Total foundations' website : an opportunity to advertise the world of the Louvre Lens' interest.
Click on the link to open it :
It is more and more recurrent to see patronage and sponsorship actions in Heritage, helping for example museums to propose regular temporary exhibitions, the possibility to lend and to borrow masterpieces while insurances are on of the biggest part of exhibitions' budget. For example, the Musée de la Piscine of Roubaix is sponsored by numerous sponsorships like Air France, Devianne, Gaz de France or even the Société Générale. The Louvre Lens is sponsored by a huge patron, the Total Foundation.
In this article, we are going to present the Total Foundation, an French foundation involved in a lot of projects. Then, we will explain the sponsorship between the foundation and the Louvre Lens.
I. Presentation of the website.
The Total foundation is working in the aim to provide help to local enterprises and to produce models that can be reproduces in other places. It is helping local players on projects which are developing a certain type of objectives : providing knowledge, preserving memory, environment of reducing social exclusion, and finally celebrating new ways to raise awareness into public' opinion about these new acquisitions. For example, Total foundation is heaping today the institute Pasteur into recherché programs.
The website is composed of five different sections, each one is dedicated to a very specific subject, where each action is presented in details. They are composed of a presentation of the Foundation, it's sponsorships about Health, Solidarity, Culture, Marine biodiversity and a special section about the 20 years of the foundation. We will only present the sections about the foundation itself, the Sponsorships about Culture and the importance of the Louvre Lens project.
1. The Foundation itself
This section is explaining the main policy of the Foundation, proposing an interview with the foundation's chairman and it's managing director, the objectives of the foundation, the avenues of actions and the employee volunteerism.
A second section is proposing a map of all of the initiatives around the world and the Foundation's partnership is visible on the website, differentiating the projects about Environment, Culture and Heritage, Health and Solidarity and Collaborating projects with other foundations (like the Fondation du Patrimoine, or the Fonds d'expérimentation pour la jeunesse). Most of the sponsorship is provided to Africa, Turkey, Europe, South Asia and South America.
The organization is proposing to the viewers the possibility to have a look on the annual budgets and to the governance, which is organized in three parts. The permanent team is running the foundation, reporting the actions to the partners and reflects on the directions the Foundation must follow. The committees of experts is in charge with the decision-making processes, examining the projects before to present them to the Board of Directors. Finally, the board of directors are voting and taking the final decisions about the accepted projects, the amount of budget allowed and validated for each of them. They also validate the strategic decisions proposed by the foundation's permanent team.
The website is also proposing a presentation of the partners, with a presentation distinguishing the ones for healthcare, for community commitment, for culture and for marine biodiversity.
The last years activity reports (from 2008 to 2010) are freely downloadable.
2. The Foundation's sponsorship about Culture
Promoting inter-generational and intercultural exchanges, Total's foundation is helping different projects in France, Africa and foreign countries. A partnership between them and the cultural institution of the Fondation du Patrimoine had been signed.
"Preserving French cultural heritage"
Under this title, we can finds several projects concretized with the help from Total Foundation. Most of them are not only concerning Cultural project, but also education projects : most of the restorations and conversions are the work of local handicrafts and students in handicraft. These projects are participating to the creation of a new dynamic in the region 's economy. This participation into Culture and Economy is visible thug :
- trough the restoration of old industrial sites like the Leroy Factory, the Pôle intercommunal de Lecture Publique et d'Archives (Pyrenées Atlantiques).
- Cultural and touristic conversion projects are encouraged through multiple transformations, like the rehabilitation of an ancient Porvencal country house into a Museum of decorative arts and the transformation of a Parisian art deco building into a complex dedicated to the image as a document (Le BAL).
- transforming worksites into professional training "open-hair schools", like in the AIns with Coucy le Château, a cultural heritage used in the aim to combat exclusion of youth ; or event the Fort d'Entrecasteaux in Marseille, a fort restored today also with the help of a association fighting agains exclusion.
"Sharing the world culture"
As we already know, Total's foundation is trying to contribute to different type of projects in several countries. In this optic to create links in-between civilizations through education and Culture. The help given in the aim to create new museum departments seems however to be concentrated in Paris. It is concerning today :
- the Arab world Institute in Paris
- The Lyon museum of fine Arts
- the Islamic arts
- the Louvre museum, Paris
- the Quai Branly
- the Dapper Museum, Paris
- the Guimet Museum
But there is a few notable exceptions, like :
- the creation of "The Genius of the Orient" exhibition at the Beaux Arts de Lyon
- the sponsoring of "Présence africain : a forum, movement, a network" exhibition, first presented at the Quai Branly, then at the Cheikh Anta Diop University library in Dakar
"Sponsoring contemporary creation"
By sponsoring exhibitions on multi cultural themes, more particularly at the Quai Branly and in other places in France, Total foundation is promoting Culture for everyone, though, for exemple :
- the "Fantastic-Lille 3000" event
- The CHIFA or Chinese Culture in Peru, at the Quai Branly
- the presentation of Fional Pardington's art at the Qua Branly Museum
- the exhibition about Landscape (re)found in Paris, at the Quai Branly Museum
The foundation is also working with France's biggest museums in the aim to broaden access to culture "to each and all". A few museums are included into this partnership :
- The Louvre Museum though the help given iin the aim to open a new wing at Lens
- The Mumo, the Mobilie Museum Foundation is bringing contemporary art to French and African children
- The associations' day in Paris, created by the Quai Brany museum is providing a social outreach program to acces exhibitions organized in France's major museums with the help of Total's Foundation
- The Gates of Heaven, in Paris, organized with the Louvre' s help, in the organization of a project enlarging the publics' access to the Louvre's collection during the closed days of the museum.
II. Presentation of the partnership with the Louvre Lens
1. The Louvre Lens, a project matching the several criteria of the Foundation.
According to Total Foundation's policy, the Louvre Lens is a perfect example of a local Heritage project. In the aim to provide an economical revival in the Nord Pas de Calais, and as a symbol of political and cultural decentralization.
It is not only respecting the obligation to promote culture for everyone, but also the preservation of local Heritage. The museum had been placed near the pithead n°9, now classified as UNESCO's International heritage, which is also a great attraction, based on two very different types of Heritage.The project had also been sponsored by the Foundation because of the architectural choices : the glass and metal buildings are harmoniously blending into the regional landscape, highlighting the typical landscape to the publics through the huge picture windows. The choice had been made to respect the natural heritage, by creating parks well stocked with regional flowers and bushes.
The Louvre will now propose two type of stage designs, two types of look on the same type of masterpieces.
If the Louvre at Paris will continue to propose a traditional type of stage design, the Louvre situated at Lens will propose a new type of scenography, which is suppressing the walls in the aim to concentrate the publics' attention to the masterpieces, not to the stage design. It will also propose a simple and neutral way to expose the masterpieces, without giving to the publics the impression to go to the museum in the aim to learn something, but in the aim to enjoy Art and, if wanted, to ask for more informations to the museum's guides. It is proposing to the publics different ways to tackle Art according to its needs of interests.
2. The main interests of this type of sponsorship
Total's foundation is promoting local project with a national or an international interests, in the aim to invest a part of Total's profits into State and private establishments with a State interest.
A sponsorship between a private enterprise and a State establishment is concretely helping to keep a few standards : for example, the Ministry of Culture is functioning with tinier budgets, while the Louvre Lens project had been adopted since 2004, while the Economic crisis wasn't visible in the political background. Because of the present situation, the sponsorship had been essential in the aim to build the museum, to provide guides, the free access during a year for everybody (only for the regular exhibition, the temporary ones must be paid). It will also help the museum a regularly renewal of the Louvre's masterpieces, while Art's transport, protection and lending is expensive.
But a patronage, or a sponsorship can also have a few negative points. The sponsorship is including a contract , the money given must be employed in a very specific way, a way decided with the sponsor. Moreover, the fact to create a sponsorship with a foundation credited by Total can possibly put of some people : even if the enterprise is trying to develop a good image, it is hard to forget a few things, like the scandal provoked a few years ago about the cargo's accident on a oil rig this last year, or the fact that a few newspapers are assuming that Total is reducing it's oil refilling activity in the aim to control and increase oil's prices.
Nevertheless, in the aim to conclude on this article about sponsorship, we must remember that today, Culture and Heritage are functioning a lot with the help of private establishments. The Louvre Lens is only following a very common policy. Total's foundation is providing a financial help to State and Private establishments, like the Quai Branly, The Institute Pasteur or The Red Cross.
NATHALIE MAES.
NATHALIE MAES.
No comments:
Post a Comment