Theatre Museum collection to be lost for good

[July update: the 2nd chamber passed a motion instructing the cabinet to save the collection from destruction. Where this is to be paid for, however, is still unclear]

It is now becoming clear where the laissez faire-laissez mourir (let it be done, let it die) policy of Halbe Zijlstra, Martin Bosma and Mark Rutte will lead. Of the dozens of institutions that will close, downsize or die off in the coming months due to vacancy of quality staff, the demise of the Theatre Institute of the Netherlands (TIN) is starting to take on very tragic proportions. Once the pride of the Dutch cultural sector, located in the heart of the ring of canals, it is now not only in danger of going down ingloriously, it even threatens to take part of history with it. As it stands, the entire collection will end up in the rubbish as of 1 January 2013. Own money, diligently collected by the performing arts sector institute, may not be used to house the huge collection of texts, costumes, models and other memorabilia elsewhere. This is stated in the press release issued by the TIN today.

It is a complicated story about earmarked reserves, previous agreements with OCW and a state secretary who wants to cut redundancy costs. All rules, and as we know, business economist Halbe Zijlstra is a huge fan of them. The TIN describes the situation as follows:

Equity was created in 2008 by the sale of the TIN's premises on the Herengracht in Amsterdam. Those proceeds were then reserved in consultation with OCW in a so-called earmarked fund for the future housing of the collection in a new Theatre Museum. Now that the Theatre Museum is not coming, thanks to the negative advice of the Council for Culture, the TIN wants to use the money to house the collection at the University of Amsterdam. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science does not allow this. While the very use of this money would allow the collection to continue to exist without costing the government extra money.

The TIN had already started legal proceedings to challenge the freezing of the earmarked fund. This was put on hold after OCW announced it was keen to discuss a plan to safeguard the collection. However, this agreement was unexpectedly breached by a formal letter from the ministry of OCW in which it did not address the substance of the safeguarding plan and continued to claim the earmarked fund unabated.

Proponents of ending subsidies like to say that what is good will naturally surface. Now, that may apply in one instance to art made here and now. The question of whether what was good will float to the surface by itself can be determined in the first week of January 2013, after the entire collection has been dumped in the Amstel.