United States: Roundtable and Meeting of Experts on Shared Cultural Heritage

Roundtable
At the roundtable meeting, high-level representatives from major cultural institutions in New York City and New York State explored opportunities for collaboration on better ways to tell the story of Dutch-American cultural heritage. Participants learned about the Consulate General’s mission and its goals and support for shared heritage projects. The participants also discussed possible plans for future projects, and explored opportunities for cross-collaboration with other New York-based or Dutch counterparts that could strengthen exhibitions or programming.

Meeting of experts
The Consulate General also facilitated the first such meeting of experts to be held in New York City. The audience, consisting of educators, curators, researchers, archivists, programmers, and historic house directors were welcomed by Consul General Dolph Hogewoning. In the plenary session, Sophie van Doornmalen, Senior Cultural Officer Shared Cultural Heritage at the Consulate General informed the audience about the Shared Cultural Heritage Programme. Mark Schaming, director of the New York State Museum, presented the museum’s plans for the New Netherland Gallery. Cordell Reaves, from the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, presented the Dutch Heritage Programming Series. Tom Ruller, from the New York State Archives, presented the digitisation of Dutch colonial papers, a collaboration with the National Archives of the Netherlands. Dennis Maika informed the audience about the resources of the New Netherland Institute.

In break-out sessions on the themes of Education, Archives & Research, Programming & Tourism and Curating & Storytelling, experts discussed challenges, future projects and potential collaborations on Dutch-American cultural heritage.