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Tact and an ability to find a middle ground are needed to work in the field of cultural management in the United Arab Emirates. Susanne Weiss, who is now doing just this on behalf of the Robert Bosch Foundation and the Goethe-Institut, fortunately possesses both. By Harriet Wolff

Breaking down fears of the unfamiliar, building bridges: “I think I’m in my element here,” says Susanne Weiss, smiles and the very next moment makes a note of another idea on her mobile. The subject is International Museum Day and the 33-year-old Berlin resident pushed ahead an ambitious project in her function as cultural manager for the Robert Bosch Foundation at the Sharjah Museums Department (SMD). Each of the seventeen museums in the emirate on the Persian Gulf should choose one object from its collections that perfectly embodies the idea behind the respective institution – both emotionally and intellectually. Social Harmony is the worldwide motto. The museologist and former director of the Kunsthaus Dresden knows from past work at museums and art associations how inspiring true bonds to the exhibited objects can be for curators and their staff.

Since September 2009, Susanne Weiss has lived and worked in the almost 2,600 square kilometre country of Sharjah, one of the seven emirates on the Persian Gulf next door to Dubai. Weiss was the first cultural manager to be dispatched to the region by the Robert Bosch Foundation in cooperation with the Goethe-Instituts in Cairo and Abu Dhabi. Two more colleagues are now working in Asyut, Egypt and Marrakesh, Morocco. Robert Bosch cultural managers have been sent to the Goethe-Institut’s Dialogue Points on one- to two-year scholarships since 2005. “By means of this programme the foundation and the Goethe-Institut aspire to create a cooperative dialogue between Germany and the Arabic world that is long-lasting and offers a diversified view of both regions,” explains Susanne Weiss. Bettina Berns, programme director at the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart considers the Sharjah Museums Department “a highly appealing address for our scholarship holder.” Weiss was invited to apply for the scholarship based on the international focus of her work.

Most of Susanne Weiss’s colleagues at the SMD are citizens of the Emirate. “I’ve entered an Islamic life that is marked on the one hand by strong cohesion and religiousness and on the other hand by great cosmopolitanism and curiosity.” Over 70 percent of the approximately 450 employees of the SMD are women and all are bilingual in Arabic and English. “I was immediately fascinated by this linguistic skill – in German museums, perfect English is not necessarily the rule.”

First observe, then begin shaping learning processes

Susanne Weiss considers the intercultural learning experience of “being affiliated with two such important institutions as the Goethe-Institut and the Robert Bosch Foundation and acting on their behalf” very rewarding. She is glad “to have left my own territory.” Now, her aim is to input her knowledge and experience “to shape learning processes” following a phase of observation on site. Susanne Weiss considers her task as cultural manager a challenge: “It reflects and professionalizes my previous work.”

In recent years her place of employment, Sharjah, has done quite a lot to consolidate its reputation as the cultural centre of the United Arab Emirates. The ruler of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qasimi, an art appreciator and holder of PhDs in both history and geography, had the Sharjah Museums Department set up in 2006. Today, all museums work together within this department and they are quite diverse with fields including archaeology, science, Islamic culture and modern art. Susanne Weiss will function as a liaison here for at least one year and presently workshops she developed are being held for the respective staff members, which are designed by museum professionals, photographers and artists from Germany and precisely tailored to the needs of the SMD. Developing training programmes that are equally universal and specific is a genuine challenge for her.

The subject matter includes exhibition organization and curatorship issues, restoration and archival photography and, in particular, the twelve workshops focus on an aspect that Susanne Weiss considers important: “promoting more creativity and networking.” According to director-general of the museum department, Manal Ataya, “through Susanne and our partnership with the Goethe-Institut and the Robert Bosch Foundation we wish to strengthen the skills of our people and offer them a challenging task in cultural work.”

“Can cultural schemes be exported?”

For until just a few years ago, many people in Sharjah still associated work in a museum with “sitting at the cashier desk” or “dusting the display cases.” This is what Susanne Weiss learned when she held detailed talks with the employees at the beginning of her mission as cultural manager, for example with the director of the Education Department, Alya Burheima. She told Weiss how members of her family downright pitied her when she told them she’d taken the job at the SMD. That has changed: “My mother is a fan of ours; she’s constantly prowling the museums.” Susanne Weiss knows quite a few such motivating stories and the younger generation in particular are increasingly interested in the Emirate’s history before its meteoric economic ascent, which began in the 1970s. One of Weiss’s favourite exhibits is in the Sharjah Maritime Museum. It concerns oral history and shows films and audio documents of the fishing and pearl diving culture, which has practically disappeared. Another, in Al Mahatta Museum, shows a contemporary black and white film of sleepy Sharjah in the 1930s, which nonetheless already had the Gulf region’s only airport.

It always amazes Susanne Weiss when she realizes how rapidly change took place in Sharjah, as nearly everywhere in the United Arab Emirates. “Sometimes I ask myself: can cultural schemes be exported at all?” And answers the question herself, “Yes, but ultimately only with lots of tact, reserve and a great willingness to compromise.” The museologist openly relates how she had to get used to the different types of organization and debate in the Sharjah Museums Department at the beginning. “I wanted to initiate a lot right away, but soon noticed that I would need patience and to gain my colleagues’ trust.”

The early office hours, beginning at 7:30 AM, as everywhere in the Emirates on account of the heat, were also unfamiliar for Susanne Weiss. She has adjusted herself. Waking in the middle of the night? “I haven’t regretted one minute so far.” There it is again, her endearing smile. Another new idea cannot be far behind.