Museums Australia Magazine 21(1) by Australian Museums and Galleries Association

vol 21 (1) – spring 2012 $15.00

Museums Australia

MUSEUMS AUSTRALIA NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2012

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National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Showcase design: NGA and Designcraft. Photography David Somlyay for Designcraft. Images reproduced courtesy of NGA.

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9 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 20 (3) – Autumn 2012

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 9

Contents

In this issue Museums Australia National Council 2012—2013 The power of art in the service of revolution – Napoléon: Revolution to Empire. . . . 11

president

In League: Four art exhibitions exploring sport, strengthening culture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

vice-president

Andrew Sayers AM (Director, National Museum of Australia, Canberra) Belinda Cotton (Head, Travelling Exhibitions, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra)

Museum development and cross-cultural learning in the Kelabit Highlands, Borneo. . . . . . . . 23

treasurer

Relocate and Rediscover: The Berndt Museum reviewing its treasures . . . . . 27

secretary

Visiting Gallipoli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Suzanne Bravery (Manager, Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne) William (Bill) Storer (previously: President, MA-NSW; Chair, Community Museums National Network; Newcastle) members

Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture: from Quiet Havens to Modern Agoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Belinda Nemec (Museum consultant, Melbourne)

Australia’s story — in zeroes and ones. . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Rebekah Butler (Executive Director, Museum & Gallery Services Queensland, Brisbane)

The Sustainable Collections Project in Central West Region, New South Wales. . . . . . . . 41

Richard Mulvaney (Director, Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, Launceston)

A case-study in award-winning best practice in Victoria: Shepparton Art Museum. . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Sustaining regional museums, Indigenous cultural centres and regional historical societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Meredith Blake (Research Fellow, RMIT University, Melbourne)

Robert Heather (Event & Exhibition Manager, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne) Soula Veyradier (Manager, WA Museum, Perth) ex officio member

Frank Howarth (Chair, ICOM Australia), Director, Australian Museum public officer

Dr Don McMichael CBE, Red Hill, Canberra state/territory branch presidents/ representatives (subject to change throughout year) COVER IMAGE: Michael Jennings 2010. Image courtesy and © Greg Semu, Collection Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.

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, Little Cloud Print: BlueStar Print, Canberra

Printed on 100% Australian, 70-100% recycled carbon neutral paper stock.

ACT Carol Cartwright (Former Head, Education & Visitor Services, Australian War Memorial, Canberra)

NSW Dr Andrew Simpson (Director, Museum Studies Program, Macquarie University, Sydney)

No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

NT Michelle Smith (Curator, Territory History, Museum of Central Australia, Alice Springs)

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.

SA Regan Forrest (PhD Candidate, Adelaide)

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. Museums Australia is proud to acknowledge the following supporters of the national organisation: Australian Government Office for the Arts and Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities; National Museum of Australia; Museum Victoria (Melbourne Museum); Western Australian Museum; and Link Digital (Canberra). Print Post Publication No: 332582/00001 ISSN 1038-1694

TAS Sue Atkinson (Museum Consultant, Tasmania) QLD Edith Cuffe (Director, Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, Caboolture) VIC Daniel Wilksch (Coordinator, Digital Projects, Public Record Office Victoria, Melbourne) WA Soula Veyradier (Manager, WA Museum, Perth)

10 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

President’s message

am delighted to have accepted the MA National Council’s offer to take up the position as your new National President. I took up the role following the AGM of Museums Australia on 17 May – on the eve of International Museum Day. I would like to begin by paying tribute to past President, Dr Darryl McIntyre, who decided to step down after three years’ service in this leadership role, and to acknowledge on behalf of all members and Council his contribution to the welfare of Museums Australia and the sector at large over many years. Today, in museums, we confront an environment of mixed fortunes. On the one hand, museums are enjoying a great profile with successful exhibitions and far-reaching public programs. Governments are recognising that museums have a large and far-reaching role to play in two vital areas – education and tourism. In the field of education, museums have vast reserves of knowledge and content; they also have the expertise and enthusiasm to enliven life-long learning. The alignment of museums with emerging curricula, and the provision of life-long learning resources in an information-hungry society, is a large and important task, recognised by all. In the area of tourism, it is now clear that major exhibitions not only deliver direct cultural enrichment to their visitors but also yield real economic benefits. This is a good environment, particularly for larger museums in our capital cities and larger regional centres. And in regional Australia, smaller museums contribute important elements of the dynamic infrastructure needed to support tourism on a national level. Regional historical collections, galleries and museums provide entry-points to an understanding of a particular place, local history or community, and in so doing they contribute to a national picture of our heritage. There is much talk at the moment about ‘two-speed economies’. In museums, we are witnessing a version of this phenomenon. Whilst museums are demonstrating success in many areas, there are parts of our business that are more difficult and challenging. The nature of museums means that we have a real responsibility to the physical fabric of our collections – to their conservation, housing, continuing interpretation and ongoing engagement and access. Investment in infrastructure – buildings and the energy to run them – always looms large in the deliberations of those of us who run museums. Because this investment is very considerable, we are often slowed by under-funding in infrastructure development areas; this constrains our commitment to doing the exciting things we would love to do in terms of

delivering new programs. Training is an essential part of our capacity to look after the nation’s material culture. We need more museum-specific training in this country and Museums Australia plays a key role in this area. Museums Australia’s National Office is again partnering this year with the Gordon Darling Foundation in providing administrative support for realisation of the outstanding biennial Museum Leadership Program, coordinated and substantially funded by the GDF foundation since 1999. In terms of ongoing professional development and training, Museums Australia’s National Conferences are pivotal. As the peak national gatherings, the MA National Conferences offer reflections on the latest museum thinking, drawing attention to current issues for Australia and the world. They also stimulate and highlight the work of the sector on an annual basis. The National Conference this year in Adelaide (24–28 Sept. 2012) promises to bring together a rich program of sessions and guest speakers with a focus on collections, research and the eve-present challenges of the sustainability of our institutions. I look forward to meeting you face-to-face at the National Conference in Adelaide in September, and I am keen to engage with members, with ideas — and with the burning issues. [ ] Andrew Sayers AM National President, Museums Australia (Director, National Museum of Australia)

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 11

Winter Masterpieces at National Gallery of Victoria 2012

The power of art in the service of revolution – Napoléon: Revolution to Empire [1]

right:

FRANCE Helmet, breastplate and backplate of a Rifle Officer 1810–15 iron, copper, hair, leather (1) 47.0 x 18.0 x 40.0 cm (helmet); (2) 47.0 x 38.0 x 38.0 cm (breastplate and backplate). Fondation Napoléon, Paris Acquisition 1998 (inv. 77) © Fondation Napoléon / Vincent Mercier.

1. Napoléon: Revolution to Empire (National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne, 2 June to 7 October 2012)

Annette Welkamp

his consideration of the National Gallery of Victoria’s exclusive exhibition, Napoléon: Revolution to Empire will start with a ‘spoiler alert’. Despite the presentation’s being largely chronological, a format that is ideally suited to telling the story of the rise, rise and even further rise before the mighty fall of Napoléon Bonaparte, the final two objects displayed seem at first wonderfully out of place. Regally attired in ermine and deep red velvet, and crowned with a golden laurel wreath reminiscent of Caesar, the almost life-size portrait of Napoleon presents an extremely confident man. In his left hand he holds the imperial sceptre, while his extended right hovers over the orb of power, visually asserting that he is clearly lord of a vast domain. Displayed alongside this ‘larger than life’ portrait is an object of equally symbolic potency – a golden throne that once sat in the French Chamber of Deputies. If the labels for these two works were given only a cursory glance (museum fatigue notwithstanding, as this is a very large show), the visitor would leave the exhibition with a final impression of Emperor Napoléon as he presumably would have preferred to be remembered: as master of the universe (in the words of Tom Wolfe). But we race ahead of ourselves! Let’s go back to the start of this wonderful, imaginative and cleverly curated exhibition. It is a masterful presentation, displaying a dexterous selection of objects that are both individually significant and also woven together closely to convey powerful stories. The exhibition deserves the investment of the visitor’s mind and time, since it embodies the art of curating at its very best. The presentation is colourful, clever, humorous, engaging, stimulating and gorgeous. Dr Ted Gott, Senior Curator at the NGV, and Karine Huguenaud, formerly of the Fondation Napoléon, are to be congratulated, along with the many others at the Gallery and elsewhere who contributed their talents and knowledge to this powerful exhibition.

When objects speak In curatorial school we learned that we could make objects ‘talk to each other’. This is a phrase that is often received with a quizzical look when speaking to ‘muggles’, however in this exhibition it makes complete sense. Objects are paired, grouped, highlighted, isolated and clustered throughout in such a way as to complement and elbow each other, building up a number of almost cacophonous conversations as the exhibition develops. One powerful vignette in the early part of the exhibition focuses on the human tragedies at the time of the French Revolution, when many citizens were incarcerated and quite a few executed. In this grouping, a number of small paintings portray life in the French prisons.

12 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

Winter Masterpieces at National Gallery of Victoria 2012

Anne-Louis GIRODETTRIOSON (studio of ) Napoleon in Imperial robes c.1812 oil on canvas 248.0 x 178.0 cm Musée de l’Empéri, Salon de Provence Gift of Charles Pasqua, French Minister of the Interior, 1987 (inv. 1987.1). left:

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 13

conversations offered in the detailed labels, which Particularly poignant are two precious little painted would otherwise facilitate a clearer appreciation of ivory cameo portraits depicting a plainly dressed the inspiration for various decorative arts items in the couple, each with a dark neutral background, where remainder of the gallery. the only detail is a small barred prison window. For those who have studied the Louvre Museum’s Alongside these is a more dramatic oil portrait of history, Denon’s name will be familiar, since one of Louis XVI at the foot of the scaffold; and in a further the building’s wings is named in his honour. In 1802 display case, three modest objects that truly personalNapoleon appointed Denon as Director-General ise the heartbreak of the times. of the Imperial Museums of France, including the In addition to a small gold reliquary box bearing a renamed Louvre – badged as the Musée Napoléon at portrait of Marie-Antoinette, and containing a lock the Emperor’s behest. Together these two men were of Louis XVI’s hair folded neatly into a little piece responsible for the unprecedented expansion of the of paper, there is a miniature portrait of a different former royal collections, primarily through the confispersonality on the front of a locket nearby – the image cating and sequestering of key pieces amassed from of a young brunette woman surrounded by plaited public, private and church collections in the lands locks of her hair. conquered in the military campaigns of the early The latter subject was Marie-Thérèse Louise de nineteenth century, when the French Revolution was Savoie-Carignan, the Princesse de Lamballe, whose succeeded by Napoleon’s rise as a ruler of Europe. friendship with Marie-Antoinette sealed her fate. The With Napoleon’s demise after his defeat at Waterloo, Princess was executed at La Force Prison in 1792, after many of these pillaged objects were returned to their which her severed head was carried on the end of a countries of origin – though some remain important pike to the Temple Prison, to show her friend what items in the enduring ‘national collections’ belonging would also soon be her own fate. The horrific cruelty of the time, captured particularly in these vivid details, to the French state today. According to Dr. Gerard Vaughan in his catalogue is made all the more startling by the subsequent notes to this section of the exhibition – referring to exhibit displayed on the wall nearby: a revolutionary the creation of the Musée Napoléon, which ‘led the wooden spike. world’ museologically and in conservation techniques This multi-faceted exhibition forces the visitor in the period of the French Revolutionary Wars and throughout to confront images of beauty and civility combined with political shrewdness and bloody mind- Napoleon’s seizure of foreign cultural treasures: edness – as the next section also makes clear. Vivant Denon pioneered many important museoWhen the young General Bonaparte set off for Egypt logical approaches including hanging the collection with his Army of the Orient (some thirty-seven thouaccording to a coherent art-historical construct of sand men), the military results would be mixed but stylistic development. the impact on culture and the arts was substantial. Leading France’s subsequent obsession with all things Terre Napoléon Egyptian was Dominique-Vivant Denon, who had volunteered to join this expedition. Many of the themes elucidated in this exhibition are Denon is described in the catalogue as a curator, generally known. However it comes as a marvellous diplomat, genius connoisseur, collector, literary man and an excellent engraver. Highlighting his profuse achieve- surprise to many visitors to encounter the themes that highlight the special relationship that southern ments is a small selection of objects that demand close Australia, or Terre Napoléon (Napoleon Land) as it inspection. A display case includes a small portrait was for a time conceived, has with France, and with painting of Denon, to set the scene; an elephant-sized Monsieur and Madame Bonaparte. book (his exceptionally popular Travels in Lower and Under the leadership of the outstanding explorer Upper Egypt); and a few surviving pieces of a glistenNicolas Baudin, Le Géographe and Le Naturaliste ing Sèvres tea service that he once owned. Upon closer study it becomes clear that the scenes set sail for the Southern Lands, with the directive depicted on the bands around the porcelain teacups to explore the south Pacific region, collect natural and pot are taken from the accompanying book’s history specimens and learn more about the Indigengraved illustrations, although the hieroglyph enous inhabitants – referred to by the French as decorations surrounding these images are complete ‘Aborigènes’. Twenty scholars and a small group of fancies. Regrettably, only a few visitors take the draughtsmen were included in the Baudin expeditime at this case to attend closely to the exhibition tion, and this resulted in a vast collection of drawings,

14 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

Winter Masterpieces at National Gallery of Victoria 2012

maps and objects, as well as a surprising 120,000 natural history specimens. A relatively modest portrait painting of Napoleon dating from the period overlooks this gallery, reminding us of the particular interests the Emperor had in this region. (One of the books that Napoleon later took with him to St. Helena, where he was ultimately exiled, was Captain Cook’s account of his voyages.) Setting the stage for this assembly is James Gillray’s famous political cartoon depicting William Pitt in a regimental uniform, sitting at a dinner table with Napoleon. Each is carving his desired section of the globe – depicted as a large plum pudding. Alongside the Gillray cartoon is a coastal map of Western Victoria and South Australia. The memory of the Baudin voyage is still evident today in some of the surviving place names, including Île des Français in Western Port Bay, Baie de la Venus, Fleurieu Peninsula and Cap Marengo. Nearby is a beautiful, and remarkably precise watercolour profile of the Wilson’s Promontory coast, which is paired with a small movie-film of the same area as it is today; the comparison between the two further highlights the draughtsman’s art and skills. Further on in this gallery is a number of Indigenous Australian portraits, and drawings of tools, animals and corroboree scenes. One of the most engaging works in the whole exhibition is to be found in this group. It presents a page of musical notations, with brief sections of three pieces illustrated, including one that is described as a crie de ralliement (a rallying cry), whereby the lyrics are a repeating series of ‘cou hé’ calls. Marvellous! Is this the first time our beloved coo-ee has been committed to paper, either in English or in French? Returning to all of the natural history specimens acquired on the Baudin voyage, the exhibition highlights those that were delivered to the Jardin de la Malmaison, the estate that Madame Josephine acquired just outside of Paris and which was to become the Bonapartes’ second home. One gallery is dedicated to the architecture and furnishings that came to influence French taste for some time, and includes Empress Josephine’s ebony and gilt letter box, with a little video accompanying to show how letters were retrieved from this ingenious container. A further gallery focuses on Malmaison’s parklands, highlighting how it came to influence garden design, scientific studies and the arts. Josephine is described by Alain Pougetoux, the current Chief Curator at Malmaison, as a ‘collector at heart’ – and indeed her interests in the natural sciences extended from botany to zoology and

mineralogy. She pursued and collected unusual specimens from around the world: some acquired through her husband’s campaigns, and others through the expeditions he commissioned. Empress Josephine encouraged their collection, cultivation, documentation and study. For example, the exhibition contains some of PierreJoseph Redouté’s delicate watercolour plant studies, as well as the engravings and richly illustrated books that later incorporated them. Where possible, the images selected are of Australian plants, such as the Josephina imperatricis named in honour of the Empress. Redouté’s Les roses are for obvious reasons also included. Particularly charming in this section of the exhibition is an 1824 circular engraving and etching by Charles-Alexandre Lesueur, later used on the title page of Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes, the published account of Baudin’s expedition. This image reveals a vista from deep in the Malmaison park, looking back towards the château. However instead of a scene populated with European oaks and squirrels, it presents kangaroos, emus and black swans roaming

below left:

Pierre-Joseph REDOUTÉ Flemish 1759–1840 Josephinia imperatricis c.1803 watercolour and gouache over pencil, red and gold pen and ink on vellum 47.9 x 33.5 cm The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (PD.122-1973.64) Photo: © Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 15

right:

Nicolas-Martin PETIT French 1777–1804 Mororé, man of New Holland (Mororé, Homme de NouvelleHollande) (1802–04) charcoal, red chalk 29.5 x 23.6 cm Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, Le Havre (20038.2) Photo: Alain Havard.

16 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

right top:

Louis-Claude de Desaulses FREYCINET French 1779–1842 General map of Terre Napoléon (In New Holland) 1812 plate no. 10 in Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes exécuté par ordre de S. M. L’Empereur et Roi. Atlas: Partie Navigation et Géographie (Voyage of discovery to the southern lands undertaken by order of His Majesty the Emperor and King. Atlas: Navigation and Geograph Section) published by L’Imprimerie impériale, Paris engraving 57.0 x 43.0 cm (page). Rare Books Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne (RARELTBF 919.4 F89V, Atlas). right bottom:

Charles-Alexandre LESUEUR French 1778–1846 Kangaroos 1802–04 watercolour 25.5 x 40 cm Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, Le Havre (inv. 80061) Photo: Alain Havard. below:

Robert LEFÈVRE French 1756–1830 Empress Josephine with a Herbarium on the table beside her 1805 oil on canvas 216.0 x 175.0 cm Museo Napoleonico, Rome (Inv. MN 22).

contentedly in an ‘Australian’ landscape. This idyllic depiction may be a touch romantic, but further etchings from the period clearly show how the animals were studied and cared for in the park where they were housed. The Empress Josephine, wearing a white satin dress embroidered with golden ferns, ‘oversees’ this gallery of works that reflect her wide interests. A full-length portrait presents her standing beside an open window that suggests the wide world whence her collection has been sourced, with her fingers gently touching some plants and specimens displayed in an open book on a table beside her.

Art in the service of Empire As has been amply suggested, Napoléon: Revolution to Empire includes many significant works, both beautiful and resonantly historical. The Napoleonic period is notable for its incorporation of the arts in the service of empire building, of the utilisation of culture as an instrument of propaganda, and this is skillfully explored throughout the exhibition’s thematic unfolding. In this regard, further key pieces include those related to Bonaparte’s coronation as Emperor – most notably the watercolours that detail the elaborate decorations that set the stage for this event in and around Notre-Dame Cathedral; the fragile and now unique court dress and train of a society lady worn on

the day; and a gilded bronze imperial bee, which was one of the many that decorated the interior. A case filled with elaborate uniforms suggests just how glamorously dressed the French Army must have seemed. In the catalogue they are aptly described as ‘dazzling’. How imposing the men must have appeared with their various Graeco-Roman influenced helmets and body armour, some decorated with panther skin, horse hair, embossed copper, leather and silk. It is hard to imagine how the red feather duster-like plumage served as anything other than a vivid target, but their headgear would certainly have added to the rakish air of the elite troopers. Napoleon well understood the impact that an approaching phalanx of blue, white and red uniforms would have on his opponents (and a European audience). At the outset of this essay, reference was made to the two objects seemingly out of place at the exhibition’s terminus. In fact, the reason for their position is the more poignant because they rightly belong there, and visitors will learn why if they give attention to the labels. The portrait of Napoleon is but one of a series of thirty-six copies commissioned from the studio of artist Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson, whereby each was designed to be hung in the Courts of Appeal across the encompassing national French Territory. Unfortunately, the task of painting so many copies was so overwhelming that they were delivered too late by the studio. As things turned out, by 1814 the ‘Corsican usurper’ had been vanquished, and the aggrandisement and authority of this large ensemble of copies was therefore never realised in its intended buildings that symbolised the power of the French state. Only a few of this ‘job lot’ commission seem to have survived in French public collections today. Finally, in confronting the ultimate ‘relic’ of imperial ambition in the gilded throne, while Napoleon’s well-clothed derrière might have managed to sit on this substantial symbol of royal pageantry, the historical insignia of the most famous French pretender to European empire was ultimately removed, when his monogram on the backrest was later replaced by that of Louis XVII. [ ] Annette Welkamp is Director of the arts and heritage consultancy, Cultural Connotations (www.culturalconnotations.com.au). She declares that she is a devoted fan of the NGV’s annual Winter Masterpieces exhibitions, as they bring welcome rays of sunshine into Melbourne’s otherwise greyest season. She would also like to thank the NGV for encouraging ICOM Australia members to attend the exhibition (more than once) by offering free entry to visit the Napoléon exhibition. Citation for this article: Annette Welkamp, ‘The power of art in the service of revolution – Napoléon: Revolution to Empire’, Museum Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 11–16.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 17

Museum collaboration across institutions and grass-roots communities

In League: Four art exhibitions exploring sport, strengthening culture

left:

In League: Winna (installation). Photo: Adam Hollingworth.

Victoria Harbutt

enrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest (PRG&TLB) sits within the Penrith LGA as a public institution working on a number of fronts to gain the attention of local residents, the vast majority of whom are neither art enthusiasts, collectors nor amateur art historians; visual art is not central to their leisure, superannuation or cultural life – they do fine without it. Nevertheless it remains a strategic aim and an ongoing curatorial challenge for the Gallery at Penrith, in the outer western suburbs of Sydney, to encourage participation in ‘art culture’ and to be well known, well regarded and well visited by all. With this in mind, PRG&TLB includes in its annual exhibition program – alongside contemporary and historical surveys, collection and education-based shows and academic art exhibitions – projects that deliver quality art experiences born out of the preexisting non-art-related passions and concerns of local communities. Consequently, over the last ten years, large-scale exhibition projects have been undertaken about Christmas, dolls, civic justice, popular music, handicrafts, horticultural science, mental health, television, clothing, aliens and UFOs, cultural

reconnection, motorbikes, popular entertainment – and most recently, rugby league.[1] In League was a suite of four rugby league-themed exhibitions on concurrent display that offered visitors the opportunity to enjoy and consider some less obvious aspects of what it means to win, lose, be part of a team and represent something greater than yourself – be it a family name, a sporting code, a club, a suburb, a geographic or demographic area, a state, a nation...a culture. In League, and its individual exhibition projects, all utilised a style of exhibition making fine-tuned by a series of curators working in Sydney (western Sydney, in the main) over the last twenty years.[2] This approach is often characterised by a curatorial and design rationale that presents art and non-art objects together in a varying combination of gallery, museum, library and art installation exhibition modes. This combined methodology seems to create a comfortable context for exhibition visitors – perhaps ideal, in that the mix reflects the multiple, unfolding nature of our lived experience where related and unrelated events, objects, information, emotions and so much more, are successfully sorted and made meaningful. Heads Up and Body On The Line were existing bodies of high-concept photographic portraiture,

1. Christmas: Holy Pictures (2002) and Faux Snow (2002); dolls: Violet’s Dolls House (2002) and Hello Dollies (2012); civic justice: Anita and Beyond (2003); Marella, the hidden mission (2009) and Sylvie Blocher: what is missing? (2010); popular music: UnReal Rock (2003) and The Vinyl House (2003); handicrafts: Time and Love: the handcrafted bedroom (2004) and Stitched (2008); horticultural science: Making Sugar: a photosynthetic artifice (2004); mental health: For Matthew and Others: Journeys with Schizophrenia (2006); television: Yours Mine & Ours: 50 years of ABC TV (2006); clothing: Tracksuits of St Marys (2007); aliens: The Visitors: The Australian Response to UFOs and Aliens (2007); cultural reconnection: Strictly Samoan (2008); motorbikes: Born To Be Wild: The Motorcycle in Australia (2009); popular entertainment: Class-Classy-Classic (2009). 2. John Kirkman; Anne Loxley; Maud Page; Victoria Harbutt; Kon Gouriotis; Lisa Havilah; Lalau Leo Tanoi.

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Museum collaboration across institutions and grass-roots communities

on loan from (Penrith) Panthers Group and Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre respectively, and they were installed at opposite ends of the Main Gallery. Team Player and Winna, produced by PRG&TLB for In League, were three collections of archival and social history ‘documents’ – aka trophies and team photos – which shared Ancher House Gallery. The paired exhibitions were in easy proximity of each other; visitors could see one exhibition from the other. This physical closeness allowed the exhibitions and their individual artworks and objects to be viewed in counterpoint and contrast; moreover this placement and (courtesy of an introductory text) a gently insinuated exhibition rationale, encouraged visitors to carry their private responses from one exhibition to the next. Best case scenario: visitors blend these responses with their own attendant bodies of knowledge, to create observations or internal commentaries encompassing more than the

artworks and objects at hand; a ‘poetry’ of material, historical and metaphysical connections. Significantly, these types of projects are driven by a rationale of engagement: cultural institutions, artists and curators collaborate with ‘shared interest’ groups, businesses and community organisations whose core interests are not art, to produce or contribute to artworks and exhibitions. Though these collaborations may take many forms, and be manifested overtly or subtly, ‘engagement’ nonetheless lies at their heart. The Body On The Line portraits were made in May 2010, when Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre and the National Rugby League Pacifica Players Advisory Group began work on the Body Pacifica Calendar Project – a thirteen-month calendar featuring NRL players and legends of the recent past, all dressed in the traditional wear of their various Pacific Island cultures.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 19

The ambition of this collaborative project was to acknowledge and celebrate the Pacific Island heritage of rugby league players, and to promote to the Pacific Island community and their youth, in particular, the value to be found in re-connecting with their cultures and ‘representing’ and honouring their ancestors. Casula Powerhouse’s Creative Producer Pacific Programs, Lalau Leo Tanoi, was the creative director of the project; and Greg Semu, a Samoan-born, New Zealand-raised (now Sydney-based) photographer of international acclaim, was the shoot’s main photographer and art director. Without hesitation, thirteen players agreed to volunteer their time (and images) to the project. Over two days, and fitting in between training and game schedules, Semu photographed eleven of the thirteen players, while sport photographer William Booth photographed the remaining two in New Zealand. The body adornments worn by the players were a mix

of traditional objects from a private collection and traditional/modern pieces by artist, Niwhai Tupaea. Semu, who makes cultural identity, plurality and difference pivotal to his artistic practice, commented:

below:

In League: Body on the Line installation view, Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, 2012.

[T]he adornments empowered the process...the neck, arm and chest body adornments were like a visual acknowledgment of our collective ancestors’ spiritual origins – linking past millennia to the present and helping the 13 players change out of their on-field character. The adornments stay in the shadows until they are put on a body, then life is breathed into them.[3] The Body Pacifica calendar went on sale in late 2010. The immense popularity of the individual players, the unexpected way they were portrayed and their dignified pride, captured so artfully by Semu and Booth, combined to make the Calendar a collector’s item. Large-scale prints of the photos were then exhibited as

3. Greg Semu, artist statement, in Body On The Line, Body Pacifica 2010, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, June 2010.

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right:

Petero Civoniceva 2010. Image courtesy and © Greg Semu, Collection Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 21

Body On The Line in Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre’s festival and exhibition program, Body Pacifica 2010. The Body On The Line portraits deepen our understanding of the term ‘sports role model’ beyond a sponsorship deal and an expensive suit, to reveal a deeper personal and cultural commitment. Tanoi comments: [Y]oung people of Pacific Island heritage battle to regain or reconcile with their cultures...problems caused by loss of language and culture due to migration, poverty and generational misunderstandings, are impacting now. In these photos players are transformed from elite athletes to cultural warriors, standing together in support of cultural awareness and reconnection; stating clearly by their participation in this artistic project, that language, culture and the future of Pacific youth are important. In this impressive guise they may also inspire others to look into and re-evaluate their own cultural heritage.[4] Heads Up presents portraits of Penrith Panthers players and fans taken within minutes of the final whistle at home games in 2008 – three defeats. Craig Walsh was invited by the Museum of Contemporary Art to work with the Panthers Group as part of C3West – a long-term collaborative project between the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (in Sydney), Penrith Performing & Visual Arts; Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, Campbelltown Arts Centre, and the University of Western Sydney, which seeks new ways of working with art, commerce and community, by aligning business strategies with arts practices in western Sydney. Heads Up began with Walsh completing a residency at Penrith Panthers Rugby League Club, where he set out to explore the traditions of the club and the important role the ‘people of Panthers’ – footballers, fans, staff, members, local families and residents – play in contributing to, and defining, the Penrith community.[5] The full-colour, large-format, head shots by Craig Walsh and photographer Josh Raymond reveal detail on an emphatic scale: fatigue from effort; injuries sustained; a pie consumed, and the subtle facial expressions of both players and fans as they juggle their emotional responses to the defeats, with their dutiful pride in being photographed in the name of their club. By giving players and fans the same photographic treatment and wall space, Walsh creates the impression of a ‘team’, highlighting an intrinsic relationship. Heads Up was first exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2008, and was the first C3West project to be presented in a gallery context. During

2010 a selection of the photographs was also displayed in the Panthers Club foyer in Penrith. Team Player and Winna were meanwhile collections of commonplace sporting memorabilia brought together to illustrate the historical, political and emotional bounty of winning and being part of a team. These exhibitions provided familiar ground for the artistic photographs of Body On The Line and Heads Up to resonate within.

In League, and its individual exhibition projects, all utilise a style of exhibition making fine-tuned by a series of curators working in Sydney (western Sydney, in the main) over the last twenty years. Team Player chronicled forty-two years of Penrith District Rugby League Club’s 1st grade teams, from 1967 to 2012. No document more formally marks time, place, look and spirit than an annual team photo. In remarkable detail and chronological progression, these unpretentious photos track the development and changing fortunes of the Club, the careers of players, league families, coaches and ball boys; changes in players’ physiques, ‘posing’ demeanours, club colours and hairstyles; the fit of jerseys, the length of shorts, and Australia’s cultural mix. Winna presented two trophy collections: the group of cups, trophies and shields that constitute the Major Winner’s Prize of the NSW Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout, and a selection of trophies awarded and won by St Marys Rugby League Club. A multitude of histories, politics and circumstances are engraved onto, held within and hover around these objects, and some rudimentary information is recorded in a modest accompanying catalogue. For the last forty-two years the NSW Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout has been fiercely contested each October long weekend by around sixty A-Grade NSW Aboriginal teams. The teams are organised along traditional kinship and nation-based affiliations as well as those that reinforce current connections. The Major Winner’s Prize consists of around thirty cups, trophies and shields, each representing and commemorating the work and legacies of individuals; the

4. Lalau Leo Tanoi, introductory text, Body On The Line, Body Pacifica 2010, Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre, June 2010. 5. Extract from Heads Up room sheet, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2008.1.

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right top:

In League: Body On The Line/Heads Up (installation). Photo: Adam Hollingworth.

right bottom:

In League: Team Player Penrith Panthers 1st Grade Rugby League Team 1978. Image courtesy Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre.

continuance of Aboriginal nations; and the support of community and political organisations. At the conclusion of each Knockout, this precious cache travels back with the winning team to their home base to await the following year’s competition. For In League the Prize was brought down from Maitland, where it was in the care of the Mindaribba Land Council on behalf of the Knockout’s 2011 winners, Mindaribba Warriors Rugby League Club. The St Marys Rugby League Club collection surveys the history and multifaceted nature of a club considered to be the most successful and largest junior club in the world. The inclusion and presentation of these humble materials in an exhibition/art context has generated some unexpected outcomes, including a review and re-evaluation of the Knockout’s history and significance by key figures, plus a general call-out for any trophies currently in the care of individuals — to be reunited with the Prize. Likewise, on seeing In League, the Directors of Penrith District Rugby League Club have commissioned further documentation of the Club’s important archival material. As for these battered and, at best, silver-plate and plastic dust-catchers, they have a venerable, if littlerealised iconography: the two-handled ‘loving’ cup-shaped trophies are symbolic of ‘triumph’ as they sit ready to be filled with champagne and shared (echoing a kylix-style vessel, used for drinking parties in classical Greece); the statue-ed and columned trophies are miniatures of early Roman victory temples; meanwhile the origin of the shield as prize

can similarly be found in the battlefield memorial structures of the ancient Greeks. In League was on view at Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest, Penrith, until 16 September 2012. [ ] Victoria Harbutt, currently Creative Director, Special Projects for both Penrith Regional Gallery & The Lewers Bequest and Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, is a specialist in the development and implementation of strategically focused projects within and between the visual, performing and filmic arts. Text citation: Victoria Harbutt, ‘In League: Four art exhibitions exploring sport, strengthening culture’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 17–22.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 23

Australian museums-sector development extended internationally

Museum development and cross-cultural learning in the Kelabit Highlands, Borneo

Jonathan Sweet and Toyah Horman

new generation is engaged in the preservation of indigenous heritage in South-East Asia. The Kelabit Highlands Community Museum Development Project (KHCMDP) is a community-led response to concerns about the risks to the survival of Kelabit culture. The project is being led by the Rurum Kelabit Sarawak (RKS), an organisation that represents the interests of the Kelabit people, whose traditional lands are located in the highland regions of Sarawak, Malaysia. Recently, Phase 1 of the KHCMDP included a field school designed by Deakin University that was focused on community consultation. This field school facilitated cross-cultural engagement to deliver learning outcomes for both Australian students and participants in the host-community. The field school was conceived in October 2011, when Deakin University was contacted by the RKS.[1] The intent of the KHCMDP matched Deakin’s expertise. The project related to Jonathan Sweet’s cultural heritage research and development interests in the region. He has studied the history and practices of museology in Sarawak and has also been actively involved in UNESCO and ICCROM projects in other parts of South-East Asia.[2]

Jonathan Sweet recognised that the planning phase of the process could be supported through a field school designed for post-graduate cultural heritage and museum studies students. After discussions with Simon Wilmot, Senior Lecturer in documentary film making, who had previously collaborated with Sweet in a field school in Laos PDR, it was also decided to involve undergraduate film students.[3] The field school held in June 2012 was designed to contribute to the museum development process through helping to address a real need. Previous experience in South-East Asia had shown that where there is strong community support, this type of in-country, project-based experiential learning can be highly effective. It creates a solid pedagogical structure through which students are able to develop specific knowledge and skills in cross-cultural heritage management. The KHCMDP required an initial assessment of some aspects of the feasibility of establishing a community museum; thus the participants were offered a stimulating geographical and cultural context that would challenge their theoretical understandings and require them to adapt their expertise to local circumstances. In turn, the field school was also recognised as a means of building capacity in cultural heritage management for participants from the

below:

Participants discussed artefacts that exist in Kelabit society. Photo: Toyah Horman.

1. This contact was facilitated by Jan Drew, an educational consultant based in Malaysia. 2. In 2011 a project led by Jonathan Sweet received an ICOM Award for International Relations. See, J. Sweet and J. Wills, ‘Regional collaboration and the preservation of cultural heritage: The Lampang Temples Project, Thailand’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (4), 2011, pp.22-25. 3. See, J. Wills, C. Long, J. Sweet and S. Wilmot, ‘Transformative learning in the hidden city: writing an interpretation plan at the Viengxai Field School in northern Laos’, ICOMOS 2007: Extreme Heritage: ICOMOS conference held at James Cook University, Cairns, 19-21 July 2007, James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, pp.1-12.

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host-community. In other words, this kind of educational program facilitates the cross-cultural exchange of knowledge between all the people involved. The RKS Council in Kuching supported the strategy. Nevertheless it was essential to establish whether there was a consensus at a grass-roots level within the principal highland village community in Bario. In early 2012, Sweet visited Bario to start the process of community consultation. A meeting of the Council of Headmen was organised and chaired by the local representative to the Baram District Council, Councillor John Tarawe. At the meeting it was explained that the Deakin team would be seeking to understand the extent to which the community supported the idea of creating a community museum. It was also necessary for them to scope the availability of cultural assets – things, events, knowledge and stories, that embodied tangible and intangible cultural heritage values. Furthermore the team would need to become familiar with the kinds of human resources that any future museum may utilise in its programs. It was envisaged that the Deakin University team would work in partnership with community representatives. It was critical that Councillor Tarawe actually supported this approach, calling it a ‘smart partnership’ through which the local Kelabit community and the Deakin students would each benefit. Nevertheless local participation was not guaranteed because, despite a heightened awareness in the community about the risks to the preservation of Kelabit culture, many residents in the district are busy subsistence farmers and hunters. These circumstances meant that it was critical that the Headmen all confirmed their willingness to support the project and to actively encourage their constituencies to participate. In the event, the Council’s response to the proposal was unanimously positive. What was agreed and understood in general terms was that ‘a community museum’ in Bario might provide an anchor for the preservation and celebration of Kelabit culture. Interestingly, it became apparent through this initial consultation that there was a real need to build into the Museum Development Project for the Kelabit Highlands community some direct opportunities for local people to learn more about what a museum could be. This was a particularly important finding in that it supported what the RKS had envisaged: the development of an appropriate and sustainable highland museum owned by the community, through which they could meaningfully participate in its activities. Recognising that this field school is part of a longer development process, this article reports on some of the activities undertaken by the Deakin team and local participants during the 10-day field school in June 2012.

Community Consultation Upon arrival in Bario a meeting was arranged with the Village Headmen, senior community leaders and community members from the surrounding Longhouses. This was an opportunity for each member of the Deakin team to be introduced to members of the community. During the proceedings the project was explained, and the methodology for data collection and the documentation of the community’s interests and cultural assets was discussed. This was also the first place where local participants were introduced to museology. Two of the students presented preprepared information on the key characteristics of community museums and their inherent benefits. Special emphasis was placed on reaffirming the importance of community consultation in the program, with the aim of creating a museum that reflected the interests of those who would be most involved – the local community. To conclude the meeting, community members were encouraged to question the team, the ideas presented and the logistics involved, as well as to express their long-term visions for their museum and what it might contain or present. All the participants expressed their commitment to the project. It was clear at this point that there was an overarching sense of understanding between both collective parties to the undertaking, and subsequently, a growing level of amity amongst all concerned that would act as the momentum to achieve progress throughout the project.

Longhouse visits While in the highlands, the students visited eight Longhouses located close to Bario and one in Pa’Lungan, a four-hour hike from the town centre. Each student group contained museum and film

top:

Demonstration of a Pagang, a traditional Kelabit instrument made from bamboo. Photo: Jonathan Sweet. bottom:

Discussion of traditional jewellery making techniques. Photo: Jonathan Sweet.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 25

students who sought to document tangible and intangible heritage. At each Longhouse they were greeted with a traditional welcome from the inhabitants, which typically included singing, dancing and a speech from the residing Headman. The Kelabit people openly demonstrated their enthusiasm for the project, willingly shared the cultural material that was held within each Longhouse, and were eager to discuss each item on show. Via an interpreter, the participants discussed the objects that had been selected and displayed, as well as more intangible aspects such as customs, dance and oral traditions. The interior of the Longhouses and any associated material or event that demonstrated the process at hand was documented on film. This included well-represented items such as beaded necklaces, woven baskets and mats, ceramic jars, musical instruments and traditional clothing. And, in some cases, stories and songs associated with particular objects or with personal memories.

Observation and participation

top:

Emma and Margo learn how to dance. Photo: Jonathan Sweet. bottom: Students engaged in activities to gain an understanding of intangible cultural heritage. Photo: Jenn Rowe.

In the absence of a unique written language, the recognition of customs and arts practices that embody intangible heritage values are traditionally important to the preservation of Kelabit culture. The students were invited to engage with these important dimensions of cultural heritage on a personal level, through participating in traditional dances, games and in the preparation of food. This close interaction between all the participants provided opportunities for the students to develop a more profound insight into the community’s cultural assets. They developed a much deeper understanding of the culture and the reasons why there was a desire to preserve these practices and values for the future of Kelabit society. In conjunction with scheduled consultations at Longhouses, students also observed everyday activities within the Bario community. These included

activities such as hunting, food preparation, rice farming and more simply, the interaction amongst locals of all ages. This resulted, again, in a more nuanced understanding of the unique activities that make up Kelabit life, while also offering ideas for heritage interpretation that may subsequently be of interest to museum visitors. The local policeman’s engagement party provided an opportunity for the team to view preparations in the lead-up to the event. Students observed the preparation process, including the butchering of meat and the cooking of various vegetable dishes. They tasted and listened as the local participants explained the origins of the foods and the cooking processes. Bario is set in a stunning mountainous and forested environment. During a guided hike through the jungle to the village of Pa’Lungan, the students were introduced to traditional skills, such as blow dart making and the identification of edible roots and plants. They also heard interpretations of rock carvings from the headhunting period. Open discussion amongst all the participants reinforced the perception that the knowledge and skills developed by the Kelabit people have been passed down through generations orally, and as a result are at significant risk of being weakend by social change. The added pressure of environmental degradation in nearby forests increases this risk substantially. It was consultations on these issues that really highlighted for all participants, locals and students alike, the need for proactive programs for the preservation of Kelabit intangible cultural heritage.

Conversations Throughout the field school, the students participated in conversations with a range of individuals from within the Kelabit community. These conversations were conducted in English, and revealed heartfelt concerns over the evident ruptures in the intergenerational transmission of culture due to the current economic difficulties of highland existence. Impacting across two generations, these changes have resulted in Kelabit people seeking opportunities away from their traditional homelands. Such changes have also inevitably hastened a decline in the use of the Kelabit language. Additionally over time, the removal or disappearance of local cultural material and objects, and especially significant family heirlooms, has increasingly distressed many individuals. These factors, in their collective impact, have heightened the desire to create a local museum. During the conversations and local interactions described, participating students were able to begin to appreciate and discuss the importance of oral traditions, the intended audiences for the proposed

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Previous experience in South-East Asia had shown that where there is strong community support, this type of in-country, project-based experiential learning can be highly effective.

above:

Dr. Jonathan Sweet in discussion with Councillor John Tarawe on the site of proposed museum. Photo: Jenn Rowe.

museum, and what tangible and intangible elements the museum should include. The conversations also revealed a range of historical events and stories that have particular local significance. These include: the involvement of Kelabit people during World War II; the Confrontasi events of the 1960s; the symbolism and purpose of cultural sites that include stone megaliths; the traditional knowledge relating to jungle plants and animals; traditional stories; and the impact and role of Christianity. Through this shaping of the contours of local history, students began to envision the potential of interpretation programs beyond the physical museum space, to focus on a range of environmental conservation and heritage preservation issues that engaged understanding of broader processes impacting on the lives of local communities.

Conclusion The field school activities of discussion, participation and observation in Borneo, in June 2012, provided a framework through which the participants from Deakin University were able to share their understandings and knowledge and learn from local people in a very different society and context. This, in turn, was supported by the willingness of the local community to listen and absorb the ideas

presented by the Deakin team, and also to create an open and welcoming atmosphere through which the visitors were actively engaged and enabled extensively to document the Kelabit community’s interests and cultural assets. Everyday occurrences and special events, and the investigation of the traditions and beliefs aligned with them, provided the students with a myriad insights into the many facets of local culture. For the Kelabit participants, this process of consultation was welcomed as the impetus to achieving insights into the viability of creating a local museum that could serve their interests in preservation and ongoing development of their cultural heritage – and care for the social and economic assets that relate to this heritage. The important preparatory work of local consultation confirmed that the idea of establishing a museum within Bario has strong community support. And it is this support that will underpin the sustainability of the project planned. Both the Deakin team and members of the local community were made aware that significant cultural material with high interpretive value – both tangible and intangible heritage assets – was extensively available. The field school program also reinforced the fact that as Kelabit culture continues to adapt and change, a community museum can now be seen as a means to engage succeeding generations of Kelabit people in the preservation of heritage locally, and a means of actively profiling and sharing this culture with visitors. [] Dr Jonathan Sweet is a member of the Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and the Pacific at Deakin University, Melbourne. Toyah Horman is a graduate of the Master of Cultural Heritage, Deakin University, and is currently working at the National Film and Sound Archive, Melbourne. Text citation: Jonathan Sweet & Toyah Horman, ‘Museum development and cross-cultural learning in the Kelabit Highlands, Borneo’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 23–26.

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Exhibition review

Relocate and Rediscover: The Berndt Museum reviewing its treasures

Kelly Rowe

he Berndt Museum of Anthropology at the University of Western Australia has recently concluded its first in-house exhibition for more than ten years, Relocate and Rediscover: Treasures of the Berndt Museum.[1] The Museum’s collection is currently held in a temporary facility, located on the lower level of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery within UWA. The facility includes offices, a collection store, and the use of the Homes à Court Gallery in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery above ground, which will show semesterlength exhibitions until a permanent home for the Berndt Museum is established on the UWA campus. The university anticipates that a purpose-built facility, incorporating exhibition galleries and larger collection storage areas, will begin construction in 2015. In 2008, the Berndt Museum embarked on the demanding and somewhat anxious journey of packing and temporarily re-housing its highly significant and world-renowned collection of cultural heritage material drawn from Aboriginal Australia, South-East Asia and Melanesia, incorporating works ranging from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. The foundations of the collection were created by Australian anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt during their field trips to northeast Arnhem Land and Papua New Guinea in the 1940s and 1950s, and their significant contribution to anthropology eventually saw the UWA Anthropology Research Museum renamed eponymously in their honour in 1992. The Berndt Museum collection has meanwhile grown to encompass more than 13,000 artifacts, 45,000 photographs, and is supported by an extensive research archive. As the growth of the Museum’s collection continued over many decades, a combination of inadequate funding and restricted staffing meant that much of the material was housed for safekeeping, but left relatively untouched thereafter for many years. The principle of collecting for research continued, but the desire to share the resources more broadly was, to a degree, arrested, apart from a series of occasional national touring exhibitions. This history has eventually been re-engaged, however, in the context of the overwhelming task of relocating the collection, as part of the University’s

recently activated quest for a well-provisioned permanent home for the Berndt Museum on the UWA campus. For the team working recently on the shift to the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery site, there was a sense of wonderment and discovery, arousing new encounters with works long ‘hidden’ from view within the university campus, and a re-acquaintance with others long-familiar. Staff responsible for moving the Museum’s collection came from a diversity of backgrounds: Indigenous and non-Indigenous curators, artists, archivists, academics and professional installers – all bringing with them different interests, specialised knowledges and experiences. As the pieces of the collection were retrieved from their storage locations, assessed and carefully packed, each member of the team found particular objects that appealed to them in special ways. Morning teas during the relocation project turned into conversations about what had been found, where it was from, what was its function, and the sharing of known origins and details. Reactions by the team were multi-dimensional, ranging from a focus on the composition and tangible features of works encountered to emotional responses these aroused. Arising from the fertile tea-room discussions, members were asked to propose for the exhibition objects and images that were particularly significant to them, in order to draw together the immediacy of individual responses and, eventually, to mount an exhibition anchored in the diverse engagement of all that had been rediscovered. The result became an eclectic selection but directly engaging display of personalities, passion and memories, combining to present a powerful expression to a wider public of what the Berndt Museum has to offer. Relocate and Rediscover: Treasures of the Berndt Museum, when presented earlier this year, was an exhibition representing not only a broad range of physically distinct objects but also retrieving connections with the passion and inspiration of the original collectors. After the bright lobby of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, opening directly off the entrance to the building, the Holmes à Court Gallery space containing the Berndt Museum exhibition was in a noticeably darkened space. The low light-levels, enforced by conservation standards for the preservation of many

above:

Kelly Rowe

inset:

Cricket cage,Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1912), artist unknown, China. Glazed porcelain cover with carved wooden base, 8.7 x 20.0 x 5.2 cm. RM & CH Berndt Collection, 1984.[WU8598]

1. Relocate and Rediscover: Treasures of the Berndt Museum was on show at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, University Western Australia, 10 February–2 June 2012.

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Exhibition review

below:

Sister basket c. 1856,artist unknown, Strathern Moravian Mission, Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. Coiled basket constructed of longifolia and pink sedge, 28.0 x 24.0 cm + handles. Dr Le Souef Collection, 1979. [WU5990]. bottom:

Holmes à Court Gallery, February 2012, Image Courtesy of the Berndt Museum.

1. Endnotes

vulnerable objects on display, served to magnify the presence of each object. This concentration on the resonance of individual works ensured that the peripheral view of other items all but disappeared, and visitors experienced an intimate engagement with each object displayed. On moving quietly through the space there was a sense of something special, something wonderful, something unexpected discovered progressively in the overall experience. A nineteenth-century basket woven in Gippsland, Victoria, sat protected in a glass cabinet, its colours still vibrant and its form striking. The basket had caught the eye and imagination of the Relocation Project Manager, Fiona Gavino. Gavino, herself a practising fibre artist who has close connections with the community at Elcho Island in the Northern Territory, felt a strong affinity with this woven object, due to when and where it was produced as well as the important ritual and religious significance of basket making in Indigenous communities historically. This basket dates back to the 1850s and, as stated by Gavino, it is rare for Australian collections to hold a work of such age. The accompanying text panel goes on to describe how the basket was originally collected at the Strathern Moravian Mission by Rev. F.A. Hagenauer, which added another layer of significance to this object as well as augmenting the strength of the collection’s presentation overall. On the opposite side of the gallery, a ceremonial mask from Papua New Guinea decorated with teeth and feathers lay still and arresting in its glass cabinet. On a wall beside it was displayed a huge colour reproduction of the mask in use during a ‘sing sing’ ceremony in 1951, contextualising the mask’s origins anthropologically and bringing its purpose vividly ‘to life’ for viewers more than a half-century later. Both the mask and the accompanying documentary image were collected by Ronald and Catherine Berndt during their field work and studies in the eastern central highlands of PNG. The mask was chosen for inclusion by Indigenous curator, Michael Bonner, who had himself undertaken field work in archaeology and anthropology in Papua New Guinea more recently. Bonner had collected contemporary examples of objects and artworks on his field trips, including a painting by John Dama – which was chosen for inclusion in the exhibition by Berndt Museum Director, John Stanton, for its contemporary expression of traditional life. The juxtaposition of the mask and the painting accordingly reignited historical connections that harked back to the origins of the Berndt Museum collection, while reaffirming its continued growth and continuity today. An intricately designed ceramic box with fine lattice-work decoration, supported on a small

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 29

below:

custom-made wooden stand, became a focal point for intrigue and debate. The function of the box was not immediately obvious, and it initially sparked conjecture amongst the team. This finely crafted box is in fact a cricket cage, used in China to hold these insects in order to listen to their beautiful song. After further investigation of the catalogue records, it was revealed that the box was originally presented as a birthday present to Catherine from Ronald Berndt, since he knew of his wife’s love of the crickets’ song. Catherine went on to write a poem about the song of the crickets she adored, which is also presented in the wall text accompanying the object label in the gallery. As stated by Dr John Stanton, reiterating the purpose of the exhibition and ultimately of the Museum’s collection long-term: ‘Collections are at the heart of any museum; like the heart of a human body’. Rather than searching the world for fascinating objects, the team working on the relocation of the Berndt Museum’s collection had the rare and unique opportunity of searching ‘a collection of the world’, and getting to know well its breadth as well as various layers and internal connections of its contents. Relocate and Rediscover: Treasures of the Berndt Museum stood finally as much more than a survey of elements from a particular museum collection, reaching further to incorporate the deeper attributes of the art and complex intentions behind the process of collecting itself. A virtual tour of Relocate and Rediscover: Treasures of the Berndt Museum is available for extended viewing online at: http://berndt/generic.lasso?token_ value=relocate. A full catalogue of works and essays is also available for purchase – for information details: (08) 6488 4785 (rita.bennett@uwa.edu.au). [ ]

Performer wearing a fern tree mask 1951, Eastern-Central Highlands, Papua New Guinea. Digital reproduction print. Photographed by Ronald Berndt on Kodachome I. RM Berndt Collection, 1951. [P35249]

Kelly Rowe is Assistant Curator (Collections) at the Berndt Museum, The University of Western Australia. Citation for this text: Kelly Rowe, ‘Relocate and Rediscover: The Berndt Museum reviewing its treasures’, Museum Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 27–29.

1. Endnotes

30 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

Investing in staff, War Memorial style

Visiting Gallipoli

Carol Cartwright

f you work at the Australian War Memorial, understanding the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, and the impact it had on the development of Australia as a nation, is very important. It underpins much of what the Memorial presents in its galleries, exhibitions and public programs, and is particularly relevant to the delivery of ANZAC ceremonies conducted in April every year. Indeed it forms the basis of the long-nurtured examination of ‘the national psyche’ that continues to revolve around the events at Anzac Cove as decisive in ‘nation-formation’ and how Australia sees itself today. However there is no doubt that whether the Gallipoli campaign is judged as pivotal or one of a constellation of events nurturing nationhood and shared Australian history, the ANZAC Day commemorations each year will continue to have a central place in the Australian ceremonial calendar annually. Reading and researching may be one way of understanding and reconnecting with past historical events, but there is nothing quite like ‘walking the ground in their footsteps’ to provide a sharpened perspective on historical events in the particular setting where they actually occurred. A visit to the Gallipoli peninsula and walking its ridges and valleys, seeing the beaches where the Anzacs landed and exploring the rugged landscape first-hand, provides an irreplaceably ‘real’ context for seeking to understand what happened there almost one hundred years ago. The Australian War Memorial (in Canberra) offers this on-site extension experience as a staff development program. It links staff members to the special history and mission of their host institution through one of the most intensely far-reaching and emotional training programs offered to staff by any museum. It is an amazing journey, physically, intellectually and emotionally, to undertake this program, and I was lucky enough to participate in this year’s joint Australian War Memorial /Imperial War Museum (London) staff tour to Gallipoli – with the AWM again as the principal driver and organiser of the program. The Australian War Memorial and the Imperial War Museum have joined together to offer this staff opportunity five times during the last fourteen years. The last tour in 2008 surveyed the battlefields and cemeteries of the Western Front in France and Belgium, including a visit to the very moving Menin Gate memorial at Ypres. This year a group of thirtyone visitors (23 Australians and 8 Brits) travelled to Turkey, mainly to study the Gallipoli campaign – but the Australian contingent did also manage an extension half-day at Cannakale and Troy, and a couple of days in Istanbul. Most of the staff who attend on each occasion invest

atheir own resources and pay for themselves in taking up this opportunity. However the AWM does assist some junior staff to attend by means of contributions through a number of professional development avenues. Opportunities to take up the program arouse keen competitive interest, and more than thirty expressions-of-interest were received in 2012, with ten ultimately successful. Each of the interested officers had outlined a research project they would undertake, both in the lead-up to the trip and as the basis for a 20-minute ‘stand’ delivered to the rest of the group during the tour itself. The projects varied widely, as did the type of staff participating and their usual work functions at home. The IWM was not in a position this year to financially support any of its staff in the tough economic conditions they find themselves in at present in the UK, so the museum offered the development program to staff as only a self-pay option. Eight IWM staff took up this opportunity (with the IWM supporting them as ‘on duty’ rather than needing to take leave, and by covering matters such as insurance, which removed such burdens from individuals). All who participated felt that their own investment was money well spent. Some of the final group were experienced Gallipoli historians who had travelled to this hallowed stretch of Turkish coastline a number of times previously, bringing an added wealth of historical scholarship and local knowledge to the whole company in 2012. And guaranteeing a broad array of historical vantage-points, the interconnection of both British and Australian participants added to the debate and discussions on site, as differing perspectives were canvassed often and sometimes late into the night.

top:

Beach Cemetery at Ari Burnu. Photo: Patricia Sabine.

above:

Carol Cartwright.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 31

The tour group was led and organised by Ashley Ekins, Head of Military History at the Australian War Memorial, himself a very experienced Gallipoli historian who has visited the battlefields on tours more than twenty times in the last seventeen years. (In fact he’d only recently returned from conducting the Memorial’s commercial battlefield tour for 2012 ANZAC Day, when we departed in May.) The ‘stands’ or presentations on site, eventually delivered by all participants, were of an exceptionally high standard and ranged across many topics associated with the Gallipoli campaign – from aerial reconnaissance, the role of forward scouts and nurses, a number of individual biographies including John Kirkpatrick Simpson and Hugo Throssell VC, to the French involvement in the campaign. For my own part, I conducted a small but poignant ceremony at Shrapnel Valley at the end of our first day on the Peninsula, in remembrance of all those who had died at Gallipoli – the 86,000 Turks, 21,000 Brits, 9,000 Australians and 2,700 New Zealanders; the 10,000 French, just over a thousand Indians and 49 from Newfoundland – all lives sacrificed in a tragedy on a global scale that itself warrants observance in the annual invocation: Lest we forget! Having the expertise of a well-known Turkish historian on one of the days also added the invaluable Turkish perspective to the whole campaign. More than thirty presentations were delivered on the Peninsula (some in the evenings after meals) making this tour a learning experience supported by real scholarship, engaging both for the researcher who delivered the ‘stand’ while also extending the wider group. Over four days, the Gallipoli program propelled us through fairly rugged landscape, exploring areas from Cape Helles to Suvla Bay, and walking the ridges and gullies with accompanying explanations and historical context giving us the best chance to imagine what must have occurred in these places and precinct all those years ago. From the perspective of historical distance we were inevitably struck by the tragic futility of the campaign, and how the Anzacs were in an impossible situation, with the Turks always holding their advantage in emplacement on the higher ground. A further result

A visit to the Gallipoli peninsula and walking its ridges and valleys, seeing the beaches where the Anzacs landed ... provides an irreplaceably ‘real’ context for seeking to understand what happened there almost one hundred years ago

was confirmation that the famous George Lambert paintings of sites and events are very close to the ‘real’ views of the area, supported also by the old documentary photographs that still represent actual places and geographic locales so closely. Overwhelmingly, in visiting Gallipoli today, there arises a sense of just how small the Anzac area is in reality, and how crowded it must have been for all combatants during those eight months in 1915. The Commonwealth War Graves are meanwhile exceptionally moving, even beautiful places now; in fact the beauty of the whole locale offers at times an uncanny kind of contradiction to one’s knowledge of what happened there so many years ago. As we approach the important centenary of the ANZAC landings in 2015, and as the Memorial refreshes its First World War galleries, an AWM staff development program like the Gallipoli excursions is particularly valuable to staff and all supporters of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The staff development program affording Anzac Cove experience on-site is not only building knowledge and understanding into AWM (and IWM) staff; it is also engaging first-hand ‘fieldwork’ around the history underpinning the existence of two pivotal national institutions, cementing a commitment to ‘getting it right’. The people who participated in this field-tour in 2012 have also developed a deeper loyalty to their organisations for supporting their personal development in a unique way; and the staff are better equipped to develop exhibitions and programs in future, with an increased empathy and understanding of this period of history – exceeding the first-hand knowledge that many of their predecessors might have had. One of the great legacies of Gallipoli has been the successful bringing together of old enemies in commemorative partnerships. As is now well-known, even during the fighting, Anzac and Turkish soldiers developed a mutual respect for each other. And after the First World War, Turkey’s first President, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who had commanded the 19th Division during the War, wrote in a moving message of the following commitment to reconciliation through shared commemoration: Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ...You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side in this country of ours... You, the Mothers who sent their sons from far away countries, Wipe away your tears, your sons are now lying in our bosom And are at peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

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Investing in staff, War Memorial style

extending an invitation for me to attend, since my experience will be offered back to colleagues in the museums sector in various ways, particularly as state President and chair of the Organising Committee for the 2013 National Conference of Australia, taking place in Canberra in the same year that records the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign and the centenary of Australia’s national capital. The Australian War Memorial consistently attracts almost a million visitors each year to its galleries in Canberra. It also has a vibrant and far-reaching travelling exhibitions program, which tours a range of smaller exhibitions to metro, regional and remote museums, galleries and libraries across Australia. During the forthcoming centenary anniversaries of the First World War over the period 2014–2018, there is likely to be renewed interest from the Australian people about the battles and activities of the First World War and the ANZAC story — as part of the illstarred ‘war to end all wars’ — and the Memorial is ready to take a very active role in the commemorative activities and reviewing of national history that will arise throughout this centenary period of a ‘world at war’, which so decisively contoured the unfolding of twentieth-century history afterwards. [ ] Carol Cartwright was the Head of Education and Visitor Services at the Australian War Memorial until January 2012, and continues after her retirement as President of Museums Australia in the ACT.

In the spirit of Ataturk’s words, visitors – particularly from Australia and New Zealand – are welcomed to Turkey as old friends. The Australian War Memorial takes commercial tours to Gallipoli every year around ANZAC Day (as do a number of private companies), and it is to be commended that Australians have the chance to benefit directly from this great learning opportunity. The Australian War Memorial and the Imperial War Museum are also to be congratulated for offering this on-site tour program for staff development, and for making it a truly meaningful investment in their staff at times when conflicting priorities often find human resources and ‘people development’ reduced during standard planning processes confronted by tight fiscal environments. For me, the Gallipoli tour was challenging – physically, emotionally and intellectually. The various perspectives contributed and topics covered provided a great opportunity meanwhile for debate and discussion, and I feel it was a privilege to have been a part of such a complete experience. While recently retired, I remain grateful to the Memorial’s management for

Text citation: Carol Cartwright, ‘Visiting Gallipoli: Investing in staff, War Memorial style’, Museum Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 30–32.

left, top:

Gallipoli landscape view of Walker’s Ridge. Photo: Patricia Sabine.

left, bottom:

Lone Pine Memorial. Photo: Patricia Sabine.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 33

Libraries and museums serving audiences and connected globally

Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture: from Quiet Havens to Modern Agoras

Nancy E. Rogers, Susanna Seidl-Fox and Deborah Mack

e are not your grandfather’s libraries or museums’, wrote Beth Takekawa, the executive director of the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, Washington, after attending a seminar on ‘Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture’ in Salzburg, Austria. Takekawa was one of fifty-eight library, museum, and cultural heritage leaders from thirty-one countries who gathered in October 2011 at the Salzburg Global Seminar to explore this exciting, highly relevant topic. As they wrestled with the meaning of ‘participation’ writ large, the group soon became aware that such terms as ‘community’, ‘access’, and ‘public value’ resonate quite differently in the disparate parts of our planet today. The seminar was convened jointly by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), the primary source of federal support for libraries and museums in the United States, and the Salzburg Global Seminar, a non-profit organisation known for its global convening power and based at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria. The four-day session plunged leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America into discussion and debate, and gave rise to the development of a series of practical recommendations for ensuring maximum access to and engagement in the work of museums and libraries worldwide. Over the course of the seminar, participants explored the role of their institutions at a time when individuals can carry the equivalent of an entire encyclopedia on their mobile devices, and when people can use social media platforms to share information, analyse data, create new knowledge, and connect to diverse communities of interest. Such technological developments obviously contribute to the creation of changing expectations for the museum and library experience. This seminar was designed to engage thinkers with a wide coverage of professional experiences (approximately half came from libraries and half from museums), also including varying cultural and regional backgrounds, to debate the changing roles and responsibilities of libraries and museums in their societies today. As one participant wrote afterwards: ‘The combination of participants from various countries, continents, experiences, and life paths was a wonderful, unexpected, mixed masala.’ Inspired by case studies from around the globe, by personal stories, and by more formal presentations, leading to sometimes-contentious, always-lively discussions, the participants recognised that this is a critical moment for libraries and museums worldwide, and a time for possible reorientation and reinvention.

Building on the IMLS initiatives, ‘The Future of Museums and Libraries’ and ‘Museums, Libraries, and 21st Century Skills’, as well as on past museum and library sessions convened by the Salzburg Global Seminar, this Salzburg gathering included five plenary sessions, a fireside chat, a keynote presentation, and a roundtable discussion. In addition, fellows divided into five working groups to delve into and elaborate upon specific topics, concluding with a series of recommendations for action. The topics of those working groups were based on the five plenary sessions: Culture and Communities; Learning Transformed; Communication and Technologies; Building the Skills of Library and Museum Professionals; and Demonstrating Public Value. In the spirit of making the seminar more ‘participatory’ in real time – and of extending the reach of the conversations – daily interactive blogs were broadcast internationally by Michael Stephens from San Jose State University (http://tametheweb.com/category/conferences-mettings/salzburg-imls-2011/) and by Rob Stein from the Indianapolis Museum of Art (http://rjstein. com/is-your-community-better-off-because-it-has-amuseum-final-thoughts-about-participatory-culturepart-iii/).

Seminar Take-Away Messages The power of participatory learning Over the course of the discussions and debates, participants returned again and again to the power of participatorylearning as the visionary core of what museum and library professionals need to know and do to transform institutional effectiveness. Nothing less than a broad call to action, the working groups provided both recommendations and detailed action steps for policy and practices, so that museums and libraries become more democratic in their operations and engagement, and community members better equipped and skilled to be active contributors in a sustainable global future. Participants repeatedly acknowledged that institutions must embrace new language, ideas, perspectives, and public accountability, including the following recognition touch-points to guide action: • the changing language used in services provision (referring to users/guests/clients, for example), which reflects evolving institutional realities and expectations; • the desire to position libraries and museums as change agents, cultural hubs, and multi-tasking civic centres, and to encourage lifelong learning – with passion and with risk-taking; and • the imperative to demonstrate public value and social impact, and keeping these issues at the top of the organisational agenda.

above, top to bottom:

Nancy E. Rogers, Susanna SeidlFox, and Deborah Mack

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Libraries and museums serving audiences and connected globally

Key overarching messages from the seminar ‘Libraries and museums in an era of participatory culture’ Salzburg, Austria, October 2011 For the world’s libraries and museums, an era of participatory culture demands that we: Recognise the importance of cultural, economic, and social diversity in our communities. Accept the notion of democratic access. Acknowledge the need for new language, semantics, and naming, which reflect the changing realities and expectations for our institutions. Accept new obligations, accountability, and responsibilities within our institutions. Place a major emphasis on public value and impact. Embrace the changing nature of authority, allowing for co-creation of content and input from virtual visitors as an accepted part of our work. Recognise the blurring of distinctions between in-school and out-of-school learning. Embrace early and lifelong learning as key to our mission. Accept the need for changes in the internal culture of our organisations and demonstrate participatory culture internally as well as externally. Recognise that technology is a tool and that participation depends upon people, not merely upon technology. Incorporate online social media into our mission and strategic thinking. Join the new wave of collaboration with other cultural institutions via sharing of staff and collections and other means. Open our walls, break down boundaries, and orient ourselves outwardly, becoming the modern equivalent of the agora as a hub of communication. Change the curriculum for the training of museum and library professionals in order to address the demands and realities of participatory culture. Create partnerships with the community and community organisations. Act with passion and creativity as agents of permanent change.

Vishakha Desai, President and CEO of the Asia Society in New York ‘Our job is not simply about presenting and providing quality information or quality experience. Our job now is to be a catalyst for ideas and conversations, to serve as a moderator rather than as a scholarly presenter of content. This is something that we have begun to talk about in a dialogic way within our institutions, but it becomes equally important in terms of how you use technology going forward.’ Dawn Casey, Director of the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney ‘The Seminar’s working groups were excellent as an activity to produce well thought-through recommendations that can assist the museum and library sector internationally to manage the cultural change that needs to occur in the majority of the sector. As an experienced director who has not been able to travel to many seminars and conferences because of my workload to rebuild my organisation, the opportunity the seminar presented to network with some of the best in the world was amazing.’ Sawsan Al-Dalaq, Director of the Children’s Museum, Amman, Jordan ‘I cannot tell you how many things I will be using from this to inspire my team and eventually inspire our board. I think it is mainly about engaging the public and listening to our stakeholders. To put it quite simply, we need to come off our high horses and listen to what people want and need. That is the main message.’ Deirdre Prins Solani, Director of the Center for Heritage Development in Africa, Mombasa, Kenya ‘Change agents – as we would like to recognise ourselves to be – very often are not in the periphery, but are pushed to the periphery because there are other priorities within countries. But having been here and had very various conversations with people from across the continents, different contexts, different economic values ... there is an energy that has revitalised me to go back and do new things.’

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 35

Over the course of the discussions and debates, participants returned again and again to the power of participatorylearning as the visionary core of what museum and library professionals need to know and do to transform institutional effectiveness.

Harnessing the interconnected and interactive technological environment

below: Working Group Discussion on Culture and Communities. Photo: Herman Seidl.

The participatory nature of new technologies can enhance the ways in which libraries and museums and their users interact and connect. Even so, there is no one-size-fits-all in communications strategies. The creators of digital resources need to contribute to the establishment of open standards that can help achieve interoperability for the exchange of digital objects. Similarly, libraries and museums should contribute their content to a diverse array of repositories that make content freely available, as part of a cultural commons for consumers to access and reuse in the creation of knowledge. Among the tools available to accomplish this mission are digital collections that span institutional boundaries; physical spaces that enhance interactivity and discovery; and organisations that share collections and staff expertise more effectively, thereby reducing costs and enhancing the quality of services. The participants concurred that the most effective tools ‘are in our heads’ if we are to engage the public in profound ways that deliver real and sustained impact. Significantly, they shared a sense of immediacy and consensus that libraries and museums as institutions must be repurposed, rethought and reimagined as places of life-long learning, as responsible stewards of cultural heritage, and as community anchors that are deeply invested in both programs and people.

The power of collaboration It was acknowledged that accomplishing the above goals requires both internal and collaborative work and action steps: • ‘walking the talk’ and becoming more participatory, internally as well as externally; • improving the training curriculum of library, museum, and heritage professionals; • acknowledging the changing role of the curator/ internal expert – expertise is still necessary, but the best work being done now is about both scholarship and public engagement; • embracing the learning of new literacies, especially visual literacy; and • opening institutional walls instead of defining barriers, thus taking on an outward rather than an inward orientation.

1. Endnotes

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Libraries and museums serving audiences and connected globally

below: Working Group Discussion on Culture and Communities. Photo: Herman Seidl.

‘One Thing I Will Do Differently After This Session...’ At the end of the seminar, the fellows submitted a list of personal commitments for action to be undertaken in their own countries and institutions after their return. Inspired by the presentations, the case studies, and the informal conversations with their colleagues in Salzburg, they made pledges in six broad areas, including actions that would take place within their home institution, making them more participatory and collaborative in nature; commitments to creating national impact; strategies for becoming more ‘global’ in their thinking; improvements to courses and curricula for training museum and library professionals; more effective use of technology; and dissemination of the session report to politicians, media, and governing authorities in order to raise awareness of the nature of participatory culture and its new demands on museums and libraries. The curricular framework that was developed at the seminar by the working group on ‘Building the Skills of Library and Museum Professionals’ is being further documented and refined by session participants under the leadership of David Lankes, a professor at Syracuse University. The intention is to map the curriculum to other major curricula, accreditation standards, and continuing education efforts in libraries and museums, and to support an online discussion around the curriculum.

Further information can be found here: http://vimeo. com/33908235”>http://vimeo.com/33908235. A full report on the session was recently published by IMLS and SGS and can be found here: www.salzburgglobal.org/go/482wrapup and http://www.imls. gov/new_report_explores_roles_of_libraries_and_ museums_in_an_era_of_participatory_culture.aspx. In addition to detailed recommendations developed by the working groups, the report features sixteen ‘Imperatives for the Future’, which are included here as well (see box, p.34). Museum and library professionals should take a moment to read through this list of carefully considered obligations. Are you and your institutions ready to embrace this new era, in which ‘your grandfather’s museums and libraries’ have moved away from being marble palaces or quiet havens, to resembling agoras or marketplaces emblematic of our contemporary, participatory culture? [] Deborah Mack is associate director for community and constituent services at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. Nancy Rogers is special assistant to the director in the office of strategic partnerships at the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington. Susanna Seidl-Fox is program director for culture and the arts at the Salzburg Global Seminar in Austria. Citation for this text: Nancy E. Rogers, Susanna Seidl-Fox and Deborah Mack, ‘Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture: From Quiet Havens to Modern Agoras’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 33–36.

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The museums sector’s potential through NBN-charged connectivity

Australia’s story — in zeroes and ones

Dennis Godfrey

peaceful cultural revolution is taking place in Australia. It is a revolution composed of zeroes and ones, bringing high-speed, highdefinition Australian creativity of all kinds on an unprecedented scale to ever-widening audiences at home and around the world. As with delivery of health, financial, education, government and business services, the National Broadband Network (NBN) will be a game-changer in the ‘imagination’ sector, which employs more than 200,000 Australians. The rollout of the NBN promises vast expansion of digital collections and interactive cultural content on the internet, by extending to artists, museums and heritage organisations, cultural centres, designers, film producers, writers, arts organisations and venues. High-bandwidth broadband will open doors to high-quality virtual tours of cultural institutions, two-way interactive lessons with artists, and connect regional arts with global creative industries.

Development of a National Cultural Policy in an NBN-charged environment A discussion paper on the development of a National Cultural Policy (NCP), published in August 2011 by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Office for the Arts, affirmed that: The NBN, with its high-speed broadband, will enable new opportunities for developing and delivering Australian content and applications reflecting our diverse culture and interests. It will also give business and community organisations in regional areas a historic opportunity to connect with national and international audiences and markets. The NCP discussion paper provided contours for Australia’s first National Cultural Policy in a generation – a strategic framework for the arts and culture grounded in the new opportunities opening up with evolving digital technologies, and heightened by the greatly expanded carrying potential of the NBN. Already, cultural communities are gearing up for the transformations to come. Australia has an international reputation for its world-class artists; its visual arts, architecture, museums, galleries, music and literature. The NBN, providing the underlying infrastructure, coupled with a strengthened and more connected artistic community, will turbo-charge Australia’s cultural sector. This will drive broadband adoption and participation in the digital economy, through improved distribution of and

access to Australian content, expression and ongoing creative production opportunities. The Cultural Policy discussion paper made clear that the NBN, with its ubiquity, speed and capacity to handle large files and rapid interaction via video, promises to help Australian artists, cultural and heritage organisations and cultural producers to compete on the world stage. Furthermore, the NBN has the potential to bring Australian artists, art products and cultural bodies together and to better link these with their counterparts around the world. Artists and administrators are being trained to adapt and respond to this new landscape and rapidly changing paradigms – to capitalise on e-business opportunities, including through the online education market. These opportunities are of particular importance to Indigenous Australian artists, enabling realisation of the full potential of their artistic endeavours – and being able to present this work directly to enthusiastic audiences located a long way from their artistic base.

The Australia Council’s advocacy of highspeed connectivity for the arts In May 2011, the Australia Council for the Arts reported to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications that broadband technology would have ‘transformative effects on the creation and consumption of arts’. The Council has emphasised that the NBN ‘will allow anytime, anywhere access to creative and cultural content’: It will make possible entirely new forms of connection between arts producers and audiences, and strengthen networks connecting artistic talent, skills and resources throughout the sector.

Support for arts development linked to socioeconomic development As was broadly scoped by the NCP framework (and already stressed in the Australia Council’s representation to the parliamentary Standing Committee): while cultural globalisation allows us to join in a world exchange, it also serves to showcase Australian art, artists and cultural content, and to highlight our national attractions as strands of a high-profiled tourist destination, presenting a country ripe for new investment, work and leisure opportunities. Referring to a recent report from Australia’s Major Performing Arts Group—the peak body for 28 major performing arts companies—which noted that Generations Y and Z are ‘digital natives’, to the extent that it

above:

Dennis Godfrey.

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The museums sector’s potential through NBN-charged connectivity

is intuitive for them to communicate, research and be educated and entertained online, the NCP framework has emphasised the narrowing distinctions across age-divides: Older generations, too, use the internet to research and make purchases, including tickets to live performances. This means that businesses seeking to engage with younger [and older] generations now and in the future will be compelled to have rich, online content as a baseline of being a part of the known world, much in the same way as businesses once felt the need to promote performances in the Saturday broadsheets.

The education revolution and life-long cultural participation A sizeable boost for cultural dissemination – focused on the ‘education revolution’ and new learning potential afforded by the developing National Curriculum – occurred in late 2011, with the Australian Government’s announcement of a $19.94 million NBN-enabled ABCESA (Education Services Australia) education portal. To be launched in the second half of 2012, this portal will give teachers, students and parents the opportunity to access exciting, innovative and interactive educational resources. Accessed via an NBN high-speed broadband connection, the portal will enable students to collaborate in real time via video, to solve real world problems. In harvesting a much wider catchment of digitally based ‘learning objects’ supporting school education, the enrichment of life-long learning pathways for all Australians will also enhance direct participation in the evolving social landscape by means of virtual excursions to national and state-based events covered by the ABC.

A heightened sense of history-in-the-making Another Broadband Champion, Dr Helen Thompson, Director of the Centre for eCommerce and Communications at the University of Ballarat, has highlighted that her regional university is embarking on a project entitled Eureka I’ve found it!, which has a special focus on building historical understanding. It deploys the internet’s capacity to enhance both local and national access to primary learning resources for the sharpening of historical awareness. The project is ‘designed to take advantage of the NBN’s ability to deliver high-speed, reliable broadband connectivity’. Dr Thompson has emphasised: [B]y leveraging this additional capacity, the project will let educators, students, historical researchers, curators and others from NBN early release sites

across Australia explore key historical events ... to communicate aspects of the social, industrial, agricultural and Indigenous histories of Ballarat and surrounding regions. At the same time this venture by the University of Ballarat will model a greater national utilisation of digital learning resources and objects provided by museums, libraries and cultural heritage organisations to enhance historical learning: The capacity of the NBN will ... facilitate the sharing of rich digital repositories, including books, newspapers, letters, pamphlets, maps, photographs and 3D imaging of selected historical artefacts from participating collections and organisations.

Increased presence of artists in school-learning environments Another example of NBN power will become evident in a program that forms part of an $800,000 joint initiative announced in mid-April 2012 by the Federal Minister for School Education, Peter Garrett, and Northern Territory Minister for the Arts and Museums, Gerry McCarthy. This initiative is designed to place artists in remote schools around the Northern Territory. The aim is for theatre specialists, puppeteers, visual artists and circus performers to boost students’ confidence, creativity and interpersonal skills. These creative people in the schools will develop and deliver multimedia, visual and performing arts programs in partnership with the communities they serve, maximising the innovative use of information and communication technology. This exciting potential to collapse Australia’s huge barriers of geographical distance will also help previously ‘remote communities’ engage more directly with the whole world. It is now easily possible to imagine children in remote corners of the Top End or far north-west of Australia travelling by broadband to wherever in the world that great art is being created, and even to project their own presence in that evermore-dynamic interface.

Video conferencing for schools An example of NBN enhancement of school learning may be seen in what the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia is doing, as emphasised by the MCA’s Manager of Digital Media, Dr Keir Winesmith, in taking up the video conferencing capability being rolled out across the country:

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 39

We’ve installed a video conferencing bridge in our new building that allows a direct connection to all schools in NSW — and soon all schools in Australia. Video conferencing is a great way to engage rural and remote school communities with the sort of cuttingedge contemporary art that they seldom get access to locally. Currently, the resolution of the video is low, which affects our ability to communicate visual art stories effectively. So we’re very excited about the NBN and the virtual museum visitation experiences we can provide for those who can’t physically attend the museum itself.

Two-way exchange of cultural experience In reporting to Parliament’s Standing Committee on Infrastructure and Communications in 2011, the Australia Council emphasised that ‘[T]he NBN will catalyse new forms of connection between organisations in Australia and internationally making it easier for Australian artists to take their art to the rest of the world’, and that ‘This will draw a larger international audience towards our own cultural productivity and creativity, while at the same time gaining a more global projection of Australia’s distinctive cultural diversity and its expressions’. The Council also submitted that in increasingly deploying broadband’s carrying capacity to deploy interactive digital technologies, artists could take advantage of new business models that closed the gaps on distance and regional location for creative engagement wherever communities are situated in Australia. The Council’s submission emphasised new opportunities for regional cultural development in particular on NBN enhanced platforms of access: The NBN will support regional and rural arts and culture organisations and creative industries, as well as individual artists and practitioners, connecting networks of art workers to each other and to new markets. The NBN will have positive outcomes for regional populations by providing greater access to arts content created locally or anywhere on the planet. The Australia Council has also emphasised that while most artists and arts organisations were small-tomedium-sized businesses, the NBN will make it easier for them to connect and collaborate with each other, overcoming geographical barriers of location. In its submission to the parliamentary Committee in May 2011, the Council stated: The NBN has the potential to move us towards a more level playing field for the creation and consumption of the arts between regional and metropolitan areas, reducing the tyranny of distance.

Australia can look forward to the NBN providing ever greater opportunities to hold up a mirror to the Australian story, to reflect to the world our new ideas, and to project the fruits of our cultural diversity. In support of this vision of enhanced opportunities for creative production, access and promotion of arts development, in December 2011 the Australia Council announced a pilot Broadband Arts Initiative, inviting submissions for innovative, pioneering art projects enabled by new generation, high-speed broadband. Projects supported through this initiative will be funded up to the value of $100,000, with a total funding pool of $300,000 available.

The role of libraries as leaders in digitally supported access to knowledge The National Library of Australia, whose strategic directions for 2012–2014 refer to the opportunities offered by high-speed broadband for delivering high-quality documentary resources to Australians, has in recent years been demonstrating strongly how the NBN has the potential to cast a wide cultural and educational net – with an ever-increasing potential for broader reach and greater volume in engaging 24-hour audience access. Dr Marie-Louise Ayres, the NLA’s Assistant DirectorGeneral, Resource Sharing, has stressed that the NBN, combined with investment in digital content and other enabling services, will increase the Library’s capacity for digital outreach and ‘open many opportunities’. The NBN will enable us to deliver digital content and services to all Australians, regardless of their proximity to major research libraries, as well as high-resolution copies of public domain works to all Australians, rather than the low-resolution copies current bandwidth demands. We will also be able to build our collections via the internet, by receiving high-resolution copies of digital material selected for deposit online, rather than offline. And we will be able to offer new ways for Australians to engage with our content. Today’s social media strategies and opportunities to reuse content held in collecting institutions are just the beginning, and we know that many opportunities—as yet unthought of— are likely to become available.

40 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

The museums sector’s potential through NBN-charged connectivity

The National Library’s Trove program, (http:// trove.nla.gov.au/) – a revolutionary and free search service — provides access to 390 million items about Australia, or of interest to Australians, from more than 1,000 libraries and institutions. Meanwhile NLA’s Picture Australia and Music Australia portals, which were established in the early 2000s and absorbed into Trove this year, allow the public to search many significant online pictorial, music, newspaper and journal collections nationwide. Further enrichment through the Library’s Pandora initiative is also discoverable through the Trove facility. The NLA’s Pandora archive of Australian websites is being built to include sites representing cultural activity diversely, including significant online publications and data to ensure long-term access to Australia’s rich documentary heritage.

Increased opportunities for Indigenous communities The State Library of Western Australia, with partners including the Western Australian Government, local councils, and Rio Tinto, uses Trove to improve literacy, especially among disadvantaged and remote communities, striving to close the digital literacy gap for Indigenous communities. In the Kimberley, people use Trove to help communities find photographs and other material held in collections across Australia, noting that it provides ‘really special and inter-generational training opportunities’, and encourages elders and children to ‘create personal digital stories together’. Indigenous communities’ importance and their potential cultural benefits were also profiled strongly in the NCP framework paper in 2011: Emerging technologies present opportunities for Indigenous communities to use new media to present their art, language and culture to wider audiences and to enable traditional cultural practices to be transmitted to future generations.

Australia’s presence on the world stage While governments of all persuasion have been looking increasingly to the private sector to augment public-sector provision for cultural development, Harold Mitchell – a long-standing advocate for the arts, broadband champion, and Chair of the 2011 Review of Private Sector Support for the Arts – has stressed that he is very conscious of how valuable the NBN will be as a tool to promote Australia’s international competitiveness in culture and the arts:

Right now, the NBN is beginning to open the world up to us. With its speed and bandwidth it will be able to showcase our national artistic genius—and not only the high arts—in a way we have not experienced before. If we don’t compete, the world will overtake us. Harold Mitchell has also provided a personal snapshot-comparison between Australia’s present position on the world stage and evolving opportunities being converted to advantage by cultural capital cities globally: I recently visited the Metropolitan Opera of New York, and noted how they now send their performing talent around the globe. If we are able to watch what the Metropolitan can present to the world, it means we have to compete with the Met in terms of what Australia has to offer. The great museums of Europe are [also developing their audiences online], as may be seen in casual website visits: http://www.mcn.edu/museums-online. As the NBN rolls out nationwide, this sentiment is catching on. Many culturally oriented enterprises are ripe for the expansive possibilities offered by the NBN. Australia can look forward to the NBN providing ever greater opportunities to hold up a mirror to the Australian story, to reflect to the world our new ideas, and to project the fruits of our cultural diversity. [ ] Dennis Godfrey is Senior Communication Adviser, Media and Public Affairs, Communication Branch, Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Canberra (dennis.godfrey@dbcde.gov.au, www.dbcde.gov.au) Text citation: Dennis Godfrey, ‘Australia’s story — in zeroes and ones: The museums sector’s potential through NBN-charged connectivity’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 37–40.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 41

Building skills and long-term planning across museums regionally

The Sustainable Collections Project in Central West Region, New South Wales

Alison Russel, Kirsten Davies & Kylie Winkworth

T below: Local artist Christine Whitty working on a mural at the Age of Fishes Museum in Canowindra, NSW. The evocative underwater world is the setting for the museum’s new Water to Land exhibition. Among other benefits the project uses local skills and supports creative industries in the region. Image: Orange City Council.

he Sustainable Collections Project (SCP) is a regional museum annual program spanning the Central West Region of New South Wales. It involves sixteen museums, more than twenty partnerships and over two hundred volunteers. The program commenced in 2007 and will enter its sixth year in 2013. The SCP supports volunteers in the conservation of their heritage through their museums, collections and programs. In recognition of the success of the program, the SCP was a recipient of a 2011 (Museums Australia) Museums and Galleries National Award (MAGNA). The SCP addresses common needs in the museums involved, enabling the sharing of resources and knowledge, and provides a support-structure for volunteers. The core purpose of the SCP is to identify, document, conserve and interpret significant collections and local stories – not just in the museums themselves but also engaging their councils and community ownership. It provides the resources to improve the care and documentation of collections, conserve significant objects, mount new displays, tell distinctive local stories, and promote the museums to visitors.

The SCP delivers activities such as training for museum volunteers; provision of resource materials, promotional and marketing products; a web presence; attention to all aspects of collection management, including policy development; assessing significance and digitising collection records; and curatorial aspects of research and the interpretation of collections. A museum network helps volunteers to learn from each other and address common problems. In addition to working with community museums and their collections, the project has also developed links across different types of collections by working with libraries, hospital collections and the Orange Regional Gallery. Key program activities involve identifying, documenting, conserving and interpreting the history of the region through artefacts and stories from pre-and post-European contact periods. The development of policies, strategies, a regional plan and coordinated regional activities and exhibitions all form part of the expansive SCP. The program employs part-time project officers who work under the guidance of Orange City Council’s Community Liaison and Museum Advisers. The Museum Adviser position is co-funded by, and an initiative of, Museums and Galleries NSW.

42 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

Subhead

Outcomes Many real and practical benefits have emerged as a result of the foundational five years of activities. Some of the key outcomes from the Sustainable Collections Project to date have been as follows: • The development of major regional exhibitions and materials (Watermarks (2005), Fruitful Landscapes (2005), Orange Blossoms (2009) and Half a World Away (2012)) • More than 4,000 items photographed, accessioned and catalogued • Gallery hanging systems purchased for museums • An Aboriginal heritage study, which was completed in 2012 as a partnership project with the NSW Heritage Office • Interpretative panels for many museums • Training for use of Mosaic software in collection documentation • Production of DVDs using historic film footage and purchase of audio-visual equipment • Strategic plans for museums involved • Central NSW Museums brochure, booklet and website • Exhibitions such as the Fairbridge exhibition at Molong Museum, a partnership project with The NSW Migration Heritage Centre. • Migration heritage trail, a partnership project with The NSW Migration Heritage Centre • Wentworth Mine site at Lucknow through restoration and interpretation projects, a partnership with Arts NSW, Heritage Branch, NSW Office and the Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sports. To date the program has been funded by Arts NSW in partnership with the Councils of Orange, Blayney and Cabonne. Each local government authority contributes $15,000 per annum as base funding for the annual program, while additional project funding is sought from corporate and government agencies. The partnership between the three local councils provides the basis for seeking more significant funding that is not open to small museums. This partnership also helped to build the case for funding to government more generally. Nevertheless, significant challenges for the Sustainable Collections Project in Central West NSW remain. Less than 20% of the collections across the region have been catalogued and some have no records. A substantial number of objects are in poor condition, have incomplete records and lack provenance. Most

of the museums have environments that are damaging to collections through exposure to dust, light and temperature variations. Volunteers are ageing and resources of all kinds are scarce. In the future the region aspires to establish a regional museum. To achieve this a significant body of developmental research has been undertaken over the past six years through the SCP. Two strategic regional

above:

The distinctive poppet head of Wentworth Mine at Lucknow; interpretation of this significant site is currently being developed for schools and tourists discovering the gold history of the region. Image: Orange City Council.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 43

projects have been identified for research and development in 2013. These are: • Smelter and Sustenance – The history of Cornish migration, a joint partnership project with NSW Migration Heritage Centre • Villages of the Heart, a partnership project with the federal Government’s Sharing Community Heritage Stories Program, which will capture narratives of the regional rural villages through a multi-artform process. Through the SCP, community pride has been strengthened through the interpretation of distinctive local stories about people and places. The legacy of this project is a more sustainable approach to supporting museums and their collections, and the establishment of a network of community museums. With new partnerships formed through the SCP, skills and investment have grown. The value and meaning of these collections is more accessible to visitors and the community. Tourists are discovering distinctive local stories in the villages across the region. Promotional tools like the website, booklet and brochure are building audiences, which in turn make the museums more sustainable. Museum collections hold the memories and unique stories of their communities, and are significant community assets. It is imperative that these collections are recognised for their national value and provided with the resources to conserve them for future generations. Their security and meaning are highly vulnerable as volunteers age and retire. So what is the answer? Part of the solution would be provided by a regional museum network, partfunded by councils and government, with paid trained museum professionals supporting volunteers. The Sustainable Collections Project demonstrates that this model works. Further information can be obtained from Orange City Council, Community Liaison Adviser (arussell@orange.nsw.gov.au) or visit the website (www. centralnswmuseums.com.au) [ ]

It is imperative that these collections are recognised for their national value and provided with the resources to conserve them for future generations.

Alison Russell has led the Sustainable Collections Project for the past five years through her role as Community Liaison Officer with Orange City Council. Alison manages an expansive museum program, assisting volunteers across The Central West Region to conserve their heritage. Dr Kirsten Davies is the Museum Adviser to Orange City Council. She currently lectures in Museum Studies at Macquarie University and is the recipient of Churchill and Endeavour research awards. Kylie Winkworth is a heritage and museum consultant, for the past fourteen years working in regional Australia with local government, community organisations and museums. Kylie is author of a number of manuals and policy documents, including co-authorship of the key resource on significance assessment, Significance: A Guide to Assessing the Significance of Cultureal Heritage, Canberra, 2001; revised edition 2005. Text citation: Alison Russell, Kirsten Davies & Kylie Winkworth, ‘The sustainable Collections Project in Central West Region, New South Wales’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 41–43.

44 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

Profiling an outstanding art museum serving its regional community

A case-study in award-winning best practice in Victoria: Shepparton Art Museum

Shepparton Art Museum & MAM Editor

ith acknowledgment to Museums Australia (Victoria), which conducts very successful museums-sector awards in that state annually, the MA national magazine is pleased to highlight extracts from an award-winning example of regional best practice in 2012. With kind permission of Shepparton Art Museum (SAM), some extracts of their category winning entry this year in the Victorian museum awards are highlighted for wider awareness – see following details of SAM’s 2012 winning candidacy in the category: Archival Survival Award for Small Museums (2-7 paid staff ). Many museums and galleries at the regional level are well-served by examples of how their colleague bodies, staff, supporters and local community representatives go about addressing the ongoing challenges of strategic development, good programming and achievement of success with crucial stakeholders in the short term, while addressing sustainability and best practices for a strong future. The example below stimulates a wider service-orientation review of thinking at a national level, in which learning from best-practice across state and territory borders is an important opportunity to be shared. [Ed.]

Shepparton Art Museum’s Redevelopment Project (2011–2012) 1. Commitment to excellence and best practice In 2011–2012, the Shepparton Art Museum underwent a major $1.8 million redevelopment funded equally by Regional Development Victoria and the Greater Shepparton City Council. The redevelopment was researched and designed to meet the highest of museum industry standards, and included the total refurbishment of the exhibition spaces and the installation of a climate control system throughout (as well as in two above-ground art stores) that maintains temperature at international standards (i.e. 21 degrees +/- 2 degrees and 50%RH +/-5%). It also included the installation of LED track lighting, currently the safest available method of illuminating art due to the absence of UV rays. It is understood that SAM is the first Australian gallery to commit totally to LED lighting technology. Other key elements of the redevelopment include an expansive new painting store, a dedicated print store and framing workshop, a new Museum shop, and an

expanded public programming workshop including a built-in kiln for on-site ceramic firing. The redevelopment project was complemented with a simultaneous rebranding of the Shepparton Art Gallery (SAG) as the Shepparton Art Museum (SAM). Faced with the question of how to make the SAG brand more accessible and friendly, staff conducted substantial market research in the community (including at schools and major public events and festivals) as well as extensive stakeholder consultation (including funding bodies, the Friends of the Shepparton Art Gallery Society, long-term supporters and other galleries). Based on this research it was decided to change the name from Shepparton Art Gallery (SAG) to Shepparton Art Museum (SAM). A design firm was then briefed on this research and charged with developing a new brand that reflected the interests of our community and that could be rolled out in a variety of forms for different contexts and markets (i.e. architectural facade lighting, through business cards

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 45

program newspaper, distributed every 6 months in the Shepparton News and via bulk delivery to schools, cafes and other public places in the region. In contrast to the Annual Program, the newspaper was designed to communicate clearly the Museum’s accessibility, and features all public and education programs, children’s activities, and stories on past programs. The third major new publication type is an expanded exhibition catalogue format to be used for all temporary exhibitions. This combines high-quality reproductions with commissioned scholarly essays from leading researchers in the field, artist interviews and more general introductory essays as well as education kits. The aim is to ensure the catalogues speak clearly to the Museum’s multiple audiences, and supplements (rather than simply documents) the exhibition program. The success of the catalogues is most readily measurable, and sales to date have ranged from 180 to 500 per exhibition.

2. Innovative use of resources

above:

‘Artists Workshop’ held by Tom Nicholson and Raf Ishak at SAM, August 2012.

through to a children’s version of the logo). A ‘Say Hello to SAM!’ marketing campaign was then initiated to introduce the community to the new brand and museum. This campaign was highly successful and subsequently resulted in widespread and ongoing local media coverage (radio, print and TV) as well as coverage in The Age, The Herald-Sun, and on Channel Nine’s Postcards travel show, among other outlets. In May 2012, SAM also featured on the front cover of Art Almanac. Both the redevelopment and rebranding/marketing campaign were supported by an overhaul of the communications strategy focusing on several key publications. The first was the new Annual Program, designed as a ‘flagship’ document by which to promote the annual exhibition program as well as communicate the general professionalism and excellence of the new Museum. The second was a new 8-page public

The redevelopment was budgeted at $1.8 million and was carefully designed to maximise both the funding and available space. The original gallery shell was retained, but through close consultation with Vincent Chrisp Architects, wallspace was more than tripled while floorspace was actually reduced to incorporate a much-needed new climate controlled painting store and expansion to the existing workshop. Materials were recycled where possible (e.g. some flooring, security cameras etc...) and staff worked with local contractors to reduce other costs (for example, contracting a local engineer to construct the new painting racks resulted in a 50% saving on the cheapest quote from a specialist museum supply company, despite identical specifications). The project was delivered on time and under budget, while significant future savings (of around $12,000 per annum) and an overall reduced carbon footprint have been achieved through installation of LED lighting. Several key partnerships were developed as part of the relaunch, to maximise resources while delivering better outcomes for all stakeholders. Since reopening, SAM has partnered with the Koorie Education Unit at Shepparton GOTAFE, Gallery Kaiela, Relationships Australia and the Bangerang Cultural Centre, to develop a range of public programs otherwise undeliverable. Along with providing more expansive public programs (see below), these partnerships also led to major audience development outcomes for SAM, with particular success in engaging Indigenous, MiddleEastern and youth audiences. They have also led to

46 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

Profiling an oustanding art museum serving its regional community

right:

Shepparton Art Gallery Collection.

mid- and longer-term partnerships, including ongoing exhibition and public programming collaborations with the Bangerang Cultural Centre in particular. During the period of closure staff capacity was also enhanced through a combination of training, professional development, and recalibration of curatorial roles. SAM’s marketing officer received substantial software and graphic design training, so that after the relaunch the new design materials could be provided as templates by the designers and then subsequently handled in-house, and thus more economically and efficiently. Curatorial staff were freed of some administration duties so as to focus more on exhibition development, meaning that 2012 programming was entirely self-generated. The unique program increased capacity to attract visitors from outside the region, and led to SAM’s first statewide tourism-based marketing campaign for the exhibition Sam Jinks: Body in Time, which attracted more than 15,000 visitors (a Museum record). This approach also raised the Museum’s national profile, as two of these exhibitions (the Indigenous Ceramic Art Award and Sam Jinks) will now tour interstate. Finally, the SAM shop manager used the closure period to develop a new range of collection-based merchandise, in the process increasing shop revenue by 300% while again raising public awareness of the collection.

3. Clear outcomes for the local and/or wider community From a quantitative perspective, the redevelopment has clearly been met with overwhelming community support. The community party held to celebrate the reopening on February 17 and 18, 2012, attracted 1800 people, including more than 1000 on the Saturday, setting a new attendance record. Since reopening, visitation levels have more than doubled, with between 1,000 and 2,500 people per week visiting SAM, depending on the exhibition and programs on offer, while the expanded public program attracted 4,000 participants between February and June 2012. In this respect it is clear that the new Museum and rebranding have combined to provide the community with a much needed recreational, cultural and educational asset. From a qualitative perspective, the new facilities have dramatically enhanced SAM’s public programming and its outcomes. In March and April, SAM ran an intensive four week professional development and community engagement program for Indigenous communities that attracted participants from the local region and as far afield as South Australia and Tasmania. SAM also ran the ‘People Talking’ program, in which newly arrived, non-English speaking refugees collaborated with established residents in clay workshops designed

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 47

left:

Shepparton Art Gallery staff accepting their MA(Vic) Victorian Museum Award.

to develop literacy and social skills, as well as intercultural understanding, in a creative, non-threatening environment; and in May, SAM commenced a weekly weaving program assisting local Indigenous people to reconnect with their cultural and artistic traditions. The Education program has been similarly impactful. The relaunch was accompanied by several major new education kits (pertaining to Indigenous art, 19th century portraiture and contemporary Australian art) and a range of self-guided activity books for in-Museum use. Local schools have embraced the expanded displays, and school visitations are up 500% on previous years. This interest has prompted the formation of an Education Steering Committee of interested local teachers to provide advice and feedback on SAM’s future educational services. Finally, SAM was able to leverage the redevelopment and rebranding to secure triennial Strategic Partnerships Program funding from the Department of Education, and is in the process of rolling out a new Professional Development program for local teachers along with a series of online resources for students to use in the classroom and at home. [ ] Text citation: [SAM staff ], ‘A case-study in award-winning best practice in Victoria: Shepparton Art Museum’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 44–47.

48 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012

Strategic challenges for community-based museums and collections

Sustaining regional museums, Indigenous cultural centres and regional historical societies

Darryl McIntrye

R above:

Darryl McIntyre.

egional museums, Indigenous cultural centres and regional historical societies make an invaluable contribution as community assets. Yet community-based museums and cultural facilities are often the first target for funding reductions by both local and state governments. Hopefully the forthcoming National Cultural Policy will include some national coordination strategies and funding for regional museums, Indigenous cultural centres and regional historical societies to ensure their sustainability for many decades. Museums, historic houses and heritage sites all make positive contributions to their communities. Many museums in Australia and internationally (especially in the USA, Canada, Scandinavia, and the UK) are increasingly engaging their communities to discover what they care about. In so doing, museums are redefining their mission and vision, and evolving into places that facilitate significant civic conversations. Importantly, they are using interpretation as a transformative process, to establish deep and personal connections with new and continuing audiences, as well as developing partnerships with other community organisations that share similar goals and activities. Community-based museums, cultural centres and historical societies not only reflect the cultural identities of their town and surrounding environs; they are also a treasure house of cultural artefacts and records that both document and interpret the diverse histories of a town, its environs and the people who have shaped local history. Such records often reveal networks across a range of communities, which are especially significant in revealing patterns of multicultural social development. They are also an invaluable source, in partnership with local libraries and local government records, for people researching a regional history, or the history of a particular town or family. In the twentieth century and beyond, the most common pattern of compiling local histories has been to provide a narrative history, explaining everything that can be fitted into a thematic story, from the formation of the land to Indigenous people’s history, European settlement, and more recent events such as the impact of post-War soldier settlement schemes in various states.

It is important that regional museums and historical societies undertake oral histories (and if possible have them transcribed), covering as many local residents as possible so that these histories can be used for ongoing historical research. This information can also be used to enhance the documentation of regional collections and the quality of the interpretative captions in exhibitions and long-term displays for visitors to an area. Expanding local historical information can inform teachers and enrich educational resources (many of which are being placed online to support the national curriculum). Primary sources illuminating objects and local events may also provide the basis of educational activities within museums, supported perhaps by re-enactments or interpretation of important events – noting the rising presence of ‘museum theatre’ in expanding museum audiences. They may further stimulate the creation of ‘handling collections’, which allow students and visitors to engage at a more personal level with objects, in contrast to viewing them exclusively in display cases. In recent decades, regional museums, Indigenous cultural centres and historical societies have become much more socially inclusive. Greater emphasis is now given to access in all that they do, whether it be access to collections, scholarship, expertise and skills, or increased social and intellectual access – entailing proactive attention to visitor needs before they even arrive at a museum. Increasingly there is pressure on museums to unlock their knowledge banks. In response, community-based museums are now constantly improving opportunities for learning and dissemination of knowledge to include much more diverse audiences. Museums and their collections thereby reflect the many ways they touch upon the social, cultural and identity capital of communities.

Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 21 (1) – Spring 2012 49

In recent decades, regional museums, Indigenous cultural centres and historical societies have become much more socially inclusive.

Planning for sustainability The following is a four-step outline for the recovery and strengthening of local and community-based museums, Indigenous cultural centres and regional historical societies. 1. Evaluate the institution Some questions here might include what is the current position and status of the museum as well as what are its strengths and weaknesses? What is its role in the local community and how can this role be strengthened and enhanced? Questions also need to focus on the museum’s goals, financial resources, increasing membership and succession planning and leadership. 2. Collaborate with partners Consider co-operation with other local museums, tourist bodies and local historical organisations, since there are many ways that two or three groups can join in order to create a stronger organisation, without the loss of individual identity. This might mean a combined membership, co-operative programs and joint archives, collection storage and display facilities. In addition, organisations might work together to create an online inventory that is accessible to local and surrounding communities, which could also prove a way to yield invaluable educational resources. When the roll-out of the National Broadband Network is completed, this national connectivity resource can enable greater access to the inventories of local and regional museums. 3. Review leadership and future planning Volunteers still run many local museums and historical societies. They provide an invaluable service that should be recognised by the community they serve. It is important meanwhile to enable participation of younger generations, to draw on their skills to enrich ideas for public program development and delivery

of other activities that museums undertake. It is also valuable to invite newcomers to a town or district to a local museum, so that they are welcomed and encouraged to take an active role in the life of the museum. 4. Engage with government and community leaders It is important to inform local town and district officials, as well as relevant state and federal members of parliament, so that they are fully aware of what a museum, Indigenous cultural centre or regional historical society does; the size of its annual operating budget (there might be an opportunity to apply for a grant-in-aid); and to ensure that government officials become more aware of an organisation’s role in the local community’s culture, heritage and educational potential. In rapidly changing times, it is important to review aims and objectives. It may be necessary to consider how to engage in a more meaningful way with your local community so that all stakeholders have a better understanding, appreciation and knowledge of the excellent work that community museums, Indigenous cultural centres and historical societies perform to collect, preserve, interpret and disseminate knowledge about our cultural heritage and histories. Collaboration between museums and communities requires sharing creativity, vision, responsibility and resources. Museums should strive to achieve diversity among boards, staff, and museum volunteers, and reflect the cultural diversity in the community that surrounds them. Museums and historical societies are major resources for the learning community, and need to work closely with local primary and high schools. Museums are meanwhile defining new relationships with communities based upon expanded mutual understanding, recognition of common concerns and interests, and a desire to collaborate for communal benefit and wider social development. [] Dr Darryl McIntyre, FAIM, is a former Director of the National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra, and past President of Museums Australia. Citation for this text: Darryl McIntyre, ‘Sustaining regional museums, Indigenous cultural centres and regional historical societies’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 21 (1), Museums Australia, Canberra, August 2012, pp. 48–49.