Announcing the 2022 World Monuments Watch

Join us on Tuesday, March 1, as we unveil the 2022 World Monuments Watch, WMF's biennial selection of 25 of the world’s most significant heritage sites in need of immediate attention. 

Since 1996, WMF has issued a call to action for over 800 sites through the World Monuments Watch, working with communities around the world to make a difference through projects ranging from raising awareness and physical conservation to preservation training programs. 

With WMF President and CEO, Bénédicte de Montlaur; WMF Vice President of Programs, Jonathan S. Bell; and 2022 Watch International Selection Panel members Seif El Rashidi and Lynn Meskell.

Date: Tuesday, March 1
Time: 12:00 noon (EST) | 5:00 pm (GMT) | 10:30 pm (IST)


This event has already taken place.

About the Speakers

Lynn Meskell 

Professor of Anthropology and Historic Preservation, University of Pennsylvania
Member of the 2022 World Monuments Watch International Selection Panel

Lynn Meskell is Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She is Richard D. Green Professor of Anthropology in the School of Arts and Sciences, Professor in the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at the Weitzman School of Design, and curator in the Middle East and Asia sections at the Penn Museum. She serves as AD White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University (2019–2025) and holds Honorary Professorships in Oxford, Liverpool, and Johannesburg. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Over the last decade Lynn has conducted an institutional ethnography of UNESCO World Heritage, tracing the politics of governance and sovereignty and their implications for international relations, conservation, and heritage rights. Her award-winning book A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace reveals UNESCO’s early forays into a one-world archaeology and its later commitments to global heritage.

Seif El Rashidi

Director, The Barakat Trust
Member of the 2022 World Monuments Watch International Selection Panel

Seif El Rashidi is an architectural historian with 20 years of expertise working on heritage preservation and managing projects promoting public engagement with heritage and culture. He previously served as project manager for Layers of London, a map-based history website developed by the Institute of Historical Research giving users free access to historic maps of London. He also served as Salisbury Cathedral’s Magna Carta Program Manager, the coordinator of Durham’s UNESCO World Heritage site, and as preservation planner and architectural historian for the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s Historic Cities Program and for Ahmad Hamid Architects in Cairo, Egypt. Seif's work focuses on ensuring that heritage is socially, culturally, and economically meaningful to its local communities. Co-author of The Tentmakers of Cairo: Egypt’s Medieval and Modern Applique Craft, Seif is involved in initiatives to ensure the continued viability of that craft.

Jonathan S. Bell

Vice President of Programs, World Monuments Fund

Dr. Bell came to World Monuments Fund from National Geographic Society, where he oversaw a large portfolio of projects that included archaeological research and cultural heritage. Over the course of his career, he worked with the Getty Conservation Institute on World Heritage Sites in China and Egypt, evaluated cultural site management from Kazakhstan to Colombia, and oversaw strategic planning for largescale flood infrastructure for the County of Los Angeles. Dr. Bell serves on multiple ICOMOS scientific committees as an expert member and sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Architectural Conservation. He holds a BA from Harvard University, a DEA from the Sorbonne, an MSc in Historic Preservation from Columbia University and a PhD in Urban Planning from UCLA.

Bénédicte de Montlaur

President and CEO, World Monuments Fund

Bénédicte de Montlaur is President and CEO of World Monuments Fund (WMF), the world’s foremost private organization dedicated to saving extraordinary places while empowering the communities around them. She is responsible for defining WMF’s strategic vision, currently implementing that vision in more than 30 countries around the world, and leading a team that spans the globe. Her background mixes culture and the arts, politics, international diplomacy, and human rights. Prior to joining WMF, Montlaur spent two decades working across three continents as a senior diplomat at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs.