What does “diversity” should mean? (at least for the art world)

By DHAdmann

After reading a couple of articles and reports made by museums about the commitments made to create more “diversity” in their art institutions after the Black Lives Matter movement, I realize that they got carried away by the pressure of complaint letters, protests, and media. They didn’t set up a first logical question “What does diversity mean?”, they just wanted it to satisfy the monster they had created but remained hidden under the carpet.

I think the answer to this question could be logical for many and by researching any Search Engine, one can find an answer like this: “Diversity is the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.” and of course this is true, but this should be partially true for an art institution because I think the art institution should represent the culture of the place where it is instituted, or not? And it clear because the problems of “diversity” are different to country to country, the minorities and migrations are not the same for example, for the USA, India, Germany, Spain, or Bolivia.

Most of the museums mentioned in their commitments to integrate BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) people and communities. This acronym is so general, narrowed, and confusing and it is clear that museum directors dont know anything when they talk about diversity. But they should not feel ashamed of that, the term has been there for a while and, what I know, until now still nobody, has not been taken care to define clearly what diversity should mean for an art institution. 

So, the question remains, what “diversity” should mean for an art institution? After meditating on this question, and from my perspective, I found that the “scope or radius of influence” of the art institution should define the scope of diversification to which the art institution should be committed. So, that means that prior to defining the kind of diversification that should be applied to the art institution is necessary to analyze the influence it has made in the society and art world. And I found four options “local or city”, “regional or state”, “wide or country” or “international or more than one country”. Once defined the scope, the research of the minorities involved in this area of influence has to be done, and based on the results the “diversity” for that art institution should be defined. So, it looks like the definition of “diversity” should be different and in function on where you are on this beautiful planet.