vol 22 (2) summer 2013 $15.00
Museums Australia
PRESERVING THE DIGITAL AGE
Unique intensive program for industry practitioners From early 2014 the Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation at the University of Melbourne will offer four new intensive subjects which provide an integrated conservation approach for work in the arts, cultural, heritage and digital industries: • • • •
Audiovisual Preservation Digital Cultural Conservation Content Creation in the Field Documentation and Display
Study the subjects individually, as a Postgraduate Certificate in Cultural Materials Conservation or as part of the Masters of Cultural Materials Conservation. Learn more at graduate.arts.unimelb.edu.au/digitalage
2014 The MAGNAs recognise excellent work nationally in the categories of exhibition, public programs and sustainability projects. The MAGNAs aspire to: • • •
Encourage the continuous improvement and development of Australian museums and galleries Inspire and recognise best practice and innovation in the collecting sector Enhance the profile of museums and galleries in local and wider communities.
Call for Entries open 1 February 2014
Past MAGNA National Winners include: • • •
Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Gwoonwardu Mia for Burlganyja Wanggaya: Old People Talking - Listen, Learn and Respect Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material for the Development of Guidelines for Environmental Conditions for Museum and Galleries
The Software to manage Your MOSAiC Of Heritage For more information contact Sally-Anne Tel: 08 9537 2874 E: Sales@ISTechnology.com.au
Search your collection on the web with ‌.
IST
Information Services & Technology
www.ISTechnology.com.au
Institutional members are eligible for a 35% discount on advertising for exhibitions in MA Magazine!
Museums Australia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards 2014 Call for entries open 1 February 2014
pinterest.com/mapdawards
mapda.org.au
C o n f e r e n C e L o g i s t i C s is proud to be
the Conference Organiser for the Museums Australia Conferences 2013 and 2014
Conference Logistics PO Box 6150, Kingston ACT 2604
•
E
conference@conlog.com.au
queensland museum: lost creatures
interpretive design graphic design design management
•
P
02 6281 6624
•
F
02 6285 1336
sydney opera house: danish design at the house
Lost Creatures
Danish Design
management FaBrication installation
Danish Design
m.a.d.e @ EUREKA
Lost Creatures
Lost Creatures
Danish Design
design management interpretive design select FaBrication select installation
M.A.D.E
national arBoretum canBerra
Arboretum
interpretive design design management FaBrication installation
Arboretum
EXHIBITION DESIGN FA B R I C AT I O N INSTALLATION GRAPHIC DESIGN COLLECTION SERVICES OBJECT MOUNTS P R OJ E C T M A N AG E M E N T
Canberra t. 02 6299 7340 canb@thylacine.com.au
M.A.D.E
Melbourne t. 03 9419 0797 melb@thylacine.com.au
w w w. t h y l a c i n e . c o m . a u
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 7
Contents
In this issue Museums Australia National Council 2013—2015 President’s Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 ‘Emergency Art Storage Service’ during Blue Mountains fires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Hollywood Costume: Cinema memory enhanced in the digital age . . . . . 10 Playing as learning in art galleries: The Lewers Learning Centre at Penrith. . . . . . . . . . 14
president
Frank Howarth PSM (Director, Australian Museum, Sydney) vice-president
Richard Mulvaney (Director, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston) treasurer
Suzanne Bravery (Independent museum consultant) secretary
First Peoples exhibition, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 First Peoples exhibition, Bunjilaka gallery, Melbourne Museum: a reflection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Consultation unlocks interdisciplinary resources: A community museum evolving in the Kelabit Highlands, Malaysian Borneo. . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Maintaining the standard: energy consumption in the museum sector. . . . . . 30 Courage is grace under pressure. The Victor Horta House Museum in Brussels . . . 34
Dr Mat Trinca (Acting Director, National Museum of Australia, Canberra) members
Dr Andrew Simpson (Director, Museum Studies Program, Macquarie University, Sydney) Carol Cartwright (Former Head, Education & Visitor Services, Australian War Memorial, Canberra)
Padraic Fisher (Director, National Wool Museum, Geelong) Peter Abbott (Manager, Tourism Services, Warrnambool City Council, Victoria) Pierre Arpin (Director, Museum & Art Gallery of the Northen Territory, Darwin) Rebekah Butler (Executive Director, Museum & Gallery Services Queensland, Brisbane)
Review: Attention and Value: keys to understanding museum visitors . . . . . . . . . . . 38
ex officio member
Review: Museums, Equality and Social Justice . . . . 39
public officer
Review: The Social Work of Museums . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Review: Tasmania Island of Treasures . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 COVER IMAGE: Catherine O’Donnell, untitled, 2013, acrylic on wall, dimensions variable, in Story (2013). Activity: make a pipe cleaner character. Photography: Adam Hollingworth. Image courtesy Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest.
Dr Robin Hirst (Chair, ICOM Australia), Museum Victoria
Dr Don McMichael CBE, Red Hill, Canberra state/territory branch presidents/ representatives (subject to change throughout year)
ACT Alex Marsden (Strategic Advisor, Australian Centre for Excellence in Public Sector Design, PMC, Canberra) NSW Vicki Northey (Executive Project Manager, Australian National Maritime Museum, Sydney)
Museums Australia Magazine PO Box 266, Civic Square ACT 2608 Editorial: (02) 6230 0346 Advertising: 02) 6230 0346 Subscriptions: (02) 6230 0346 Fax: (02) 6230 0360 editor@museumsaustralia.org.au www.museumsaustralia.org.au Editor: Bernice Murphy Design: Selena Kearney Print: Paragon Print, Canberra
Printed on 100% Australian, 70-100% recycled carbon neutral paper stock.
© Museums Australia and individual authors. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Museums Australia Magazine is published quarterly and on-line on the MA Website, and is a major link with members and the museums sector. Museums Australia Magazine is a forum for news, opinion and debate on museum issues. Contributions from those involved or interested in museums and galleries are welcome. Museums Australia Magazine reserves the right to edit, abridge, alter or reject any material. Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher or editor. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement by Museums Australia, its affiliates or employees.
NT Janie Mason (Charles Darwin University Nursing Museum, Darwin) QLD Edith Cuffe OAM (Director, Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, Caboolture) SA Regan Forrest (PhD Candidate, Adelaide) TAS Richard Mulvaney (Director, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston)
Museums Australia is proud to acknowledge the following supporters of the national organisation:
VIC Daniel Wilksch (Coordinator, Digital Projects, Public Record Office Victoria, Melbourne)
Australian Government Office for the Arts and Department of the Environment; National Museum of Australia; Museum Victoria (Melbourne Museum); Western Australian Museum; and Link Digital (Canberra).
WA Soula Veyradier (Manager, Western Australian Museum, Perth)
Print Post Publication No: 332582/00001 ISSN 1038-1694
8 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
President’s Message
W
e might be at the end of 2013, but much of the talk in the museum and gallery world is of how we will mark the 100th anniversary of WW1 and Gallipoli. That cultural institutions are at the heart of the commemorations demonstrates at least one key aspect of our role – as the holders of collective memory, of stories told around objects, images, documents and events. These commemorations will focus on real things, real events; but I suspect there will be a very significant digital component that will sit alongside and work with the real. There is a yin and yang of the real and the virtual, and if things are done well, they complement each other. More of this later. We know the WW1 commemorations are a priority for the new Commonwealth Government, but at the time of writing, we don’t yet know a lot about other priorities or policies in the museums, galleries and heritage space. I’m working closely with my colleagues in the Councils of museum directors, art museum directors, and ICOM Australia: to collectively engage with Minister Brandis to understand how we can best work with the new Government; and equally, how we can bring the sector’s priorities, and continuing potential, to his attention. I anticipate that the new Government will focus on regional Australia; and that is of course a priority for Museums Australia, so we have a key element in common. Returning to the digital sphere: one of our priorities is understanding and describing the ‘distributed national collection’ – all that rich material and associated stories held in institutions large and small, and in private hands, that together make up our greater collection of old and new heritage, and of the material culture of Australia. The power of the digital world is increasingly making this task easier, and it’s another area where I believe Museums Australia can work positively with the Government on access of our heritage for all Australians. Coincidentally, I also suspect that there is a lot of WW1 heritage that is not yet discoverable, but could be if we advance our shared interests in enhancing a digitally accessible while widely distributed national collection. Your Museums Australia National Council has been hard at work on increasing the effectiveness and relevance of Museums Australia. We are very aware that we need to earn your respect as well as your membership. One key element we want to address is that members in different parts of Australia have widely differing levels of access to Museums Australia programs and services. One of my commitments to you is to address that problem, and work to achieve greater national equity in access to the benefits of Museums Australia membership. I’ll keep you posted
about our progress. Meanwhile please continue to provide me and other Council members with your ideas, whether online or at other opportunities as I make every effort to get around to events and hear from colleagues. And hold us to account if we don’t deliver! [ ] Frank Howarth PSM National President, Museums Australia Director, Australian Museum, Sydney
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 9
Disaster preparedness and support for the community’s heritage at Katoomba
‘Emergency Art Storage Service’ during Blue Mountains fires
Paul Brinkman
T
he recent devastating bushfires in the Blue Mountains identified one of the often forgotten benefits of regionally located public galleries and cultural facilities. In response to the bushfire threat, Blue Mountains Cultural Centre set up an ‘Emergency Art Storage Service’ for its members. Residents with houses under threat were given the opportunity to bring their valuable artworks to the Centre for safe storage. The offer was taken up by many collectors who have works of national significance in their private collections. Within 24 hours of the service being announced, more than 120 artworks were brought to the Cultural Centre by concerned collectors. The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, opened in November last year, has very advanced fire protection systems, and its location in the heart of Katoomba gave many residents peace of mind, knowing their treasured artworks were in the safest place possible. Artworks can be some of our most treasured possessions, but are often too unwieldy to take with you
when you need to evacuate quickly. The Cultural Centre’s art storage facility has concrete ceilings, walls and floors and is the safest place in the Upper Mountains for artworks when a fire threatens. It was great for the Centre to be able to offer this service to our members, and provide them with one less thing to worry about during a very stressful time. And from the Centre’s vantage-point, we were proud to help protect private collections locally, recognising their value as part of the larger network of collections that link up with our heritage held in public institutions. [ ]
top:
Paul Brinkman is Blue Mountains Cultural Centre Director, at Katoomba, New South Wales.
above:
An article on the New Cultural Centre and related facilities was published in the previous issue of MAM. See Paul Brinkman, ‘The new Blue Mountains Cultural Centre’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (4) & 22 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, Winter & Spring double issue 2013, pp.23–25.
The Blue Mountains Cultural Centre set up an ‘Emergency Art Storage Service’ for its members. Paul Brinkman
10 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
An exhibition from the V&A comes to ACMI (Melbourne)
Hollywood Costume: Cinema memory enhanced in the digital age
Suzanne Bravery
T above:
Suzanne Bravery
below:
(L-R) Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). Costume designed by Alexandra Byrne. Collection of NBCUniversal Archives & Collections, Los Angeles. Shakespeare in Love (1998). Costume desgined by Sandy Powell. Collection of Angels the Costumiers, London. Barry Lyndon (1975). Costume designed by Milena Canonero and Ulla-Britt Söderlund. Collection of Milena Canonero. Marie Antoinette (2006). Costume designed by Milena Canonero. Collection of The One srl, Rome. opposite page: The Seven Year Itch (1955). Costume designed by Travilla. Private Collection (Replica courtesy of Rose Chong Costumiers). Photography: Mark Ashkanasy
1. Hollywood Costume was presented at ACMI, Melbourne, 24 April—18 August 2013.
he Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Federation Square, Melbourne, staged Hollywood Costume as its Winter Masterpiece for 2013.[1] Celebrating a century of cinema from the silent era to current digitallyenhanced productions, this touring exhibition first shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2012 looked at the pivotal and largely unrecognised role of the costume designer in bringing film’s characters to life— from script to screen. The museum space also utilised the same digital technology to enhance visitor engagement and to enable sustainable access to important primary archival material. Professor Deborah Nadoolman Landis, whose costume designs for Dan Akroyd and John Belushi in The Blues Brothers (1980) were displayed, was the curator for this exhibition of 100 costumes by 50 costume designers, sourced from 50 lenders worldwide. Many items were provenanced from the auction of Debbie Reynolds’ collection in 2011, itself made up of pieces saved from the MGM sale in 1970, and so appearing together publicly for the first time in Australia.
Visitor familiarity with such iconic material in popular memory readily acts to stimulate curiosity and a desire to know more about the pieces that make up such a show. As with museum objects, the narratives employed in the exhibition were crafted to engage. We know that the green velvet fabric from Scarlett O’Hara’s climactic scene in Gone with the Wind (1939) is derived from ‘curtains’, but we haven’t been able to examine the detail of the dressmaking or realise how petite was Vivien Leigh until now; and whilst the actor's name is etched in cinema history, the name of the costume designer, Walter Plunkett, is not. Similarly, we readily recall that Marilyn Monroe’s sequinned dress for Some Like It Hot (1959) tested the censors, but perhaps not that it was designed by Australian Orry Kelly; or that Vanessa Redgrave’s melon-seed embroidered gown in Camelot (1967) was designed by Melburnian stage designer John Truscott. What we more readily know from recent publicity is that Australian Catherine Martin was costume designer for both Moulin Rouge (2001) and The Great Gatsby (2013) – the latter having opened during the Melbourne exhibition. Costumes from these productions led into and featured in the ACMI presentation. For an imported show, it was heartening
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 11
The exhibition at ACMI was dressed as a sound stage
1. Endnotes
to see Australian content and Australian connections strongly profiled. The cavernous warehouse that is the exhibition space at ACMI was dressed as a sound stage, incorporating black-painted walls and ceiling, lighting rigs and costumed characters above, and with exhibition panels devised to resemble extracts from film scripts: all unified by a commissioned score. Three cinema scenes were featured to set the stage, as a series of small tableaux, firmly stating and contextualising the importance of the costume designer’s role in the production of a Hollywood film and placing the visitor within the action. Scene 1 introduced costume design as a distinct discipline, which took as its starting-point the written word of the screenplay and then looked at how the costume designer works for the character to appear three-dimensional in a two-dimensional frame as a flat, moving image. Scene 11 examined the collaboration between production designers, actors, cinematographers, directors and costume designers—whose shared goal is the realisation of authentic characters in the narrative—and explored how costume designers work within specific contexts of production: cinematic genres; new technologies;
12 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
An exhibition from the V&A comes to ACMI (Melbourne)
above:
Gone with the Wind (1939). Costume designed by Walter Plunkett. Collection of David O. Selznick Collection, Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, Austin. Photography: Mark Ashkanasy
and censorship. Scene 111 was a tableau of some of the best-known film characters, icons we remember after a film ends. This scene reviewed the impact of costume design in creating the persistence of such performances and typical ‘looks’ in memory. Whilst these three ‘scenes’ worked well as a logical interpretive approach, the close proximity of different contents to each other meant that sound and visuals sometimes bled out of one scene and invaded another. It was almost sufficient that such iconic costumes of famous actors and designers are on display, and close enough to view the detail of dressmaking including beading, layering of fabric, patterns, lighter materials used to represent heavier, and providing indications of the manner in which a costume was filmed – such as Superman flying, and separately, Catwoman preening on a ledge, both centimetres above the visitor’s head. However the show was made even more engaging through the use of digital technology. Rather than distract from the original object – a costume – technology was cleverly employed to
enhance visitor engagement with, and understanding of, such a costume as the primary source and focus. This was achieved in a number of ways. For some of the more recent characters, the actor’s head was projected onto a small screen above the relevant costume, so that the depicted head moved and eyes engaged with the viewer – which might be unnerving if one is more interested in the costume than the character; alternatively, it might maintain the alertness of visitors. In Scene 11 montages, film clips and sophisticated 3-D projections were used to contextualise costumes with their original films; with interviews presenting key Hollywood costume designers, directors and actors including iconic Meryl Streep and Robert de Niro; and maintaining a balance of gender and professional specialisation. The most compelling component of visitor engagement was in the use of tables as animated film installations, featuring 3-D objects in a projected overlay: all presented to look like dressmakers' cutting
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 13
above:
Spider-Man (2002). Costume designed by James Acheson. Collection of Sony Pictures Entertainment Archives, Los Angeles. Photography: Mark Inducil
tables. Digital media was also used to make accessible archival material restricted by necessary conservation requirements — as too fragile to travel or too detailed to view in total. By projecting pattern books onto a ‘cutting-table’ and digitally turning the ‘pages’, the viewer was able to access this information in a ‘hands on’ manner at appropriate scale and colour without compromising the original material — thereby supporting its sustainability as cultural heritage material which was a further, underlying narrative in the costume designer’s story. The ACMI exhibition was engaging as both entertainment and education. On entering the space, the visitor was clearly in a museum, being reminded of ‘no food or drink’ and ‘no photography’ sanctions, with audio sensors activated when approaching too near a costume. At the same time, visitors were transported evocatively to a Hollywood sound stage, with the audio and visual presence of all elements both backstage and front-of-house that provide the context for creation of any successful costume.
Hollywood Costume was conceived and produced as a totally immersive visitor experience. Its layering was both complex and direct, and provided a balanced and workable template for exhibitions incorporating fragile and important contents; through its provision of access to original and primary material while deploying digital technology to enhance and further interpret that material. After all, isn’t sustainable and trustworthy access to the ‘real’ what museums are now all about? [ ] Suzanne Bravery is a museum consultant with a long career in museums and the cultural heritage sector. Citation for this text: Suzanne Bravery, ‘Hollywood Costume: Cinema memory enhanced in the digital age’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, Summer 2013, pp.10–13.
14 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
New Lewers Learning Centre at Penrith Regional Gallery, Western Sydney
Playing as learning in art galleries: The Lewers Learning Centre at Penrith
this page:
Lewers Learning Centre: Birds (2013). Activity: rock star bodies and bird’s heads collage inspired by Joan Ross’ work. Image courtesy Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest.
opposite page:
Hendrik Gericke, The hero’s journey (installation view), 2013, ink and acrylic on wall, dimensions variable, in Story (2013). Activity: invisible ink trail. Image courtesy Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest.
[1] According to Sebastian Smee in the Sydney Morning Herald, 24 November 2007. [2] A thought underscored by artist Bruce Goold in his artist talk for Scissor, Paper, Rock (the boat), 20 Sept 2013 [3] Margo’s husband, Gerald Lewers, died in an accident in 1962. [4] The property was originally a rural holding, and the farmhouse that was bought by the Lewers in the 1940s was originally built c.1905. A modern house commissioned by the Lewers from architect Sydney Ancher and completed in 1964 also forms part of the heritage complex encompassed by the Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest today. [5] ‘Thinking about play teaches us that in our search for ways to reach a deep understanding of a work of art, the going toward is an integral and indispensable part of any such understanding. The idea of play reminds us to value the pleasure of the going, to refrain from pressing for a quick arrival at an end point, to cherish freedom and, toward that end, to value also a certain kind of creative, productive inefficiency.’ Rika Burnham and Elliott Kai-Kee, Teaching in the Art Museum (Los Angeles, J Paul Getty Museum, 2011), p.131. [6] For an investigation into why visitors choose visiting museums and galleries as a leisure activity, see John H Falk, Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (Walnut Creek, California, Left Coast Press, 2009), ch.2, pp.39–66. [7] Nina Simon recounts that in 2006 when she started her blog, and when the impact of ‘social media and participatory culture was still seen as nascent (and possibly a passing fad)’, the most frequent question posted about audience participation by cultural institutions was: Why do it? In contrast, by 2007/8 the questions most often posed were around how to facilitate participation; and from 2010/2011 key questions revolved around sustainability and evaluation of participatory museum models. Nina Simon, Museum 2.0 Blog, re-posted September 2013; originally posted April 2011. <http:// museumtwo.blogspot.com.au/>
Naomi McCarthy
S
ince the launch of Lewers Learning Centre (LLC) at Penrith Regional Gallery in February 2013, we have doubled our family audiences, and perhaps even more satisfying, we have more than tripled the amount of time visitors are engaged with the artworks on exhibition. We have achieved this by turning the Gallery’s curatorial methodology on its head: considering the needs of young audiences first; and from that position, working to engage the curiosity of visitors of all ages. LLC puts the needs and interests of young audiences at the heart of the curatorial conversation. The site of Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest is exquisite.[1] It is one of the most beautiful galleries in Sydney.[2] The Gallery’s roots as the family home of modernist artists Margo and Gerald Lewers, and their daughters Darani and Tanya, make it a fitting location for a hands-on, interactive, familyfocused exhibitions program. The property was bequeathed to Penrith Council after Margo Lewers’
death in 1978,[3] and it opened as a regional gallery in 1981. In February 2013, Lewers Learning Centre (LLC) was launched in the intimate, domestic architectural framework of the original homestead building.[4] When we encourage children to play creatively in an art gallery,[5] we are also carving out time for the grown-ups who come with them to pause, reflect, participate, encounter, and refresh the rhythm of their own gallery experience.[6] At base, in considering the range of family experiences possible during a visit, is a consideration of how audiences of all ages have the potential to interact with artworks. When we encounter art, we apprehend an object born through the accumulated life experiences of particular artists; a selected condensation of their lived experiences is given material form, and then generously presented to others for connection and contemplation. The gravity of this offer, and the slightly amorphous but pervasive cultural expectation that encountering art should be a profound and moving experience, can – and surely at times does – intimidate visitors.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 15
As gallery curators, educators and administrators, we need to engage visitors imaginatively. To encourage play in the art encounter is to disrupt the readily observable dynamic present in visitor behaviour in many exhibitions: Stop; look (often only for seconds); read (if there is an extended text panel); move on. The aim of the Lewers Learning Centre is to extend visitors’ encounters with art objects, encouraging them to stop, look, read, play, create, contribute; and therefore make works more available to the full spectrum of experiences that can be engendered by engaging with art, and through art with other people. The growth of galleries and museums as cultural sites of social engagement and free-form learning has been shaped by the explosion of participatory webbased platforms in recent years. Visitor expectations are continuing to shift from passive to active models of participation.[7] Museums and galleries are well positioned to be sites of intrinsically motivated, free-choice learning opportunities, through providing access to permanent collections and changing exhibitions of culturally
LLC puts the needs and interests of young audiences at the heart of the curatorial conversation
16 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 16
New Lewers Learning Centre at Penrith Regional Gallery, Western Sydney
resonant material. Using an experiential approach to understanding leisure activities, gallery visits ‘should be conceptualised as a psycho-physiological experience that is self-rewarding, occurs during nonobligated free time, and is the result of free choice’.[8] People visit cultural sites for a variety of identityrelated reasons. Two of these are at the core of the LLC remit: parents as facilitators; and parents and children as explorers.[9] Nina Simon, a recognised leader in the field of participatory exhibition design,[10] believes that the fact that learning in museums and galleries sits outside of formal assessment brings great liberty, energy and room for authentic investigation into the encounter.[11] According to John H Falk, ‘We engage in leisure pursuits that promise to make us happier, better partners or parents or more knowledgeable and competent individuals.’[12] The investment in developing audience participation strategies pays great dividends, as evidenced through the highly successful audience development programs of galleries such as Queensland Art Gallery’s Modern Art facility (QAGOMA) in Australia[13] – as covered especially in the development of artists’ talks and other access programs around the Asia-Pacific Triennials since 1993. The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA)[14] in the US is
meanwhile a distinguished international counterpart for best practice in audience focus and visitor engagement for museums. At Penrith Regional Gallery in western Sydney, the first annual LLC exhibition program approached the development of the curatorial premise and ensuing exhibition designs as an opportunity to apply three different frameworks to trial audience engagement strategies. The primary aim of LLC is to bring young audiences into authentic and sustained engagement with the art on view.[15] While working from a base in visual art, LLC exhibitions also strategically include relevant social history objects and/or science specimens: to expand the range of material presented, widen audience interest, and engage a variety of learning styles and personalities, curiosities and life’s experiences. The inaugural LLC exhibition, Birds, offered a concrete, familiar and inviting theme linked to the history of the site – as previously the home of a distinguished artist and keen bird watcher[16] – while also linked to the current heritage garden in the grounds that plays host to many bird species. Birds presented the work of seven contemporary artists in company with ornithological specimens.[17] Planned activities included using a magnifying glass to investigate the
[8] M J Manfredo and B L Driver, Measuring leisure motivation: A metaanalysis of the recreation experience preference scales, Journal of Leisure Research, 28(3), pp.188–213; quotes by John H Falk, op.cit., p.46. [9] Facilitators come to the gallery to satisfy the needs and interests of someone they care about: i.e., to support the learning, social and cultural awareness, and development of their child. Explorers come to the gallery to reinforce their opinion of themselves as curious people, a valuable attitude to bring to any art encounter. John H Falk, op.cit. pp.190–192. [10] Nina Simon is the author of The Participatory Museum and the blog Museum 2.0 – see above. [11] Podcast: Nina Simon on museum participation and curating a second life in the social space, 1 July 2009. <http://www.voicesofthepast. org/2009/07/01/nina-simon/> [12] John H Falk, op.cit., p.43. [13] For information on QAGOMA attendance statistics, see <http:// www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/__data/ assets/file/0009/64476/QAG_ Annual_Report_07-08_WEB.pdf>
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 17
left:
Mylyn Nguyen, Cars (installation view), 2012, found car, fibre, twig, dimensions variable, in Story (2013). Photography: Adam Hollingworth. Image courtesy Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest. below right:
Catherine O’Donnell, untitled, 2013, acrylic on wall, dimensions variable, in Story (2013). Activity: make a pipe cleaner character. Image courtesy Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest.
[14] See Dallas Museum of Art publication, Ignite the Power of Art: Advancing Visitor Engagement in Museums, online at <http://www. dallasmuseumofart.org/PressRoom/ dma_373436>. The author of this article will be completing an MGNSW 2013 International Fellowship for family-focused exhibition design at DAM in November 2013. [15] ‘[T]he museum visitor experience ... is situated within that unique and ephemeral moment when both of these realities become one and the same .... visitors are the museum and the museum is the visitor. This new way of thinking suggests that we stop thinking about museum exhibitions as fixed and stable entities designed to achieve singular outcomes and instead, think of them as intellectual resources capable of being experienced and used in different ways for multiple, and equally valid purposes. ’John H Falk, op.cit., p. 35. [16] Gerald Lewers was an avid bird watcher. [17] Birds included the work of Joanna Braithwaite, Warren Chad, Jim Cooper, Adrienne Doig, Leigh and Garry Namponan, and Joan Ross, as well as ornithological specimens including one-hundred-yearold eggs and a pelican skull. [18] Story included the work of Hendrik Gericke, Alasdair Macintyre, Kate Mitchell, Kendal Murray, Mylyn Nguyen, Catherine O’Donnell, and Naomi Ullman. [19] Objects in Story included antique cameras, a typewriter, a travelling valise and a pith helmet. [20] Kendal Murray’s miniature works. [21] Mural by Hendrik Gericke. [22] Video works included were by Alasdair Macintyre: The School of Yavin, 2012; Stormtrooper in the Sun, 2012; and Luncheon on Endor, 2012.
science specimens; making paper dolls around the theme of birds; using light-boxes to create surrealist, ‘exquisite corpse’-inspired drawings; and developing characters and dialogue utilising vinyl story-boards, dress-ups, speech bubbles, Post-it notes and more. The second exhibition in 2013, Story, involved an investigation into art that offered narrative potential,[18] supported by a series of objects that an adventurous storyteller might take with them when embarking on a journey.[19] Well-known writer and illustrator Shaun Tan’s lyrical work provided the initial – and more than likely familiar – catalyst for audience engagement. Visitors were invited to respond to a ‘call to adventure’ and cross the threshold into alternative worlds, where they were introduced to contemporary
artworks that have story-telling at their heart. Throughout the exhibition, visitors used a hand-held black-light torch to follow a detective trail linked to the art assembled in Story. The exhibition was divided into four themed rooms, with each room aimed to alter visitors’ physical relationship to the gallery environment: First, providing a day bed and a library of books in the Writers’ Room; next, drawing visitors into miniature worlds in The Small Worlds Room;[20] third, immersing them in a room-sized fantasy mural[21] punctuated by sculptures informed by popular culture and art history in the Hero’s Journey Room.[22] In The Hero’s Journey Room, dress-up clothes and props that supported visitors’ transition into an immersive realm of imaginative play were a popular hands-on element for
18 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
New Lewers Learning Centre at Penrith Regional Gallery, Western Sydney
top: middle: bottom: left: right:
above:
Origami Dream Boat, 2013, paper installation created by young people from the Penrith LGA, in Scissor, Paper, Rock (the boat) (2013). Photography: Adam Hollingworth. Image courtesy Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest.
[23] Kate Mitchell, Get in to it, 2012; and I am not a Joke, 2013. [24] Scissor, Paper, Rock (the boat) included artwork from Cro-magnum, Bruce Goold, Rochelle Haley, and Olena Kosenko. Also included were boat models from Modellers’ Shipyard In Glenbrook; two boats in bottles from the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; rocks from the Nepean Lapidary Club; and Javanese shadow puppets (Wayang Kulit) from Cycle Sulawesi.
all ages. Another compelling example of immersion was provided by observing visitors, watching video works in The Quest Room,[23] with the scaffolded hands-on opportunity allowing them to make a diorama informed by the artwork present. The diorama elements could then be taken home, facilitating further imaginative play. Scissor, Paper, Rock (the boat), was the third and final LLC exhibition for 2013. This project took its departure-point from a material investigation into paper and scissors, two readily available art-making resources. To stimulate fun and increased audience engagement potential, the theme was extrapolated to include boats and rocks.[24] This was the first LLC exhibition in which children contributed individual elements to a collaborative, site-specific installation – an Origami Dream Boat based on a Japanese senbazuru. A senbazuru is a suspended mobile of 1000 cranes, created with the intent to help the maker’s wishes be realised. The LLC Dream Boat project stimulated a collection of 1000 origami boats made by local children, with their dreams hand-written inside each boat and united into one work – a fitting outcome for a public gallery that wishes to support and liberate the
dreams of multiple visitors and stakeholders. The activities in Scissor, Paper, Rock (the boat) included making a shadow puppet, performing in a shadow puppet theatre, participating in origami folding, creating paper-cut silhouettes, and decoding a nautical-flag message. In its inaugural year at Penrith Regional Gallery, the Lewers Learning Centre’s audience engagement strategies have included positioning the needs and interests of young visitors and their accompanying adults as the primary focus during the development of each exhibition’s design, as well as including hands-on drawing and making opportunities within the exhibition finally realised. Digital opportunities have also been provided to capture delayed/and or remote creative responses – for example, by facilitating the submission of drawn or written exhibition responses on-line. LLC extended captions have been purposefully written in a conversational tone, to provide biographical and past practice contexts as a catalyst to further engage family audiences in the artists’ world. Audio podcasts were also made available when possible, to facilitate access to first-person primary source material from the artists included in each project. LLC exhibitions have been continually refreshed by the
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 19
addition of material responses from visitors, which provided an inviting stepping-stone into personal experience, filling the gap that often exists between the art object and the audience.[25] Taking stock of these achievements as a basis for further development: 2013 was a year of stimulating, beautiful, playful, hands-on, surprising and delightful art encounters in the LLC, and the responses will inform the program for 2014. Next year’s program is currently in the planning stages, with an exciting range of themes and artists on the table for consideration. The opportunity and expectation that a visit to a cultural institution can be transformational as well as pleasurable is the foundation of the Lewers Learning Centre program.[26] The aim is to playfully court and nourish the curiosity of the young, in order to generate rich cross-generational interaction and connectivity in the provision of transformative experiences. One could ask: Is this aim too high? My response to this question is the same as when people ask me, ‘Do you really think that art can change the world?’ My answer: I am not sure how much and to what degree an individual artwork can change the world. But there is one thing I am absolutely sure of: that making art
changes the world of the artist, and the more we each find the creative maker in ourselves, the more our own world has the potential to be changed. The Lewers Learning Centre at Penrith Regional Gallery in western Sydney seeks to be part of the world-changing potential of art. And as we’ve already had visitors spend nearly two hours in LLC making, playing and engaging with an exhibition, I believe we are on a very rewarding trajectory, travelling a road layered with opportunities for playful cultural encounter while infused with the promise of transformative experience.[27] [ ] Naomi McCarthy is Manager Education, and curator Lewers Learning Centre, at Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest Citation for text: Naomi McCarthy, ‘Playing as learning in art galleries: The Lewers Learning Centre at Penrith, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, Summer 2013, pp.14– 19.
above:
Scissor, Paper, Rock (the boat) (2013). Photography: Adam Hollingworth. Image courtesy Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest.
[25] John H Falk underscores the importance both of being responsive and finding ways to be relevant to individual visitors, stating: ‘Long term meaning and memory comes often from short term individual personal identity-related needs and interests.’ See John H Falk, op.cit. [26] ‘Leisure time has shifted from a release and relax away from hard work, into a quest for adventure, physical tests and intellectual experiences that offer an opportunity to be energized and immersed in new ideas, experiences and spaces.’ Stephen E Weil, cited in John H Falk, op.cit., p.239. [27] Visitation details as recorded by Penrith Regional Gallery’s weekend visitors services officer on Saturday 28 September, 2013.
20 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 20
Melbourne Museum's Bunjilaka gallery re-opens
First Peoples exhibition, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum
Amanda Reynolds
W
ominjeka – standing proud on the wall as you enter. Wominjeka – welcoming you in the local Boonwurrung and Woi Wurrung languages. Wominjeka — reminding us that the Museum’s long and prestigious tradition of scientific and ethnographic inquiry is preceded by a much longer and equally prestigious tradition of Yulendj (Law and knowledge).[1] First Peoples is a major new exhibition hosted by the Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum and also the continuing of a long, long tradition of Koorie peoples gathering to renew connections, celebrate cultures and teach the next generation. A unique cultural space created by merging the best of contemporary museum practice with the richness of Koorie knowledge and storytelling traditions. We celebrated the opening on 7 September 2013 with ceremony, music, dance and festivities. What makes this exhibition unique? First Peoples has been developed under the guidance of the First Peoples Yulendj Group of Elders and community representatives[2] and through collaborations with the
custodians of histories and cultures from Victoria and extending out across Australia. During the past couple of years, the Yulendj Group met for a week-long workshop every couple of months – while the focus was on the curatorial collaboration, Yulendj members also worked with design, conservation, preparators and multimedia teams. Significant cultural practices were central to each workshop – smoking ceremonies, knowledge sessions, culturally-based meetings with Elders leading discussions. We recognise that there have been sterling projects in the museum industry over the years founded upon Indigenous cultural values and practices – Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand a great leader in the field. In developing First Peoples, we have learned from all those who came before us – in museum practice and in cultural practice – and we all (community and museum contributors) are proud to say we’ve created a very welcoming, culturally significant, landmark exhibition. The final product, the visitor experience, is a testament to committing to a collaborative-based model with Yulendj as a founding principle of methodology. As Bangarang Elder Uncle Sandy Atkinson says:
above: Jimbayer
Waa (Learning Waa/Crow), First Peoples, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum. Photo by John Broomfield.
opposite page: Generations,
First Peoples, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum. Photo by John Broomfield.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 21
We are the experts of our culture; we are the leaders of our future. How has the concept of Yulendj influenced the curatorial method? In a nutshell, First Peoples put People first. The key steps include: • Consultation – an initial phase of consultation with both Koorie communities throughout Victoria and with museum visitor groups; • Community engagement – the curatorial team commenced focused research of collections and custodian-held stories and knowledge; • Collaboration – the establishment of an Aboriginal Reference Group, who at their first meeting set the terms of reference and named themselves Yulendj; • Cross-cultural methodology – an extension of collaborative curatorial models through the Yulendj participants who established spaces for ‘Law’ and ‘Knowledge’ during the workshops. As Boonwurrung Elder Carolyn Briggs said during a meeting: We are creating a new narrative and creating a legacy. First Peoples has four major sections for visitors to explore. Wominjeka the welcome area where visitors can touch message sticks on an interactive map to hear how to say the language name of various cultural groups. Generations – like a giant family photo album where every Koorie in Victoria can walk in and see someone they are connected too. Generations also features the Deep Listening space where people aged
8 to 72 talk of identity, Country, family, resilience and culture. For those who remember the previous exhibition, Generations is a renewal and extension of the previous Koorie Voices display. Significant changes include the collaborative selection of content and the introduction of digital labels featuring community voices. Every photo is interpreted either by a person in the photo or a family member, community member or custodian of knowledge. Many Nations features around 400 treasures from the Museum’s collections, representing the many Nations across Australia. The digital labels enable visitors to explore a range of cultural, environmental and technological stories the curatorial team spent years gathering from archives and communities across Australia. The final section Our Story chronicles the histories and cultures of Victoria’s First Peoples from Creation to the present day. Our Story shares the teachings of Creation Ancestors Bunjil (eagle) and Waa (crow) and highlights 2000 generations of scientific, spiritual and cultural knowledge and sustainable resource management. Visitors learn of the devastating impacts of invasions and colonisation, and the resilience of people in adapting to change and maintaining identity, family, community and culture. Our Story celebrates the flourishing of Aboriginal peoples and cultures in modern times and pays tribute to those who seek to learn and respect Aboriginal Law. Visitors are invited to recognise the history of First Peoples as ‘our shared history’.
22 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
First Peoples exhibition, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum
above:
Our Story, First Peoples, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum. Photo by John Broomfield.
opposite page: Many
Nations, First Peoples, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Melbourne Museum. Photo by John Broomfield.
First Peoples is a gift to visitors, to future generations – a gift that both community and museum have worked very hard to create. First Peoples is a place of learning, sharing and fun! First Peoples is a model of how by focusing on values we share and creating spaces where differences can coexist, respectfully living and working under the Yulendj Laws of this Country can be achieved. Museums are, after all, microcosms of the broader community. As the Elders say at the end of the exhibition Our journey continues … Wominjeka — you are welcome! Amanda Reynolds is Senior Curator of Our Story, First Peoples at Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum.
[1] Museum Victoria’s origins date back to 1854, with the founding of the National Museum of Victoria and the establishment, in 1870, of the Industrial and Technological Museum of Victoria (later known as the Science Museum of Victoria). By proclamation of the Museums Act 1983 (Vic.), these two institutions were amalgamated to form what is known today as Museum Victoria, governed by the Museums Board of Victoria. [2] Biographies of the Yulendj Group can be found on the Museum Victoria website on the First Peoples page.
Citation for text: Amanda Reynolds, ‘First Peoples exhibition, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum', Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, Summer 2013, pp.20–23.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 23
24 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 24
Some thoughts on Museum Victoria’s new Indigenous gallery
First Peoples exhibition, Bunjilaka gallery, Melbourne Museum: a reflection
Gary Vines
M
elbourne Museum’s redesign of the major exhibition First Peoples in the Bunjilaka gallery opened on 7 September 2013. Without knowing the curatorial, intellectual or political motivations for the new exhibition, it would appear at first impression to be a freshening-up on similar themes to the previous version, rather than a completely new approach to the Museum’s Bunjilaka space, or even a logical evolution from the previous display. Twin themes of the deep and impressive age of spiritual, social and material culture, and the positivism of a resilient and abiding contemporary culture, prevail as before – roughly shaped by the initial choice of whether to turn left or right on entering the gallery. I assume (but lack the evidence of any public statement) that the designers have worked with the sense of space to reinforce the following themes: the antiquity of Indigenous cultural traditions, expressed through a series of cave-like passages and nooks enclosed through cleverly concealed carpentry; the liveliness of contemporary culture, with more open space, brighter illumination, more backlit transparencies, and spilling outside into the natural environment of the Millari Garden; between the two, the presence of the ‘Creation Cinema’, the now almost obligatory multi-media, interactive, conceptual art acknowledging, audio-visual, immersive experience. The entrance orientation to Bunjilaka, titled ‘Wominjeka’, includes a stylised map of Victoria studded with small prongs – possibly suggesting message sticks. Grasping any of these produces an Aboriginal voice speaking the name of the language group for the particular area. A wall of backlit transparency portraits fills the space and role of the previous exhibition’s ‘Koorie Voices’ – which earlier presented mostly black and white photographic prints of both historical and contemporary Aboriginal people. Touch-tablet computers provide the labels for the new images. Walls of typologically sorted artefacts – for example, basket weaving, hunting tools, engraved and painted shields – compose a ‘Many Nations’ section, which also gains the iPad label treatment, although about a quarter of the devices had frozen when I visited soon after opening. Teething troubles in the technology will no doubt be soon fixed. The Bunjilaka exhibition is intentionally presenting a community narrative, rather than one from a museum or academic perspective. As such, it focuses on the stories and interpretation of Victorian Aboriginal people in first-hand accounts. This produces an immediacy and authenticity of emotion to many of the
stories. Meanwhile there is also subdued input from the body of ethnographic, archaeological and scientific research that has helped build the story of the great age and depth of Aboriginal history and material culture. According to Caroline Martin, manager of the Bunjilaka Centre, First Peoples has been ‘entirely co-curated by the Victorian Koorie community and the Museum’.[1] The First Peoples Yulendj (or knowledge) group of elders, comprising a large group of Victorian Aboriginal people from diverse backgrounds, was facilitated by Museum Victoria staff for this purpose. This is clearly a valuable step to reconciliation, sharing of expertise and healing of some of the rifts from the past between the museum and academic professions, and the people the latter have studied and interpreted historically. While this approach is admirable, it nevertheless risks compromise and conflict where contemporary community values and scientific theory and evidence provide different interpretations – as was similarly the case when only the scientific side of the story was presented in the past. Meanwhile there is now an even greater conflict in reconciling belief systems and factual evidence, which touches upon the central problem of the ‘creation’ theme. But more of this later. The approach of community co-curation, an increasingly pursued strategy of museums in presenting indigenous collections, has produced some problems in Bunjilaka in both emphasis and detail in interpreting evidence of past economic and cultural behaviours. One example concerns the trade of greenstone axe blanks. A museum panel claims:
above:
Gary Vines.
Mt William stone ended up being the only rock that was traded through South East Australia and into Central Australia... Aboriginal people believe it was traded throughout the whole of Australia ...[which will be proven] ...when axes are found in other countries... because it was blessed by Bunjil (my emphasis). The problem here is that there is no historical evidence of Mt William greenstone being traded much beyond north-west Victoria and western New South Wales, while there are other types of stone that were traded considerable distances, such as the similar Mt Camel greenstone and tektites, or ochre from the Yarrakina ochre mine in the Flinders Ranges. Another display presents the complex and fascinating evidence for an aquaculture industry at Lake Condah, where a network of artificial channels, weirs and traps was used to control and harvest migrating eels. Recent archaeological research suggests the possibility that this was a year-round economic
1. Sonia Harford, The Age, 6 September 2013.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 25
This raises considerable dilemmas for museums in seeking to present knowledge as objectively as possible activity leading to permanent sedentary settlement, thanks to techniques for smoke preservation and storage. Separate research suggests the activity is as old as 6800 years. All archaeological interpretation has some level of uncertainty, and these theories are yet to be tested or proven with further corroborative evidence; however both claims are presented as proven fact. It is a disappointment that some of the more established archaeological discoveries are not features of the Bunjilaka display – for example, the Dry Creek and Mungo excavations that first provided the scientific proof (through radiocarbon dating) of the great age of Aboriginal presence in Australia. These are the source of the 2000 generations, or 40,000 years, now accepted as the minimum date for settlement of the continent. A further display raises the megafauna issue, in describing a time ‘when our people lived with a giant animal we now call diprotodon’. The critical argument here (most prominently espoused by Tim Flannery), is whether or not the arrival of people in Australia led to the extinction of megafauna. There is no discussion of this idea or its debate, however, and we are left only with the quite clichéd impression of ‘Aborigines living in harmony with the land’, rather than the more complex understanding of the interaction between people and their environment. Finally, a quote claiming that Australia is ‘the only Commonwealth country that doesn’t have a treaty’ needs questioning. The speaker probably had in mind William Penn’s famous treaty with Native Americans in the US, the 1840 treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand, and the more recent Canadian First Nations Treaty, as examples that should have been replicated in Australia. However the native Arawak of British Guiana, the Caribs of Trinidad and Tobago, or the Polynesians of Fiji, might want this statement reconsidered. The curious position of Batman’s ‘Treaty’ in Victoria might also merit some qualified discussion. These comments bring me to raise a difficulty I find with the exhibition title First Peoples. I understand that there are probably intentional political
overtones in the term, with its use to assert primacy – and with native Canadians being one group to adopt the expression. I also understand the purpose of its plurality: to recognise the diversity of the many Aboriginal cultures in Australia. What the term obfuscates, however, is the question of origins. Theories have come and gone over the last 60 years or more, to explain when, how, and from where people first came to the Australian continent. Some, such as Birdsell and Tindale’s trihybrid migration theory, invoke the idea of three separate origin groups spreading across the continent in sequence, and leaving physiognomic trails in the different physical characteristics of modern day Aboriginal people. Others have proposed paleontological evidence of separate gracile and robust peoples identifiable from the Mungo and Kow Swamp burials. More recent DNA and genetic drift analysis meanwhile further hints at varied times and places of Aboriginal origins. While each of these theories has been subject to debate and disputation (as should all theory), none of these polemical issues is acknowledged in the First Peoples exhibition. We are left with the impression that the Aboriginal people depicted in the Bunjilaka displays, as well as the broader Aboriginal culture, remain unchanged from the distant past; or even – as the creation stories imply – are immutable from when the spirit ancestors mysteriously placed them on the earth in the inaugural Dreaming period. Returning to the creation theme: this idea is given such prominence that it has to be seen as the main focus of the exhibition. The term is used on its own, as a proper noun and title; and also as an adjective in ‘creation story’, ‘creation cinema’, ‘creation ancestors’, and similar expressions. The Museum’s publicity statements invite us to: Be transported to the time of Creation through the story of Bunjil (the wedge-tailed eagle), Creator for many Victorian Aboriginal clans, inside the Creation Cinema. It also states that: Our Story chronicles the histories and cultures of Victoria’s first peoples, from Creation to the present day, with stories of ceremony, customs, Law and resilience, before and after the arrival of Europeans. This section celebrates the flourishing of Aboriginal peoples and cultures in modern times and pays tribute to those who seek to learn and respect Aboriginal Law. The word ‘story’ might be considered a soft modifier, to denote that these are not facts or interpretations. There is also some hint of the cultural and
26 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
Some thoughts on Museum Victoria’s new Indigenous gallery
ethnographic context in the statements: 'all cultures have their creations stories’, and ‘in the beginning we all believe in a creation [whether] Bunjil, God, Allah...’ However mostly the use of ‘story’ is unqualified. Meanwhile many quotes and statements have the tone of biblical proclamations: Bunjil sent the ancestor spirits to create the world... they made the mountains and valleys...creeks and rivers [and] ...[O]ur creation ancestor Badj Bim diverted our water, formed our wetland and gave us resources. In the use of the term ‘Creation’ (usually capitalised in the European religious tradition), the exhibition is in reality presenting a religious interpretation of cultural meaning. The curators could hardly have overlooked the possibility that this might be perceived as a statement of presumed fact, and therefore lending support to creationism. Creationist ideas depend on a supernatural creator as an invisible, omnipotent, omniscient and unknowable force that produced the world from nothing. Aboriginal people are presented as inhabiting the land because of the intervention of an original supreme being. Their survival is construed as being dependent on adherence to these beliefs as a doctrine of ancestral integrity and continuity. A Creator being’s existence and authority is therefore not open to question or contradiction. This system of founding belief and related thought is not dissimilar from any religious doctrine. The quotes above are not dissimilar from those used in the ‘Creation Museum’ in Kentucky, USA, which asserts: ‘The state-of-the-art 70,000 square foot museum brings the pages of the Bible to life’; and its motto: ‘Prepare to believe’. Creationists in Kentucky have their own ‘Six Days of Creation Theatre’.[2] Given that previous debates in museum presentations of indigenous people’s stories have wrestled correctively with the dehumanising effects of treating diverse people as objects of curiosity and scientific enquiry, it is disturbing that the pendulum should now swing so far the other way. The museum staff on the curatorial committee for the new displays within the Bunjilaka gallery appear to have been too timid or unreflective to regulate or modify some of the unscientific claims made in the First Peoples exhibition. This raises considerable dilemmas for museums in seeking to present knowledge as objectively as possible. Yet if we Google creation and museum, it is instantly evident (with about 649,000 results in 0.54 seconds) that the tools of the Enlightenment and science are being appropriated by religious fundamentalists for antiscientific proselytism under the guise of ‘creation science’. The place of religious beliefs in a museum context therefore needs to be more carefully considered. I wonder how developing children’s minds absorb these creation statements, and respond to the effects of sensual stimulation of the otherwise beautiful art of the ‘Creation Cinema’ in the Melbourne Museum,
which places the magic of Bunjil at the same or greater status alongside the cosmological, geological and evolutionary processes that are the real creators of the stars, the mountains and the rivers of the world we inherit and inhabit through scientific thought. The Australian Museum in Sydney has taken a rather different path,[3] with an objective third person voice describing Aboriginal beliefs, rather than presenting the implied authority of first-person statements. Reflecting on these issues, it is fair to state that we should expect both community relevance and scientific rigor from Melbourne Museum’s exhibitions; and at least a disclaimer somewhere, acknowledging that the creation elements (and some other statements) are personal views and religious beliefs, and should not be taken as objective facts. The problem then becomes: How do you assist audiences to separate the facts from beliefs in such an exhibition? [ ] Gary Vines is an archaeologist and historian who has worked in state and community museums, and in private practice in Victoria and other states. He is currently working for the private-sector ecological and heritage consulting firm Biosis Pty Ltd, focusing on Aboriginal archaeology and industrial heritage. Citation for this text: Gary Vines, ‘First Peoples exhibition, Bunjilaka gallery, Melbourne Museum: a reflection, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, Summer 2013, pp.24– 26.
2. Creation Museum, Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky, http:// creationmuseum.org/ 3. See http://australianmuseum.net.au/ Indigenous-Australia-Spirituality
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 27
A museum concept facilitating multiple local developments in the ASPAC region
Consultation unlocks interdisciplinary resources: A community museum evolving in the Kelabit Highlands, Malaysian Borneo
Jonathan Sweet and Meghan Kelly
C top:
Jonathan Sweet
bottom:
Meghan Kelly
[1] Francesco Bandarin (UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Culture), in Community-Based Approach to Museum Development in Asia and the Pacific for Culture and Sustainable Development, UNESCO, Paris, 2010. [2] See case studies in Community-Based Approach to Museum Development in Asia and the Pacific for Culture and Sustainable Development, op.cit., 2010. [3] Jonathan Sweet and Toyah Horman, ‘Museum development and cross-cultural learning in the Kelabit Highlands, Borneo’, Museum Australia Magazine, Vol.21(1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp.23–26. For a broader regional comparison of issues surrounding community museums, see Kiralynne and Andrew Simpson, ‘Temple Museums in Thailand and community museums in Australia – some comparisons’, Museum Australia Magazine, Vol.20(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, November 2012, pp.9–15. [4] See Roger W. Harris, ‘Tourism in Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia: A Case Study of Pro-poor Communitybased Tourism Integrated into Community Development’, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, Vol.14, No. 2, 2009, pp.125–135.
ommunity-based approaches to museum development in South East Asia have long been promoted by UNESCO as a way of contributing to sustainable development in diverse cultural and community contexts. This reflects the principles included in the 2001 UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity, which proclaims that development should not simply contribute to economic growth but also nourish a community’s intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual existence.[1] It is also recognised that, while different communities may share a range of motivations for seeking out a museum concept to assist coordination of their cultural resources, in practice the process for realising each community’s vision of their desired future is variable and context-specific.[2] This means that each museum development project is shaped by specific challenges, including the one reported here, anchored in the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo, Malaysia, which is evolving through closely collaborative crosscultural engagement.
Deakin University’s commitment to a community heritage project in Sarawak Since 2010, a Deakin University team from the Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific has been assisting the Rurum Kelabit Sarawak (RKS) in the process of conceptualising and planning a community museum development project. The motivation for the project is underpinned by the Kelabit people’s strong sense of a shared destiny, as well as the evident need to preserve their cultural heritage. In part the process is providing a framework for self-reflexive articulation of Kelabit identity. However the community at large also increasingly perceives the museum concept as providing an unusual development opportunity for multiple purposes. The museum framework offers a way of enhancing social cohesion, as well as assisting the local community to assert its authority over the representation and inevitable commodification of their heritage, and affirm the associated knowledge of their culture and region. The initial stages of the Deakin project were reported in a 2012 issue of Museums Australia Magazine.[3] That article described the first phase of the project, which included a museological field school focused on community consultation in Bario. Realised in mid-2012, the field school facilitated cross-cultural engagement to deliver interactive learning outcomes simultaneously for Australian students and for the Kelabit participants from the
host community. The previous article reported on the field school activities of discussion, participation and observation – which together provided a framework through which all participants were able to share different understandings and knowledge. The present account provides further information about the concerns and aspirations that have emerged during the ongoing process of collaborative engagement, to provide further insights into the community museum development project unfolding in Malaysian Borneo.
Reviewing the Bario field school, June 2012 A crucial outcome of the 2012 field school was confirmation that the idea of establishing a museum in Bario had strong community support. Such support is essential to underpin both the viability and sustainability of the project. Consultation during the field school also reinforced the understanding that as Kelabit culture continues to adapt and change, a community museum concept is considered a useful means to engage succeeding generations of Kelabit people positively in the preservation of their heritage, and a vehicle for sharing this culture with visitors from the wider world. Significantly, it was early apparent that the rurally dispersed members of the Kelabit community share similar aspirations to those expressed by their RKS leadership. All envisaged a community-owned facility that would create and nurture a range of programs in which they could meaningfully participate. During discussions as they unfolded, the potential of the community museum to strengthen and enhance the relationships between heritage preservation, education and tourism also emerged as a key motivation for the project. This has the potential to build upon previous cultural development work that has occurred in the town.[4] The community museum concept was therefore considered as an additional component that can align well with the desire to develop the town centre as a commercial and cultural precinct. It is anticipated that the museum component will enhance the existing building complex used for congregation and recreation, incorporating a town hall, specialist shops and cafés. Conceivably the planned museum will become a symbolic representation of Kelabit identity while also acting as a reputable agent for the validation of local products, strengthening social cohesion and cultural identity within the community. Furthermore, the museum facility came to be seen as providing a key element supporting cultural tourism, reinforcing the locality as a destination to help orientate and
28 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
A community museum evolving in the Kelabit Highlands, Malaysian Borneo
above:
Gathering feedback as part of the Community Consultation, Miri, Sarawak, June 26, 2013. right:
Bario, Sarawak, June 27, 2013. Image taken from the proposed site for the Kelabit Community Museum. Photo: Jonathan Sweet & Meghan Kelly.
shape the experiences of visitors, while also providing a centrally located gateway and relay-point to other cultural sites and related services in the town and surrounding longhouse villages in the Kelabit Highlands. These interrelated facilities and their dynamic agency role, as planned, will complement existing advancements achieved in recent years towards the growth and sustainability of the Bario region, through increased tourism-focused infrastructure provided in the form of homestays and guesthouses. Additionally, these related developments could promote the market for locally made traditional craft objects and souvenirs, thereby also supporting the preservation of cultural heritage as evident in the work of specialist multi-lingual interpretation guides. In other words, there was a sense that these related initiatives would together invigorate the advances already in play in the region, as well as facilitating further opportunities for integrated development.
Learning more about specific community concerns and aspirations In June 2013, a Deakin team returned to Sarawak to participate in a further series of community meetings in Bario, Miri and Kuching, which were organised by the President of the RKS, Dato Isaac Lugun. The agenda included reporting on previous activities and discussing ideas for the future. Each meeting included a screening of Simon Wilmot’s documentary film, World within no more, which documents the 2012 field school. The film presents the views of many Kelabit community members, and documents their concerns for the preservation of their cultural heritage as well as recording the research processes that were being conducted by the participants. To any doubters in the audiences, the
film had the effect of demonstrating the serious intent of the museum development project; and this boosted the willingness of people to participate in the further consultation process that followed each screening. The growing momentum of the project was also emphasised by the introduction of two new members of the Deakin University academic team, brought in to address the expanding complexity of ideas and possibilities envisioned. These academics have added special experience in cross-cultural communication and community-based design practice in South East Asia: Susan Ang is a lecturer in Architecture and the Built Environment, while Dr Meghan Kelly is a lecturer in Visual Communication Design. Both were active in the consultation process during the second field school in Sarawak. It emerged during the community consultations in Miri, the city in which the largest urban Kelabit community is settled, that the museum concept was being visualised as involving both a traditional museum and a cultural centre designed to embrace both tangible and intangible cultural heritage. This fusion is not uncommon in the ways that community museums have evolved in South East Asia, and was possibly based to a degree on models and examples that the participants had observed elsewhere. Specific questions were raised concerning aspects of interpretation and community engagement, policy and governance, and the availability of resources and infrastructure to support the project. Indicative concerns included understanding ways of managing the use of privately owned artifacts, and issues of human resources – including questions concerning who would maintain the programs when developed, and what kinds of associated employment opportunities might be available. Issues concerning the representation of Kelabit identity and appropriate authority in the heritage interpretation to determine
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 29
A crucial outcome of the 2012 field school was confirmation that the idea of establishing a museum in Bario had strong community support activities in the museum were also discussed. Despite coming into contact with colonialism comparatively late in the region’s history, Kelabit experience since the mid-twentieth century has been profoundly shaped by external influences that have redirected the priorities and beliefs of the community. It was felt that this aspect of local history requires documentation and evidencing. Furthermore one participant explained that although he knew many stories, he did not fully understand the timeline of historical events that had occurred nor the reasons for the decisions made in the past by his ancestors. This was recognised as an important aspect of inter-generational solidarity that could be enhanced through the museum. In addition to this attention to the past, the contemporary lifestyle of the Kelabit people was considered a further subject for interpretation programs. It was also suggested that programs should stem from the unique political, social and environmental conditions of Bario, which could act as an integrative framework for presenting Kelabit history. If the Bario museum is to have an active role in preserving regional culture, it was understood that it needs to engage successfully with the oncoming generations of Kelabits, to the extent that they will be stimulated to return and be actively involved in the programming of the facility. This topic was discussed with younger members of the community as well, who explained respectfully that they would also like to use the planned space in their own way, to create an annual event for their own peers and interests. This reaffirmed the possibility that the museum could be a place for multi-layered gatherings, performances, events and demonstrations, and that these various strands might be aligned with a current festival calendar.
Towards culturally informed design and communication A recurring theme during the consultation processes of this project has highlighted issues associated with infrastructure. Indicative questions have included: How would the museum work in circumstances where the availability of electricity was inconsistent? This has formed a theme for the next part of the development process that is scheduled for 2014, when another capacity-building field school for Australian students and host community participants will take place, to address issues of architecture,
design and sustainability in the Kelabit environmental and social context. Meanwhile, a deepening understanding of the museum requirements has emerged through the consultation process, and is guiding the design brief for the ultimate form of a building to be located in Bario. For these reasons, Deakin University has expanded the team contributing to the museum development project, to include a unique combination of academics who possess both theoretical and practical, industry-based skills, and are well positioned to provide additional guidance for the RKS and to assist the community to see this innovative project through to completion. The Kelabit Highlands Community Museum Development Project richly highlights the context-specific and unique processes required to realise a development of the complexity now mutually understood by all parties. The isolated nature of the location, the small population, and the need to document and preserve a changing culture, highlight only a small part of the interwoven issues that are being navigated by the community. However, as a result of the ongoing consultation process that is vital to this project’s success, the RKS has a clearer sense of the direction they wish to take in preserving their fragile cultural heritage, while also supporting it through the challenges of change. At the same time, diversification of the academic contribution assisting the project has paved the way for the further collaboration that is necessary to complete a multilayered and ambitious program. For the Deakin University team, the process of deepening engagement in Malaysian Borneo continues to enrich our understanding of the roles of museology, heritage preservation and cultural tourism, coalescing in a unique community development context in the highlands of Malaysian Borneo. [ ] Dr Jonathan Sweet is a member of the Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific, and Dr Meghan Kelly is a lecturer in Visual Communication Design, at Deakin University, Melbourne. Citation for this text: Jonathan Sweet and Meghan Kelly, ‘Consultation unlocks interdisciplinary resources: A community museum evolving in the Kelabit Highlands, Malaysian Borneo’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, Summer 2013, pp.27– 29.
30 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
Sustainability of environmental control standards in museum storage
Outside the comfort zone: Energy consumption in the museums sector
left:
Glenn Hodges looks through new chiller plant.
below l-r:
Colin MacGregor, Glenn Hodges, Scott Mitchell.
[1] Julian Bickersteth, ‘Things hotting up in our galleries’, The Australian, 23 May 2013. See also an earlier article by the same author in MAM: Julian Bickersteth, ‘Changing environmental standards for museums and galleries – Where are we now?’, Museums Australia Magazine, 18 (3&4), double issue, Museums Australia, Canberra, June 2010, pp.10-11. [2] These values were suggested by Garry Thomson in his seminal work of the 1970s, The Museum Environment (1978; revised 1986). Maintaining both temperature and humidity controls is expensive because of the way most air conditioning plants operate. In order to remove humidity from the air circulating through museum collection stores, it must be cooled to very low temperatures. The air is then reheated (using yet more energy) to bring it back to the target temperature standard.
Scott Mitchell, Colin MacGregor and Glenn Hodges
W
ith an ambient temperature inside the building of 28ºC, a visitor to Tokyo’s National Museum of Science Technology in mid-2011 might have been distinctly uncomfortable. Power cuts associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster meant the museum’s air-conditioning plant could not be operated. While such conditions are hardly ideal either for human comfort or collection storage, they invite reflection on what is required to maintain the comfortable, climate-controlled conditions that most of us working in the museum sector take for granted. In an article in The Australian this year, conservator Julian Bickersteth has highlighted the cost of maintaining climate control for collections in our major cultural institutions.[1] By his estimate, most large Australian museums incur utility costs of between
$1 million and $1.5 million a year, with about 60% of that sum spent on climate control systems. Energy consumption is high because of the perceived need to maintain strict ‘industry standard’ temperature and humidity conditions for collection storage (typically 20ºC ± 1ºC and 55%RH ± 5%).[2] Bickersteth joins a growing chorus of voices internationally calling for reconsideration of prevailing industry standards, as part of a move towards much more energy-efficient collection storage.[3] In the US meanwhile, in a damning review of the origins of current climate control standards, American conservation scientists David Erhardt, Charles Tumosa and Marion Mecklenburg have noted what they regard as the ‘minimal scientific support for the values and ranges that were selected’. They show that after the current standards were established in the 1970s, ‘decisions that were merely best guesses based on minimal evidence became set in stone’ – based largely on considerations other than the permanence of
[3] See for example Pamela Hatchfield, ‘Crack Warp Shrink Flake: A New Look at Conservation Standards’, Museum (American Association of Museums/AAM, January-February, 2011); and National Museum Directors Conference (NMDC), guiding principles for reducing museums’ carbon footprint: http://www. nationalmuseums.org.uk/media/ documents/what_we_do_documents/ guiding_principles_reducing_carbon_ footprint.pdf. Nick Serota, Director of Tate (UK), has led art museums to reconsider climate control standards demanded for exhibition loans: see ‘Tate director Sir Nicholas Serota urges art galleries to turn down the heating,' The Guardian, UK, 13 November 2011:http://www.guardian. co.uk/artanddesign/2011/nov/13/ nicholas-serota-art-gallery-heating; Julian Bickersteth, in ‘Changing environmental standards’, op.cit., also mentions the influence of Nick Serota in these discussions about current art museum standards internationally.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 31
Towards more energy-efficient practice at the Australian Museum
above:
Figure 1.
[4] David Erhardt, Charles S. Tumosa, and Marion F. Mecklenburg, ‘Applying Science to the Question of Museum Climate’, in T. Padfield and K. Borchensen (eds.), Museum Microclimates (Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 2007), pp.11-18.
objects, such as the standard mechanical capacity of air treatment plants and human comfort levels.[4] The empirical evidence used by Erhardt and his colleagues suggests that for most collection types, a much wider range of temperature and humidity tolerances is acceptable, and that significant energy savings are possible through tailoring environmental conditions to specific collection types, rather than applying a uniform standard across all collections held in museums. In Sydney, with utility costs at the Australian Museum currently exceeding $900,000 a year, the Museum has been exploring a number of initiatives to make its climate control systems more energy efficient. For nearly two years we have been trialling the periodic overnight shutdown of the air handling plants servicing collection stores (which had previously operated 24 hours a day), as well as installing more energy-efficient equipment. Below, we present some preliminary results of this experiment, and provide some encouraging conclusions about the potential to make significant energy savings while maintaining reasonable environmental stability in collection stores. These experiences are relevant not only to museums in our major capital cities. They have equally significant cost-savings potential for collections storage or exhibition spaces in regional museums, often with limited budgets under local council funding.
The experiment at the Australian Museum was based on a simple premise: switch off the air-conditioning to collection stores in periods when staff are not present. If there is sufficient thermal mass, and the store room is relatively well sealed, humidity and temperature may drift slowly enough to stay within an acceptable range. The experiment began in August 2011, when the air handling plant servicing 11 of the Museum’s 25 climate-controlled collection stores at its College Street site were switched off for four-to-five hours per night or over weekends. Changes to relative humidity and temperature were monitored through the Building Management System, as well as via an independent wireless data-logging system installed throughout the collection stores by the Materials Conservation unit. The condition of objects within the stores was closely monitored by museum staff, and as a further cautionary measure, the air-conditioning plant was set to switch back on automatically if relative humidity drifted below 40%, or significantly above 60%. While the results were immediately promising, it quickly became clear that every room behaved differently, depending on how well it was sealed against the entrance of untreated air, and depending on the time of year and external humidity conditions. Effectively a process of trial and error was required in order to identify the optimal balance between maintaining stable conditions and restricting energy use in each individual store. The most stable conditions tended to occur in the purpose-built collection stores, where the store-rooms have no contact with external walls, no windows, and minimal (if any) infiltration from outside air. In some rooms, conditions could actually be made more stable with the air-handling plant switched off, because humidity and temperature levels drifted so slowly. In older buildings, and in rooms that were never originally designed to be collection stores, we have found that the stores are generally more exposed to the infiltration of outside air. As a consequence, relative humidity is more prone to drifting and triggering the automatic plant-operating safeguards. In a small number of storerooms, external air penetration was found to be significant enough to prevent the experiment being meaningfully effective. One of the most interesting results to have emerged from the experiment was the variation registered between temperature and humidity movement inside collection-storage furniture (such as cabinets and drawers) compared with any variations in the host room. Even relatively thin and non-airtight metal
32 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
Sustainability of environmental control standards in museum storage
Each of our major museums and galleries consumes the energy equivalent of a small country town
cabinets could have a significant buffering effect on environmental fluctuation. Figure 1 illustrates movement in relative humidity (RH), and temperature inside and outside the cabinets, measured in one of the Malacology collection stores over five days in February 2012. While RH in the room varied throughout a range of as much as 12%, RH within the cabinet remained virtually constant, moving within a range of only 1.5%. Fluctuation in temperature was similarly buffered, although not quite to the same extent. Currently 21 of the Australian Museum’s 25 climatecontrolled collection stores have their air-handling plant switched off overnight, starting at 9pm each evening and ending between 5am and 9am the next morning. For those less-well-insulated rooms where the automatic safeguard is triggered, and the plant switches back on periodically, the plant often operates for as little as 30 minutes a night. As expected, this has made a significant impact on the Museum’s overall energy consumption. The impact of the project was measured by comparing the Museum’s monthly electricity consumption in the baseline year (2010/11), to consumption after August 2011 when the project commenced (Figure 2). Between August 2011 and October 2012 there were no other significant changes to operating conditions or
energy consumption patterns, making it reasonable to attribute any major change to the overnight plant shutdowns. On commencing the experiment, a reduction in electricity consumption was immediately apparent. Average daily consumption fell from 13.1MWh/day in August of the baseline year to 12.7MWh/day in August 2011, indicating a reduction of 0.4MWh/day or 3.5%.[5] Electricity consumption has been consistently lower almost continually since that time (Figure 2), except for a period of record high rainfall and humidity levels over the summer of 2012, when no appreciable reduction in electricity consumption was achievable due to the greater demands on the air-conditioning plant. Excluding summer 2012, average daily consumption between August 2011 and October 2012 was between 0.3MWh/day (1.9%) and 2.4MWh/day (16.3%) beneath consumption levels during the equivalent month in the baseline period. In November 2012, further efficiency gains were achieved with the installation of a dessicant airdrying plant and CO2 monitoring in the galleries (to reduce fresh air intake). As of June 2013, average daily consumption was 10.5MWh/day compared to 12.8MWh/day in June of the baseline year. This represents a reduction of 2.3MWh/day or 18.1% of total consumption. Put another way, the reduction is equivalent to the total energy used by the occupants of more than 76 average Sydney households[6] – a very significant saving both in terms of cost and carbon emissions.
left:
Figure 2.
Leaving the comfort zone? With respect to managing energy use for collection storage, we have learned that the following applies: • Significant energy savings are possible, even without substantial capital investment in new airconditioning plant, through periodic shutdowns of air handling equipment. However, given that conditions can react so diversely across different parts of a building, it is necessary to measure the rate and scale of changes to conditions in individual collection stores, and to be prepared to tailor the sequence and timing of individual plant shutdowns within different spaces. Furthermore, it is prudent to introduce any changes gradually and
[5] Consumption fluctuates seasonally, with the highest levels occurring over summer when ambient temperatures and humidity are highest (and the air conditioning plant operates more intensely). Hence results are presented in terms of daily consumption of electricity per month, to account for this seasonal change. [6] According to the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, the occupants of an average threeperson detached house in western Sydney use a total of 11 MWh of energy per year, or 0.03MWh per day. http://www.savepower.nsw.gov. au/about/data-assumptions.aspx.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 33
incrementally, allowing for a process of trial and error to shape decisions. • Periodic plant shutdowns may not be effective during extreme or unusual climatic conditions, particularly in periods of high humidity. Effectiveness may also vary seasonally, making it advisable to gather and monitor climate data over a minimum of 12 months. • Given the buffering effects of collection storage furniture, one of the best energy-saving initiatives might be to replace open shelving with enclosed cabinets, and/ or to insulate individual objects. Furthermore, the most appropriate way to measure climatic fluctuation may be by locating sensors within cabinets and drawers, rather than in an enclosing room (this would potentially allow the room itself to be climate controlled at a wider range of humidity and temperature tolerances, using less energy without compromising care of stored objects). • There might be a need to alter the behaviour of staff using stores – for example, by keeping specimens insulated wherever possible, or setting limits to the timeperiods in which staff can work inside the storage areas. The Australian Museum is continuing to upgrade its air-conditioning plant to make it progressively more energy efficient. Ultimately, however, the challenge before us and the sector as a whole is to question the environmental standards themselves, and to re-evaluate how they are applied. To what extent are we prepared to manage risk based on the properties of individual objects and material types, rather than continuing to apply universal risk-management solutions? To what extent are we willing to modify not only the climate control infrastructure, but equally importantly, the ways we utilise and behave in collection stores? Are we even willing to tolerate a degree of personal discomfort (working in hotter or colder collection stores and offices) in a drive to lower energy consumption? The Australian Museum is not the only, and far from the first, Australian cultural institution to
introduce more energy-efficient air-treatment plant, or to experiment with initiatives such as periodic plant shutdowns. However few, if any, of the Australian experiences have been published as case-studies. Meanwhile standardised environmental requirements continue to be included automatically in our large institutions’ loan agreements, and we have to look internationally to register the most exciting new developments in energy efficient museum storage. For example, some cultural institutions in Britain and the United States are allowing temperatures to drift seasonally, with temperatures kept lower in winter and higher in summer rather than at a constant annual level.[7] Taking the concept even further, some Scandinavian museums are moving towards ‘off-grid museums’: ultra-low-energy collection storage areas, where temperatures are allowed to drift, and humidity change is buffered only by solar-powered dehumidification systems. [8] Tailoring environmental conditions to specific material types (rather than using a uniform standard), and allowing for ‘relaxed’ humidity and temperature range tolerances while buffering humidity using absorbent materials[9] offer other interesting alternatives we could explore more fully in this country.[10] In May 2013, the Council of Australasian Museum Directors (CAMD) announced the formation of a working group to explore the issue of climate control standards in Australian museums. The time has come for the sector to confront this issue. Australians are in the unenviable position of being the highest per-capita carbon emitters in the world. With each of our major museums and galleries consuming the energy equivalent of a small country town, do we want to hold a similar distinction? [ ] Dr Scott Mitchell is Head of Culture, Conservation and Business Services, Australian Museum; Colin MacGregor is Manager Materials Conservation Unit, and Glenn Hodges is Manager Building and Security Services, also within the Australian Museum, Sydney. Citation for this text: Scott Mitchell, Colin MacGregor and Glenn Hodges, ‘Outside the comfort zone: Energy consumption in the museums sector’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, 2013, pp. 30– 33.
inset: Installing the new air-conditioning plant Australian Museum.
[7] For example, the Indianapolis Museum of Art (http://dashboard. imamuseum.org/node/896); and the National Archives in the United Kingdom – for the latter data, note the report of S.H. Hong, M. Strlic, I. Ridley, K. Ntanos, N. Bell & M. Cassar: ‘Monitoring and modelling the storage environment at The National Archives, UK’ (ICOM Committee for Conservation: Preprints of the 16th Triennial Conference, Lisbon, 19-23 September 2011). See <icom.museum> website for information on ICOM-CC. [8] M. Ryhl-Svendsen, L.A. Jensen, P.K. Larsen, B. Bohm and T. Padfield, ‘Ultra Low Energy Museum Storage’, ICOM CC, Lisbon, 2011. http://www.conservationphysics. org/ppubs/ryhl-svendsen_low_ energy_store_icom-cc2011.pdf [9] T. Padfield and L.A. Jensen, ’Humidity buffering by absorbent materials’, NBP 2011–9th Nordic Symposium on Building Physics, 29 May–2 June 2011, in Tempere, Finland, Vol.1, pp.475-482. [10] The Current National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries do not specify temperature and humidity tolerances for collections (Standard A.4.3.1). see National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries, 2011: http://www. collectionsaustralia.net/sector_ info_item/107. However they do refer to the 2002 Guidelines for the Environmental Control of Cultural Institutions, developed in the 1990s by the former Heritage Collections Council (HCC) in Australia. These guidelines advocate relatively wide humidity and temperature tolerancelevels, tailored to the broader climatic conditions applying wherever an institution is located. Such guidelines, which offer a less energy-intensive alternative to prevailing standards, do not appear to have been particularly influential within the larger cultural institutions in this country. See http://keystone.collectionsaustralia. net/publisher/nationalstandards/ part-a-managing-the-museum/ principle-a4/standard-a43/
34 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
A house museum dedicated to Belgium’s outstanding architect of the Art Nouveau
Courage is grace under pressure. The Victor Horta House Museum in Brussels
Annette Welkamp
C
onservation is a tricky business. It’s hard enough treating movable objects in circumstances where the principle of reversibility must guide many decisions. But when dealing with a building, there are some decisions that do not allow for turning back afterwards. Knocking down a wall, replacing a window, scraping back layers of paint, replacing the electrics: from each course of action, once adopted, it is difficult to return. Some pressure then for the curators and conservators responsible for making such decisions! Those working in historic house museums[1] are all too familiar with the weighing up of contending options, and also with the sometimes daunting finality of their choices. Imagine the additional strains when the property for which you are responsible has
1. Endnotes
been registered on the World Heritage List, has deteriorated over more than a century since its creation, while its restoration is now identified as a priority. UNESCO will be watching your progress, as will all of the experts in architecture, the period, the interiors, and the garden, combined with the interests of various occupants, not to mention the neighbours. And if the significance of this multi-layered task was not altogether clear for the team responsible for the restoration of Victor Horta’s private residence and atelier in Brussels, the rationale for their inscription on the World Heritage List would have provided an authoritative declaration of the values at stake: The Town Houses of Victor Horta in Brussels are works of human creative genius, representing the highest expression of the influential Art Nouveau style in art and architecture. ... [they] marked a decisive stage in the evolution of architecture, making
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 35
opposite page:
Stairs from of the Hôtel Tassel now The Victor Horta Museum. All images from Wikimedia Commons.
bottom left:
Door detail, Horta Museum.
bottom right:
Exterior of Victor Horta's Brussels townhouses.
[1] House museums have a particular typology within monographic museums generally. The May 2011 issue of Museums Australia Magazine (Vol. 19[4], 2011) carried a number of articles on museums organised around a monographic theme or celebrating the life of a particular individual. These included an article by the present author on the Magritte Museum in Belgium, ‘The dominion of light (and silence)’ [pp.33-34]. However house museums dedicated to the work of a single architect are generally rare – and those spanning the conjunction of both domestic and atelier headquarters in the heart of a capital city, as this article describes, even rarer. [Ed.] [2] UNESCO, World Heritage List, Major town houses of the architect Victor Horta (Brussels):http:// whc.unesco.org/en/list/1005
possible subsequent developments, and ... bear exceptional witness to its radical new approach. ... [They are also] outstanding examples of Art Nouveau architecture brilliantly illustrating the transition from the 19th to the 20th century in art, thought, and society.[2] Some pressure on standards there! Of the four principal houses – Hôtel Tassel, Hôtel Solvay, Hôtel van Eetvelde, and Maison & Atelier Horta (now the Horta Museum) – perhaps the last has the broadest appeal, since it was the architect’s own home and encompassed the headquarters of his practice at the most influential period of his career. There is the potential to tell a great many stories in a property such as this, where the focus could be variously on the architecture, a movement, construction methods, social customs, design, or the many people who lived and worked at this centre of creative activity. Walking around Brussels today, the influence of Art Nouveau style is still clearly evident more than a century later, which again lends lustre to the home of the man who led this ground-breaking movement in the region: Victor Horta (1861–1947). On the street, in this crucial precinct, Horta’s house and studio display the gentle and elegant presence typical of the new forms of this period, and the changes they brought to the architectural context around them. In comparison with their neighbours, Victor Horta’s buildings are constructed in expensive stone rather than the more commonplace brick, and the twists and turns in the exterior metal railings and grilles are striking decorative features that hint at a lively interior within. Looking at the facades with modern eyes, it is difficult to imagine why community response to the architectural movement they represent was originally so luke warm, since the features that distinguish the Art Nouveau style now seem so subtle and elegant. However its eventual acceptance is compellingly attested by the now fashionable neighbourhood of Sint Gillis (Saint Gilles), which is today home to at
least ninety marvellous properties incorporating this very exuberant style, in comparison with the more severe, geometric modernism that gained ascendency as the century proceeded. Whilst certainly handsome on the exterior, it is the interior of the Maison Horta that is the more remarkable. Victor Horta created a home that also functioned as a showcase for his creative abilities, and the reception areas were clearly intended to seduce potential clients. Inside, its decorative detailing and richly contrasting materials are just gorgeous. Exerting a commitment to ‘total design’ in carrying his ideas into all aspects of a building, Horta cast his creative eye over every elegant detail of the architecture, décor, fittings and furniture. With a palette of soft orange, burnt ochres, cream and apricot, the house interior is vivacious while at the same time very comfortable. The trademark Art Nouveau whiplash line is translated throughout in metal, wood, glass, tiles and fabric, and the various components of the architecture – banisters, window casings, lamps and doors – combine seamlessly into an elegant ensemble. One wonderful example is found in the curving line of the metal handrail along the small flight of stairs leading from the ground floor to the bel étage, which curls back upon itself at the top, morphs into the arm rail of a sofa tucked in alongside the stairs, then continues on and up the flanking wall to shape a reading lamp. The key structural element that interconnects and binds the six levels of Horta’s house is the central staircase, which slowly coils its way up to the ceiling
36 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 36
A house museum dedicated to Belgium’s outstanding architect of the Art Nouveau
left:
Victor Horta in his studio.
right:
Horta Museum, interior detail.
skylight of yellow and white leadlight. The soft exterior light that shines through the glass is further enlivened by the ochre painted walls, which are also decorated from floor to ceiling with a series of slender-stemmed stylised cream flowers, the outlines of which have been gilded. Encouraged by the motion of the winding staircase, the metal supports and railings also lick and curl their way up and around, elaborating the forms of the main architectural structure. Pure poetry. The UNESCO citation for the Horta town houses notes that the buildings are significant for their open plan, the diffusion of light, and the brilliant joining of the curved lines of decoration with the structure of the building. In order to re-instate these features, compromised by inevitable deterioration over time, a major restoration project began in 1989 and was completed in 2010. The long duration of the retoration project appears to have been conditioned by the extensive research undertaken by numerous staff, heritage architects and scholars, as well as a commitment to meticulous craftsmanship, which naturally occurs at a slower pace. The strong local and professional community interest in the project would have given the team both confidence and additional pressure. Major and minor changes were made to the interior, with the aim of reinstating Horta’s original architecture and expressive intentions. The Horta house was acquired by the local council
in 1961, and the building opened as a museum in 1969, adding the adjoining atelier a few years later in 1973. As with many heritage properties, acquiring this further real estate allowed the Museum to reconfigure work spaces and release some key rooms in the house, which could then be made directly accessible to visitors. Regrettably, since Victor Horta only lived at the property until 1919, when he finally sold the two buildings as separate lots, many of the original furnishings were dispersed. Some pieces currently displayed were acquired later from the estate of Horta’s widow, although many other objects were simply designed by him, and sourced from elsewhere for acquisition. Since visitors are free to walk through the interiors unaccompanied, the resulting sparse fit-out is probably an appropriate decision for presenting the ensemble effect of Horta’s designs today. Whilst this property indisputably merits the World Heritage Listing bestowed upon it for the significance and quality of its design, construction and restoration, there is striking potential for more meaningful and enriched interpretation, as its significant status merits. Labels are always difficult in a historic house museum, as they readily distract from the ambience and holistic nature of the presentation. While there are thankfully few labels intruding, there are clearly many more exciting interpretive opportunities that could be explored, to make a visit to this property even more rewarding.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 37
top: middle: bottom: left: right:
The Museum is currently negotiating the acquisition of a further adjacent property (one not designed by Horta), in order to move the stores, documentation centre and office functions offsite, and to facilitate more extensive interpretation of the main buildings. This expansion will provide an ideal opportunity to re-evaluate the Horta complex’s overall interpretation strategy, both in terms of the themes that might be explored as well the means through which they could be interpreted for diverse audiences. It would be interesting, for instance, to learn more about the visitors and clients who were invited into the original home and studio by the Hortas: how they were entertained; the character of the social mores of the period, and how these were expressed in this remarkable setting. And what of Brussels at this time? Since Horta did not sell the property until after the end of the First World War (in 1919), how did these great changes impact upon the lives of his family and staff, and affect the nature of his work? What more can be known of the crafts men and women who contributed to the house’s construction and decoration, and of the servants who maintained it all? In addition to the architectural values identified in the UNESCO listing, there are many more stories that could be narrated through this remarkable house museum’s history, character and social setting. Now that the mammoth initial task of such an important restoration has been accomplished, the next challenge will be in devising varied interpretive
support that effectively explores the transitions in art, thought, and society at the turn of the century spanned by the house’s history. In a digital age there are more diverse opportunities available for interpreting the house and studio as creatively as Victor Horta himself originally achieved in their design, while in no way distracting attention from the unique physical encounter with the original architecture or its interiors. In the coming years we can look forward to the next phase of this remarkable property’s life as a museum and focal-point for experiencing Art Nouveau architecture and design, and Horta’s particular genius in defining its expressive character. No pressure at all. Well, just a little. [] Annette Welkamp is Director of Cultural Connotations, an arts and heritage consultancy. <www.culturalconnotations.com> Citation for this text: Annette Welkamp, ‘Courage is grace under pressure: The Victor Horta House Museum in Brussels’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22(2), Museums Australia, Canberra, Summer 2013, pp.34–37.
38 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
Book Review – museum visitors
Review: Attention and Value: keys to understanding museum visitors top: middle: bottom: left:
Stephen Bitgood, Attention and Value: Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors (Amazon paperback and various formats, 2013).
Regan Forrest
right:
T
above:
Regan Forrest.
References ADDIN Mendeley Bibliography CSL_ BIBLIOGRAPHY Bitgood, S. (2006). An Analysis of Visitor Circulation: Movement Patterns and the General Value Principle. Curator: The Museum Journal, 49(4), 463–475. doi:10.1111/j.2151-6952.2006.tb00237.x Bitgood, S. (2010). An attentionvalue model of museum visitors. Retrieved from http://caise.insci.org/ uploads/docs/VSA_Bitgood.pdf Bitgood, S., McKerchar, T. L., & Dukes, S. (2013). Looking Back at Melton: Gallery Density and Visitor Attention. Visitor Studies, 16(2), 217–225. doi: 10.1080/10645578.2013.827024
he name Stephen Bitgood will be well known to those who have an interest in visitor behaviour. For the past thirty years, Bitgood has worked in museums, zoos, science centres and other exhibition spaces, documenting where visitors go, what they look at, and what factors influence how they behave. His research is widely published in both the museological and psychological literature, and Attention and Value: Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors is his latest book. In recent years, Bitgood has published several articles on his Attention-Value model of visitor behaviour (for example, Bitgood, McKerchar, & Dukes, 2013; Bitgood, 2006, 2010). This model draws upon ecological psychology and behavioural economics to describe museum visitors as being constantly and subconsciously assessing features of the exhibition environment in terms of benefit (for example, level of interest) and cost (for example, cognitive or physical effort). According to the model, visitors will only dedicate their attention when the perceived benefit of doing so is judged to be worth the cost. In Attention and Value, Bitgood further builds his argument that attention (meaning both internal cognitive processes as well as overt behaviour) is a central facet of visitor psychology. He points out that attention is an essential precursor to learning. Thus, if we wish to understand visitor learning, we must understand attention. In the introduction, Bitgood raises five key questions about visitor attention that he suggests a theory of visitor experience should address: • What is visitor attention? • To what do visitors pay attention while viewing exhibits? • Why do visitors pay attention? • How do the processes or mechanisms of attention work? • What factors interfere with paying attention to exhibits? The book is divided into four parts. The first, ‘What we know about visitor attention’, provides an overview of key developments in the theory and practice of museum visitor research through the twentieth century. This section begins with a critical review of pre-1940 studies that are widely acknowledged as being among the first to systematically study museum visitor behaviour. However although researchers such as Gilman, Robinson and Melton are frequently credited in the literature for coining terms such as museum fatigue, attracting and holding power and object competition, the specific details of the research they conducted are less well known. Bitgood revisits these foundational studies, highlighting their respective strengths and weaknesses, and re-interprets them in light of recent theoretical
developments in both visitor research and psychology more generally. This leads into a brief summary and critique of research conducted from the 1960s onwards, a period now considered the vanguard of modern visitor studies. As well as providing the theoretical basis for the attention-value model, this section can be read more generally as a brief and accessible primer to the history of museum visitor research. As an overview of an important area of museology, it will be of interest to museum professionals in all areas, not only those working in visitor research or museum education. The second part, ‘Understanding Value and Motivation’, describes some of Bitgood’s experimental research into the role of the value ratio (utility divided by cost) in predicting the amount of time or effort people will spend on watching films or reading text passages of varying lengths. Since these reports are of simulation studies conducted with psychology undergraduates rather than actual museum visitors in real exhibit settings, the results are necessarily tentative. Accordingly it is more of niche interest compared with the rest of the book, which is more generalised in value and applies research to the museum setting in a more tangible way. In Part Three, ‘Ways to Promote Engaged Attention’, Bitgood draws on his own body of research as well as that of others to explore specific strategies for prompting increased attention. These studies include the distribution of visitor self-guides and the crafting of exhibit text to encourage visitors to notice or compare particular features of objects. This section will be of particular interest to those who script or design exhibit labels, brochures or audio-guides. The final part, ‘Promoting engaged attention through exhibit design’, examines factors that can lead to a decrease in visitor attention as well as the relationship between visitor attention and navigation, and sets out some design strategies for optimising visitor attention in exhibition settings. This is supported by a checklist in the Appendix which serves as a handy guide for interpretive planners and exhibition designers. The book itself is accessibly laid out, with a design that lends itself to being read in short segments or kept on hand as a ready reference. Each chapter begins with a bulleted summary of key ideas, then provides ample subheadings to allow quick navigation to points of interest. The combination of critical reviews of the literature as well as practical guidelines for managing visitor attention will make this book a useful text for students, exhibition designers and museum educators. [ ] Regan Forrest is President of the South Australian branch of MA, and Secretary of the Evaluation and Visitor Research National Network. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland’s School of Tourism.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 39
Book Review – social justice and museums
Review: Museums, Equality and Social Justice
Richard Sandell and Ethnie Nightingale (eds), Museums, Equality and Social Justice (Routledge/ University of Leicester, 2012).
Ian McShane
H
ow far have museums come in implementing the principles enshrined in the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights? This recent addition to Routledge-University of Leicester’s Museum Meanings series examines that question through twenty-one widely ranging chapters contributed by an international group of scholars and museum practitioners, capably introduced by editors Richard Sandell (Museum Studies, University of Leicester) and Ethnie Nightingale (Victoria and Albert Museum). To recap, a charter to define and protect the human rights of every individual was tabled at the first session of the UN General Assembly in 1946 and adopted two years later. Given the context of global politics, the Declaration was a remarkable commitment to legal and social protection in the immediate post-War period. What seems in today’s estimation to be its shortcomings – for example, there is no mention of sexual orientation or disability, and marriage is assumed to be a union between man and woman – might also be read as a measure of its success as a benchmark statement of human rights. Educational institutions were challenged by the UN Secretary General to display and promote the Declaration following its adoption by the United Nations as
a framework to guide international action of nation states worldwide. However, as Sandell and Nightingale observe, it was not until the twenty-first century that a commitment to equality, diversity and justice could be considered ‘core museum business’, with the case having been argued persuasively in a large body of theoretical and empirical research. Readers familiar with Richard Sandell’s work will be aware of his leading role in this field. However, if human rights concerns have moved from the margins to the mainstream in museums, this book makes it clear there is still room to extend and consolidate a rights agenda in the work of museums. The editors argue that a new political and economic climate is challenging a progressive commitment to rights. Aligning human rights principles and institutional practices has also proven complex – think of the uneven progress on disability access to public institutions, for example. And the universalist discourse of human rights promoted by the UN Declaration conflicts on occasions with more contingent and particular struggles for recognition and equality. This book began life in a conference on museums and human rights, held in London in 2010. In choosing the contributions, the editors were guided by a view that the debate on museums and rights has been largely confined to the academy. Hence they have sought to give voice to museum practitioners, and to reflect the full range of institutional roles, from curatorship to human resources deployment today. Reading this book during the 2013 federal election campaign in Australia impressed upon me that the question at the start of this review is far from rhetorical. The increasingly harsh attitude of the major Australian political parties to asylum seekers (the right to asylum being specifically mentioned in the 1948 charter) confirms concerns about a slowing commitment to human rights principles – in Australia, at least – and issues a new challenge to museums. As Mark O’Neill and Lois Silverman comment in the book’s preface: [T]he contribution of any social institution is only as good as its analysis of society and the role it chooses to play in response. [ ] Dr Ian McShane is at the Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University, Melbourne. He is currently working with Assoc Prof Andrea Witcomb and Assoc Prof Kylie Message on an Australian Research Council funded project 'Collecting institutions, cultural diversity and the making of citizenship in Australia since the 1970s'.
40 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
Book Review – museums viewed from the vantage-point of a social worker
Review: The Social Work of Museums
Lois H. Silverman, The Social Work of Museums (UK, Routledge 2010).
Meredith Blake
L
ois Silverman’s central tenet in The Social Work of Museums is that museums exist 'in the service of society’ and that they can and do contribute much to improve people’s lives and foster social change. When they focus on socially excluded groups, Silverman argues, museums either intentionally or unintentionally utilise the principles of social work to achieve their aims. This includes using a client-centred approach, which is mindful of people’s needs as first expressed by Abraham Maslow in 1943, and particularly attempts to strengthen people’s closest, most influential relationships – especially the self, the pair, the family and the group. Silverman’s book sets out to examine the extent to which her vision of the social work of museums is ‘a remote fantasy or an emerging reality’. Over seven engaging chapters, she explores just how museums ‘foster social functioning, human well-being and favourable social conditions’, combining theory, an extensive literature review, and case studies from museums around the world. Silverman has an authoritative base from which to address this topic, having worked as a museum
educator, scholar, professor and museum consultant – as well as having a PhD in social work. Her ability to draw on this interdisciplinary background inspires confidence in the reader, and her passion for both museology and sociology shines through in her writing. Mark O’Neil’s comment that ‘the majority of the world’s museum visitors still reflects the more educated and well off in society’ serves as a provocation for Silverman. She counters that many museum professionals struggle with this reality, and seek to redress the balance with programs directed at breaking down both the exclusiveness of museums and wider patterns of social exclusion. Case studies discuss how museums can affect those crucial relationships – with the self, pairs, family groups and societal groups. Museum programs that demonstrate social work principles include art and dementia programs, the hosting of prison inmates’ contact with their children prior to release in a supervised environment, and communal storytelling and healing following tragedy or unrest. The reader is afforded an abundance of examples that highlight museums as places where people can gain skills, receive public health messages, relax, be inspired, have their consciousness raised, socialise, share stories and experiences, enjoy quality family time, have their prejudices challenged, or express or affirm their identity. Museums may also provide important material support. In the brutal winter of 1918, the Children’s Museum of Boston kept kids off the freezing streets and engaged in learning activities. Even homelessness may be tackled. The Massachusetts Historic Curatorship Program, founded in 1994, involved a long-term lease of an historic house to a homeless family, in return for an undertaking to restore and maintain it. Silverman’s approach is optimistic, positive and inspiring, and this book will be of great benefit to museum professionals engaged in delivering social programs with marginalised or socially excluded groups. It provides useful language with which to describe the benefits of developing and managing projects aimed at effecting social change and redressing social problems, and the extensive literature review is a sound foundation for practitioners. As for outcomes, Silverman notes that it is difficult to provide evidence of long-term social change for such programs. Data is more often qualitative than quantitative, and surveying people on how much museum experiences might have changed their lives is a quest difficult to determine. However despite this challenge, the reader is left in no doubt that museums are a natural and necessary place for social work. [ ] Meredith Blake is Project Manager, Victorian Collections, at Museums Australia (Victoria).
above:
Meredith Blake.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013 41
Book Review – a handbook on museums and heritage bodies in Tasmania
Review: Tasmania Island of Treasures
Sue Atkinson, Tasmania Island of Treasures (40&ordm; South Pty Ltd, Tasmania, 2013).
Patricia Sabine
I
will begin this review with two caveats. First, despite the ubiquitous presence of websites, universal browsers and the exponential increase in social media, some of us still value a book in the hands. Second, although the mantra that volunteers are the backbone of our museums is repeated from Canberra to the Kimberley and from the Top End to Tasmania, too few opportunities exist to celebrate this reality publicly. Volunteers come in all personality-types and lifestages, contributing a range of skills, experience and knowledge that no museum could ever afford to pay for. They often contribute to the most critical aspects of collections care, such as object identification, research, data entry, and ensuring clean and safe storage environments. They regularly provide the welcoming, interpretive and communication services that enable visitors to gain insights into collections. Meanwhile honorary board members — themselves effectively volunteers — are responsible for the good governance and effective fundraising necessary to promote and advance museums within their local community. Volunteers enable the continued existence of many museums in the wider world. They also work in museums because learning from each other and from museum staff enriches them too. Passion, the knowhow and willingness to work at whatever is needed, are core volunteer values that make the survival of smaller museums and specialist collections possible, especially in regional Tasmania. Museums need to compete for attention in an increasingly digital environment. Whilst the compelling, ever-expanding and amorphous cloud of cyberspace lures broad public attention, museums must keep building and updating their own web presence. For many museums, younger volunteers bring the creative energy and input needed to promote the physical world of museum collections to their peers.
With their adroit use of social media, facility with new software and programming knowledge, these digital natives are already crucial in developing new audiences, whether on site, online or in print. But how can we reinforce appreciation and support for our older volunteers, often the ‘special emergency services’ troops of the museum world? How do we provide some sense of scale for the extent and value of their contributions? And how do we maintain their commitment in the face of their own competing demands and responsibilities? Over the years, recognition has been expressed through annual social gatherings, recorded in statistics in annual reports (equating volunteer time with $ value in budgets) and acknowledged in publications, at events and on foyer tribute panels. But in our smallest, second oldest state, a new publication, Tasmania Island of Treasures, provides tangible evidence of the extent and value of volunteer participation in diverse community museums and historical societies. In early 2013, Sue Atkinson, with 40º South Publishing, launched Tasmania Island of Treasures. This self-funded, hard cover, 192-page book is in effect a broad survey of Tasmania’s public and private museums. Sue developed this publication as a result of working extensively with community museums and history groups across the state. From 2009, for a period of three years she worked full time on what became known as The Atlas Project, advising key museum staff and volunteers on appropriate processes and procedures for various tasks, and providing ‘hands on’ museum training in workshops. The University of Tasmania’s Professor Pam Sharpe and Dr Natasha Cica, along with resources from the Tasmanian Community Fund, assisted Sue Atkinson by rendering financial support, advice and encouragement. But with The Atlas Project itself folding after government funding was withdrawn, and the collected information unable to be distributed, producing a book needed additional determination and became Sue Atkinson’s private commitment to ensuring public recognition of the many passionate and enthusiastic volunteers she had encountered on the project. Sue’s practical engagement with museums began with the formation in 2004 of the Levendale and Woodsdale History Rooms Inc – now The Woodsdale Museum. At Woodsdale, a tiny and remote rural community, she learnt the practical lessons of museum development and survival from the ground up. By contrast, in its magazine style format her colourful publication provides an overview of the variety and richness of Tasmania’s movable cultural heritage. Much of the text and many of the photographs were supplied by the organisations represented; but a quick glance at the photo-credits indicates that Sue herself has contributed considerably towards this lively read. It is, to quote the author, a ‘form of free advertising’, lending ‘an opportunity [for museums] to stand on
above:
Patricia Sabine.
42 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 22(2) – Summer 2013
Book Review – a handbook on museums and heritage bodies in Tasmania
above left:
Ulverstone History Museum. Photo: Sue Atkinson.
above right:
Wool Winder, Channel Heritage Centre. Photo: Channel Heritage Centre.
their own soapbox’. Graphic designers Beverly Waldie, Kellie Strachan and Kent Whitmore have given this book a clean, crisp look that enhances its usability and appeal, with their design architecture unifying the diverse contents. Each of Tasmania’s geographic districts – Central Tasmania/ the Midlands, Northern, North East, North West, Southern, South East and West Coast – is laid out in one of the seven colour-coded sections for easy reference. Each individual entry provides a collection overview, photographs, and basic contact information such as physical address, telephone, email and website addresses, opening hours, and indication as to whether an entry fee applies. To meet the now almost universal need to keep information accessible on multiple devices, a scannable QR Code is provided on the Preface page. Tasmania Island of Treasures has currency for both locals and visitors. For visitors to Tasmania, it is a resource to help plan travel around the state, and find unique destinations might otherwise be missed. Afterwards, it will hopefully become a long-held souvenir. This is a book that can be handed around at social gatherings, circulated through local and school libraries, and shared amongst family members. Perhaps even more importantly, Tasmania Island of Treasures can be presented to governments, sponsors, trusts, foundations, and various arts/heritage/science funding bodies to illustrate the value of their involvement and encourage their continuing contribution to enriching the value of Tasmania’s diverse collections. The Tasmanian Premier and Minister for the Arts, Lara Giddings, has provided the Foreword to the book. This publication also has the potential to lead a very active and well-thumbed life in the arena of tourist accommodation literature. With its A4 landscape format, the book is rather too large and heavy to carry in a walker’s backpack; but its magazine style encourages ad hoc browsing – whether on coffee tables, hotel reception desks, or the back seat of a car; and it can double as a very big thank you to all those hundreds of museum volunteers whose work it celebrates. Why not a website or downloadable app? Despite funding for the original website concept of an
interactive, navigable map having inopportunely vanished, with Sue’s background as a Library Technician a book was, as she says, ’a natural thing to do to finish off The Atlas Project’. That Sue was prepared to fund the 1000 print-run publication herself speaks eloquently of her energy, enthusiasm and systematic follow-through. This is neither an academic treatise nor a quantity/ quality survey. But it is definitely an encouragement, particularly to Tasmanians, to stop and investigate the next time you drive past that little museum you might ‘have been meaning to visit for years’. Copies of the book can be obtained through Museums Australia National Office or directly through Sue Atkinson (0407 976 359, or <museumconsultant@bigpond.com>) Patricia Sabine is a museum consultant, based in Hobart. She served as President of Museums Australia in 2005— 2009 and was Director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery 1992—2002.
Connecting the Edge: within and beyond the Museum
Launceston, Tasmania 16-19 May The world is changing and the paradigms for museums today are shifting dramatically and constantly. This is a call to museum professionals, past, present and future to gather and explore new models, creative links, different collaborations that will connect us with our communities, environment and dreams for a vibrant cultural life. Come and listen to leaders of the sector provide their insights from experience, debate difficult issues with colleagues, exchange ideas to shake up the way we think and view our work and to create new paradigms that inspire our audiences and communities. The four-day conference, including a day dedicated to regional, remote and community museums and galleries will be complemented by uniquely Tassie experiences to enjoy.
> Registrations Now Opened > Early Bird Registration Closes: 14 February 2014 > For more information visit www.ma2014.org.au