Japan Consortium for International Cooperation in Cultural Heritage Symposium “Rescuing Cultural Heritage: A Firsthand Account of Emergency Conservation Efforts”

Symposium
Panel Discussion
Keynote lecture by Seiichi Kondo, Commissioner for Cultural Affairs

 A symposium for the public was held on October 16, 2011 in Heiseikan of the Tokyo National Museum.
 Seiichi Kondo, Commissioner for Cultural Affairs, gave the keynote lecture in which he talked about cultural properties damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and a program to rescue those properties called the “Cultural Property Rescue Programme.” Satoshi Yamamoto, Councilor for Cultural Properties, Shingo Hidaka, Associate Professor at the National Museum of Ethnology, Koji Miyazaki, Executive Director of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, and Henri Simon, President of Patrimoine sans frontières (PSF), gave lectures and joined in a panel discussion on “Emergency Responses to Safeguard Cultural Heritage.”
 The lectures covered diverse topics such as efforts to preserve buildings, folk cultural properties, and written cultural heritage damaged by the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake and the Great East Japan Earthquake. Topics also included assistance to safeguard cultural heritage abroad. Discussion of emergency efforts to rescue cultural heritage reaffirmed the need for Japan to capitalize on its experience in safeguarding cultural properties damaged by disaster and to cooperate in future international efforts to safeguard cultural properties damaged by disaster.

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