An online lecture as part of the Out of the Ashes Lecture Series, with Corine Wegener, Director, Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative titled 'Evidence Aiding Post-Conflict Recovery: Mosul Museum Project Zero'. This event is free but registration is essential. Book Here
In 2014, Daesh (aka ISIS) established their so-called “Caliphate” in the city of Mosul and cut a swath of intentional destruction of cultural heritage across Iraq’s Nineveh plain. After the liberation of Mosul in 2017, international organizations began to offer help with cultural recovery, including the heavily damaged Mosul Cultural Museum. As a potential war crime scene under the definition of the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, heritage professionals realized they had only one chance to document the evidence before recovery began or risk losing it forever. In a unique collaboration with law enforcement professionals, the Smithsonian Institution developed a methodology to systematically document cultural destruction where criminal activity is known or suspected. Wegener will describe how the methodology was used to document the Mosul Cultural Museum as a “cold case crime scene” and how it may be used in the future as the first step on the road to recovery.
About Corine Wegner
Corine Wegner is the director of the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative (SCRI), an outreach program dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage in crisis situations in the U.S. and abroad. SCRI’s work includes projects in Syria, Iraq, Haiti, Nepal, and around the world. SCRI also co-chairs, with FEMA’s Office of Environmental and Historic Preservation, the Heritage Emergency National Task Force, part of the U.S. National Disaster Recovery Framework.
Wegener lectures and writes about the importance of cultural property protection during natural disasters and armed conflict. Wegener has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Nebraska Omaha and MA degrees in Political Science and Art History from the University of Kansas.
