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46 Moderator Lazare Eloundou, Director for Culture and Emergencies at UNESCO, a Culture Summit 2019 partner organisation, co-ordinated UNESCO’s response to the destruction of Mali’s ancient manuscripts and monuments. “The loss of heritage has a serious impact on culture,” said Mr Eloundou. “When we see our homes destroyed, our cities destroyed because of conflict or natural disasters, it is our social fabric that is gone. It is our cultural references; it is what makes us human.” Marylene Barret Audouin, an expert in cultural heritage, reflected on her time in Yemen from 2003 to 2009, when she was responsible for cultural heritage co-operation at the French Embassy, and Alexander Kellner, Director of the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, discussed the fire that destroyed his museum during its bicentennial (200th) year. “The experience we had with this tragedy was that people hold something, they identify themselves with their cultural heritage and they really care for these things,” said Mr Kellner. “And I think that this is why we have received so much support worldwide because each time there is a crisis, you go back to who you are, to your identity.” The Kuwaiti-born, Jordanian artist Ala Younis also had much to contribute to the debate from an artist’s perspective, stressing the need to interrogate the idea of heritage, even at times of crisis, and to preserve modern heritage, even if it is unpopular. Younis’s research-based work, which makes connections between the modern history of the Arab world and its resonances in mass culture, specifically addressed the built heritage and lost architectural histories of Iraq in her 2015 work, Plan for Greater Baghdad. “Heritage is the result of so many people and experiences, but if we only spend our time attempting to preserve it, then we don’t allow ourselves the time to revisit it and to take our understanding of it to a different dimension,” she said.