on revitalizing the activities organized by the association itself.

More information: The City Council of Quart is closing its landmark museum definitively and without warning