This morning, I’d like to cover three things:

• First up, President Obama and Secretary Clinton’s vision of engagement with the global arts community;

• Second, how the State Department envisions working with international art museums and cultural institutions;

• And finally, a few of the State Department’s most exciting cultural programs.

Edgar Degas—whose work you can see down the hall and at a new Phillips Collection exhibit— once said, “museums are here to teach the history of art and something more as well.”

I’d argue that the “something more” he referred to should build on the history of art—to teach about its present contexts, and its future impacts.

That goal is one we share. You represent the world’s leading arts institutions, and have a proven ability to curate and elevate the rich cultural heritage your collections embody. Your museums create new avenues for communication and understanding among different audiences. Thank you for your leadership in connecting the works inside your museums to the communities beyond.

And that is the heart of the State Department’s goal for cultural diplomacy.

As Acting Under Secretary, I oversee public diplomacy at the State Department. Our mission is to engage foreign audiences outside the halls of government. That sounds simple. But in today’s world, the support of foreign publics is essential to our interests. We believe that connecting with them is nothing short of a national security issue.

President Obama asked us to engage with the world in new and innovative ways. That builds on Secretary Clinton’s concept of “smart power”—the simple but commanding idea that we use every resource we have to achieve our policy goals abroad. And that means working along traditional avenues of foreign relations and through government channels—as well as outside of them.

Cultural diplomacy is a critical tool. The Secretary has noted that arts can often convey American values better than a speech. People around the world need to know who we are and what we value. And nothing says that better than our arts and culture.

Both President Obama and Secretary Clinton are steadfast supporters of arts exchanges worldwide. Like the museum community, we have an abiding interest in creating new avenues for education, communication, and understanding.

Like you, we strive to be at the forefront of building international partnerships and fostering mutual understanding.

And like your museums, our core activities empower art lovers, scholars, and new audiences everywhere we go.

We need to bridge the distances between the people of the world, not just their governments. Today’s outreach will have impact for generations to come. Through globally oriented exhibitions, international loan programs, and forward-looking academic programming, we foster mutual understanding between nations and their people.

To maximize cultural diplomacy’s potential in foreign policy, we look to the private and nonprofit sectors. This leverages every available resource and recognizes the tremendous impact of public-private collaboration. Together, we are exponentially more effective in reaching new and untapped audiences for our art, our culture, and our country.

We see this through several recent State Department programs—including partnerships with museums, performing arts organizations, and committed individuals.

One of our proudest examples is our ongoing collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art to promote their new Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. A once-in-a-generation event, the collection marks a new era in the museum’s global reach.

The story of these galleries is remarkable. But it’s also part of a larger story of America’s respect for—and interest in—all cultures and faiths.

And we’re delighted to contribute to this marvelous international effort. The short video you’re about to see will soon be shown to 14.5 million visitors to our embassies around the world.

Met video plays.

While this partnership is new, we envision it as a model for future collaboration with many of you.

We are uniquely positioned to do community outreach and youth education that complement your world-class content.

In the coming months, we will adapt the Met’s educational materials for international audiences and use them to introduce foreign students to this exhibit and what it means to the art world. 270 embassies—25 of them in the Arab world—will show exhibit highlights and the video you just saw in their public spaces and online.

We’ll also bring foreign journalists, artists, and museum professionals from around the world to visit the new galleries and other U.S. museums. And, the Met recently hosted museum professionals from Iraq, as part of a State Department residency program.

Our long-term collaboration in education, social media, and people-to-people exchanges will only continue to grow in scale, scope, and reach.

One of the most interesting pieces of this partnership—especially in tough economic times—is that it didn’t involve money. Not a dollar. Not one euro. Neither our budget nor the Met’s was affected.

This partnership was strictly about two top-notch institutions playing to our respective strengths for mutual benefit.

We intend to do more of this with many of your museums.

While the Met project is the State Department’s highest-profile partnership to date, it’s hardly our first. Since 2008, our Museums & Community Collaborations Abroad (MCCA) program has helped American and international museums to partner on dozens of locally based projects, which extend beyond museum walls into the community.

They connect museums of all interests and sizes with like-minded peers all over the world. The resulting installations reflect and unite the collective talents and interests of two communities and two museums a world apart.

Just to give you a few examples:

• Through our program “We, the People: Afghanistan, America, and the Minority Imprint,” inner-city high schoolers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and minority students in Afghanistan learned photography skills and developed their artistic voices together. Afghanistan’s National Museum and Philly’s National Constitution Center displayed the results, which continue to spark dialogue through an online gallery;

• And, poignantly, we engaged the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute in Alabama, the Soweto Apartheid Museum and the Nelson Mandela House in South Africa to explore their respective pasts and the parallels between the civil rights movement and anti-apartheid struggles. The results were really something.

It’s connections like these that strengthen museums’ community presence.

Cultural diplomacy is also prominent in our traditional foreign relations. Our strategic partnerships with Russia, India, and China—to name a few—all include components that span the full creative arts spectrum, from visual arts to dance to music of all genres.

For instance, the State Department teamed up with Jazz at Lincoln Center to bring the best of American musical traditions—jazz, hip hop, blues, gospel, country, bluegrass, and zydeco—to 110 countries in the last six years.

Another program, “smARTpower,” sends American visual artists abroad to create public works with local arts communities. “Center Stage” will bring performing arts groups from Haiti, Indonesia, and Pakistan to American main streets. And DanceMotion USA sends American dance companies abroad.

Each program integrates artists into the communities they visit, ensuring that their impact is felt outside of the studio. A hip-hop group from D.C. may perform in Jordan—as Native Deen did earlier this year—but they’ll also lead discussions, workshops, and jam sessions with local musicians and students.

Along with social media, that’s how we reach new audiences and foster understanding—of the arts, and of all that we have in common.

The list goes on. Our cultural diplomacy programs are diverse in scope and geography. And we are always looking for ways to expand.

As members of the Bizot (bee-ZOH) Group, you represent the world’s premier cultural institutions. You know that to broaden your relevance and considerable influence, you always need to redefine and reconsider your audiences.

So, thank you for your innovative efforts to capture the public imagination and reflect on the greater social context of your work.

A special hats-off this month to British Museum Director Neil MacGregor for his fantastic History of the World in 100 Objects project. What a fabulous way to tie your collections into the bigger picture!

And both the Bizot (bee-ZOH) Group and State are actively seeking new ways to utilize 21st century tools—specifically social media—to support these efforts.

Especially in the last year, our roles as cultural diplomats have changed fundamentally. As we answer President Obama and Secretary Clinton’s call for engagement, we’re devising new cutting-edge strategies every day.

I hope you’ll join us.

The world is shifting. You and I represent well-established, globally recognized institutions. But we can no longer expect people to just come to us upon request.

Art, like political dialogue, is being democratized. We need to find new modes of doing business and make use of new technologies if we’re going to influence the opinions and societies of the 21st century.

In a rapidly changing global landscape, we have to adapt. We must push ourselves to remain relevant. We must see ourselves—our resources, our people, and our experience—not as endpoints but as catalysts in an ongoing dialogue.

By thinking creatively, you shape minds and worldviews—a responsibility I know each of you takes seriously.

This conversation is only beginning. Thank you so much for including me in it.