MGAM 25(2) Autumn-Winter 2017

vol 25 (2) autumn-winter 2017 $15.00

Museums Galleries Australia

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Contents

In this issue President's Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Museums Galleries Australia National Council 2017—2019 president

From the Director. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Dr Robin Hirst PSM (Director, Hirst Projects, Melbourne)

T RS

2017 MAPDA and MAGNA national awards. . . . . . . 8

TAR R ER

S

AF T

HI

pen the app and scan the photo.

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 5

vice-president

Simon Elliott

Significantly Digital: GLAM Peak Digital Access to Collections. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

(Deputy Director, Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane)

treasurer

Margaret Lovell

Watch Open the theapp photo and scan come the alive! image

Live social media as museum object . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

(Corporate Secretariat, Land Development Agency, Chief Minister, Treasury and Economic Development, ACT Government, Canberra)

Using Augmented Reality in Galleries and Museums. . 24

secretary

Generation Art: Creating future-focused connections between youth audiences, art and art galleries. . . . . . . . 26

Museums Galleries Australia Indigenous Roadmap Project Issues Paper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 LGBTIQ inclusion and action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Career Futures: Report on Emerging Professionals at the 2017 National Conference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Carol Cartwright ([retired] Head, Education & Visitor Services, Australian War Memorial, Canberra)

members

Dr Mark Crees (Director, Araluen Cultural Precinct, Alice Springs) Suzanne Davies (Director, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne) Timothy Hart ([former] Director, Public Engagement, Museums Victoria, Melbourne) Dr Lynda Kelly (LyndaKellyNetworks, NSW)

Learning from the National Conference as an emerging professional. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Craig Middleton

Entrepreneurism: A necessary trait for museum work?. . . . . . 48

Debbie Sommers (Volunteer, Port Macquarie Historical Society, Port Macquarie)

Transport in Museums and Museums of Transport. . . 50

John Mulvaney (1925–2016). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

(Curator, Centre of Democracy - History Trust of South Australia, Adelaide)

ex officio member

Alec Coles OBE Chair, ICOM Australia; CEO, Western Australian Museum public officer

‘The Future of the Object’: University of Melbourne initiatives lead object-based learning . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Louise Douglas, Canberra

COVER IMAGE:

(subject to change throughout year)

Valerie Sparks, 2016, Prospero’s Island South West (detail), commissioned by Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery for Tempest with the support of Detached and the Australia Council. Represented by this is no fantasy + dianne tanner gallery, and Bett Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist Valerie Sparks.

PO Box 24, Deakin West ACT 2600 Editorial: (02) 6230 0346 Advertising: 02) 6230 0346 Subscriptions: (02) 6230 0346 editor@museumsaustralia.org.au www.museumsaustralia.org.au Editor: Bernice L. Murphy

ACT Rebecca Coronel (Assistant Manager, Collections Access, Department of Communications and the Arts, Canberra)

© Museums Galleries Australia and individual authors.

NSW Emma Best (Public Programs Officer, Newcastle Museum, Newcastle)

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

NT Vacant

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine is published biannually (from Volume 25 onwards) and on-line on the national website, and is a major link with members and the museums sector. Museums Galleries Australia Magazine is a forum for news, opinion and debate on museum issues.

Contributions from those involved or interested in museums and galleries are welcome. Museums Galleries 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 Galleries Australia, its affiliates or employees.

Content layout: Stephanie Hamilton

Museums Galleries Australia is proud to acknowledge the following supporters of the national organisation: Australian Government Ministry for the Arts; Australian Library and Information Association; National Museum of Australia; Museum Victoria (Melbourne Museum); and Western Australian Museum.

Printer: Adams Print, Melbourne

Print Post Publication No: 100003705 ISSN 2207-1806

Cover design: Selena Kearney

state/territory branch presidents/ representatives

QLD John Waldron (Museum consultant, Sunshine Coast, Queensland) SA Mirna Heruc (Manager, Art & Heritage Collections, University of Adelaide, Adelaide)

TAS Janet Carding (Director, Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Hobart) VIC Lauren Ellis (Programs Manager, Museum Victoria, Melbourne) WA Soula Veyradier (Program & Communications Manager, International Art Space, Perth)

6 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

President's Message

T above:

Dr Robin Hirst.

he awards ceremony at the National Conference for museums and galleries is always much anticipated. It is the night of nights for those engaging directly with our diverse audiences through public programming and design. The evening of Monday 15th May at the vibrant annual conference held in Brisbane in 2017 was no exception. The faithful gathered to see who had succeeded beyond the shortlist; and to watch each other tread the equivalent of the red carpet for outstanding achievements.

In the world of museums and galleries, where the hallmark is cooperation rather than competition, there is sometimes a reluctance to stand out from the crowd. However, having experience as both a recipient and a judge, I am convinced that awards are a very important part of the public life of our organisations. There is great benefit in entering, being shortlisted, and especially being declared a winner.

Yet whether you win or lose it is well worth the effort.

I see four clear benefits.

First, the time spent in putting an award submission together is a time for reflection on what was a success and what perhaps didn’t work as well as expected.

The act of putting oneself in the shoes of a judge forces a new perspective. Not only does the project come under new scrutiny but submission-writing skills are honed. Such skills are a necessity in a world where we need all the support we can muster.

Next, awards are a great time to celebrate with the team who made a project happen. When the submission goes in, when the shortlist comes out, and especially when the winners are announced: these are times to get the team together to share the success.

We need to remember that this builds camaraderie in the team and in the organization.

Third, winning an award is the marketing department’s dream come true. If you work in a small museum, most likely you don’t have a large team and you are probably responsible for marketing among a host of other tasks. Take every opportunity to get the word out there. Every local paper is looking for a story, most local politicians love to be photographed with a winner, and your community will be delighted to know of your success, whether it is via an A frame outside your door or a notice in the local shops.

Finally, once you have won an award you will be cited as having achieved best practice. Indeed in all your future submissions for funding you can refer to an award as judged by your peers in a national organisation.

Congratulations to all of the 2017 winners.

The National Award in the MAGNAs went to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery for their exhibition, Tempest, conceived in collaboration with MoNA’s Dark Mofo in 2016. In the MAPDAs, Auckland Museum took out the best in show for their catalogue Gottfried Lindauer’s New Zealand – The Maori Portraits. In the Multimedia category the top award went to ACMI for their brand television commercial. It was also good to see strong contenders

in the children’s book category with the Judges’ Special Award going to Count with Bowerbird Bill, realised by Museums Victoria.

As Janet Carding, Director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, said following her museum’s receiving three MAGNAs: ‘The response to winning the awards has captured the attention of the Premier, the Museum Trustees, and many throughout the local community. It has provided publicity we just could not afford to buy, and winning a swag of peer-judged awards has proved a great confidence-booster for our staff and volunteers.’

The MAGNA and MAPDA Awards were just a small part of a wonderful national conference in Brisbane and the Queensland state branch can be very proud of the rich program and associated events realised.

The next opportunity to enter for one of the many different awards will be at the Melbourne Conference in June 2018. Start thinking ahead now and maximize the opportunity. [ ] Dr Robin Hirst PSM National President Museums Galleries Australia (2017–2019)

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 7

From the Director

I

top:

Alex Marsden.

above:

Project planning prompt cards from a workshop at MuseumNext.

t’s the middle of the year — wintry cold in most parts of Australia — so a great time to sit in a warm spot and read your expanded magazine from cover to cover. This issue contains some of the terrific presentations and papers that were given at the recent National Conference in Brisbane, as part of enabling more of our members to benefit from that event. We also recorded the keynote speakers and will make these high-quality audio/visual recordings available soon through our website.

Members are the heart of our organisation. When I was at the MuseumNext conference in Melbourne earlier this year, I took part in a workshop on project design. One of the exercises was to respond to these two statements: ‘Our most valuable relationship is with…’, and ‘It rewards us with…’

In response to the first statement I wrote ‘our members’; and in response to the second, ‘advice, support, guidance, relevance, feedback, authority, appreciation’.

So, we held a Members’ Forum during the Brisbane conference and asked for guidance on issues, concerns, feedback and suggestions. Thank you to those members who came and told us what you thought – it was a lively and passionate discussion. The main subjects talked about were conferences, member services, communication issues, the proposed formal change of name of the national organisation, and advocacy. A brief summary of the matters raised is on our website, and was also contained in bulletins emailed to all members.

For the majority of you who could not make it to Brisbane in May, there will be many further opportunities to raise issues and give advice and guidance over the coming year as we carry out a strategic review of the organisation. The newlyelected National Council met recently and focused on how to serve members better. I am on a Taskforce that is developing a detailed plan for the review, which has the following objectives: 1. to consult on our value proposition with all members, 2. to review the National Council Strategic Plan and update for 2017-2020, 3. to strengthen the relationships and co-operation between different parts of the organisation,

4. to come up with options and decisions about re-positioning and rebranding, and implement necessary changes in an open and clear way, 5. to build stronger relationships with like-minded organisations and stakeholders, and 6. for this process to strengthen the association.

There will be a range of opportunities for members to comment and engage: these include a survey, submissions, general member meetings for branch, chapter and network events, and other meetings and workshops. Online, direct mail and in person discussions will all be pursued. I look forward to hearing what you all say and helping to develop a stronger association.

Finally, this edition of the national Magazine also contains an Issues Paper to prompt discussion and get feedback on the best ways to develop a 10-year Roadmap for museums and galleries working with Indigenous peoples. We were successful in gaining a Commonwealth government grant to undertake this work, and are delighted to have Terri Janke and Company on board to work with the sector on this affirmative action commitment. We believe it is one of the most significant and eagerly awaited initiatives for improving Indigenous involvement in galleries and museums. The project will focus on two main areas: how Indigenous cultures and histories are represented in museums and galleries across the country; and the employment and training of Indigenous people in these institutions.

This is an ambitious project that has been years in the making. We have listened, learned, and responded to the ideas and advice of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous museum and gallery workers, along with many leaders across the broad arts and culture sector. They have affirmed that we need solid data to understand the current situation; to look at what works, both here and overseas; and then to enable collective planning for change.

This project is fundamental to our role as the national membership association in providing responsive leadership, setting standards and giving guidance. The leading national and state museums are strongly supportive, and the Indigenous Roadmap process should also help strengthen relationships between the hundreds of volunteer-run smaller museums and galleries and their local communities.

I very much hope that you will take the time to respond to both this issues paper and the review of the association. Your commitment and perspectives are vital to a successful future. [ ] Alex Marsden National Director, Museums Galleries Australia

8 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Museums Australasia Multimedia & Publication Design Awards 2017

2017 MAPDA and MAGNA national awards for outstanding achievement

Stephanie Hamilton

W MAPDA 2017 At a glance:

2017 MAPDA Judges: Brendan O'Donnell Corvus Creative Nat Williams National Library of Australia Suzie Campbell Arts & marketing consultant Rick Cochrane Artist and printer Brett Wiencke National Portait Gallery of Australia Ian Wingrove Jane Fender Katherine Johnson Jane Fender Elliott Risby Digital creative consultant

• 72 organisations from Australia and New Zealand • 51 Level A • 21 Level B • 180 entries • 28 Small Exhibition Catalogues • 47 Major Exhibition Catalogues • 17 Magazines • 10 Labels • 70 shortlisted entries • 20 winning entries • 26 commended entries • Best in Show: Publication: Gottfried Lindauer's New Zealand The Māori Portraits (Auckland Art Gallery) Multimedia: ACMI Brand TVC (ACMI) • Judges’ Special Award: Count with Bowerbird Bill (Museums Victoria) • Sponsored by Australian Book Connection: (www.bookconn.com.au)

e are bombarded with it in every waking moment. Arguably the poor cousin to architecture, art or fashion, graphic design has always been hidden in plain sight.

The MAPDAs aim to bring graphic design into the light and celebrate the oft-forgotten but fundamental elements of communication in museums and galleries, and how they use this to engage with their communities.

Much of the graphic design realised in museums and galleries is ephemeral — one-time use items like exhibition opening invitations, kids' activity guides or maps, exhibition signage and labels, merchandise and advertising. It is the task of designers to make these items not only communicate crucial information effectively — from the date of an event to the sponsors’ logos — but also render the items themselves desirable, collectable, special.

I still have Museum Victoria’s The Art of Science exhibition opening invitation on my desk (designed

by Jo Pritchard from MV and winner of the 2013 MAPDA Judges’ Special Award): still treasured, with its little eagle face peeking through the gate fold. It took many years and a move to a new office for me to take down my poster from National Portrait Gallery’s SKATER: Portraits by Nikki Toole (designed by Brett Wiencke from NPG, and winner of 2012 MAPDA Poster category, this poster series was available free from the gallery during the exhibition). For five years it was Blu-Tacked to my office wall, all custom typeface and grungy textures and so totally cool! And admit it: we all have tea towels in our kitchen from the gift shops of exhibitions that finished 10 years ago.

(And we can’t just blame the natural hoarding instinct of the museum professional because I’ve seen them in other people’s kitchens too.)

Content aside, and considering the constant popularity of the exhibition ‘merch stand’, the keepability or repurpose-ability of an object is surely an indication of thoughtful design, and something that should be strived for (and budgeted for) by designers

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 9

and the people that brief them in this age of waste.

It’s so tempting to say the answer is to go digital.

Over the past few years we have seen many organisations scrap their magazine and go online, only to start printing them again later in response to feedback. Exhibition invitations are no longer clogging my inbox but trickling back into my letter box. Meanwhile, exhibition labels are just as likely to be displayed via an electronic, interactive screen as printed on a wall. Evidently, despite the rush towards digital in the past decade, there is actually room for both electronic and print to exist complementarily.

Of course MAPDA has its electronic categories for websites and multimedia. The multimedia category will go under review this year, to see how we can best include items like exhibition interactives and apps.

The MAPDAs turned twenty this year. The first awards (the Museum Publication Design Awards) were held in Perth in 1994 (I know that’s 23 years in reality, but we had a few years off in the 2000s). I’ve been running the awards since I started at Museums Galleries Australia in 2010, and it is still the most fun and exciting part of my whole year. I can’t wait to call for entries in February and have my office flooded with so many pretty things that I lovingly place in the appropriate category/level box awaiting judging — which after much sorting and checking takes place over two days in March. Our amazing judges are a mixture of graphic designers, print nerds, artists, marketers, curators and cutting-edge digital design dudes. Museums Galleries Australia thanks our (wholly volunteer) judges who take the time to share their years-developed knowledge in return for lunch and jelly beans. Here are some general comments from our 2017 judges: • Posters are such an important communication tool. While it is becoming more popular to multipurpose a poster for budget reasons and make a poster double as an information brochure or exhibition catalogue, the poster itself still needs to act as a poster. They should be high impact and carry a singular message.

• The Exhibition Catalogue (Major) was highly contested, with the year's judges saying they haven’t seen such quality, or had such a difficult time deciding a winner in a long time.

• The basics of design should not be overlooked — please keep an eye out for widows and orphans.

• There is nothing that cannot be achieved with the right grid.

The 2017 awards were presented on 15 May during the Museums Galleries Australia National Conference at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Many award winners were unable to make it to Brisbane this year, which was a shame, but the event was celebratory, respectful and lively, and those that could attend had a great time.

The Best in Show for Publications was awarded this year to the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki’s Gottfried Lindauer's New Zealand — The Māori Portraits (a collaborative design between Neil Pardington (Base Two) and Auckland University Press in association with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki). The Best in Show for Multimedia design went to Australian Centre for the Moving Image’s ACMI Brand TVC (designed by Field Carr at ACMI).

All the 2017 winners, as well as those for past years, can be viewed at www.mapda.org.au.

MAPDA will return in 2018 with a call for entries on 1 February. [ ]

far left:

Gottfried Lindauer's New Zealand — The Maori Portraits (a collaborative design between Neil Pardington (Base Two) and Auckland University Press in association with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki). above:

Judges’ Special Award: Count with Bowerbird Bill (Designer: Jo Pritchard, Museums Victoria).

10 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Museums Australasia Multimedia & Publication Design Awards 2017

BOOK LEVEL A

AF T

T RS

TAR R ER

S

Winner Artist's Library (pictured) Bundanon Trust Anne Ferran & Chris Anderson (Bundanon Trust) LEVEL B Winner Some Posters From the NGV​ National Gallery of Victoria Stuart Geddes (National Gallery of Victoria)

CHILDREN'S BOOK LEVEL B Highly Commended Ships, Clocks and Stars: kids activity backpack trails Australian National Maritime Museum Slade Smith​ Winner and Judges' Special Award Count with Bowerbird Bill Museums Victoria Jo Pritchard (Museums Victoria Design Studio) Winner Viktor&Rolf Fashion Artists: A Drawing Book for Kids (pictured) National Gallery of Victoria Cally Bennett (National Gallery of Victoria)

EXHIBITION BRANDING PACKAGE LEVEL A Highly Commended Bad Hair Day Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu Peter Bray / Aaron Beehre (catalogue) Winner 100% Brisbane (pictured) Museum of Brisbane GPYR & Museum of Brisbane LEVEL B Highly Commended THE SELL: Australian Advertising 1790s to 1990s National Library of Australia Isobel Trundle (National Library of Australia) Planting Dreams: Shaping Australian Gardens State Library of NSW Rosie Handley (State Library of NSW)

Pauline Gandel Children's Gallery Museums Victoria Jo Pritchard (Museums Victoria Design Studio) Scorsese ACMI Monique De Jong (ACMI Design) Winner The Popular Pet Show National Portrait Gallery Brett Wiencke (National Portrait Gallery) Winner Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection (pictured) Art Gallery of New South Wales Analiese Cairis (Art Gallery of New South Wales)

HI

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 11

The perfect catalogue. Exceptional production quality and well considered stock. Beautifully reproduced photography. The design is highly respectful of the images and shows integrity and sensitivity in dealing with the subject matter.

Judges' comments for Gottfried Lindauer's New Zealand - The Māori Portraits

LEVEL B Highly Commended No.1 Neighbour: Art in Papua New Guinea 1966-2016 Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Lara Clarke (QAGOMA)

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE (MAJOR) LEVEL A Highly Commended Winsome Jobling: the nature of paper Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory Katherine Johnson (Wingrove Design) Kevin Lincoln: The eye's mind Art Gallery of Ballarat Ben Cox (Art Gallery of Ballarat) Kushana Bush: The Burning Hours Dunedin Public Art Gallery Karina McLeod (Dunedin Public Art Gallery) Francis Upritchard: Jealous Saboteurs Monash Univeristy Museum of Art Roland Brauchli (Monash University Museum of Art (co-published with City Gallery, Wellington)) Bad Hair Day Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu Aaron Beehre (Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu) Winner and Best in Show (Publication) Gottfried Lindauer's New Zealand - The Māori Portraits Auckland Art Gallery A collaboration between Neil Pardington (Base Two) and Auckland University Press in association with Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Viktor&Rolf: Fashion Artists National Gallery of Victoria Dirk Hiscock (National Gallery of Victoria) David Hockney: Current National Gallery of Victoria Thomas Deverall (National Gallery of Victoria) Winner Tatsuo Miyajima Connect with Everything (pictured) Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Claire Orrell (Museum of Contemporary Art Australia)

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE (SMALL) LEVEL A Highly Commended Braddon Snape | Materiality Performed Maitland Regional Art Gallery Clare Hodgins (Maitland Regional Art Gallery) Gathering Strands Redland Art Gallery Jenna Lee (Gilimbaa) Winner JamFactory ICON 2016 // Gerry Wedd: Kitschen Man (pictured) JamFactory James "Ye-Ha" Brown (Mash) LEVEL B Highly Commended National Photographic Portrait Prize 2016 National Portrait Gallery Brett Wiencke (National Portrait Gallery)

12 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Museums Australasia Multimedia & Publication Design Awards 2017

INSTITUTION WEBSITE LEVEL A Highly Commended Heide Museum of Modern Art website Heide Museum of Modern Art Monkii digital agency Winner Bundanon Trust Website Bundanon Trust Boccalatte & Interaction Consortium LEVEL B Winner MONA website (pictured) Museum of Old and New Art David Campbell and Mick Fennelly (MONA Communications Team)

INVITATION LEVEL B Highly Commended Scorsese Opening Night Invitation ACMI Monique De Jong (ACMI Design) Winner On Air: 40 years of 3RRR Opening Night Invitation (pictured) State Library Victoria Peter Lo (State Library Victoria)

LABEL LEVEL A Highly Commended Journeys: People Place Stories Orange Regional Museum Kira Brown (Sauce Design) LEVEL B Winner Florilegium: Sydney's painted garden (pictured) Sydney Living Museums Bruce Smythe (Sydney Living Museums)

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 13

MAGAZINE

MULTIMEDIA

LEVEL A

LEVEL A

Highly Commended Muse University of Sydney (Sydney University Museums) Brand and Marketing Services (Marketing and Communications) (University of Sydney)

Highly Commended Mandy Martin: Homeground Mini Documentary Bathurst Regional Art Gallery Sync Pictures

Winner Marmalade Issue No 04 JamFactory Sophie Guiney (JamFactory) LEVEL B Highly Commended NGV Magazine Nov/Dec 2016 National Gallery of Victoria Thomas Deverall (National Gallery of Victoria) Winner Art Matters MCA Ambassador and Member Magazine (pictured) Museum of Contemporary Art Australia Claire Orrell (MCA)

Winner The Lock Up - 2017 Exhibition Program The Lock Up Headjam Winner Kenji Uranishi: Momentary ( film) Museum of Brisbane Simon Woods (Museum of Brisbane) LEVEL B Highly Commended Philippe Parreno: Thenabouts TVC ACMI Field Carr (ACMI Design) Scorsese Exhibition TVC ACMI Field Carr (ACMI Design) Winner and Best in Show (Multimedia) ACMI Brand TVC ACMI Field Carr (ACMI Design)

POSTER LEVEL A Highly Commended 100% Brisbane poster suite Museum of Brisbane David Whipps (Museum of Brisbane) LEVEL B Winner Gravity (and Wonder) Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences Filip Bartkowiak (Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences)

14 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Museums & Galleries National Awards 2017

2017 MAGNA Judges: INTERPRETATION, LEARNING & AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT Andrew Hiskens State Library of Victoria and MGA Education National Network Carol Cartwright Museums Galleries Australia National Council Dr Lynda Kelly LyndaKellyNetworks, Museums Galleries Australia National Council and Evaluation and Visitor Research National Network

PERMANENT EXHIBITION OR GALLERY FITOUT Suzanne Davies RMIT Gallery and Museums Galleries Australia National Council Soula Veyradier Museums Galleries Australia Western Australia and International Art Space INDIGENOUS PROJECT OR KEEPING PLACE Genevieve Grieves Curator & Educator Frank Howarth Museums Galleries Australia National Council TEMPORARY OR TRAVELLING EXHIBITION Belinda Cotton Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and Museums Galleries Australia Tasmania Paul Bowers Museums Victoria and Museums Galleries Australia Exhibitions Network Jessica Moore Western Plains Cultural Centre and Museums Galleries Australia Exhibitions Network

Museums and Galleries National Awards

A thriving program

The Museums and Galleries National Awards (MAGNAs) recognise and celebrate outstanding projects being undertaken in our museums and galleries in the categories of exhibitions, audience engagement, and Indigenous projects. They set out to encourage the continuous improvement and development of Australian museums and galleries; inspire and recognise best practice and innovation in the collecting sector; and enhance the profile of museums and galleries in local and wider communities.

The MAGNAs are open to organisational members of Museums Galleries Australia. The awards are steadily growing in prestige and we gain many new members who at first simply want to enter, then stay on to enjoy the many other benefits of organisational membership.

The seventh MAGNAs were presented on 15 May 2017 at the National Conference in Brisbane. The Awards event was extremely well attended, with museum staff and volunteers coming from across the nation to accept their certificates and accolades.

While our sponsors, Panasonic, were unable to attend the Awards ceremony, they were there in ‘illuminated spirit’ as the Brisbane Convention and Entertainment Centre was fitted with Panasonic projectors — keenly pointed out by MC Paul Bishop (Councillor from Redland City Council and veteran actor in Australian theatre and television).

This year’s awards were generously sponsored by Panasonic. The awards have been without a major sponsor for several years, but we now anticipate that this new partnership will allow the awards to continue to thrive and further develop as the premier national platform for recognition of our cultural sector. From 30 entries in the first year, to over 70 in 2017, we think 2018 will be even stronger.

At the Members’ Forum that was held at the National Conference on Tuesday 16 May, it was raised that the awards should include additional categories — for example, a category for sustainability.

The awards organisers have noted that in the initial years of the MAGNAs we did have a category called Sustainability. Indeed the first-ever National Winner was a Sustainability entry from the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material, for their development of Guidelines for Environmental Conditions for Museum and Galleries. The category was renamed Innovation in 2013 and then, after poor entry-numbers, was dropped in 2016. As part of our regular review of the national awards programs, consideration will be given to the possibility of re-introducing a category, perhaps better defined, for the ‘green’ projects that our immensely creative members are engaged in, and will continue to develop, as part of their important roles of social advocates, climate change educators and innovation leaders.

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 15

far left:

Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Director, Janet Carding, receiving National Award for Tempest from MGA National President, Frank Howarth.

middle:

L-R: James Dexter (Director Creative and Regional Development, Western Australian Museum), Soula Veyradier (MAGNA judge), and Alec Coles OBE (CEO, Western Australian Museum) receiving their award for Lustre: Pearling and Australia National Tour. left: Visitors enjoying the 'island of taxidermied parrots' in Tempest.

Photo courtesy of TMAG. Tempest was on exhibition at Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, from 10 June 2016 to 20 November 2016.

2017 National Winner The overall National Winner was awarded to Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s temporary exhibition, Tempest. This is the second time TMAG has won the overall award: the first time being for their permanent gallery redevelopment in 2013. TMAG’s successes are testament to what an institution can achieve when it has the strong support of its state government.

Tempest was an ambitious project, and beautifully realised. One of the judges summed it up as ‘Taking a single idea and leaning in to it, creating a kaleidoscope effect of diversity of perspectives. The project was fraught with risk but delivered without holding back.’

Another judge said ‘New partnerships with high profile contemporary art organisations and crossartform programming maximised connections and effectively built audiences.’

TMAG Director, Janet Carding, later reported that the peer-judged competition meant a lot to staff. ‘It’s fantastic for the team, because they work really hard and I think they did some of their best work on this [exhibition] and now that’s been recognised,’ she said.

The project exemplifies many of the themes and approaches evident in most of this year’s winners: combining arts and sciences; commissioning new artworks alongside and helping the reinterpretation of historic objects; multi-factored partnerships; developing strong relationships with other

organisations; emotional linkages with local communities as well as developing new audiences; multiple ways to access experiences and learning; and dramatic multi-sensory exhibition design. The winning project was also successful in increasing the relevance and perception of the organisation within government and the tourism industry.

We congratulate all the finalists and winners in this year’s MAGNA Awards. All the winners and selected judges’ comments are online at www. museumsaustralia.org.au. We also give hearty thanks to our new sponsor, Panasonic, whose support will allow the MAGNAs to develop into the future. [ ] Stephanie Hamilton is Communications Manager at Museums Galleries Australia National Office in Canberra.

She has worked at MGA since 2010 and administers the national awards programs, MAPDA and MAGNA. Text citation: Stephanie Hamilton, ‘2017 MAPDA and MAGNA national awards for outstanding achievement’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), AutumnWinter 2017, pp. 9-15.

16 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Project report: National program towards digital access

Significantly Digital: GLAM Peak Digital Access to Collections

top:

John Petersen.

above:

Rebecca Jones.

left:

GLAM Peak's Digital Access to Collections website www.digitalcollections.org.au far right:

GLAM Peak logo.

John Petersen and Rebecca Jones

I 1.

See Kristin van Barneveld and Osmond Chiu, ‘A Portrait of Failure: Ongoing Funding Cuts to Australia’s Cultural Institutions’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 12 May 2017, pp. 1–16.

magine the difference it would make if Australia’s arts and cultural heritage collections were all easily available online. If, simply by taking a smartphone out of their pocket, turning on their PC, switching on their TV, or swiping their tablet, everyone — irrespective of socio-economic factors, diversity, location or disability — would have access to collections online.

Major initiatives (for example, Victorian Collections, Trove, and Atlas of Living Australia) have advanced Australia’s progress and reach in creating digital access to collections — comparable to Europeana or the Digital Public Library of America. There is considerable interest and current effort in making collections across Australia digitally accessible; and there is a significant amount of activity behind the scenes in terms of digitisation, which is not yet fully reflected in the volume of material available via the internet.

The Draft National Research Infrastructure Roadmap has already recognised the importance of a national aggregator for arts, culture and humanities data. However, persistent reductions in funding of cultural institutions (particularly through the prolonged efficiency dividends imposed on national institutions by the federal government)[1] have restricted not only many institutions’ own plans for

digital access to collections but also their ability to support smaller organisations, including ones located in regional Australia. Outside of our major cities, the digital landscape presents a patchwork of disparate systems and a general picture of resource inequity.

Nevertheless, there are some outstanding examples of cooperation led by major institutions, and also by local government, to support smaller arts, culture and heritage organisations. These are generating impressive results in some pockets of exemplary collaboration. Yet this is not reflected elsewhere in Australia.

Many smaller organisations are tackling collection management, documentation, technology, skills and resource challenges on their own, and often having to ‘reinvent the wheel’ in the process. They also lack advice on a range of issues, including permissions, cultural protocols and support for projects where they could be making progress in cataloguing, documentation and significance assessment before making their collections internet-accessible. However it is noteworthy that small organisations expressed a high level of awareness and support for Trove.

In May 2016, GLAM Peak (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) received funding from the Australian Government through Catalyst (the Australian Arts and Culture Fund, managed by the Ministry for the Arts), to support a national initiative designed to progress digital access to collections.

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 17

GLAM Peak commissioned the present authors as heritage consultants to research this project.

The brief was to prepare the evidence base required to provide: • A draft national framework, which in turn would set out the principles and strategies to achieve the nation’s ambition for digital access to a rich diversity of Australian collections content by national and international audiences.

• A case-study-based prototype toolkit to support capacity building in the sector — particularly for smaller organisations — and knowledge transfer between collecting institutions of all types, sizes and jurisdictions.

Work commenced on 1 July 2016, with a tight time-frame of five months to complete the research and report writing, including six field trips across Australia.

Research was carried out in four streams: 1. Expert advice sought from members of GLAM Peak.

2. Consultation with other key stakeholders.

3. Fieldwork to develop six in-depth case studies.

4. Conduct of national surveys.

By employing a range of techniques, we were able to canvass perspectives from every state and territory.

One of the aims of the project was to discover what the ‘lay of the land’ was like for small but ambitious organisations that are primarily staffed by volunteers or by low numbers of paid staff. We asked these questions: ‘What barriers are people facing that are preventing them from providing digital access to their collections?’ and ‘What can be done to assist an increase in access to all collections across Australia?’

The six fieldwork visits and related case studies engaged the following organisations:

• The Sustainable Collections Project in central NSW, where 3 local government areas (Blayney Shire Council, Orange City Council, and Cabonne Shire Council) each contribute annual funds to support a museum program, part of which digitises and shares local collections online.

The collaborative network is supporting fifteen organisations to progress digital access; • Buderim Pioneer Cottage, Queensland — a volunteer-operated cultural heritage museum located within the local government area of Sunshine Coast Council, along with several other volunteer-run community museums, a regional gallery, library and other cultural spaces — is committed to best practice in digitisation and access; it has an almost fully catalogued collection and an active digitisation program. The Sunshine Coast Council, with an $8 per year ratepayers' heritage levy, supports more than $1 million in museum and heritage activities locally; • Murray Bridge Regional Gallery in South Australia, a local government-supported regional gallery with 1 full-time director, a part-time retail manager, 2 casual staff and 6 volunteers, operating 3 exhibition spaces and caring for a small permanent collection; • University of Tasmania Library, with a set of legacy collections dating back to 1890: a university library making steady progress in both digitisation and digital access to achieve its ambitions to make significant collections discoverable and accessible to researchers; • Dolord Mindi at Mowanjum Aboriginal Art and Cultural Centre, near Broome in Western Australia. This is an example of how support from a large organisation (the State Library of Western Australia) can assist local people (Mowanjum Community) with their project to deliver culturally appropriate digital access to important collections; and in turn, how a community can itself inform and shape the methods and approaches of a large cultural institution; • Warrnambool Historical Society, Victoria. This is a volunteer-run institution that is progressively making its collection digitally accessible through its own website, Victorian Collections, and Trove.

In addition to the in-depth information gained through these six field trips, many of the organisations that responded to the survey indicated that while they were keen to share their collections, difficulties such as lack of staff and overworked volunteers were barriers to achieving the steps necessary to enable greater access. Despite a general lack of time and staff, there are stubborn choices to be made about best use of resources available.

18 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Project report: National program towards digital access

There is a backlog in cataloguing for many organisations (as evidenced by the survey stats).

That is about volume. Cataloguing could be anything from very basic five-word recording into a system or more detailed documentation. With this in mind, small organisations are generally using significance assessment methods to determine priorities for which objects need to be better documented, and to make decisions about what ultimately goes up on the internet and is therefore made publicly accessible now rather than later.

Those resistant to providing digital access to their collections proved to be generally harbouring concerns — not always supported by evidence — about the lack of adequate security of their regional buildings and collections; a further concern was about a potential loss of revenue that some gain at present from selling their collection images to researchers needing illustrations.

On the other hand, factors that support digital access often provide a mirror image of those that form barriers. Our research tended to frame the following conditions as necessary to achieve digital access to elements of collections identified as significant: • Government at all three levels must acknowledge the importance of digital access to collections and provide leadership and direction supporting its realisation.

• Major cultural institutions and regional networks must be funded to support smaller organisations through all aspects of the journey to digital access.

• There should be consensus established around nationally aggregated platforms and the resourcing necessary to sustain them in the long term.

• The value of the contribution of smaller organisations to the national cultural agenda should be recognised and publicly acknowledged.

As a result of the research findings, the consultants made 10 recommendations. These can be summarised as: 1. Formation of regional and GLAM sector collaborative models and projects where skills and knowledge of significant collections are shared.

2. Support for nationally aggregated platforms.

3. Support for a diversity of collection management systems, including a variety of systems recently adopted by small organisations, rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach or the imposition of new systems overriding ones already in use.

4. Review of available systems to identify features and benefits to enable smaller organisations to make informed choices suited to their capacity and the significance of their collection holdings.

5. Increased federal funding for the Community Heritage Grants program to support digital access to collections projects, including a focus on projects for documentation of significant collections at a regional level.

6. Information to be provided for smaller organisations to address the issues that are inhibiting digital access: assisting them to answer the questions, including Copyright, Privacy Principles and Indigenous protocols that are currently restraining progress.

7. Examples of excellence in digital access to be identified and promoted, and used to refine national approaches.

8. Digital access to collections projects to be linked with the national school curriculum, including some trials with students supporting volunteers in applied learning (since students now learn coding!).

9. Aggregated databases to be enhanced to incorporate social media platforms that can be utilised for crowd sourcing knowledge; and promotion of platforms for story-telling about collections.

10. Investigation of the potential for third party support to progress digital access for the benefit of small organisations: to increase awareness and use of collections, and to provide revenue streams and facilitate electronic funds transfer (e.g. to support historical society revenue streams through image sales).

Encouragingly, the toolkit prepared under this project at www.digitalcollections.org.au is being embraced by the sector. GLAM Peak has now received Stage Two funding for the project, and there will soon be a project manager appointed to take our recommendations forward.

We are grateful to the generous and resourceful people who showed their impressive work in the six case studies our project generated. We are further

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 19

Further information More can be learnt about GLAM Peak and its Terms of Reference, along with the Toolkit and Case Studies, by visiting the following resources: www.digitalcollections.org.au/glam-peak www.glampeak.org.au www.trove.nla.gov.au www.ala.org.au www.victoriancollections.net.au www.europeana.eu/portal/en www.dp.la www.education.gov.au/2016-national-researchinfrastructure-roadmap www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au

Case Studies

above:

Buderim Pioneer Cottage, Queensland, is a case study available at www. digitalcollections.org.au

indebted to the committed people in other small GLAM organisations we met in each region or locality, along with the 40 national small organisations that completed the survey, together with GLAM Peak’s members, the staff of Australia’s cultural institutions, and the 40 people cited in the report who met with us during project consultations.

The GLAM Peak project has been an important milestone in Australia’s progress toward digital collections access. The coming together of so many interested people recognises that small organisations are the custodians of significant collections that tell the stories of Australia, and in particular, the people of our vast and dynamic regional areas, who should not be forgotten or left behind in the rush for digital access. [ ]

www.centralnswmuseums.orangemuseum.com.au www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/Experience-SunshineCoast/Cultural-Heritage www.murraybridgegallery.com.au www.utas.edu.au/library/research/special-and-rarecollections www.mowanjumarts.com.au www.warrnamboolhistory.org.au John Petersen is a Dandenong Ranges-based heritage consultant and historian. He is former Director, Duldig Studio museum + sculpture garden in Victoria, and former Manager, NSW Migration Heritage Centre. He is currently both Regional Museums Advisor for Wollongong City Council in NSW and Community Heritage Officer for Yarra Ranges Council in Victoria.

Rebecca Jones has worked for the National Trust, Museums and Galleries NSW and as a Museum Advisor and consultant to the sector on a range of projects including as a curator, researcher, collections manager, project manager and in travelling exhibitions. She is currently an Assistant Curator with Sydney Living Museums.

For further information, see: www.digitalcollections.org.au Text citation: John Petersen and Rebecca Jones, ‘Significantly Digital: GLAM Peak Digital Access to Collections’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 16-19.

20 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Streaming the world into the museum environment

Live social media as museum object

Shane Breynard

I above:

Shane Breynard.

right:

ACT's 'Twitter Cabinet', @ACTVCC, as posted to Twitter on 10 Jun 2014. far right: Instagram user @miss_and posted with #canberra and her photo was picked up by CMAG's social media stream.

t has become commonplace to engage with museums online. Indeed social media and the web are now the main ways that museum goers find out what’s on where.

So it is no surprise that museums are directing more and more resources to how they look, feel and market online. But the online investment doesn’t stop there. Museums have invested for decades now in digitising their collections for online access. And many museums are starting to ascribe visits to online exhibitions, collections and programs with the same value as physical visits to their museum.

At recent museum conferences I have been impressed with the number and quality of presentations about online projects, which often have their genesis in a physical exhibition. Other speakers are choosing to focus on the digital enhancements that are being grafted into our physical experience of museums, and others again are asking what the implications will be for physical museums once every object they hold and every exhibition they mount has its equivalent online?

I recently explored this terrain when I spoke about our experience at Canberra Museum and Gallery with what I am calling a ‘very dangerous’ kind of museum object.

This kind of museum object is unsafe to put in

an exhibition, and in a collection its impact can be catastrophic.

It is a live social media object. A summary of my presentation follows.

Rewind six years and you would have found me working in the office of Canberra’s Chief Minister.

Our Chief Minister had a weekly radio slot where he took calls on everything from uneven pavement to unfair dismissal. We were embracing Open Government, that global movement, pushed along by Barack Obama, that promotes ready citizen-access to government records, data, analysis and advice.

We had begun to systematically post material online: Cabinet agendas, Government responses to FOI requests, data sets and much more besides.

Then we launched a world first for Open Government: a Twitter Cabinet.

This practice had our Ministers convening at a predetermined time during which anyone could Tweet-in and get a response to their questions.

Understandably, when I left the Chief Minister’s Office and started at Canberra Museum and Gallery, I was thirsty to ramp up our museum’s online interactions with its community.

This was never about encouraging people to take selfies in our museum. It was a journey that would ultimately take us somewhere much stranger than that. The best way to tell you where we are now — is to tell you how we got here.

Step by step we began to build more interactive digital content into the museum.

Soon it was Canberra’s centenary, and we mounted a cracker of an exhibition. It scrolled back 200 years into Canberra’s past and scried forward 100, into its future.

The exhibition curator, Dale Middleby, managed to forge partnerships that helped us create some outstanding digital objects. There was an augmented reality experience of a local Indigenous rock art site from a-positive; a video game set in a fully-forested National Arboretum from the Academy of Interactive Entertainment; and even a news broadcast from March 2113 courtesy of ABC Canberra.

This material fitted comfortably in what was a fairly straightforward museum display. But we had also begun to post as much as we could from our exhibitions to our website. Not just promotional material and images, but room brochures, catalogues, all the exhibition text and electronic content, basically anything we could lay our hands on. We wanted the online experience of our exhibitions to show the same level of care and chutzpah that we invested in our physical exhibitions.

A curious outcome of thinking about digital and

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 21

physical exhibitions alongside each other was that we began to include the online life of our community in the physical space of our museum.

Perhaps the fact that we are both a social history museum and a visual art gallery combined helps us to see how the many expressions of our region’s identity are interconnected. We know that Canberra’s soul is as likely to be reflected in an Instagram post as it is anywhere else.

Inspired by the ‘Insta-walks’ of our local ABC Radio Manager, Andrea Ho, we had the idea to stream in a live feed of social media images alongside our centenary exhibition. We asked a local firm, Icelab, to develop code that would grab every Twitter post that mentioned the word ‘Canberra’, fresh as it was posted, then test if it included an image and, if it did, reformat it and upload it to a Tumblr, all in near-real time.

When my colleague and I approved these posts from our smart phones, they appeared instantly on a large screen on the wall of the museum.

We adopted a policy to curate-out repetitive advertising, posts that were designed to offend, and anything that was sexually explicit or gratuitously violent. It was gratifying that there was little we had to cut.

You might know about the ‘IK Prize’, which funds new ways of accessing the Tate Galleries’ collections? Ros Lawler spoke about this at February’s MuseumNext conference in Melbourne.

She described the Prize’s Recognition project from Fabrica. Here news media images streaming in from Reuters were automatically matched up, using artificial intelligence software, with British works from the Tate’s collections. The Reuters’ image and its corresponding Tate image were then displayed alongside each other on a screen in Tate Britain.

I was interested to hear how the Tate curated-out certain types of images, for example, those showing individuals in difficult situations, guns, dead bodies

Live social media as an object reminds us that our business is to curate meanings rather than simply the objects themselves and indeed even some of the more risqué images from their own collection.

At first reading we could take this ‘curating-out’ of certain content by the Tate — which would probably have been done by any other museum — as a form of risk management, say to avoid the risk of triggering anxiety in someone recovering from trauma, or of offending families. But I think the decision to apply this curatorial ‘discernment’, some might even say ‘censorship’, to the live Reuters feed reveals something more fundamental about the relationship between museums and galleries, and the content they consider fit to display and collect.

Our libraries and archives seem somehow more permissive, more able to embrace multiple and contradictory narratives. At least on the surface, libraries and archives appear less constrained by the dogmatic narratives of art history and the fraught politics of national identity.

Libraries and archives also share a history of collecting things like live social media: such as newspapers, ephemera, websites, radio and TV. We know, for example, that the Library of Congress has committed to maintaining an archive that will embrace every tweet, ever.

In the museum where I work we are just tinkering with live social media objects. But like the Tate with its Recognition project, and like the National Museum of Australia, with a project that streamed-in social media images of people celebrating Australia Day and added them to its collection — we are intrigued to see how this type of museum object, and the cultural relativism it brings, will shape the voice and temper the curatorial authority of our museum in the future.

The idea of live social media objects has caught on at my museum. So much so that we now curate-in one of these objects alongside most major exhibitions.

Revealing the dynamic online life of our community inside our museum has become an important part of our work.

22 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Streaming the world into the museum environment

far left top:

Russell Eustace, as displayed in a social media stream accompanying Velocity : Vintage Racing Bikes at Canberra Museum and Art Gallery, 1 December 2016 - 23 March 2017. far left middle:

Photo 'Molonglo Mirror' by Paul Jurak (https:// kayakcameraman.com).

far left bottom:

Photo 'Towards Goodwill, Roseau, Dominca. Nah, it’s towards Red Hill, Forrest, Canberra' by Mel Edwards (http://nah-itscanberra. tumblr.com).

left top:

Photo 'Like a wedding veil' by Holly GranvilleEdge (www.instagram.com/ theyrejustphotosafterall).

left bottom:

Submission to Canberra Nature Map (https:// twitter.com/CBRNatureMap).

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 23

History is and will always be in flux to some extent, and we are, each one of us, active players in its unfolding

1.

Professor Mark Dodgson, of University of Queensland spoke compellingly on ‘Fighting ignorance from ivory towers’ on the ABC’s Ockham’s Razor, Sunday 14 May 2017.

To the left is pictured a post from Russell Eustace who was at a Tour de France event near Jindabyne, New South Wales, late last year. It was part of a stream at our museum that accompanied an exhibition of vintage racing bikes.

Guest artists have also live-streamed in their work: - Paul Jurak did it from a kayak on the city’s central lake. He was there for every sunrise and every sunset for around three months; - Mel Edwards showed a whole archive of images where she wilfully mistook Canberra for other cities, on a daily basis; and - Holly Granville-Edge shared some searing personal dialogues on the city as image.

In an exhibition focusing on the natural history of Canberra, we streamed in the work of citizen scientists contributing to a massive geo-tagged database of the flora and fauna of our region.

Although we don’t linger on it, we know that the meaning of every museum object is recontested every time it is encountered. The live social media object reminds us that our business is to curate meanings rather than simply the objects themselves. We are also reminded that despite all of our efforts, the meanings we curate reach out to unknown and unpredictable audiences.

Once live social media is accepted as a museum object, we can no longer go to a museum to be reassured of the enduring meaning of history. Rather we will be compelled to admit that history is and will always be in flux to some extent, and that we are, each one of us, active players in its unfolding.

The live social media object is unpredictable

and unsafe for a traditional museum display. This is because it punctures the rhetoric of historical objectivity and authority that contemporary museums and galleries still work so hard to achieve. This is also because it is alive to the unpredictable future, and is, by its very nature, enmeshed in narratives that are playing out in real time beyond the museum’s walls.

In a world, to use Mark Dodgson’s phrase ‘awash with relativism’,[1] this flux heralds a mighty challenge for museums. It will be the thinking and wisdom that we bring to this challenge that will allow our museums to sustain their value into the future. [] Shane Breynard is Director, Canberra Museum and Gallery, and Director Corporate Strategy at Cultural Facilities Corporation. He tweets @shanebreynard.

Text citation: Shane Breynard, ‘Live social media as museum object’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 20-23.

24 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Digital tools enable expanding impacts and extending audiences

Using Augmented Reality in Galleries and Museums

top:

Bridget Guthrie. Photo: Tamworth Regional Council.

above:

Amber Standley.

right:

The Trumpet Calls: Albury’s WWI Battery postcard with AR symbol to more aspects of the exhibition. This one has an AR replica of the 18-pound field gun. Instructions to view it are at the bottom of this spread.

Bridget Guthrie and Amber Standley What is augmented reality, and how does it work?

Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user's view of the real world, thus providing an enhanced or augmented view.

Most people don’t realise that they already have everything they need to access augmented reality — their smart device. It's estimated that there are 2.56 billion smartphones and tablets capable of successfully supporting AR, making smart-devicebased AR the most accessible form of AR worldwide.

Just as with any regular app, users simply download the AR-enhanced app to their smartphone or tablet, usually through either the App Store or Google Play.

The AR app works by turning the device's camera into a lens through which to view an enhanced reality.

Depending on the AR app, the user can use their device to view print, objects, or places to bring them to life with digital content.

AR solutions are widely used in public art, and in museum and gallery exhibitions: to surprise, intrigue and educate. AR enables visitors to touch, explore, listen, watch and play, using their smart devices.

As we have seen with the popular app Pokémon Go

— an AR-enhanced application that allows Pokémon characters to appear in the real world — AR adds extra layers of information, and is especially appealing to younger generations and families.

Case study 1: The Trumpet Calls: Albury’s WWI Battery Our first case study was an exhibition curated at the Albury LibraryMuseum, generated in partnership with the Bandiana Light Horse Museum and with assistance from the State Library of New South Wales.

The exhibition The Trumpet Calls: Albury’s WWI Battery centred on the 13th Battery 5th Field Artillery Brigade AIF — known as the Albury Battery — and its role in the defence of the small village of Noreuil, in France, against German forces in 1917. Albury’s muchloved Noreuil Park, on the banks of the Murray River, was later named after the town.

The exhibition used augmented reality to explore this story.

An animated map of the site of the fighting demonstrates the actual battle that took place and how the Allied forces were forced back, with the Albury Battery holding the front line until reinforcements arrived. AR was used to create a

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 25

three-dimensional, virtual, 1:1 scale model of a cannon used in the battle, its dimensions based on the actual artefact, which is held at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Visitors to the exhibition could walk around the model, viewing it from different angles.

The cannon even fired.

AR was also used to generate multiple voices in the exhibition. The voices of sergeant and soldier, nurse and matron, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, prisoners of war, and those left at home — presented as audio, film and holograms — told provocative and powerful stories that were enhanced by the use of AR. In this exhibition, we created customised AR applications for our subject matter that included education, entertainment and exhibition interpretation, to invite diverse responses from the audience.

Case study 2: The Changing Face of the Peel Our second case study also illustrates how AR can be used to surprise, intrigue, educate and engage responses.

Killala, Callala, Winding Water, and Peel River: these are some of the names given to the great inland river that flows through the heart of the Peel Valley in the Tamworth region. As one of the major waterways in the Namoi catchment, the Peel River has had a significant effect on the people living close to it. In early December 2016, the Tamworth Regional Gallery launched its combined AR project, including an exhibition and new public artworks, titled The Changing Face of the Peel.

The Changing Face of the Peel project uses public art and an exhibition to explore local stories about the river. Regional artists were encouraged to interpret place through the project, and to express themes and ideas that connect to the river. Expressions of interest were sought from artists to contribute to the project, and more than 30 applications were received.

A panel consisting of an independent artist and an Indigenous representative selected three public

Download the ‘APositive’ iOS or Android app.

artworks for the project: River Bend, a sculpture by James Rogers; The Spirit of the Peel, a mosaic bench by the Art Collective; and Picasso Guitar sculpture, by Peter Hooper.

These new public artworks will be located along the cycle path or walking path in Bicentennial Park and at the Tamworth Regional Playground, creating a strong visual impact and linking back to the Council’s upgrades for our riverside precinct.

The APositive augmented reality app enables an extra digital dimension to be added to these works.

By using this technology, we can further explore local stories about how human use of the Peel River has changed over time, engage a diverse audience, and extend understanding. Some of the AR outcomes include river soundscapes, layering of historic images and photographs, animated rising river levels, holograms, and even a 3D animated fish.

Join us in this new wave of technology.

Try it now! Follow the instructions on this spread (below) to bring the page to life with an AR replica of the 18-pound field gun! Just scan the image on the left.

And a final comment worth noting: ‘Instead of making us further removed from the world around us, augmented reality can build on it, leading to deeper, richer and more personalised experiences – experiences that we can take part in together’ – Tarun Wadhwa, Hybrid Reality Institute. []

Bridget Guthrie is Director, Tamworth Regional Gallery & Museums, and Amber Standley is Director of APositive Augmented Reality.

Text citation: Bridget Guthrie and Amber Standley, ‘Using Augmented Reality in Galleries and Museums’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25(2), AutumnWinter 2017, pp. 24-25.

Look for the photo marked with an ‘AR’ symbol.

Open the app and scan the photo.

Watch Open the theapp photo and scan come the alive! image

26 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Galleries engaging artists in their school programs enhancement

Generation Art: Creating future-focused connections between youth audiences, art and art galleries

top:

Donna Mathewson Mitchell.

above: right:

Donna Mathewson Mitchell and Emma Hill

Emma Hill.

Generation Art group viewing the Robert Brain: An Autobiographical Tapestry exhibition. Film still. Image courtesy of Henry Denyer-Simmons.

Introduction In 2015–2016, Bathurst Regional Art Gallery (BRAG) partnered with Australian Catholic University (ACU) on an innovative pilot program for youth audiences entitled Generation Art. Inspired by the Milwaukee Art Museum’s successful Satellite High School program in the US, Generation Art was designed to build on and complement art experiences provided in secondary schools by reaching out and engaging youth audiences with BRAG, its collection and local artists. Action research was a feature of the program that enabled an iterative approach to development and evaluation.

The project: Aims and background Attracting and engaging secondary school-aged youth audiences is an ongoing challenge for art galleries. While there are examples of successful approaches and programs in large metropolitan art galleries, there is relatively little research focusing on youth audiences in regional art galleries.

In response to this challenge, the Generation Art team developed a model for engaging youth audiences with art galleries, specifically addressing the nature of BRAG as a regional cultural site. This model was

implemented in a 13 week out-of-school workshop program attended by eleven Year 10 students from 5 schools in the immediate Bathurst area. The program was held at BRAG and was led and presented by a gallery educator (Emma Hill), a tertiary art educator and researcher (Donna Mathewson Mitchell), and arts professionals and mentor artists (Henry DenyerSimmons, Nicole Welch, Bridget Thomas).

The Generation Art program had both an education component and a research component. The aims of the education program were focused on engagement and development. They were to: • Engage youth audiences in the work of a regional art gallery in active and meaningful ways, promoting future engagement with art galleries as active citizens and cultural learners; • Engage youth audiences in the world of art beyond the classroom including engagement with artists and arts workers; • Develop a collaborative educational relationship between a regional art gallery, a university and local secondary schools; • Develop relevant and engaging educational resources for youth audiences utilising digital technologies The program was researched to examine and evaluate outcomes and implications in terms of the aims noted. Action research focused on gathering

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 27

right: Generation Art participant interacting with Glass: art design architecture exhibition. Image courtesy of Henry Denyer-Simmons.

responses from youth participants and the program team. Research methods included pre- and postquestionnaires, weekly responses, field observations and analysis of documentation.

Program details Initial planning of the program began in February 2015 and continued until December 2015.This was a considerable amount of time, which allowed for partnerships to develop and ideas to evolve.

The education program itself was delivered between April and August in 2016 at BRAG. The first part of the program encompassed a range of activities to engage youth participants with the gallery environment and learn about the work of art gallery professionals and artists. Activities included: behind-the-scenes tours; a sculpture-walk through Bathurst; case studies of artworks from the permanent collection; presentations by gallery professionals; a visit to the art department of the local TAFE; observation of exhibition change-overs; and, tours of visiting exhibitions. This learning sequence was complemented by interaction with local artists, including a studio visit and artist presentations.

Informed by these experiences, youth participants then worked collaboratively on a final project that was designed to have real-world impact on the art gallery. In this project they developed digital stories as interpretations of the program and the gallery,

exploring the possibilities of digital technology as a mode of communication. Artist mentors assisted with the projects, providing conceptual and material advice and guidance.

The creation of the final digital stories culminated in a public launch in September 2016 to celebrate and share achievements. The launch was held in the gallery and attracted a crowd of approximately a hundred friends and family, including a large representation from the schools involved. The digital stories have since been uploaded to the BRAG website as educational resources, along with a documentary outlining the Generation Art program.

Findings Data collection and analysis of that data has enabled the program team to identify a number of findings and develop a range of evidence-based recommendations.

Six key findings will be focused on here.

First, youth audiences were highly responsive to a flexible and transparent program that sought to meet their needs. This was achieved through a bespoke program that was continually evaluated and adapted, based on youth participants’ input.

Second, youth audiences responded positively to the idea of an ‘all access pass’. Immersion in all aspects of the day-to-day gallery operations was an exciting and well-received part of the program that encouraged engagement with, and understanding of, the gallery.

28 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Galleries engaging artists in their school programs enhancement

a central part of the program, allowing youth to learn from one another and develop ideas in collaborative ways, while also developing personal connections.

Likewise, providing opportunities for co-creation harnessed this excitement and stimulated creative output. The celebration of this creative output in turn provided an opportunity to invite the community to share in the project and its outcomes, encouraging new audiences into the gallery space and highlighting the ability of the program to focus on a small number of participants but achieve a much wider impact.

Conclusion

The third crucial component was access to local artists, both in the gallery and through the visit to artists’ studios. This greatly enhanced understandings of art, artists’ varied practice, and the relationship of artists to art galleries, providing important role vocational models.

The fourth finding, in a similar vein, highlighted the importance of ‘keeping it real’. Youth participants highly valued interaction with real artworks, real practice and real-world projects. This aspect of the program enhanced school-based learning and provided unique insights that are only possible in the gallery context.

The fifth finding was that the participant-centric nature of the program gave youth participants a voice and space to think and speak, in ways not always available to them. They greatly valued these opportunities and in turn contributed through unique responses. At the same time, the gallery was itself informed by what youth had to say.

The final important finding was that social interaction was crucial to the success of the program.

Encouraging social interaction across schools and between youth participants and the program team was

Generation Art was a unique pilot that implemented and evaluated a program to engage secondary schoolaged youth audiences with art galleries, artists and arts professionals. It focused on partnership, engagement and meeting the needs of the specific youth audience targeted. Findings from the research indicate that the Generation Art program had significant educational, artistic and social impact.

The findings focused on here also illustrate selected aspects of the program that had particular, positive significance. These findings provide insight that will inform further development of the program as it continues into the future at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

More broadly, the results of the Generation Art project have developed significant new knowledge contributing to understandings of youth audience development. In particular, the model provides alternative ways — outside of the school setting — to conceptualise engagement between art galleries, schools, higher education, local artists and arts professionals to provide place-based opportunities for partnership and collaboration.

Ultimately, the goal of this model is to promote the future engagement of youth audiences with art galleries, helping to shape them as active citizens and resourceful cultural learners. [ ] Generation Art website: www.bathurstart.com.au/education/genart2016 Donna Mathewson Mitchell is a Senior Lecturer in Visual Arts curriculum at Australian Catholic University. Emma Hill was Education and Public Programs Officer at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery until June 2017.

Text citation: Donna Mathewson Mitchell and Emma Hill, ‘Generation Art: Creating future-focused connections between youth audiences, art and art galleries’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 26-28.

top left:

Generation Art group editing their digital story. Image courtesy of Henry Denyer-Simmons.

bottom left:

Generation Art group filming their digital story.

Film still. Image courtesy of Henry Denyer-Simmons.

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 29

Museums Galleries Australia Indigenous Roadmap Project Issues Paper

1. PREFACE

M Prepared by Sarah Grant, Terri Janke and Andrew Pitt Terri Janke and Company PO Box 780 Rosebery NSW 1445 Ph: 02 9693 2577 For Museums Galleries Australia PO Box 266 Civic Square ACT 2608 Ph: 02 6230 0346 Copyright © Museums Galleries Australia All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise). Without the prior written permission of Museums Galleries Australia.

useums Galleries Australia (MGA) is developing a 10-year Roadmap for museums and galleries working with Indigenous peoples. MGA worked with their Indigenous Advisory Committee to understand the key issues surrounding Indigenous participation in the sector. The Indigenous Advisory Committee includes Alex Marsden (Director of MGA), Mat Trinca (Director of the National Museum of Australia), along with Alison Page, Nancia Guivarra, Jilda Andrews, Greg Lehmann, Genevieve Grieves, Mirna Heruc, Lyndall Osborne, Dawn Casey, Neil Anderson, Rod Little, Lydia Miller, Margo Neale, Peter White, Alec Coles, Stephen Gilchrist, Kimberley Moulton, Marcus Schutenko, Glenn Iseger-Pilkington, Karen Mundine and Franchesca Cubillo.

MGA has previously produced two key documents, Previous Possessions, New Obligations: Policies for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples 1993 (Previous Possessions), and Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities: Principles and Guidelines for Australian Museums Working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultural Heritage 2005 (Continuous Cultures), to guide the relationships between the museums/galleries sector and Indigenous peoples.

Building on the strong foundation of these key documents, the 10-year Roadmap will provide a clear path to create better engagement over the next decade. The project will focus on two main areas — how Indigenous cultures and histories are represented in museums/galleries across the country, and the employment and training of Indigenous people in these institutions.

This issues paper has been prepared to seek your opinions on what should be covered in the Roadmap, and how to address the various issues.

30 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Museums Galleries Australia Indigenous Roadmap Project Issues Paper — June 2017

2. INTRODUCTION

1.

2.

3.

Lynda Kelly, Phil Gordon and Tim Sullivan, We Deal with Relationships: not just objects: An Evaluation of Previous Possessions, New Obligations: Museums Australia Policy for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, (Museums Australia, 2000).

Museums Australia, Previous Possessions, New Obligations: Policies for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (1993; May 2000; first adopted in December 1993 at the final national conference of CAMA (Council of Australian Museum Associations), which steered the formation of Museums Australia in January 1994). <https:// www.museumsaustralia.org.au/ sites/default/files/uploadedcontent/website-content/ SubmissionsPolicies/previous_ possessions_policy_2000.pdf>.

Museums Australia, Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities: Principles and guidelines for Australian museums working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage, (Museums Australia, 2005),

Indigenous peoples are integral to a greater understanding of Australian history, art and culture.

Museums and galleries offer a space where authentic Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, art and culture can be considered, reviewed, analysed, re-assessed and ultimately understood. Museums and galleries also open up discussion around Indigenous history and heritage.

A closer relationship between Indigenous peoples and the museums and galleries sector will result in a more accurate, more truthful and ultimately a more complete understanding of Australian history.

For museums and galleries a closer relationship with Indigenous peoples is about maintaining their reputations as public institutions that promote the truth, as centres of integrity in public life. The general public demands this high standard from their public institutions.

For Indigenous people this relationship with museums and galleries is about their pride, their honour and their feeling of inclusiveness. An institutional recognition that their past experiences are real, not fantasy. And that these experiences have created an environment for current challenges.

Since the 1970s, museums have been addressing the role of promoting long-term cultural and spiritual survival of Indigenous peoples.[1] This survival fell in line with developing relationships with Indigenous peoples and communities to ensure the best collaborations.

In the early 1990s, the first national Indigenous policy for the Australian museums sector, Previous Possessions, New Obligations, was developed to address the long-term cultural and spiritual survival of Indigenous Australians. The goal was to improve the communication and understanding of Indigenous Australia in museums and galleries. Issues addressed

by Previous Possessions included:

• • • • • • • •

Human Remains and Secret/Sacred Material Research Collections in General Public and Other Programs Governance Organisation Goals and Strategy Leadership Resource Support, Structure and Systems Policies and Procedures

Previous Possessions also developed protocols and guidelines surrounding: • • • • • •

Human Remains Secret or Sacred Material Public and Other Programs Staffing, Training and Financial Reports Direction and Management Cooperation.[2]

An evaluation of Previous Possessions in 2000 called for an update due to changes in the sector. A revised policy, Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities sought to build upon Previous Possessions principles and also to establish changes to ideas around working with Indigenous cultural material. These changes included revising the 1993 policy's coverage of the following issues: • Custodianship and caretaking, rather than ownership • Recognition of the value of stories and other intangibles associated with objects • Acknowledgment and recognition within museums of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural practices • The creation of genuine relationships of recognition and reciprocity between traditional custodians and museums and galleries.[3] Continuous Cultures established that the document was required to be followed as an adjunct to the Code of Ethics for the museums and galleries sector. The

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 31

Principles were also expanded upon. New issues included: • • • • • • • •

Self-determination Management and collections Access to collections and information Assistance to Indigenous communities Employment and training Policy formulation Cultural and intellectual property rights Reconciliation.

Guidelines were included for: • • • • •

Collections management Employment and training Direction and management New technologies Relationships and communication.

Since 2014 a small working group has met to discuss how best to advance the participation and representation of Indigenous people in the museums and galleries sector. An Indigenous Advisory Group (IAG) was formed, and in subsequent workshops the issues were explored.

In March 2017 Terri Janke and Company (TJC) was engaged by Museums Galleries Australia to undertake the Indigenous Roadmap Project. As part of that process TJC has drafted this Issues Paper (extracted from Previous Possessions and Continuous Cultures and notes from the Indigenous Advisory Committee (IAC) workshops) to remind and refresh stakeholders to the key issues.

Feedback from stakeholders will improve the understanding of the current relationship between Indigenous peoples and museums and galleries. It will also form the foundations in the development of the 10 Year Indigenous Roadmap.

32 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Museums Galleries Australia Indigenous Roadmap Project Issues Paper — June 2017

1978

UNESCO Regional Seminar on Preserving Indigenous Cultures: A New Role for Museums, in Adelaide, Australia.

1983

The Council of Australian Museum Directors (CAMD) in 1983 adopted a policy of not acquiring human remains nor displaying them; those of known persons or of persons whose direct descendants were known would be returned.

1989

World Archaeological Congress in Vermillion, USA. Discussion was based around the approach that should be taken when museums are working with Indigenous peoples.

1990

Discussions on the obligations of museums to discuss Indigenous heritage and its importance in the life of contemporary Indigenous peoples hosted in Barquesisominto, Venezuela.

1993

International Year for the World's Indigenous Peoples.

1993

Previous Possessions, New Obligations: Policies for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples was llaunched (Dec. 1993) at the final National Conference of CAMA (Council of Australian Museum Associations) in Hobart. This first national policy designed a national framework and changed attitudes around Indigenous heritage.

1996

Revised issue of Previous Possessions, New Obligations.

2000

Evaluation of Previous Possessions, New Obligations which pointed out recommendations for change.

2003

Launch of draft policy of Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities, revised and renamed version of Previous Possessions, New Obligations.

2005

Publication of Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilites.

2007

The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations.

2009

Australia signed the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

2016

Museums Galleries Australia Indigenous Working Group met and started organising Roadmap.

2017

MGA Indigenous Roadmap Project starts.

Audit and Analysis Report.

2018

10-Year Indigenous Roadmap due. [4]

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 33

3. WHAT ISSUES SHOULD THE 10-YEAR ROADMAP ADDRESS?

4.

Some information in timeline created from: Lynda Kelly, Phil Gordon and Tim Sullivan, We deal with relationships: not just objects: An evaluation of Previous Possessions, New Obligations: Museums Australia Policy for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (Museums Australia, 2000), 6–7.

5.

Terri Janke, Our Culture: Our Future: Report on Australian Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights (Michael Frankel & Company, 1998), XX.).

6.

Terri Janke (2 ed), Protocols for producing Indigenous Australian visual arts (Australia Council for the Arts, 2007).

7.

From Interpreting Collections 1.2 – Museums Australia, Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities: Principles and guidelines for Australian museums working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage (Museums Australia, 2005), 16.

8.

9.

Terri Janke, Our Culture: Our Future: Report on Australian Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights (Michael Frankel & Company, 1998), 231.

Michael Pickering, ‘The Big Picture’: the repatriation of Australian Indigenous sacred objects’ (2015) 30(5) Museum Management and Curatorship.

The following is a summary of the key issues that have been identified in past documents and by the IAC as being important to addressing Indigenous engagement in the museums and galleries sector.

Please note that it is not an exhaustive list and is written here only for the purposes of encouraging discussion.

Key questions to keep in mind include: • What do you think is working regarding Indigenous engagement?

• What do you think is not working regarding Indigenous engagement?

• What do you want to see in the future regarding Indigenous engagement?

3.1 Self-Determination Indigenous peoples have the right to selfdetermination. This self-determination is essential for Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property. Selfdetermination has been said to mean 'the right and duty of Indigenous peoples to maintain and develop their own cultures and knowledge systems and forms of social organisation.'[5] Continuous Cultures recognises this right in its Principles.

How could self-determination be applied in the museums/galleries sector?

3.2 Indigenous Engagement and Community Consultation Indigenous engagement and community consultation ensures that museums and galleries are getting the correct information when dealing with Indigenous collections. Communication with the relevant Indigenous communities and people is essential. This allows for consultation around the

depiction and interpretation of Indigenous cultural heritage. [6] Are there processes for consulting with Indigenous peoples and communities about collections? How could this be best dealt with?

3.3 Management of Collections Indigenous people must be given opportunities to have informed input into decisions about how their cultural heritage is managed and displayed by museums and galleries.

3.4 Interpretation Museums present Indigenous cultural material through a wide range of programs including exhibitions, websites and projects. Indigenous peoples should be encouraged to shape the understanding and perspectives presented.[7] How are Indigenous people being consulted about the interpretation of collections of Indigenous heritage material?

3.5 Indigenous Keeping Places Indigenous keeping places give Indigenous peoples the opportunity to explain how they want their material collected, conserved, researched, exhibited, taught and performed.[8] This can enable Indigenous peoples to control all aspects of their heritage.

How could museums/galleries help when it comes to Indigenous keeping places?

3.6 Repatriation Indigenous sacred objects can have strong cultural restrictions in regard to access and viewing. Certain museums have policies for the return of secret/sacred Indigenous objects if they are contacted and asked for their return.[9] The introduction of digitisation and digital access techniques means that it is easier for secret/sacred objects to be digitised and kept online or shared. This adds another layer of risk.

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Museums Galleries Australia Indigenous Roadmap Project Issues Paper — June 2017

3.7 Ancestral Remains The collection, storage, display and management of human remains is a highly sensitive and complex subject. Indigenous people have called continuously for the repatriation of Indigenous ancestors. The Evaluation of Previous Possessions, New Obligations in 2001 found that museums and galleries are respectful of the wishes of Indigenous peoples regarding repatriation and human remains, but drew attention to the lack of consultation around conservation and care. [10] 3.8 Application of Protocols Protocols provide a set of principles or steps that offer best practice for working with Indigenous communities and people.

What protocols should be applied to museums and galleries?

Should protocols be developed for individual museums and galleries or would national protocols be enough?

Should national protocols be compulsory when museums and galleries are working with Indigenous Australians?

3.9 Secret/Sacred Heritage and Gender Uses Indigenous cultural heritage has particular secret and sacred material and gender uses surrounding it. When consulting with Indigenous groups, ask whether the material is secret or sacred and whether there are certain gender uses surrounding it. This prevents particular cultural heritage being discussed or used inappropriately.[11] 3.10 Attribution The attribution of Indigenous cultural heritage is important. Additionally, ensuring that the correct Indigenous communities and language groups are attributed is equally important. The knowledge that has been gathered over hundreds of thousands of years deserves to be attributed correctly.[12]

3.11 Benefit Sharing Indigenous cultural knowledge and resources make up a huge contribution to the Australian cultural sector. Therefore, Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property has a commercial value. This commercial value should be recognised when working with Indigenous peoples and communities. When using Indigenous cultural material commercially, benefit sharing, royalties or compensation could be a way of helping the appropriate communities.[13] The calculation of compensation should be negotiated with the Indigenous communities or people that are involved in the project.

Do museums/galleries have benefit sharing processes when consulting and working with Indigenous peoples and communities?

If so, what are these processes?

3.12 Maintaining Indigenous Culture Working with Indigenous communities to maintain Indigenous culture is important. There is a deep understanding of land and culture that still exists today. Working with Indigenous communities to respectfully protect this heritage can ensure that the knowledge is carried forward.[14] How can museums/galleries work towards maintaining Indigenous culture?

3.13 Recognition and Protection Recognition and protection of Indigenous heritage ensures that the reproduction and dissemination of certain heritage is handled correctly. Indigenous people should be consulted on relevant laws and given the opportunity to understand what their best options are. The Copyright Act does not recognise communal rights and the right for their continuous protection.

This means that some heritage is left unprotected.[15] 3.14 Employment Indigenous employees bring different skill-sets to the workplace. They open new networks. More

10. Museums Australia, An Evaluation of Previous Possessions, New Obligations: Museums Australia Policy for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, Green Paper, revised February 2001.

11. Terri Janke (2 ed), Protocols for producing Indigenous Australian visual arts (Australia Council for the Arts, 2007) 20.

12. Terri Janke (2 ed), Protocols for producing Indigenous Australian visual arts (Australia Council for the Arts, 2007) 21.

13. Terri Janke, Our Culture: Our Future: Report on Australian Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights (Michael Frankel & Company, 1998), 13.

14. Terri Janke (2 ed), Protocols for producing Indigenous Australian visual arts (Australia Council for the Arts, 2007) 33.

15. Terri Janke (2 ed), Protocols for producing Indigenous Australian visual arts (Australia Council for the Arts, 2007) 33.

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 35

diverse work places are more successful workplaces.

How should museums and galleries approach Indigenous employment?

Where would you like to see improvement from museums and galleries in regard to employment?

What events should museums and galleries participate in?

What training should be provided to Indigenous peoples and communities?

3.15 Training Training is an important factor of employment.

Training allows for education in certain areas to provide guidance. Indigenous communities have identified that undertaking training in the museums and galleries sector would enable the community to determine the best practices for management of their own cultural heritage.[16] Should museums and galleries also support communities in management of community museums, cultural centres, art centres and keeping places?

Cultural awareness training is provided to organisations that want to ensure that employees have a better understanding of certain things.

Should cultural awareness training also be provided for non-Indigenous staff members?

What type of in-house programs are the most effective?

Are there in-house programs that teach Indigenous youth about the museums and galleries sector?

What type of outreach programs are run and are they effective?

3.16 Governance Creating Indigenous Advisory Committees or placing Indigenous peoples on the board can help add the representation and perspective that is important in making decisions. Indigenous board members can help with consultations, networks and making policy decisions.[17] Should Indigenous peoples be on boards? What

level of training is required?

How many Indigenous peoples should be on boards of museums/galleries?

3.17 Technology Technology allows more opportunities for communication, enhances access to collections and allows access to a global perspective, which can maintain standards for Indigenous participation.[18] Despite this, some technologies are not available in regional Indigenous communities.

Should collections be made available online? What are the risks?

Is there a certain technology that you think should be harnessed to encourage Indigenous participation?

Is access to technology difficult?

Is there a way that museums and galleries could help if this is the case?

3.18 Reconciliation Action Plans Reconciliation Action Plans (RAPs) provide a framework for organisations to begin a path towards reconciliation. The RAP acts in a similar way to a business plan through documenting what an organisation commits to in order to contribute to reconciliation in Australia.

A question to ask would be whether museums and galleries should strive to apply RAPs in each of their organisations?

Should every museum and gallery have a RAP or should there just be one overall RAP? How important is the process of undertaking a RAP to that actual outcome?

Would it be possible for all museums and galleries to have a RAP? What would be a helpful suggestion if a smaller museum or gallery didn’t have the resources to have a RAP? 3.19 International Application The application of Indigenous engagement

16. Kombumerri Aboriginal Corporation for Culture, Yugambeh Museum and Language & Heritage Research Centre, Training and Professional Development Needs of Indigenous People in Museums and Art Galleries Throughout Queensland (Museums Australia Queensland & Regional Galleries Association Queensland, 2000).

17. Museums Australia, Previous Possessions, New Obligations: Policies for Museums in Australia and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples (December 1993; May 2000) <https://www. museumsaustralia.org.au/ sites/default/files/uploadedcontent/website-content/ SubmissionsPolicies/previous_ possessions_policy_2000.pdf>.

18. Museums Australia, Continuous Cultures, Ongoing Responsibilities: Principles and guidelines for Australian museums working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural heritage (Museums Australia, 2005),

36 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Museums Galleries Australia Indigenous Roadmap Project Issues Paper — June 2017

internationally could provide a good framework for the Roadmap. International museums and galleries have different ways of showing Indigenous heritage.

Examining these could improve the Australian application of good-practice standards.

Which international museums and galleries have a good framework around Indigenous engagement?

What about libraries, archives and other cultural organisations that often hold Indigenous cultural material?

3.20 Procurement The Commonwealth Government commenced the Indigenous Procurement Policy in 2016.[19] The Indigenous Procurement Policy (IPP) aims to create opportunities for Indigenous-owned businesses within the supply chain of the Commonwealth Government's provision of support in order to grow and increase Indigenous business and employment.

Variations of the Government's IPP policy are applied within the Non-Government and Corporate sectors as well. Should museums and galleries establish their own procurement policy to help develop and maintain relationships with Indigenous people, their networks and their communities?

Supply Nation provides links to Certified Indigenous Suppliers from a broad range of industries (for example, professional services, trades, cleaners, office supplies, cultural products, event management).

What percentage of museum expenditure should be applied to Indigenous suppliers?

3.21 Regional/Rural/Volunteer-run Museums and Galleries There are some rural, regional and community/ volunteer-run museums and galleries that may struggle with resources and funding. This could prevent successful engagement with Indigenous communities and people.

How could these community, regional and rural museums and galleries benefit from the Roadmap?

What would community, regional and rural organisations need to ensure successful engagement with Indigenous communities and people?

4. WORKING TOWARDS A 10-YEAR ROADMAP We are interested in hearing comments and ideas on the issues discussed in this paper, or on any other issues that you would like to raise. Either send in a written submission or go to the website http:// mgaindigenousroadmap.com.au/ to find dates for consultations and workshops, which are taking place nationally.

The cut-off date for submissions is 31 October 2017.

The website also includes surveys that will further contribute to the Indigenous Roadmap. Head to https://www.mgaindigenousroadmap.com.au/survey to participate in the survey.

Send your submissions to: Taryn Saunders Terri Janke and Company PO Box 780 Rosebery NSW 1445 Ph: 02 9693 2577 Fax: 02 9693 2566 Email: taryn@terrijanke.com.au Web: mgaindigenousroadmap.com.au

19. The Commonwealth Government of Australia, Indigenous Procurement Policy (Commonwealth Government of Australia, 2015).

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 37

Affirmative action on diversity in museums

LGBTIQ inclusion and action

Nikki Sullivan and Craig Middleton

that draws on the vision and values of our parent organisation — The History Trust of South Australia ecent research has shown that the stories — and implements its strategic plan as it pertains and experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, to LGBTIQ visitors, staff, programs, engagement, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) education and collections. The Action Plan forms the people are largely absent in museums basis of all our LGBTIQ-related activities and ensures internationally, and that this negatively that each feeds into and out of a broader strategy of impacts LGBTIQ people, their families and allies ongoing institutional change. in a wide range of ways. At the same time there is a As such, the Action Plan enables us to avoid two growing awareness in the GLAM sector that publicnegative tendencies that research has shown are facing cultural institutions have a duty to reflect common in inclusion work in museums. The first of diversity in all its forms, to take an active approach these is the implementation of ‘one-off’ or annual to inclusion, and to promote understanding between initiatives aimed at recognising and celebrating different groups, communities and cultures. This is cultural diversity: Women’s History Month, Refugee often articulated in terms of a broad mission of ‘social Week, the International Day Against Homophobia inclusion’. and Transphobia (IDAHoT), The term social inclusion are examples. Whilst such has been understood in initiatives are clearly valuable, a variety of ways and, as they can, as Rose Paquet Social inclusion, as a such, subtends a range of Kinsley notes, ‘accentuate critical museological museological practices. rather than alleviate practice, makes demands Some of these are, from our misrecognition’ (2016:484) by of museums that may perspective, at best limited, essentialising difference, and and at worst, counterthereby reaffirm the marginal be uncomfortable, productive. In particular, place of ‘others’ in the unpredictable, and often we are critical of the use museum business. This focus not easily accommodated of social inclusion rhetoric on ‘external inclusion’ places pitched to increase visitor the emphasis on specific numbers. Meanwhile, areas of museum practice — whilst we support calls for example, exhibitions or for greater access to museums, we nevertheless feel community engagement activities — and in doing so that the focus on simply getting through the doors tends to overlook the broader culture of the museum those who have historically been excluded — through, itself; the ways of knowing, being, doing — the praxis, for example, the inclusion of ramps and audio if you like — of the staff who shape and define the loops, the reduction or removal of entry fees, and museum. so on — is often limited by a failure to ask difficult If, as Mark O’Neill has claimed, inclusion is often questions about the relationship between systemic understood merely in terms of ‘add-on services’, then inclusion/exclusion, and structures of identity and ultimately it poses little or ‘no real challenge to the differentiation. … traditions of the museum’ (O’Neill, 2002:36); or Susan V. Iverson has warned about such efforts colludes with what Chris Taylor (2017) refers to as the that social inclusion discourse, when stripped of a systemic exclusion that is integral to museum culture. critical understanding of, and commitment to engage In order to counter these tendencies our LGBTIQ with structures of power and privilege, invariably Inclusion Action Plan addresses inclusion more reduces marginalised ‘others’ to ‘commodities that comprehensively: as ‘a practice — an interacting set of organizations can strategically utilize to “acquire or structures, values, norms, group and organizational maintain a competitive edge in the market’” (cited climates, and individual and collective behaviors, all in Kinsley, 2016:478). Consequently, social inclusion connected with inclusion experiences in a mutually is, for us, a broader issue of social justice, rather than reinforcing and dynamic system’ (Ferdman & Deane, simply of access. But as we have also found, social 2014:8). inclusion, as a critical museological practice, makes So what does this look like in practice? demands of museums that may be uncomfortable, One of the first initiatives to come out of the unpredictable, and often not easily accommodated.

LGBTIQ Inclusion Action Plan was staff training.

At the Migration Museum in South Australia, we This allowed us to introduce terms and concepts that have worked over the last eighteen months on a range staff may not have been familiar with; to encourage of LGBTIQ inclusion strategies. This begins with the staff to identify individual and institutional biases development of an LGBTIQ Inclusion Action Plan in a safe environment; to discuss ideas about what

R top:

Dr Nikki Sullivan.

above:

Craig Middleton.

38 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Affirmative action on diversity in museums

above:

Queering the Museum – detail of pop-up exhibition at 2016 Feast Festival, Adelaide. right:

Visitor comments from OUT at the Museum: Queer Youth in SA exhibition at the Migration Museum, Adelaide, September 2016.

LGBTIQ inclusion might entail; and to empower staff to recognise the museum’s role as a change-maker.

We have since instituted a reading group that meets for an hour once every three weeks to discuss recently published museological scholarship, and reflect on the culture and performance of our institution. The group is open to all staff and provides a dedicated time to consider our practice together as a team.

As part of the 2016 Feast Festival we organised a pop-up exhibition, entitled Queering the Museum, in which we invited eight LGBTIQ community members to each choose objects from one of the History Trust of South Australia collections (Migration, Maritime, Motor, and State History); and to (re)interpret the

objects with an emphasis on sexuality and/or gender.

The purpose of this was three-fold. First, we wanted to feature LGBTIQ his/stories in our museum, even though we did not have any LGBTIQ-identified objects in our collection. Second, we were keen to show that meaning is socially constructed rather than inherent in an object, and that acknowledging this has significant implications for what we understand to be traditional museum practice. And third, we wanted to engage local LGBTIQ individuals and communities, and to provide a forum in which they could relate their histories, in their own voices. While on the one hand, the brevity of the exhibition, its location (away from our permanent galleries), and its subsequent ‘disappearance’ made it less than ideal as a research project, it nevertheless enabled significant results. The project raised important questions about the politics of representation, collecting, and interpretation; it engendered ongoing discussion amongst staff and visitors; it foregrounded dominant knowledges; and it contributed to the building of meaningful relationships, most of which have been sustained over a longer period.

We also worked with young people from Adelaide’s Queer Youth Drop-ins to develop an exhibition in our community access gallery. This was a huge learning experience for us, and many of the assumptions we initially made about what it meant to enable a group we regarded as marginalised were seriously challenged. In addition to teaching us much about our own unconscious biases, the project provided opportunities for the young people who participated to develop new skills, and it formed a strong basis on which to build ongoing relationships.

More recently we have been building on insights gained, and working to ‘queer’ Adelaide’s annual History Festival by encouraging and supporting community members and groups to develop special events that feature in the program. This work has

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 39

broadened our contacts and helped to galvanise our place within Adelaide’s established LGBTIQ landscape. It has also contributed to the growing reputation of our institution as inclusive and welcoming. As a result of these and other activities, we have slowly begun to receive offers of donations of objects pertaining to LGBTIQ lives and histories, and we are confident that this will increase as our relationships with LGBTIQ individuals and communities further develop.

Another aspect of the overarching strategy is ensuring that, where possible, there is some LGBTIQ content in our permanent galleries as they are gradually renewed and refreshed. It is important to note that this does not always involve an obvious inclusion of queer material; but rather ensuring that many tools are available to visitors to be able to interpret a gallery’s content in a variety of ways. This aspect of our work will become more viable as our collection of LGBTIQ objects and his/stories grows in future.

Viewed as part of a broader initiative that tackles community engagement, collections, partnerships, education, and evaluation, and which is embodied in our LGBTIQ Inclusion Action Plan, the undertakings we have discussed briefly here can, we suggest, be understood as ‘transitional strategies within the scope of [ongoing] deeper institutional change’, which we aim to ensure is ‘radically and consistently pursued’ (Kinsley, 2016:486). [] Dr Nikki Sullivan (Migration Museum) and Craig Middleton (Centre of Democracy) are part of the History Trust of South Australia, based in Adelaide.

Text citation: Nikki Sullivan and Craig Middleton, ‘LGBTIQ inclusion and action’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 37-39.

References Kinsley, Rose Paquet (2016). ‘Inclusion in Museums: A matter of social justice’, Museum Management and Curatorship, 31:5, pp. 474-90.

Ferdman, Bernardo M & Barbara R Deane (2014). Diversity at Work: The Practice of Inclusion, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

O’Neill, Mark (2002). ‘The Good Enough Visitor’, in R. Sandell (ed.) Museums, Society, Inequality, London: Routledge, pp. 24-40.

Taylor, Chris (2017). ‘From Systemic Exclusion to Systemic Inclusion: A Critical Look at Museums’, Journal of Museum Education, 42:2, pp. 155-62.

40 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

New National Network for Emerging Professionals on the move

Career Futures: Report on Emerging Professionals at the 2017 National Conference

Penny Grist and Emily Sykes

Introduction

O top:

Penny Grist. Photo: Mark Mohell

above:

Emily Sykes.

ver the past year, a steering committee of early career colleagues has been working to develop a new National Network for Museums Galleries Australia, focused on Emerging Professionals (EP-NN). The aim of this cohort is to facilitate career growth through gathering useful ideas, networking and professional development opportunities. The network will provide information and support for employees, volunteers, and students in the earlier years of a GLAM-related career throughout Australia.

After the success of the Emerging Professionals Mini-Conference within the New Zealand combinedassociations conference in 2016, the steering committee developed a series of events at the May 2017 National Conference in Brisbane. We kicked off the week with ‘The Great Debate: Is a tertiary qualification worth it?’ on the Sunday before the conference. Our panel of speakers explored questions around the value and place of tertiary qualifications in the museums and galleries sector.

On Tuesday evening, in between the conference Day Two and the conference dinner, we hosted a ‘Career Café’. Several groups of early career professionals got to sit and ask questions of leaders from the sector who spent 5 minutes with each group. It was GLAM style career ‘speed dating’ on a ship — the ‘Diamantina’ at the Queensland Maritime Museum.

We finished off the events with a session led by early career professionals on the morning of Day Three, which aimed to develop an Early Professionals skills statement for the future. The results of these events are harvested in the overview below, which aims to communicate our activities to other colleagues who might benefit from and advance the work of this new National Network within Museums Galleries Australia.

‘The great debate: Is a tertiary qualification worth it?’

Eight speakers entered the fray early on the Sunday morning. No ultimate winner was declared. The result was: ‘Yes of course, but …’ More of a structural conceit, the premise was that degrees are expensive, the cultural sector job market is tight, and the entire world of work is rapidly transforming around us.

It was a timely discussion. It became clear that the question we might better have posed was not whether an undergraduate tertiary qualification is worth it, but whether one or two (or more!) expensive

postgraduate degrees are worth it. And what does ‘worth it’ mean in our sector? Are museums and galleries recruiting for the future?

Critical issues for the advance of our sector were identified through discussion. It became clear that there are no easy solutions. The education market and our recruitment processes have created a default situation that now requires close examination, leadership and creative change.

Penny Grist, Assistant Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, and Louise Douglas, former Assistant Director at the National Museum of Australia, were the co-chairs. We selected our eight speakers for their different disciplines, experiences, and geography.

They were: • Julian Bickersteth (managing director of International Conservation Services, based in Sydney); • Ellie Downing (from the Australian Museum’s team in Science Engagement and Events, in Sydney); • Mick Bolognese (from the National Motor Museum at Birdwood, SA); • Dr Chiara O'Reilly (an academic in the Museum and Heritage Studies degree program at the University of Sydney); • Dr David Carroll (a Melbourne-based economist and researcher, specialising in the economics of Australian higher education); • Amy Walduck (Queensland State Manager for the Australian Library and Information Association/ ALIA); and (drawing in two state museum directors)…

• Janet Carding (Director of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart); and • Alec Coles (CEO of the Western Australian Museum, Perth).

Without attributing distinct opinions to each speaker, the discussion below explores the main points gathered through all of their presentations.

It is clear that an expectation of good qualifications leading to a job is no longer a reliable causal chain for career development. Education alone is not enough.

Tertiary education in general is expensive and now a riskier investment in shaping an employment future. The current predicament where a significant cohort of graduates from many different disciplinary backgrounds are unable to find jobs in their preferred sector is not unique to GLAM fields. We form a highly varied, multidisciplinary cluster of skilled professionals bearing a variety of qualifications.

However, many of the degrees deemed relevant to our sector are either broadly generalist or strongly weighted towards theory. Once translated to different

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 41

organisational settings, work situations invariably require further knowledge and training. There is a pressing need to address ongoing training and practical skills-acquisition. In this connection, the significant advantages of undertaking internships within degrees were raised as crucial complements to intellectual preparation for a GLAM working life.

Nevertheless, employability is not the only arbiter of a degree’s worthiness. A university education provides important time to invest in full intellectual development; to train your mind to think critically, searchingly, and with rigour. Like a gym membership ensuring commitment to exercise, an academic degree can lay down tracks to spur a deep engagement with the intellectual life of a discipline alongside likeminded knowledge-seekers. This commitment to pursuit of knowledge and enhanced understanding is enjoyable in its own right, and appeals to an intense pleasure in learning that probably attracted us to the expertise and institutions forming our sector in the first place.

However the museums and galleries sector, including libraries, archives, and sites of heritage care such as keeping places and cultural centres, make up a variegated network of organisations serving diverse communities. The important question inevitably arose: Who do our current structures and their training expectations exclude in our society?

What if you don’t have the opportunity to make such a significant financial outlay as an academic degree requires; or support yourself while studying; or undertake unpaid internships, with the prospect that you might not even end up with a job at the end of your degree? It became clear that this may be one of the crucial pinch-points that is hindering our professional workforce from itself diversifying to mirror better the demographic composition of the Australian community.

Urgent questions flowed from this discussion: How many pathways into the profession are there at

right:

Emerging professionals at the MGA2018 National Conference.

present? Do the best potential museum and gallery professionals in the community even have the chance to find out that our organisations could be their rewarding setting and place of work? Is the sector missing out on finding its new leaders from more varied backgrounds, who could be crucial to its future survival?

The question of sustaining our future relevance to the Australian community was central to the conversation. Even if that causal chain of degree-tojob no longer holds, our decisions about what varied kinds of training to undertake are inseparable from how we see our institutions recruiting afterwards.

Tertiary qualifications might be used by recruiters as short-hand identifiers for a range of skills and professional capacities alongside ‘equivalent experience’. Yet how equivalent is experience at present? How equivalent should it be judged in future? And what kinds of experience might be most relevant to improved performance as our work evolves?

Imagining our sector’s future, how other sectors might meld into ours, and how our profession might morph into others that have been historically distinct, actually opens up some thrilling options for both change and sustainability. Museum and gallery workers and leaders should be looking forward to exciting times ahead. Later on in the conference, we explored this proposition at our ‘Position vacant’ session.

‘Position vacant’: a skills statement for the future In the planning for our conference session we wanted to be ambitious but also present practical outcomes. We asked ourselves: What might the future hold, and what skills might future professionals need?

It is widely acknowledged that the GLAM professions are constantly changing, and those entering this

42 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

New National Network for Emerging Professionals on the move

It is clear that an expectation of good qualifications leading to a job is no longer a reliable causal chain for career development

sector today are expected to develop a broad range of skills beyond academic disciplines and museological expertise.

Each of our speakers presented their vision for the skills museums and galleries will need to thrive in the future. We have brought their ideas together into a brief overview of key topics below, which together frame a consolidated skills brief for the future.

Pedagogy Emily Sykes spoke about pedagogical skills being essential for us all to learn, to future proof our careers.

She based it on Mark K Smith’s definition of pedagogy — ‘the process of accompanying learners, caring for and about them; and bringing learning to life’.

The sector is going to change and change again; but our continuing aim will always be to relate both to people and objects, and to creating a dialogue between them. Understanding and applying basic pedagogy when we are developing content will continue to help us understand the experience of an audience and how they make meaning. This requires that we make our cultural institutions and their collections accessible to the widest possible audiences.

Persuasive storytelling Dr Tim Kurylowicz told us a story that convinced us that we need to be persuasive storytellers. We need to seek out and foster people in our sector who bring stories to life, people who aren’t afraid to dabble in new forms of storytelling. This means we will need to straddle the frequently perceived gap between curatorial production and marketing. Creating persuasive stories isn’t just an outward-facing skill; it is crucial to multiple functions and relationships, whether presenting to council members and board meetings, seeking funding or lobbying politicians.

Being persuasive storytellers means we will be effective in connecting past, present and future.

Resilience Stephanie Chinneck provided encouraging words

to future professionals breaking into the sector.

She emphasised the importance of being resilient, adaptable and flexible. If you are resilient you are able to come back from failures; when things go wrong, that is where you can learn the most interesting lessons. Stephanie also implored employers to be more open-minded when recruiting — to upskill staff, to take a chance on someone who needs more training, and to consider paid internships.

Compulsive curiosity Felicity Harmey’s key selection criterion was compulsive curiosity — because curiosity in a candidate is always going to build the highest return on investment.

Curiosity drives skills development. It fuels wonder, compels us to find out more, and garner knowledge from experts around us. Curiosity inspires work ethics, keeping us informed and open to different perspectives. Curiosity saves us from arrogance and forces us to listen, and do so actively. Finally, curiosity is the core motivation of learning — the business we are all in.

We need to shift our focus to the way a candidate’s mind works, and to what effects they use their curiosity, then we’ll be better placed as a sector to ride the waves of change into the future.

Community service Katrina Ross asked future professionals to broaden their skillset through service to their communities.

Over the past ten years an entire industry has been built around volunteering in the broader community; this means that our sporting clubs, school associations, fundraising committees and special interest groups are now all subject to a high level of management, bureaucracy and governance oversight.

Community service should therefore be valued as just as important as volunteering within the museum sector, for the practical work experience and diversity of personal skills involved.

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 43

Community engagement In Deannah Vieth’s future, museums and galleries are not only vibrant and stimulating but essential.

Communities are at the core of each and every museum, and in turn the museum is close to the heart of its community. If we want to engender a sense of shared ownership, there needs to be community participation in decision-making and engagement — both with the content and the process, not just opportunities for passive consumption.

To achieve this, museum workers need to be adept at inspiring people to contribute from a variety of backgrounds, being inclusive, and both identifying and meeting the needs of diverse people.

Lifelong learning Kate Morschel presented on the ability to maintain learning as a critical skill for the worker of the future.

There are general trends in the workforce today — increasing casualisation, competition from automation, and a shrinking job market — that have transformed lifelong learning from an aspiration into a career necessity. Meanwhile evolving digital engagement, and GLAM organisations as agents of social change, are trends specific to our sector that now constantly demand flexibility, adaptation, and self-driven learning.

While our sector’s orientation to learning will continue be delivered through the traditional and expected channels — although one has to wonder about the sustainability of traditional sources, with the ever-increasing costs of tertiary qualifications and stagnating wages — our ability to learn new skills through experience, and more importantly through failure, will be ever more important in a world of rapid change.

After such stimulating and varied presentations, the session wrapped up with interesting discussion from the conference delegates present, chaired by Carol Cartwright. The discussion included noting the flaws of present recruitment processes and highlighting how it’s difficult to identify such a range of new skillsets needed when some of these are often intangible skills. Discussion also reviewed the complex values of internships (both monetary and otherwise), issues of personal branding and promotion, the importance of communication, getting eventually to the jobs people really hope to attain in the sector, and the great differences between working in small and large organisations.

Conclusion The Museums Galleries Australia Emerging Professionals National Network is keen for these discussions to continue. Not only among ourselves.

And not only focused on how we gain jobs. This debate is crucial to the future of the sector more broadly, and highlights initiatives that will enable the sector to increase its diversity and recruit the varied professionals who will have the minds and skills needed for the future, rather than identified though the mirror of the past. At the 2017 National Conference, our personal concerns for our own career paths translated outwards to seeing the bigger picture. Our newly enlivened cohort of ‘Emerging Professionals’ now looks to how we can help our sector develop, adapt, and thrive into the future. [ ] Acknowledgements: These sessions were organised and coordinated by Kate Morschel and the EP National Network Steering Committee – Craig Middleton, Karike Ashworth, Katrina Ross, Leisha Lawrence, Emily Sykes, Penny Grist, Skye Bennett, Janel Yau and Stephanie Chinneck. The sessions were supported by the Cartwright Douglas Fund, the Queensland Maritime Museum, and the Griffith University Art Gallery.

The authors also thank all the presenters reviewed here, who generously shared their expertise and diverse viewpoints for a strengthened future.

Penny Grist is Assistant Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. Emily Sykes is on extended leave from her position as Online Content Manager at the National Library of Australia, Canberra. www.facebook.com/MGAEmergingProfessionals emergingprofessionals@museumsaustralia.org.au

Text citation: Penny Grist and Emily Sykes, ‘Career Futures: Report on Emerging Professionals at the 2017 National Conference’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 40-43.

44 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

The invaluable role of bursaries in assisting colleagues to attend the National Conference

Learning from the National Conference as an emerging professional

above:

Rebecca Lush.

right:

MGA National Conference 2017 Plenary Theatre at Brisbane Convention and Entertainment Centre.

far right: Photograph with the Blue Bucket: Learning hands-on disaster management at the State Library of Queensland during one of the conference workshops. Photo: Rebecca Lush.

Rebecca Lush

T

he following debriefing report outlines my experience of the National Conference in Brisbane in May.[1] I have organised this review to cover each of the main conference days in sequence, to provide a structured overview.

In addition to this article, I wrote of my conference experiences on my blog ‘Curate Your Own Adventure’, and engaged with other Conference delegates on Twitter.

Day One 1.

I thank Museums Galleries Australia NSW Branch for their generous bursary that allowed me to attend the 2017 Museums Australia National Conference.

I had invaluably enriching experiences during the conference and associated events that have allowed me to form new networks and gain new skills, which will greatly benefit my work at a range of institutions in New South Wales.

My first conference activity was joining the State Library of Queensland’s conservation team for a session titled ‘Collection Care — Physical Digital and Disasters’. I was particularly interested in this session, as the medical archives within the Harry Daly Museum, North Sydney — which I manage jointly as an Acting Curator — are currently experiencing regular water leaks. Throughout the seminar we were given guidance about how to care physically for collections in smaller institutions, including the importance of creating disaster plans; an outline

of what to do in an emergency; and how to ensure backup of digital data.

The talk presented by Grant Collins was especially informative and relevant to my museum. As part of his presentation, he placed a deaccessioned book into some water and showed us, step-by-step, how it could be preserved. I now feel more confident in dealing with a possible water disaster in our archives, by following the steps outlined and ensuring that no objects are destroyed unnecessarily.

This was also a great workshop for affirming the work I had done in our archives, progressively organising and transferring the paper material into archive-grade cardboard boxes. Rachel Spano, senior conservator at the Queensland Library, outlined the type of boxes that are designed to combat fluctuating humidity levels and water damage. This information has since been shared with the board of my museum, and members are pleased to be reassured that the work I have done is employing best-practice standards.

I left this workshop with a much clearer idea of how to ensure day-to-day preventive conservation is achieved. A small check-list consisting of tasks to be carried out daily, weekly, and monthly, will ensure

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 45

that my work is systematic and monitored, and that future curators/archivists can implement the same measures according to consistent standards.

The workshop was well planned and allowed for a diversity of issues to be discussed. My only comment would be that next year this type of tour/workshop session would better be offered perhaps twice in the program — because, like many people from regional museums, I would also have enjoyed attending other tours/workshops, since these professional development opportunities are harder to come by when you work in a small museum.

The rest of Day One was spent listening to a variety of speakers in the main conference venue. I thought the first plenary speaker, John Ryan (Creative Director, Local Projects, USA: presenting Where high-tech meets the human touch), was interesting; but while the kinds of technology he was promoting would work well for larger, more established museums, this did not readily appeal to the small museums and institutions where resources are often so limited. For this reason I found the assumed resources-level of the talk (involving high-end technology) difficult to engage with, and agreed with a question raised afterwards from the audience: “How

can a small institution even begin to implement such measures?”

Following the plenary, I attended the concurrent session Why Not Science? This provided a wonderful opportunity to talk with other individuals in the museum community who work at science/medical museums. Similar to me, many did not have formal science qualifications. However this workshop session gave me many tools I need in order to make the Harry Daly Museum more accessible to the public. I left the session with a strong sense that I am able to communicate the history of science in the disciplinary area of medical museums, and should not shy away from addressing challenging issues of communication.

In other words, I learned that not having a formal science qualification may actually be of benefit to my work, as I can strengthen my ability to communicate the messages of my museum in simple and accessible ways.

In terms of practical usefulness, this session provided a great mix of group discussion, social media engagement, and hearing talks from the more experienced in the field. Our ideas were also collected and commented upon, allowing the session to be active and collaborative.

46 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

The invaluable role of bursaries in assisting colleagues to attend the National Conference

Day Two

Day Three

I want to focus this day on one particular concurrent session, presented in the afternoon by Dr Kate Armstrong and Marni Pilgrim, from the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House (MOAD) in Canberra. As an emerging professional, I feel it is crucial not only to learn about projects that have run smoothly, but also those that might have provided challenges and broader learning experiences — including learning from mistakes or failures.

Armstrong and Pilgrim usefully outlined a particular project they had worked on that encouraged visitors to upload ‘selfies’ to Twitter. Whilst not a complete ‘failure’, it was definitely not a project that had yielded expected results.

Hearing from colleagues in well-resourced institutions where they perhaps went wrong in a project, and what they have done since to rectify the situation, was extremely interesting. This transparency in the field is valuable, and something that I would strongly encourage others to contribute to at the national conference next year. I highlight this session because it provided a great contrast to the rest of the day, which was largely spent listening to success stories of positive community engagement.

The plenary speakers shed so much light on the theme of the conference. The work of visual artist Janet Laurence, in particular, connecting art to the history of science (and therefore also medicine) was close to my areas of interest. In comparison with the plenary speaker and concurrent sessions from the day before, I felt my experience of Day Two was more positive and enthralling.

I purposefully selected sessions that targeted the idea of working with communities. I have been finding in my line of work that I sometimes struggle when communicating with those in the medical profession who can contribute to the museum, but are specialists in their field. Therefore the session on ‘working with diverse communities’ gave me some useful ideas of how I can address issues of public communication and accessibility in the future. For example, I will be running a round table discussion allowing the anaesthetists who are invested in the Harry Daly Museum to brainstorm around how they would like their history presented and what stories they would like to see included. Although a different type of community from the ones discussed at the Brisbane conference, the fundamentals of dealing with a specific group and meeting their goals and communication needs remain the same.

Overall, the selection of plenary speakers on Day Three ensured an interesting program. Colleen Dilenschneider’s morning presentation (Hubs for human connection: data on the social role of cultural organisations) stood out to me, as it highlighted the role of front-of-house staff — and I have now been working front-of-house in museums for approximately two years. It was stimulating to see that the general public visiting museums, at least in the United States, values this work and even lists social interaction as a principal reason for their return. I think this session was a strong reminder that those who work on the audience engagement side of the museum should never be undervalued.

After the plenary, I attended the concurrent session for Emerging Museum Professionals (‘Position vacant’: A skills statement for the future). The talk I related to most strongly was that from Stephanie Chinneck, who stressed resilience and learning from mistakes. Her plea to museums to take a chance on younger professionals, and build up their skills, was something that I do believe the industry should consider more seriously. It was also very interesting to learn through this session how the industry can actively help emerging professionals.

In conclusion, I left the Museums Galleries Australia Conference feeling confident that the industry is adapting to changing needs and moving into a new and fascinating period of development.

The individuals I met throughout the three principal days provided me with varied experiences and advice that I can hopefully follow over the next few years, while I am still an ‘emerging professional’ in my own development.

I am taking the knowledge I gained back to my workplace. For example, I have already completed a draft Disaster Plan for my management to approve; and will always remember the messages of Kate Armstrong and Marni Pilgrim about learning from mistakes whenever I am developing a new program or exhibition.

Due to the great experiences and learning opportunities I had at this conference, I am now motivated to not only attend the National Conference next year in Melbourne, but hopefully also present a paper. During the year ahead I will be working on how I can contribute to the wealth of knowledge of colleagues across the country, and more closely reflecting on my own practices and outcomes of my work. [ ]

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 47

I am now motivated to not only attend the National Conference next year in Melbourne, but hopefully also present a paper Rebecca Lush is a museum and heritage professional based in Sydney. Her current roles include medical history curator, educator on Cockatoo Island, and program producer at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney.

Text citation: Rebecca Lush, ‘Learning from the National Conference as an emerging professional’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 44-47.

clockwise from top left:

Delegates at MGA2017; Kids in Museums Director, Dea Birkett, presenting at the Regional and Remote Day at the State Library of Queensland; Delegates at a concurrent session; A diverse and exciting Trade Exhibition at MGA2017; Delegates in the Exhibition area; Colleen Dilenschneider presents her keynote on the final day of MGA2017.

48 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

Evolving skills development for the museums sector

Entrepreneurism: A necessary trait for museum work?

Julian Bickersteth

I above:

Julian Bickersteth.

t almost goes without saying that these are challenging times for the museum sector. In response, we regularly hear the need for innovation, agility and resilience. Do we need to add another skill-set: entrepreneurism?

In a September 2016 survey of the sector in the UK, ACE (Arts Council England) in association with the Museums Association looked at what attitudes, behaviours and skills the UK museum workforce needs in the next 10 years, and concluded there is a requirement for the following: • a drive towards more stable and financially resilient museums with diversifying income streams; • a more diverse and flexible workforce; • filling of the skills gaps in business and management skills, along with income diversification and better leadership; • retention and protection of specialist knowledge; • prioritising key personal qualities including entrepreneurism as the museum workforce experiences significant organisational change wherein it will be important to take more risks and be more creative.

The survey further suggests that: • the personal qualities necessary for entrepreneurism are found less widely across the museum workforce than in many other sectors; and • promoting these personal qualities is likely to require sustained professional development, coaching and mentoring, as they are not easily acquired.

The full UK report can be accessed at: www.artscouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/ download-file/ACE_Museums_Workforce_ABS_BOP_ Final_Report.pdf It is worth overviewing what this call for development of entrepreneurial skills really means, and considering what is involved in making us open to being more entrepreneurial.

First, what is entrepreneurism? It could be described as the process of spotting a development opportunity and marshalling the necessary resources to realise it,

in ways typically characterised by innovation and risktaking.

Second, we cannot all be entrepreneurs nor indeed would we want to be. Not all of us are comfortable with these ways of working, and we need to recognise that entrepreneurism is not for everyone. However in developing a multi-skilled workforce for the complex demands of museum work today, we need to identify those who have the character traits that mark out good entrepreneurs. These traits are often found in those who are: • • • • • • • •

confident talkative imaginative forceful up for a challenge motivated by achievement irritated by routine and slowness of pace not so good at listening or exhibiting patience

However the level to which these particular personal qualities can be made use of within a museum depends greatly on the culture, management and developmental strategy of the organisation. In addition to basic skills long-developed in the sector, senior management of a museum needs to support autonomy, innovativeness and proactiveness, in order for its staff to act in entrepreneurial ways.

Despite the ACE identification of a lack of training and leadership in the area of entrepreneurism, there are various positive signs. The American Alliance of Museums (AAM) ran an Emerging Innovators Forum at its May 2017 annual meeting in St Louis. Meanwhile in February 2017 in the UK, an ‘Entrepreneurship in Cultural Heritage’ workshop in Birmingham explored the need for museums and heritage organisations to ‘become ever more entrepreneurial in order to increase their resilience by introducing ways and means to build profile, audiences, income and opportunities’. (http://mdwm.org.uk/events/training/ entrepreneurship-in-cultural-heritage) This affirmative focus on entrepreneurism is resulting in various direct initiatives by museums and professional organisations. The New Museum in New York has a business incubator called New Inc to ‘foster creative cultural production and reinforce the museum as a place of meaningful innovation’. (www.newinc.org) The UK Museums Association has created its Transformers program — a scheme

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 49

designed to help people in the sector change the way they work for the better, and to encourage healthier, more resilient, diverse and adaptable organisations.

And a Transformers project saw Abergavenny Castle and Museum develop a scheme to exchange skills, goods and services held by other organisations in lieu of payment — i.e. they were lent a marquee by a local hire company in return for providing access to the hire company for a private event, and rope access for repairs to the walls was provided free in exchange for advertising.

Closer to home, Te Papa in New Zealand has launched Mahuki, a program to accelerate local start-ups, where 10 start-up teams were funded by the Museum for four months, with access to the Museum’s collections and visitors in exchange for a 6% equity stake. (www.mahuki.org). As Rick Ellis, the former CEO of Te Papa, stated, this is a high-risk, but potentially high-return strategy for the Museum, with the biggest gift the Museum can bring to the start-up teams being collaboration, whether with the visiting public, in-house expertise or with their wider network.

So, what are the practical steps to become more entrepreneurial with your innovative ideas?

First, you need to get your institution’s senior management on board, or this initiative will go nowhere.

Second, identify those in your group who have the necessary traits and appetite for risk.

Third, utilise an available methodology to develop your ideas in a structured way. Google Ventures’ Sprint technique (www.gv.com/sprint) is a well-tested example. Based on a rapid prototyping methodology and constructed to assess whether a concept is going to fly within a week, it involves a daily program as follows: Monday Project mapping and focus Tuesday Developing potential solutions Wednesday Decision making and hypothesis testing Thursday Prototyping the solution Friday Market testing Fourth, finally (and crucially), know when to ‘fail’ and move onto the next idea. Closing down the further development of an idea when it is not fruitful, indeed failing more broadly, is not something we do well, as we tend to see this as negative failure. But it is a key part of learning and skills-development in entrepreneurism. As the filmmaker and entrepreneur

George Lucas (best known for Star Wars and Indiana Jones) once said: If you’re creating things, you’re doing things that have a high potential for failure, especially if you’re doing things that haven’t been done before. And you learn from those things. Failure is another word for experience. [ ] Julian Bickersteth is the Managing Director of International Conservation Services (ICS) and a founder of Smarttrack.

This paper was given in the PechaKucha session at the Museums Galleries Australia National 2017 conference in Brisbane.

Text citation: Julian Bickersteth, ‘Entrepreneurism: A necessary trait for museum work?’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp.

48-49.

50 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

New approaches in presenting transport heritage

Transport in Museums and Museums of Transport

1. Endnotes

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 51

Geraldine Mate

T

1. Endnotes

ransport history and transport museums continue to be regarded as niche topics and destinations, supported by special interest enthusiasts. Yet the broad range of papers presented in the Travelling across the country session at the recent National Conference in Brisbane demonstrated the breadth and depth of ways in which museum practitioners now engage with transport heritage.

We were interested in examining how consideration of the routes covered allowed the exploration of ideas about landscapes, cultures and journeys.

This recognition that transport is more than just about vehicles but also encompasses movement across landscape, the development of transport infrastructure, and the ingress of people to build, service, and use transport networks, has allowed for far more engaging museum interpretation of vehicles of all kinds. Yet the conference session achieved more than this, clearly highlighting that representations of transport provide an important area of the museums and heritage sector: for its broad social reach and its multi-generational appeal.

Depictions of transport and even transport museums themselves have changed over the last twenty years. Once typified by arrays of vehicles, with detailed labels highlighting engine capacity or commissioning details, there is today a broader interpretation of the significance of objects collected through embracing important elements of social history that surround transportation-related objects and machines. For trains, trams, cars, boats and planes alike, interpretations have increasingly engaged with the stories of the people who travelled in vehicles, the people who worked with vehicles, and those who built them.

Brisbane conference papers revealed some of the varied stories that connect the technology of transport to people and everyday life: these include the impact of railways on time and timekeeping; the role of women as key voters in the development of the Trans-Australian Railway; the reflections of travellers on Cobb and Co coaches; or the role of journeys in encountering heritage and landscapes.

Transport is intrinsically linked to people’s lives, as was demonstrated by both Jeff Powell’s and Philippa Rogers’ presentations. In exploring the construction of the Trans-Australian Railway, the breadth of social history encompassed by transport was revealed, demonstrating that the development of transport infrastructure and the arrival of the workers that

left:

Cobb & Co coaches at Charleville in Queensland, 1906.

Photo courtesy Queensland Museum (collection).

52 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

New approaches in presenting transport heritage

built it provided many new elements of transport to explore, including living conditions on the tracks; changes in settlements across time; interaction with Indigenous people; and the role of migrants in communities — to name just a few (Rogers 2017).

The focus on the railway line highlights another changing emphasis of transport heritage, and that is the recognition that vehicles of all kinds do not simply travel in space, but move over land and across water.

Vehicles traverse landscapes, and in many cases shape the landscape they cross. In fact, the Trans-Australian Railway line was such a feat of construction that its makers had created another human-built structure that is visible from space (Rogers, 2017). And it is not just railways that created infrastructure. Hotels and hostelries peppered tracks built for coach travel; meanwhile roads and bridges for car travel, and even runways for aeroplane travel, all changed the landscapes they crossed. Traversing the landscape in different vehicles has in turn provided varied experiences of travel, both in terms of access to the land itself and the varied physical experiences of crossing it.

A rich body of academic work now addresses these processes, and museums are turning to considerations of the journeys undertaken as much as the vehicles made to enable them. Jeff Powell explored how railways separated travellers from the landscape, while riding a Cobb and Co coach, by comparison, provided a far more immediate experience of the local countryside and bush. Yet the vistas of Australian bush were often considered monotonous by travellers of the past, who were instead seeking a ‘cultivated change, rather than the boredom of the forest’ (Powell 2017).

A paper by Celmara Pocock explored the impact of acknowledging significant places on a journey in terms of cultural heritage, while recognising the rich opportunities for a broader understanding of place possible through such a journey (Pocock 2017). In contrast, the experience of driving along today’s modern highways was presented in my own paper as entailing a radical dislocation from the landscape (Mate 2017); meanwhile Tony Martin explored the idea that few material traces of air travel are left behind in a landscape, making the stories of airborne experiences the main ‘artefacts’ of such journeys (Martin 2017).

Engagement with places travelled to or through enables a certain access to heritage, but also

acknowledges the more close-range and everyday experiences of both roads and journeys. This brings to the fore one of the challenges of interpreting transport in museums: How are journeying and the experiential aspects of travel treated effectively (and affectively) in museums? Can this be achieved by keeping a vehicle in operation? But where does the vehicle go? and How can the ‘feeling’ of a journey (in a car for example) be conveyed in a museum setting? How might that sense of movement be conveyed in many different ways?

One answer to the latter question is clearly available in access to experiences like the heritage rail journeys that are available across Australia, although these have their own challenges including financial viability, the pressures of legislated responsibilities on (often) volunteer-led organisations, and the demanding care of heritage vehicles.

At the forefront of the challenges of providing experiences of particular journeys are the difficulties of keeping collected vehicles (and their support systems) operational in an age where high-standard safety requirements are seemingly incompatible with conserving an object from an era before such controls.

Not only does upgrading a vehicle to comply with modern safety standards make it less authentic; the

above:

Railway construction workers in the desert, 1911-13. State Library of Western Australia, BA628/13. Photo courtesy: National Museum of Australia.

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 53

prolonged operation of such a vehicle will eventually destroy the physical heritage objects that we are trying to protect.

Further, the age-old issues around caring for large objects remain: the demanding costs of maintenance and access to facilities and qualified staff; the conservation questions about whether a vehicle should be operated at all; the space needed to display large objects; and the challenges of often large collections — the sheer volume of rolling stock, tractors, or cars that have been amassed in high concentrations to save them from destruction elsewhere. Added to these challenges is a critical loss of skills in many areas of formerly-specialist knowledge, such as steam fitting or electrical work of a bygone era.

With a gradual move away from ‘heritage’ experiences evident today, changing museum interpretation is becoming more important. Whereas the transport museums of the past might have been filled with technical detail about particular motor-cars, locomotives, or aeroplanes — geared to a substantial part of the (usually male) population with still-close associations with the mechanics and technologies entailed — interpretations by museums for evolving audiences today are becoming decisively more visitor-centric, and the challenge then becomes about working with enthusiasts able to convey the importance of stories that go with the vehicles presented (Edmonds 2017).

Museum approaches to telling the stories of transport are therefore changing markedly. There are now multi-layered interpretations, which still allow for special-interest visitors to engage with vehicles in ways that are most meaningful for them while also providing social and even nostalgic interpretations that resonate with general visitors. There is greater emphasis on the visitor experience and providing the visitor with a way into the context or experiences of travel — through wearing a costume, sitting on a carriage, or playing the role of the pilot.

As Tony Martin explained, understanding the attraction of ‘big things’, and bringing them to life for visitors, works to create a more memorable experience (Martin 2017). At the heart of this recognition, and its reflection in the primary transformations apparent today in transport museums, is a principle that Jennifer Edmonds so succinctly espoused: ‘more stories, fewer things’ (Edmonds 2017). The emphasis

on stories and experiences, past and present, and the range of interpretive approaches to representing them — from multi-media presentation through interactives to experiential exhibits — are all serving to bring new emphases and new kinds of engagement to the representation of transport.

There is a wider range of narratives of transport and vehicles emerging, narratives that recognise the multiple roles of vehicles in traversing landscapes, and the varied interactions of people and place, along with the many connections to both the past and everyday life that make transport history relevant in new ways. []

Dr Geraldine Mate is the Principal Curator – History, Industry and Technology – in the Queensland Museum Network. Her research is focused on the cultural landscape of 19th and early 20th century industrial complexes in Queensland. She is also interested in the interpretation of industrial cultural heritage and labour history, considerations of social/industrial interplay in historical landscapes, and the relationship between people and technology.

Text citation: Geraldine Mate, ‘Transport in Museums and Museums of Transport’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 50-53.

References Edmonds, J. (2017). More stories, fewer objects: cultural change in land-based mass transport museums in NSW. Paper presented at the Museums and Galleries Australia National Conference, Brisbane, May 2017.

Martin, T. (2017). A view from above: Aerial landscapes in the context of transport. Paper presented at the Museums and Galleries Australia National Conference, Brisbane, May 2017.

Mate, G. and C. Pocock (2017). A Disconnected Journey: Travelling across landscapes by automobile.

Paper presented at the Museums and Galleries Australia National Conference, Brisbane, May 2017.

Pocock, C. and and J. Palmer (2017).

Slow down, stop, listen, reflect: Rendering the invisible visible in self-drive heritage tourism. Paper presented at the Museums and Galleries Australia National Conference, Brisbane, May 2017.

Powell, J. (2017). Cobb and Co across the country. Paper presented at the Museums and Galleries Australia National Conference, Brisbane, May 2017.

Rogers, P. Connecting the nation for 100 years. Paper presented at the Museums and Galleries Australia National Conference, Brisbane, May 2017.

54 Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017

A remarkable legacy of teaching, research, and public advocacy for Australia’s culture and heritage

John Mulvaney (1925–2016) Tom Griffiths

J above:

Tom Griffiths. Photo courtesy Jason McCarthy, National Museum of Australia, Canberra. right:

Professor Emeritus Derek John Mulvaney AO CMG (1925–2016).

ohn Mulvaney was an ardent champion of museums who articulated their pivotal role in Australian public life and education. Since his death in September last year, Australians have mourned the loss — and celebrated the life — of Professor Emeritus Derek John Mulvaney AO CMG (1925–2016). He has been deservedly acknowledged as the father of Australian archaeology, a founder of the discipline of Aboriginal history, an influential public intellectual, a fighter for heritage and conservation causes, an outstanding scholar, a beloved teacher and a man of rare integrity. John was all these things and more: he offered an inspiring model of scholarly citizenship. Here I will recall some of his many contributions to public life, but particularly his work with museums, keeping places and national collections.

John was born in 1925 and enjoyed a Victorian country boyhood at Alberton in South Gippsland, at Rainbow in the Mallee, and then on the outskirts of Melbourne at Cranbourne. In his autobiography, Digging Up a Past (2011), he remembered sixpenny jars of cream and shilling blocks of ice, kerosene lamps, the Gould League Bird Day, horse-drawn carts of produce and the arrival in town of Wirth’s circus.

As a boy, his rewarding recreations were cycling, gardening (which became a lifelong joy) and wood chopping (including splitting mallee roots), and he also enjoyed reading novels with historical themes.

After a short, unhappy stint as a primary school teacher, Mulvaney enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and received his call-up notice in 1943, in the week following his eighteenth birthday. Perhaps the most enduring legacy of his exciting years circumnavigating the world ‘at the King’s expense’ came from a cycling trip late one glorious summer evening in the Cotswolds in England, when he happened upon the ‘brooding, mysterious’ Neolithic site known as the Rollright Stones. It was there that John felt the thrill of his ‘first encounter with the deep past’. John made a pilgrimage to that romantic site on most of his subsequent visits to England.

After the war, Mulvaney completed a history honours degree in Max Crawford’s department at the University of Melbourne. John admired the different teaching styles of Crawford, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, John O’Brien, Norman Harper and Manning Clark.

At the end of 1948, the year that John took the Australian history course, Manning Clark wrote him a congratulatory letter: Dear Mr Mulvaney, One of the few pleasant things found in the examination nightmare was your result in the School of History. I had some idea of just how hard you had tried, and so I was really very pleased when it became clear that the effort had not been in vain.

It was John O’Brien’s friendship and scholarly teaching in Ancient History that was to capture John’s imagination. After completing a Master’s thesis on Roman Britain with O’Brien, Mulvaney won a scholarship to study archaeology at Cambridge, where he was inspired by Grahame Clark’s global approach to prehistory and Glyn Daniel’s lucid lectures. In the summer of 1952, John was invited by Charles McBurney to join a Libyan archaeological expedition.

He was later to describe this trip, with its initiation in systematic excavation at Haua Fteah cave near Cyrene, as ‘one of the great experiences of my life’.

John was determined to apply his training in Australia: ‘I hankered after the Iron Age but knew I must return to Stone.’ When Mulvaney returned home from Cambridge and began to introduce professional archaeological practice and perspectives to the study of ancient Aboriginal history, his instinct was to work respectfully with the white collectors and curators who had preceded him. Thus his double intellectual enterprise was launched: to apply objective scientific techniques to the chronology of ancient Australia, and at the same time to understand those who had previously studied or mediated the Aboriginal past and whose work and ethics he often needed to criticise or transform. It was a key to Mulvaney’s character, and a testimony to the sort of historian he became, that he spent much of his life trying to understand the culture of collection that he helped to overturn.

His sustained interest in the history of ideas about Aboriginal Australia enabled him to become a sympathetic biographer of intelligent men of the frontier — especially Baldwin Spencer (So Much That Is New, with John Calaby, 1985) and also Frank Gillen, Alfred Howitt, Collet Barker, Ernest Cowle, Patrick Byrne and Paddy Cahill. In his studies of culture contact, such as Cricket Walkabout (1967) and Encounters in Place (1989), and his many articles on the history of Australian anthropology, he emphasised accommodation and acculturation rather than conflict. He was keen to articulate a humanitarian tradition in Australia, to advance a positive, moral vision of race relations, and to understand and overturn the strait-jacket of Social Darwinism that had gripped Aboriginal studies for nearly a century.

He considered racism ‘a fatal flaw in the Australian psyche’.

Mulvaney conducted his first Australian fieldwork at Fromm’s Landing on the Murray River from 1956 and began to use the technologies of stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating to illuminate what he called ‘the dark continent of prehistory’. He championed and built upon the pioneering archaeological work of Norman Tindale and Frederick McCarthy. At Kenniff Cave in southern Queensland in 1962, Mulvaney confirmed the Pleistocene occupation of Australia with a minimal radiocarbon date of 12,600 years BP, a discovery soon eclipsed by others of 20,000 then 30,000 years old and more. ‘No segment of the history of Homo sapiens’, he wrote, ‘had been so escalated

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since Darwin took time off the Mosaic standard.’ By the time of John’s death, Australia’s human history had acquired a scale of 55–60,000 years.

John Mulvaney lived through, and helped bring about, an intellectual and political revolution in the understanding and recognition of Aboriginal Australians. In 1969 he began his pioneering account of The Prehistory of Australia with the words: ‘The discoverers, explorers and colonists of ... Australia, were its Aborigines.’ He rejected the paradigm of Aborigines as ‘an unchanging people in an unchanging environment’; he placed great emphasis on Aboriginal cultural change, adaptability and diversity, an approach also evident in Aboriginal Man and Environment in Australia (edited with Jack Golson, 1971) and Australians to 1788 (ed. with J Peter White, 1987). Mulvaney was well into his thirties before he met a person he knew to be Aboriginal, although his first wife, Jean Campbell, had known and worked with many Aboriginal people in north and western Australia while completing a cycling trip around the continent in 1949–51. In 1965, John made a two-month trip around northern Australia researching Macassan sites and establishing further contact with Aboriginal people. By the late 1960s he realised that he had ‘underestimated the possibilities for research amongst living communities’. Soon he was feeling his way towards a new scholarly ethic.

He welcomed the reassertion of Aboriginal cultural identity as ‘one of the most significant developments in Australian intellectual history’. He was a founding member of the council of the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (now AIATSIS) and served as its Acting Principal and Chair and Deputy Chair of its council.

Yet his profound commitment to seeing ancient Australian history as part of a global human saga also led him, on occasions, to resist some Aboriginal assertions of local heritage rights. In 1990 he strongly protested the Museum of Victoria’s unconditional return of the Kow Swamp collections of ancient human remains to the Echuca Aboriginal community for reburial. Mulvaney argued instead for a Keeping Place, and believed that this option would have future benefits to Aboriginal, as well as non-Aboriginal people. In his autobiography, he referred to this dispute as ‘my career’s most distressing episode’.

Mulvaney’s statement of his position, set out in an article for Antiquity entitled ‘Past Regained, Future Lost’ (1991), merits re-reading today for its courageous honesty and its advocacy of the interests of ‘future generations of Aboriginal scholars’.

Mulvaney’s belief in keeping places as offering a reasonable compromise between Aboriginal rights and scientific research emerged especially through his association with the remarkable discoveries of human remains at Lake Mungo. In 1968, geomorphologist Jim Bowler was investigating the ancient water system and lunettes of the Willandra Lakes in far western New South Wales and came across some burnt bones exposed by erosion. The following year Bowler

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A remarkable legacy of teaching, research, and public advocacy for Australia’s culture and heritage

revisited Mungo with a multi-disciplinary team that included Mulvaney, Rhys Jones and Harry Allen, and they found to their astonishment that the bones were human, anatomically modern and apparently ancient.

The team had come unprepared for an excavation.

But because sheep were disturbing the dune and a thunderstorm was brewing, they recorded the site and decided to remove the skeleton, packing it carefully in John Mulvaney’s suitcase. Years later, John donated that suitcase to the National Museum of Australia, aware of its complex symbolism. In 1992, the sacred human remains — known as Mungo Lady — were returned to safe storage at Lake Mungo as part of a spiritual occasion involving scientists and Aboriginal elders.

Another, even older burial was found by Bowler in 1974, when it was exposed by erosion of the ancient lake's shoreline. This became known as Mungo Man, ‘Australia’s oldest identity’, more than 40,000 years old, his bones coated in rare ceremonial ochre.

Mungo Man was held by the Australian National University until 2015 and is now in the interim care of the National Museum of Australia, awaiting the establishment of a secure keeping place in the Willandra Lakes area. Jim Bowler, Isabel McBryde and John Mulvaney have been passionate advocates for the return of Mungo Man; Bowler described this desired transfer as ‘an act of recognition to Indigenous Australians of the nation’s debt to their ancestral history’. It remains an urgent cause. People and institutions wishing to support the return of Mungo Man — and the Paakantyi, Mutthi Mutthi and Ngyiampaa people who care for the Willandra Lakes — should lobby the federal and NSW governments to provide a dignified home for this remarkable early Australian.

As an archaeologist, John Mulvaney was always more alert than most historians of his time to the material and environmental legacies of past societies.

This orientation made him an ideal member of the Whitlam government’s Committee of Inquiry on Museums and National Collections in 1974–75.

Chaired by businessman Peter Pigott, the committee visited the major museums and galleries in Australia and many regional and local ones. The committee was appalled by a general lack of conservation facilities and poor exhibition standards in many natural history museums and historical collections at the time — for example, they found one display case in the South Australian Museum, dated 1908, that indicated ‘some of our recent acquisitions’.

Several committee members (including Mulvaney and Geoffrey Blainey) conducted an overseas tour of key institutions, and when John’s baggage was mislaid by an airline, Blainey lent him his second suit for their official visits. The friendship between Mulvaney and Blainey was already more than two decades old and they shared a rural upbringing, a love of wood chopping, fireside storytelling at Fromm’s Landing in the 1950s and creative collegiality at the University of Melbourne. It was their intellectual

collaboration that gave ‘the Pigott Report’ its clarity and eloquence. They were especially impressed by the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico, with its interconnected displays of historical collections and contemporary indigenous cultures; and also the small Oakland Museum of California in the Bay area of San Francisco, with its tripartite interpretive structure of land, first peoples and modern history. At Oakland, they were delighted to be shown around by a doctoral graduate in history, the only one they met on the whole tour.

The Pigott Report, which was submitted in late 1975 in the last days before the controversial ending of the Whitlam government, had enduring impact.

In particular, it brought about a great improvement in conservation training and practice in Australia’s major museums. It also sought to free museums from their nineteenth-century image as ‘didactic temples to the twin gods of evolution and progress’, as Mulvaney put it elsewhere. The report’s integrative vision was distilled in its recommendation to establish a national museum that would give equal space to Aboriginal Australia, the environment, and Australian society since 1788. Strong inter-relationships were to be elaborated between the three themes. The later interim council of the Museum of Australia, as it was first called (and it was a title John preferred), advocated that the new institution be built on a spacious, flexible site on Yarramundi Reach at the western end of Lake Burley Griffin.

Mulvaney was gravely disappointed in the way the eventual National Museum of Australia, which opened in 2001, departed from the principles envisaged in the 1970s for its foundation. The environmental theme was structurally downgraded, and even the building’s site was later moved to be near the Parliamentary Triangle and within the confines of the Acton Peninsula closer to the city. In addition to the loss of space for expansion, Mulvaney felt that placement within the capital’s ‘ceremonial zone’ exposed the museum to the dangers of triumphalism.

John, a dogged fighter for causes, constantly made the case for the museum’s original site and once even declared that ‘Yarramundi’ was inscribed on his heart. Yet he made peace with the National Museum after its opening because he respected and supported the leadership of Dawn Casey, a senior Aboriginal public servant who became the museum’s director in 1999. When the Friends of the National Museum of Australia was established, Jean Mulvaney was its No. 1 Friend and John its No. 2.

Another initiative of the Whitlam government was the Hope Committee of Inquiry into the National Estate (1973–74), which Mulvaney considered a benchmark in Australian cultural history. It undertook an assessment of Australia’s natural and cultural heritage and in 1976 established the Australian Heritage Commission where Mulvaney became one of seven foundation commissioners, developing effective long-term partnerships with Max Bourke, Jim Kerr, David Yencken and Jane Lennon. Since the early

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 57

above:

'Professor John Mulvaney', The Times, 23 September 2016.

right:

Malcolm Brown, 'John Mulvaney (1925—2016), "Father of Australian archaeology"', Sydney Morning Herald, 2 November 2016.

1950s, John had been an advocate of the conservation of Aboriginal sites and his work with the Commission enabled his activism to broaden. He became chief Australian delegate in 1977 to the UNESCO inaugural meeting in Paris to determine the criteria for World Heritage listing, and argued passionately for the interrelationship of cultural and natural values. He and others urged Australia to join ICOMOS (the International Council on Monuments and Sites, founded in 1965); and in 1979 the strong Australian branch of ICOMOS promulgated the Burra Charter, providing a new framework for heritage conservation practice, which gained impact internationally in subsequent years.

Mulvaney lamented the paucity of historians involved in heritage at this time, and in 1982 wrote to the Australian Historical Association Bulletin criticising them for failing ‘to grasp the moral or ethical need for them to take some public role’. He strongly supported the subsequent growth of ‘public history’. In 1982–83 he became a vigorous critic of the proposed Franklin River Dam in Tasmania and gave many talks at public meetings and rallies — one from the back of a truck outside the federal parliament — and he was also involved in the campaign to save

the site of the first Government House in Sydney in 1982–84. He was disappointed, however, in the first exhibitions at the Museum of Sydney on that site, because of their frequent disregard for the original context of displayed objects. He memorably described the new institution as ‘a museum for yuppies’.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Mulvaney continued his advocacy for the heritage values of both Aboriginal and settler history. He defended the Aboriginal cultural landscape of Kakadu National Park when it was threatened by a proposal to mine the neighbouring Jabiluka uranium lease. He had been an Australian delegate to the 1981 UNESCO World Heritage meeting in Sydney when the park was placed on the World Heritage Register. In 1998, in an affidavit to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, Mulvaney used historical sources to carefully explain the depth and intensity of Aboriginal ‘spiritual-landscape bonding’ and the difficulty of eliciting knowledge and defining sacred geography. He drew attention to a long-term failure among Australian developers ‘properly to consult the correct Aboriginal owners at an early stage of the project and in a very detailed manner’. He urged that, before any developmental work began, the cultural and spiritual aspects of the Jabiluka area be thoroughly investigated and documented, and he advised that ‘this will require sensitive research and the willing assistance of the traditional owners. It is not a process which can be rushed.’ In 2003 he joined a spirited campaign to save from woodchipping the site of French explorer D’Entrecasteaux’s 1792–93 visit to Recherche Bay, Van Diemen’s Land — noting D’Entrecasteaux’s interaction with Aboriginal people.

John called it Tasmania’s equivalent to Botany Bay and again wrote articles, gave talks, addressed a rally,

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A remarkable legacy of teaching, research, and public advocacy for Australia’s culture and heritage

References Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths (ed.), Prehistory to Politics: John Mulvaney, the Humanities and the Public Intellectual, Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1996.

Jim Bowler, ‘Mungo Man Needs Help – To Come Home’, Inside Story, 9 February 2016, http://insidestory.org.au/mungoman-needs-help-to-come-home Manning Clark to John Mulvaney, letter, 17 December 1948, Papers of D J Mulvaney, National Library of Australia, MS9615/1/66, Box 8, ‘Manning Clark’. I am grateful to Billy Griffiths for this reference.

Billy Griffiths, ‘“The Dawn” of Australian Archaeology: John Mulvaney at Fromm’s Landing’, Journal of Pacific Archaeology, vol. 8, no. 1, 2017, pp. 100-111.

Tom Griffiths, The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Past, Carlton: Black Inc., 2016, chapter 3.

John Mulvaney, Digging Up A Past, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2011.

and eventually wrote his historical study, ‘The Axe had Never Sounded’: Place, People and Heritage of Recherche Bay (2007).

In John’s final weeks, when he knew he was dying, I visited him with my son Billy, who has recently written of John’s foundation role in the history of Australian archaeology. Although John was weak, he was smartly dressed and welcomed us warmly, and we sat and talked for two hours about history, archaeology, books, politics and life. Every so often he would ease himself out of his armchair and throw some more wood on the fire. His wife, Elizabeth Morrison, also our dear friend, joined us and we had tea and cake together. As we left, John shook our hands and said, matter-of-factly: ‘This is probably the last time we will see one another.’

I was in Europe when John died, and in the week that a memorial service was held for John in Canberra I was travelling in England with my wife, Libby Robin, and our son. On the day of the service, stranded on the other side of the world, we drove to the Cotswolds and up a winding road to a grassy knoll, parked the car, and passed through a gate into an open field where stands the 30-metre-wide circle of corroded limestones, the Rollright Stones. When John first gazed at them in wonder, aged 19, they evoked a mysterious, deep past and helped lure him into his life’s quest. They are still full of romance, but thanks to John’s work and the generation that followed him, the Stones now appear — to an Australian — as a relatively recent monument in the long history of humanity.

In his autobiography, John wrote that Albert Facey had stolen his title, for his had indeed been a fortunate life. It was a beloved life full of curiosity and intelligence, originality and citizenship, and he glowed with a warm and passionate humanity. John was wonderful company, a good listener and a fascinating storyteller, witty and wise, and a great encourager of the work of others. He also spoke the truth to power.

His integrity came from a rare combination: his steady attachment to principle together with a capacity to see the evolution of his own thinking historically. He had a holistic, humane vision, one that worked to unite the sciences and the humanities and nature and culture.

He was both intellectual and practical, idealistic and realistic, and he changed his society profoundly for the good. We will go on drawing strength and inspiration from his exemplary Australian life for generations. [ ] Tom Griffiths AO is the W K Hancock Professor of History at the Australian National University, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and author of The Art of Time Travel: Historians and their Craft (Black Inc., 2016), which includes a chapter about John Mulvaney.

Text citation: Tom Griffiths, ‘John Mulvaney (1925–2016)’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 54-58.

Vale Don McMichael (1932–2017) We note with sadness the death on 10 June 2017 of Dr Don McMichael CBE, long-term Australian museum professional and advocate.

Don made a remarkable contribution to the Australian and international museum communities. Having trained as a zoologist and later become Deputy Director of the Australian Museum, he subsequently worked in senior government positions before becoming founding Director of the National Museum of Australia.

Don was a key driver, with Des Griffin and other colleagues in the early 1990s, of the amalgamation of a number of museum associations to form Museums Australia. He was the bedrock of the Australian National Committee of ICOM for many years, and also served on the international Executive Council of ICOM (the governing body of the International Council of Museums, headquartered in UNESCO House, Paris).

A more extensive tribute will be published in the next issue of the Magazine. [ ] Louise Douglas BELOW: Special presentation of the ICOM Australia Award to Don McMichael by Louise Douglas (Membership Secretary) at the National Protrait Gallery, Canberra, 17 Jun 2015. Don was also presented with an honorary life membership of Museums Australia. (Image courtesy of Kate Morschel)

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Universities charting new uses of their collections as central to their mission

‘The Future of the Object’: University of Melbourne initiatives lead object-based learning

above:

Andrew Simpson.

right:

Arts West Building, University of Melbourne, with external facade showing images of objects from the cultural collections. Photo: Andrew Simpson.

Andrew Simpson

T

1.

The Times Higher Education ranked the University of Melbourne at no. 33 in 2016, while the Shanghai Jiao Tong university was at 40th position.

he University of Melbourne is a large, multidisciplinary higher education institution, the second oldest in Australia. It ranks at the top of Australian universities in the two major global ranking schemes.[1] Some universities today are also engaged in contemporary cultural thinking while continuing to build heritage collections; and as a large heritage collections enterprise, Melbourne University is the proud custodian of more than thirty material collections across its campus.

Many of these collections were originally developed with ties to separate disciplines for teaching and scientific research. However despite their diversity, these collections are today drawn under a single administrative umbrella as ‘cultural collections’. They are now viewed more in terms of their relationships than differences; prized as a unique asset and enhancing institutional identity rather than marking disciplinary divisions. And the University is taking an institution-level approach to deriving the maximum benefits from these resources.

An illuminating symposium in 2016, as part of the Melbourne Festival and tied in with the university’s ‘Cultural Collisions’ program, provided a window into this new institutional commitment and strategy.

Entitled The Future of the Object, the symposium was held in the newly-opened Arts West Building.

It spanned two and a half days of interdisciplinary panel discussions, featuring a diversity of scholars, practitioners and theorists. The event quickly filled to capacity with advance-subscribers, and more than

300 were waitlisted to attend should a place become available.

So why would a university undertake a meeting to consider objects? And why would it attract such strong interest?

Universities are among the earliest public institutions to house collections of objects for the generation of new knowledge. Objects are ‘sticky’ with meaning. They add extra dimensions to the learning experience not available through text and talk. Collections of objects in the laboratory and tutorial room can be triggers for exceptional and unique learning experiences. They have the potential to relate different disciplines, bind disparate meanings, and integrate spatial definitions in exhibitions or displays, where they readily accommodate many layers of contextual narrative about culture, science and society.

Objects are redolent with intrinsic and extrinsic meaning, while each object engagement is a unique transaction. Objects also provide enabling bridges of understanding between different disciplines and knowledge systems. The University of Melbourne therefore sees its collections as fostering interdisciplinary collisions that open up new ways of thinking, while providing a unique set of engagements for students, staff and the wider community.

Objects and specimens are also the material evidence of research carried out in the name of an institution of learning. A series of revolutions in our understanding of the natural world, starting with the grand taxonomic endeavours of Linnaeus at the University of Uppsala in the 18th century, established the basis of botanical and zoological classification.

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Objects are ‘sticky’ with meaning. They add extra dimensions to the learning experience not available through text and talk

2.

Chatterjee, H. 2010. Objectbased learning in higher education: The pedagogical power of museums. University Museums and Collections Journal, Vol. 3: pp. 179–182.

3.

Boag, A. 2012. The NGA’s Art and Alzheimer’s Programs’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 20 (2), pp.16-18.

4.

Simpson, A. & Hammond, G. 2012.

University collections and objectbased pedagogies. University Museums and Collections Journal, Vol. 5: pp. 75–82.

Studies of the ancient world, through the material recovered from archaeological excavations, stimulated scholarship that developed an understanding of Prehistoric, Egyptian and Graeco-Roman cultures and interconnected periods of historical development — and stimulated the archaeology of other historic sites and regions of the world subsequently. All of this interest and collective effort required comparisons of objects; and reference collections continue to be close to the very heart of university research, stimulating acquisition of knowledge as relevant as that available in the university library.

The Melbourne University symposium focused on the contemporary world of new and evolving knowledge-platforms. It explored the changing dynamics between the digital and the material that many consider is facilitating a growing re-engagement with objects and their stories — sometimes referred to as the ‘new materiality’ and reflected in the growth of the ‘digital humanities’. Presenters discussed how the digital age has given rise to new opportunities to connect with, recall, imagine and represent the world. They illuminated how these experiences are redefining, and even reanimating, our relationship with culture and heritage. The diversity of topics covered in the variety of presentations during the symposium clearly demonstrated that the fundamental nature of our connections with objects underpins a vast landscape of cultural and intellectual endeavour, as well as collective human experience.

Melbourne University’s nationally distinguished Vice Chancellor, Glyn Davis, opened the symposium, led afterwards with a keynote presentation by Sarah Kenderdine. This focused on fresh thinking about current and future technologies in the museums sector, and how some collecting organisations are

innovatively exploiting the changing dynamics between the material and the digital, driving new forms of narrative development and audience engagement. The six sessions that followed ranged over many topics — each with the potential to frame a symposium in itself. Among these were linked the themes of music and architecture, objects and sites, and collaborations around Indigenous languages and other dimensions of intangible heritage. It was argued in many sessions that ‘the material turn’ towards a new engagement with objects will enable us to creatively shape the future of our cultural memory, and better understand how we contribute to its continuing evolution.

Another stimulating keynote speaker was Helen Chatterjee, of University College London, on objectbased learning (OBL). Chatterjee has led research into the direct value of object engagements in areas such as learning[2] and well-being. She further outlined some recent work on qualitative and quantitative value propositions for cultural encounters in areas of health. The positive impacts of object handling to health, well-being and education — through the powerful trigger-effects of memory aroused via engaging with objects — have been a research focus for many years.

I was reminded of the achievements of the education/learning staff of the National Gallery of Australia some years ago, after preliminary consultation with health specialists and carers for people living with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The NGA’s Alzheimer’s program initiatives rightly won distinction in the Museums Australia MAGNA Awards.[3] The unique advantages for this sort of work in a university are that medical specialists along with cultural specialists, scientists and historians can all work closely together on innovative projects within a single institutional setting.

Object-based learning is already a university-level strategy that informs innovative developments in teaching and learning within different departments or schools of the University of Melbourne. This is significantly reflected in the architecture of Arts West, and the development of the building’s Object Based Learning laboratories. OBL is meanwhile to be found in many interesting hybrids between the museum space and the tutorial laboratory based historically on the European concept of the anatomy theatre. The Object Based Learning laboratories have only been in operation at Melbourne University for a short

Museums Galleries Australia Magazine – Vol. 25(2) – Autumn-Winter 2017 61

period. Nevertheless the kinds of interconnected learning they enable is well recognised in the new arrangements for their capacity to foster creative thinking, enable kinaesthetic learning, provide experiential engagement with primary research methods and materials, and improve learning outcomes.[4] The Arts West redevelopment captures images of objects from the cultural collections as part of its embossed exterior facade. It is portrayed as a counterpoint to the unspoken moralism of much modern architecture that seeks simplicity and clarity of form, excluding anything extraneous and often viewing the adorned object as ‘degenerate’.

By contrast, Arts West at Melbourne University is seen as an essential piece of cultural infrastructure supporting innovative thinking around the nature and possibilities of learning through its collections.

It was positioned in these terms on the University’s website, even before completion, with the up-front declaration: The Arts West Redevelopment is the Faculty of Arts' most significant infrastructure project in recent years. It has created new and dynamic teaching and learning spaces for students and staff.[5]

5.

6.

See further information about the deliberate architectural linking of neighbouring buildings, including a final flyover adjoining the facilities to the University’s Baillieu Library: <https://artswest.arts.unimelb.edu.au/> Simpson, A. 2014. ‘Rethinking university museums: Material collections and the changing world of higher education’.

Museums Australia Magazine, Vol. 22 (3): pp. 18–22.

Current thinking about object-based learning within many universities today is clearly influenced by the new ‘cultural collections’ narrative of the university itself as a major contributor of resources to society as well as a leading institution of knowledge and research. This thinking often provides a reaction and counterpoint to the mute and functional ‘white box’ typical of modernist art displays. Sir John Soane’s famous 19th-century house museum in London, with its idiosyncratic arrangements of art, scientific and archaeological collections, is often seen as a metaphor for provocative difference in museological thinking.

With Soane himself having designed the architecture and layout of his collections, this is a case where objects were placed in situ by their owner and curator, as both muse and inspiration, while the building itself acts as both context and mediator of the fantastic installations it displays.

New digital technologies are today transforming our experience of the real. Through examples that sit at the intersection of art, technology and various academic disciplines, the Melbourne symposium explored the ways in which material and digital natures are able to speak to different registers of

perception and interpretation, and through new configurations, produce new kinds of meaning. While the boundaries between traditional disciplines may be dissolved, the symposium also produced a sense that analogue and digital, fixed and mobile, authentic and surrogate, and even cultural production and consumption are best conceptualised as sliding and intersecting scales of experience rather than polar opposites.

More broadly, there has been an international effort to reimagine the object as part of new learning pedagogies. The study and design of objects now has new applications across a range of discipline areas, and provides a compelling nexus for the consideration of material and digital cultures. Around the world, meanwhile, many universities are increasingly considering how to (re-) activate their academic collections (Simpson 2014),[6] while forming pathways of engagement with these new kinds of learning and research.

The Melbourne University symposium’s topics and setting were evidence that this is probably the most outstanding and innovative case nationally where collections are being used as a template for a dynamic future of new knowledge endeavours in higher education. Undoubtedly such innovative institutionallevel thinking and planning around academic museums and collections, and their connections to the core mission of universities, must capture many other Australian universities’ attention after the example in Melbourne.

Recognising this to be a powerful trend, we can likely anticipate an upsurge of interest in the resonant materiality of collections in higher education over the next decade – with the wider museums sector also innovating the experiential potential of the power of objects in its broader public interface. [ ] Dr Andrew Simpson is an Honorary Fellow, Department of Ancient History, at Macquarie University, Sydney. He was Director of Museum Studies at Macquarie University (2007—2014), and continues as an active member of UMAC, ICOM’s International Committee for University Museums.

Text citation: Andrew Simpson, ‘‘The Future of the Object’: University of Melbourne initiatives lead object-based learning’, Museums Galleries Australia Magazine, Vol.25 (2), Autumn-Winter 2017, pp. 59-61.

Australia in the Great War, Australian War Memorial, Canberra ACT Australia in the Great War is the new permanent exhibition in the First World War Galleries at the Australian War Memorial.

It is the first major refurbishment of the galleries in over 40 years and one of the key contributions to commemorating the centenary of the conflict. Principal exhibition designers Cunningham Martyn Design, developed probably the most challenging gallery re-configuration project Designcraft have ever delivered. The complex Joinery and Showcase package pushed our fabrication ability and facility to the limit.

The result is a world class gallery experience. Designcraft are proud of our association with this flagship Australian project.

Exhibition design: Cunningham Martyn Design.

furniture joinery showcases 8 Tralee Street Hume ACT 2620 02 6290 4900 info@designcraft.net.au www.designcraft.net.au

Photography by John Gollings.

An Outstanding ‘once in a lifetime’ Career Opportunity for Summer 2018 The Open Palace Programmes offer you the chance to: • • • • • • • •

Step behind the scenes at some of the most significant palaces and mansions in the UK Learn from the heritage professionals how to conserve, present and interpret sites and collections Take part in hands on activities tackling real challenges alongside the experts Immerse yourself in history where it happened Handle fascinating historical artefacts and records Gain invaluable experience and contacts for your resume Benefit from bespoke careers advice Visit and stay in some of the most delightful historic parts of England and Scotland

For further information please visit: http://openpalace.co Applications are encouraged from all emergent heritage professionals. Places are offered to candidates who send appropriate applications on a ‘first come, first served’ basis so apply early. Applications for 2018 are accepted from mid July 2017 and early expressions of interest by email are welcome: info@openpalace.co This year we are delighted to have 4 bursaries to offer including two special bursaries from Museums Galleries Australia. Details of these bursaries are now available on our website: http://openpalace.co.

www.tashcosystems.com.au tashco@tashcosystems.com.au

Galleries of Remembrance The Shrine of Remembrance Photographer Vlad Bunyevich.

The National Anzac Centre Albany WA Photographer Lee Grifď&#x192;&#x17E;th.

Galleries of Remembrance The Shrine of Remembrance Photographer Vlad Bunyevich.

Showcasing Australia For The Past 40 Years