To the editor:
The International Council on Monuments & Sites defines cultural heritage as including artistic expression, customs, objects, practices, and places that are tangible or intangible and valued from generation to generation.
The loss of our cultural heritage can come in many forms.
March 18, 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of the 1990 theft of thirteen unique objects of art from Boston’s Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum. So long out of sight, our memory of them fades and they are in danger of being forgotten.
Now a profound cultural loss of a different nature: the sudden closing last summer of the Sharon Arts Center, a cultural institution that had wonderfully served the Monadnock community for seventy-three years.
Such a loss is both tangible and intangible. Tangible is the loss of physical space for educational programs and exhibitions, and a store where the public might acquire works by regional artists and artisans. Intangible is having unknown consequences for the public far and wide who long valued this cultural institution as a destination with a credible variety of teachers and students learning new skills.
It is through the efforts of federal, state, regional, and community resources, and of dedicated citizens that the preservation of our shared cultural heritage and identity often depend. Hopefully, this year the Gardner Museum objects will be returned and a new arts center and store will emerge.
Robert Hauser
Sharon