vol 19 (3) – february
2011
Museums Australia
Connecting museums and communities
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Museums Australia National Conference 2011 Perth, Western Australia At the Frontier: Exploring the Possibilities Museums Australia pleased to announce preliminary details of the 2011 National Conference. For the first time the 2011 Museums Australia National Conference will be held in conjunction with the National Symposium of the Interpretation Association of Australia. MAWA and IAA(WA) will host this combined conference at the recently opened State Theatre Centre located in the Perth Cultural Centre, from 15th to 18th November 2011. The Conference is an opportunity for colleagues across both organisations to come together to consider questions of our future in a rapidly changing world. The Conference theme, At the Frontier: Exploring the Possibilities, will allow us to consider the future of museums, galleries, interpretive centres and cultural institutions in an ever changing world. We are facing the unknown, the unexplored, asking what’s “over the horizon”? Many explorers have already ventured forth, so now its time to bring these discoveries together; to share, to learn, to speculate on what else is “out there”. We are looking for explorers, adventurers, discoverers, researchers, seers, prophets, travellers, story‐tellers and entrepreneurs to help us piece together our map for the future. The formal call for papers will be out shortly, but in the meantime, mark you diaries, and start thinking about what you might like to present at the conference. To register your interest Contact Us: Interpretation Association Australia Museums Australia WA
P: 08 9427 2770 F: 08 9427 2855 PO Box 224 Northbridge WA 6865 Web: http://www.museumswa.com.au or http://www.museumsaustralia.org.au
http://www.interpretationaustralia.asn.au
Museums Australia New South Wales Symposium Place, Space and Identity: New Directions for NSW Museums Macquarie University April 18 - 20, 2011
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Museums Australia (NSW) invites you to Sydney for its 2011 symposium, Place, Space, & Identity: New Directions for NSW Museums. The symposium coincides with the review of the visual arts and museum sectors in NSW.
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Museums Australia Inc Annual General Meeting
date venue
Thursday 19 May 2011 5.30pm National Museum of Australia Acton Peninsula, Canberra
More details available from www.museumsaustralia.org.au
Museums & Memory Museums Australia National Symposium
venue national museum of australia, canberra
Tying in with International Museum Day, 18th May 2011, this year’s symposium theme is Museums & Memory.
19–20 May 2011
day one
museums and memory day two
ethics in action
More information is available through the Museums Australia website.
8 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Contents
In this issue Museums Australia National Council 2009—2011
top: middle: bottom: left: right:
feature:
First We See...
Visual learning and ‘visuacy’. . . . . . 20 President’s Message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
president
Dr Darryl McIntyre (Former CEO, National Film and Sound Archive, Canberra) vice-president
Lorraine Fitzpatrick (Senior Project Officer, Royalties for Regions, Cultural Centre, Carnarvon, WA) treasurer
Australia Day Honours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Disasters affecting Australia’s heritage and collections . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Preserving Brisbane’s
Belinda Cotton (Head, Development, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra)
Book Review: Museums in the public sphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 cover image:
TYNDALL, Peter
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA with PUPPET CULTURE FRAMING SYSTEM 1980
Subscriptions: (02) 6273 2437 Fax: (02) 6273 2451 editor@museumsaustralia.org.au www.museumsaustralia.org.au Editor: Bernice Murphy Design: Selena Kearney Print: Blue Star Print
members
Professional development
A tribute to Glen Johns. . . . . . . . . . . 33
Advertising: 02) 6273 2437
William (Bill) Storer (Previously: President, MA-NSW; Chair, Community Museums Network; Newcastle) Suzanne Bravery (General Manager, Programs and Services, Museums & Galleries NSW, Sydney)
Assessing ‘significance’. . . . . . . . . . . 30
MA National Office (physical location): Old Parliament House, King George Terrace, Canberra, ACT Editorial: (02) 6273 2437
secretary
built heritage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
partnerships with the UK. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Museums Australia Magazine PO Box 266, Civic Square ACT 2608
Timothy (Tim) Hart (Director, Information, Multimedia & Technology, Museum of Victoria, Melbourne)
© Museums Australia and individual authors. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Museums Australia Magazine is published quarterly and on-line on the MA Website, and is a major link with members and the museums sector. Museums Australia Magazine is a forum for news, opinion and debate on museum issues. Contributions from those involved or interested in museums and galleries are welcome. Museums Australia Magazine reserves the right to edit, abridge, alter or reject any material. Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of the publisher or editor. Publication of an advertisement does not imply endorsement by Museums Australia, its affiliates or employees. Museums Australia is proud to acknowledge the following supporters of the national organisation: Australian Government Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities; National Museum of Australia; National Film and Sound Archive; Museum Victoria (Melbourne Museum); Western Australian Museum; and Link Digital (Canberra). Print Post Publication No: 332582/00001 ISSN 1038-1694
Richard Mulvaney (CEO, NSW Rail Transport Museum, Sydney) Jennifer Sanders (former Deputy Director of Collections and Outreach, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney) William (Bill) Seager (Redevelopment Content Manager, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart) Soula Veyradier (Curator, City of Melville Museum & Local History Service, Booragoon, WA) state/territory branch presidents/ representatives (subject to change throughout year)
ACT Carol Cartwright (Head, Education & Visitor Services, Australian War Memorial, Canberra) NSW Dr Andrew Simpson (Director, Museum Studies Program, Macquarie University, Sydney) NT Michelle Smith (Curator, Territory History, Museum of Central Australia, Alice Springs) SA Robert Morris (Head of Collections, South Australian Museum, Adelaide) TAS Chris Tassell (Managing Director, National Trust of Australia (TAS), Launceston) QLD Lisa Jones (Curator, Queensland Police Museum, Brisbane) VIC Daniel Wilksch (Coordinator, Digital Projects, Public Record Office Victoria, Melbourne) WA Dr Christen John Bell (Curator, History House Museum, Armadale, WA)
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 9
President’s message Darryl McIntyre
Recent natural disasters and disaster relief I am sure that all Museums Australia members have been watching the impact of the devastating floods in central and south-east Queensland, northern New South Wales, and more recently Victoria, as well as some inundation in areas of Tasmania. There has been some damage to museums and other cultural institutions in Queensland and Victoria, as well as to some collections. At the time of writing, a similar picture is emerging for northern New South Wales.
Blue Shield Australia and national disaster response measures
1. Cyclone Larry struck far north Queensland in March 2006, causing severe flooding and damage to cultural heritage collections as well as wreaking havoc in communities. Museums Australia mounted a fundraising appeal six weeks later at the time of the National Conference in Brisbane (May 2006). Funds raised were used to purchase some eight diesel-powered generators which, with the advice of MGSQ, Brisbane, and the NT museum in Darwin, and labelling assistance rendered by the Queensland Museum, were later distributed to various points in the Top End for use in times of future emergencies. It was gratifying to learn that one or two of those generators were able to do service in the recent flooding emergencies in Queensland. 2. Museum responses after the BoulderKalgoorlie earthquake of April 2010 were covered in an article in an earlier issue of MA Magazine – see Bill Storer and Zoe Scott, ‘Having a disaster - whether planned or not’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.18 (Issues 3&4), June 2010, p.9.
Blue Shield Australia, of which Museums Australia is an Associate member, met by teleconference on two occasions in January to discuss the impact of the floods, and to consider how assistance and advice might be coordinated to help flood-affected museums and cultural institutions. A number of federal and state bodies have included information on their websites as to first-line measures to remediate damaged objects or collections, and providing other advice or links to help guide responses to emergencies. I would like to thank colleagues in Queensland (especially Rebekah Butler and staff of Museum and Gallery Services Queensland), Victoria (particularly Nancy Ladas of Museum Victoria, and Laura Miles, Chief Executive Officer of the MA-Victoria branch and her colleagues) as well as NSW (Michael Rolfe and colleagues of Museums & Galleries NSW) for coordinating information and updates on the flood damage to museums, cultural institutions or collections. Meanwhile further north in Queensland, all praise is due to the regional museum officers employed in the field by the Queensland Museum, who have again demonstrated how invaluable is this regionally dispersed placement of expertise rendering assistance locally across that huge state.
Advocacy In Canberra, I will be meeting in the near future with the federal Minister for the Arts, The Hon Simon Crean MP, who also has ministerial responsibility for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government. In addition to discussing with the Minister the work of Museums Australia, I will be raising the need for federal and state assistance to help repair damage to flood-affected museums and cultural institutions or their collections, through the natural disaster recovery fund program. Damaged museums can seek financial relief – with support, in the first instance, of their local and state governments, and afterwards submitting an application for assistance to the federal government. In view of the large number of museums and cultural facilities at high risk of damage from natural disasters – floods,
cyclones,[1] bush fires and even the occasional earthquake[2] – there is an increased urgency to the need for digitisation of collections in our museums and cultural institutions nationally, and for a digital copy to be held in principal State/Territory libraries, museums or archives as a permanent record, in the event that collections are tragically destroyed in situ.
Common Ground Meeting #2 Some of these matters will be discussed at the forthcoming (second) Common Ground Meeting being organised by Museums Australia – this time in Canberra, Friday 4 March 2011. The meeting will be attended by representatives of MA, the Council of Australasian Museum Directors (CAMD), ICOM Australia, Museums and Galleries New South Wales (MGNSW), Museum and Gallery Services Queensland (MGSQ), the Federation of Australian Historical Societies(FAHS), the Australian Council of National Trusts (ACNT) and other heritage organisations and colleague bodies, together with officials from relevant federal and possibly state departments. It will see to detail continuing issues facing the museums and heritage sectors, and shape advice to relevant ministers accordingly.
2011 Museums Australia National Conference (WA) It is also likely that some of the most topical issues for museums will be raised at the 2011 Museums Australia National Conference, scheduled for 14–20 November this year in Perth – in particular, a growing consciousness of the need for disaster preparedness, and the provision of coordinated resources and advice to assist colleagues and communities at large in responding to disasters when they occur. Such topics need to be linked also to issues of sustainability in all aspects of museum and cultural heritage work today, as the expansionist drive for renovation and extension of facilities must now grapple with issues of longterm sustainability, and more effective management of increasingly finite and limited resources.
Cultural Ministers Council, CAN, and national collaboration across collections sector Other issues for discussion with the federal Minister are the importance of the Cultural Ministers Council’s continuance (despite the COAG review in 2010 having threatened its downgrading), and the jeopardised future of the Collections Australia Network (CAN), hosted at the Powerhouse Museum. The operation of CAN* is directly relevant to the Museum Metadata Exchange (or ANDS project), which is a joint undertaking involving MA and CAMD. In view of the demise of the Collections Council of Australia, there could be an argument for the re-establishment of the Heritage Collections Working Group, which was originally a joint Commonwealth-States
10 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
President’s message
working party established in the late-1980s, which pioneered some collaborative work nationally until it was discontinued to give way to other measures of the Commonwealth in the mid-1990s. The working group was highly collaborative, having been established to promote sectoral collaboration across state and territory jurisdictions on national issues of collections care and heritage interpretation for all Australians. The Heritage Collections Council (HCC), as the Working Group later became, drew together directors and colleagues from across the board, providing for the first time a constellation of expert views and coordinated input from natural history, social history and art museums alike on national issues of collections care. A large amount of excellent work was achieved through the HCC in promoting shared objectives and priorities for Australian collections and heritage care, aimed at harnessing the contribution of a broad spectrum of museums and galleries to desired improvements. In the absence of any national structure or body complementary to the Australia Council today, it is important that the museums and heritage sectors can meet at the federal and State/Territory levels: to discuss issues of major importance, to collaborate in resolving common concerns, and to work together on joint projects and implement initiatives that will advance the museum and heritage sectors further on a national scale of cooperation.
Social, cultural and identity capital supported by museums and galleries
3. Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO, 17 October 2003. As at 7 October 2010, 133 states had ratified the Intangible Heritage Convention, with Australia still to provide its endorsement and commitment to implementation formally. For further information consult the UNESCO website at: http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/ index.php?lg=en&pg=00006.
Museums and their collections encompass social, cultural and identity capital for the benefit of all Australians. Social capital is based on the relationship between people and the importance of civic traditions that foster bonds of shared experience and cooperation. A further source and reference-point of social capital is the notion of a civil society, entailing recognition of how museums reinforce public values and consolidate our shared histories, acting as instruments of social cohesion by illuminating the development over time of social issues impacting on communities. Cultural capital is embedded in museum collections and the objects and items on display, including in temporary and travelling exhibitions. It is evidenced in how visitors interact with exhibitions, public programs and related education initiatives; these are vital programs delivered by museums, whether they be in situ or, increasingly, as virtual experiences. Identity capital is derived from the close and positive linkage between cultural expressions and the development of individual and social identities as people progress through life. The concept recognises that positive identity formation for individuals and groups is an important dynamic in promoting social solidarity and a sense of shared history. It embraces both intangible and tangible heritage, and the role of cultural expressions is crucial throughout these processes.
Australian responsibilities for heritage under international conventions and treaties Australia has generally supported the 2003 UNESCO Convention on the protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage[3] and is likely to ratify the Convention formally in the near future. Thereafter federal cultural agencies will be required to report to UNESCO in future years on their work in promoting and securing the intangible heritage of Australians through community and other programs. Museums, galleries and heritage sites and agencies provide crucial public resources in supporting these broader policy objectives of cultural development by government and non-government bodies alike.
Unlocking museums’ rich resources and expanding access Collectively social, cultural and identity capital have a significant impact on museum visitors encountering physical displays in situ – and increasingly, through immersive visual experiences accompanying collections and exhibitions presented both physically and virtually. While museums acquire objects and collections and then preserve and conserve them, as well as document and organise them for access, curators and other staff compile rich, authoritative and voluminous data-sets of objects and collections information for presentation in exhibitions, and for interpretation by scholars, specialist researchers and members of the public alike. Institutions are now drawing on this expanding body of rich knowledge in more innovative ways, in the context of generating exhibitions and publications aimed at broad and diverse audiences. Through socially interactive platforms, museums are increasingly enabling audiences to make their own interpretations of collections, even their own exhibitions from e-resources around Australia’s public collections and heritage. There is ever more urgent pressure on museums to ‘unlock their knowledge banks’ – the multi-layered contextual information, knowledge, and documentation relating to their collections and associated records. Importantly the role of museums is to be both custodians and stewards of these immensely valuable and significant collections, and to make them accessible as widely as possible to our audiences, both nationally and internationally.
Sustainability and survival of communitybased historical collections and museums In an era of declining resources (in view of tighter government budgets), increased expectations on the part of audiences, a proliferation of smaller and more individualised organisations, and regrettably an aging membership of volunteer-dependent bodies, many historical societies and community-based museums face questions about their survival. This is an issue
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 11
right:
Poster for international museums day 2011 for download from ICOM website.
that Museums Australia needs to address in collaboration with state and territory branches and chapters. It is crucial that we work together to save our local historical societies and local and community-based museums, and that we overcome many of the divides that exist across the museums sector between wellresourced institutions in metropolitan centres and the often languishing condition of many collections and small institutions that constitute our national heritage in regional and remote communities.
INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM DAY
JOURNÉE INTERNATIONALE DES MUSÉES
DÍA INTERNACIONAL DE LOS MUSEOS
18 MAY MAI MAYO 2011
MUSEUM AND MEMORY MUSÉE ET MÉMOIRE MUSEO Y MEMORIA
International Museum Day (18 May) Finally I draw everyone’s attention to this year’s International Museum Day, 18 May 2011, the day celebrated by ICOM (International Council of Museums) and the hugely diverse museums sector internationally. Many countries, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, make celebration of this day a major event for their museums sector, and some even organise their annual conference or national sectoral gathering around the event – Malaysia, for example, has done so for many years. On advice from its Advisory Council, ICOM changes the theme each year for International Museum Day. For 2011 the theme is the highly resonant one of Museum and Memory. The ICOM Secretariat in Paris now prepares special publicity material around each IMD theme annually, to provide print-ready images and publicity materials that all colleague institutions may draw upon around the world in celebrating museums and enhancing the profile of museums’ service to social development in all countries. Members are directed for download of these prepared resources to the ICOM Secretariat and website at: http://icom.museum/what-we-do/activities/international-museum-day/imd-2011.html [ ] Dr Darryl McIntyre FAIM National President, Museums Australia
* Stop press news: Just before going to press for this issue of the national Magazine, MA learned of the Cultural Ministers Council decision to cease funding of CAN on 28 February 2011, with operation of the facility to cease a week prior to this date. Museums Australia regrets this announcement, and joins in thanking colleagues present and past at Collections Australia Network, located in the Powerhouse Museum in recent years. Tribute is due to this long-standing digital platform, network and service to Australia’s cultural sector, which grew out of Australian Museums on Line (AMOL), developed by Museums Australia in the 1990s.
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12 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Australia Day Honours recognising museums and galleries
Australia Day honours recognising colleagues’ service to the museums sector and communities
Trust in 1994, and in this role led a major development and fundraising program for the Museum, for a building project designed by Norman Foster. Since becoming Director and CEO of the National Gallery of Victoria, Dr Vaughan has been responsible for a redevelopment program involving two separate building complexes: The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square; and NGV International in St Kilda Road. Since the relaunch of the NGV, an ambitious exhibitions program – presenting both International and Australian art – has been undertaken, and NGV has recently launched a major endowment campaign for the collection, to be completed for the NGV’s 150th anniversary in 2011. Dr Vaughan is an Honorary Professor of the University of Melbourne, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a Fellow of the Humanities Academy of Australia, and a Member of the Advisory Council of the Asia Society: AustralAsia Centre. He was Chairman of the Council of Australian Art Museum Directors in 2002-04. Dr Vaughan was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on Australia Day, 26 January 2011 for ‘service to the arts, particularly as the Director of the National Gallery of Victoria through administration, promotion and development of programs, as a scholar and educator, and as a fundraiser.’
Dr Gerard Vaughan AM, FSA, FAHA, CIHA Dr Gerard Vaughan, appointed Director of the National Gallery of Victoria in 1999, is an art historian with extensive experience within the international art and museum worlds. His research interests are particularly concerned with the history of taste and art collecting in the 18th and 19th centuries, ranging from neo-classicism to post-impressionism. After completing his Master’s thesis at Melbourne University on French post-impressionism, Dr Vaughan taught art history at Melbourne University before undertaking doctoral research at Oxford University from 1981. For fifteen years from 1983, Dr Vaughan was the London-based adviser to the Felton Bequests’ Committee, and during the 1980s held several positions at Oxford University while completing his doctorate on the collecting of classical antiquities in 18th century England. From 1989-1991, Dr Vaughan served as Private Secretary to the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University. During the early 1990s he was Deputy Director of Campaign for Oxford University, at the time the most successful fundraising program undertaken in Europe, securing $AUD 1 billion. He became Director of the British Museum Development
Roger Butler AM Roger Butler is Senior Curator of Australian Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Australia. He joined the National Gallery of Australia in 1981 as the inaugural Curator of Australian Prints, Posters and Illustrated Books. The Department was amalgamated with that of Australian Drawings, Watercolours and Sketchbooks in 1997. During his years at the National Gallery, Roger has established the foremost collection of prints, posters and book arts of the Australasian region. The
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 13
collection now numbers over 37,000 prints from Australia (including Aboriginal Australia), Aotearoa New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. The Drawing collection encompasses more than 30,000 works, including watercolours and artists’ sketchbooks. Roger Butler is the initiator and has been the convenor of the Australian Print Symposiums held at the National Gallery every three years since 1989. In 1997 he initiated the WEB access project <http://www. australianprints.gov.au>; in 2001, the Gordon Darling Fellowship for the study of Australasian Prints; and in 2002, the Gordon Darling Graduate Internship. All are key initiatives in making the Australian print collection at the National Gallery widely known and accessible. In the area of exhibitions and publications, Roger Butler has written widely on Australian prints, curated exhibitions and lectured on his subject area as well as participating in arts organisations. Major exhibitions and publications include Thea Proctor: the prints, with Jan Minchin (1981); The prints of Margaret Preston (1987, revised 2005); Poster art in Australia (1995); Sydney by Design: wood and linocuts by Sydney women artists between the wars (1995); The Europeans: Emigré artists in Australia 1930–60 (1997); Islands in the sun: Prints by Indigenous artists of Australia and the Australasian region (2001); Place made: Australian Print Workshop (2004); and in 2007, The story of Australian printmaking 1801–2005 and its associated publications, Printed images in colonial Australia 1801–1901, and Printed images by Australian artists 1885–1955. Beyond the National Gallery, Roger has presented exhibitions of Australian prints in all states of Australia as well as in Thailand, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, Aotearoa New Zealand and New Caledonia. On Australia Day, 26 January 2011, Roger Butler was honoured by his appointment as a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia ‘For service to the visual arts’.
Edith Cuffe OAM Edith Cuffe has been Chief Executive Officer of the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology at Caboolture, Queensland, since 1995. Leading the museum, she has maintained outstanding enthusiasm and dedication in her work as a volunteer head of this organisation – one of Australia’s many small museums that are entirely volunteer-supported and managed. As Event Coordinator of the annual Abbey Medieval Festival since 1995, an event that also serves as the major fundraiser for the Abbey Museum, Edith has steered a festival that incorporates the largest medieval re-enactment event in Australia. It attracted more than 25,000 people in 2010, which included representatives of 35 medieval groups as well as hundreds of arts performers and craftspersons. Edith has extended her volunteer service to numerous arts-based community projects and committees in her area (for example, the Caboolture Shire Community Cultural Development Group; the Regional Arts Development Fund, Caboolture Shire; and an Art Acquisition Advisory Panel, supporting purchase of artworks for the local council collection). In the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology, Edith has developed and implemented innovative educational programs based on the school curriculum, to provide hands-on experience for youth learners – for example, the senior Archaeological Dig program and Time Travellers (Dig Egypt and Dig The Middle Ages) events for primary schools. She has also recently developed a Heritage Trail, ‘Middens of Moreton Bay’, to help educate junior school students about Aboriginal culture in Australia. Edith Cuffe was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) on Australia Day, 26 January 2011, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the museums and galleries sector of the visual arts and to the community of the Caboolture region’ in Queensland. [ ]
14 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Regional report roundup
Disasters affecting Australia’s heritage and collections 1
Exterior of Charlton Golden Grains Museum, Charlton, Victoria, after flood peak. Photo taken by Paul Bartlett, a CFA volunteer undertaking evacuations.
2
Pumping water from under Charlton Golden Grains Museum. High water mark is visible on the organ. Photo: Carolyn Olive.
3-4 Charlton Golden Grains Museum’s research room. CGGM lost many maps located in the map drawers. 5
Holbrook Submarine Museum, Holbrook, NSW. Photo: Roger Cooper.
6
National Museum of Australian Pottery, Holbrook, NSW.
7
Rockhampton & District Historical Society, Queensland, located in the North Rockhampton Borough Chambers, showing just how close the waters were during the floods. Photo: Drew Wickerson of Wickerson Designs, reproduced with his permssion.
8-9 The Cardwell and District Historical Society (CDHS), Queensland, had lost its roof and many external windows were broken. The ceiling (substantial pine tongue-andgroove) had collapsed into the display area, leaving many broken display cases, water damage and objects exposed to the continuing rain and wind. Photo: Ewen McPhee, Museum Development Officer, North Queensland, Museum of Tropical Queensland. Reproduced with permission of Ewen McPhee and Cardwell Historical Society.
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10 Stephanie Berger sweeps outside the CDHS, Cardwell. Photo: Ewen McPhee. 11 Objects are salvaged under the supervision of the Cassowary Coast Council who own the CDHS building, Cardwell.
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12 Queensland Maritime Museum, Brisbane. Photo: ACK Images. Reproduced with permission of Queensland Maritime Museum
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 15
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16 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Regional report roundup
Disasters affecting Australia’s heritage and collections Tropical Cyclone Yasi and its impact on far north Queensland
above:
Severe damage from Tropical Cyclone Yasi to the Cardwell and District Historical Society.
Because the disasters and emergency responses in Queensland are so extensive and still evolving, we rely primarily on visual images to convey the scope of the situation our Queensland colleagues are dealing with. Many Museums Australia members will have seen on television screens the coverage of the extensive damage that occurred in a number of far north Queensland towns such as Cardwell, Tully, Port Hinchinbrook, and some minor damage in Cairns and Townsville. These communities are used to the impact of cyclones, but not on the scale of damage caused by Tropical Cyclone Yasi (category 5). With flooding recurring or continuing in these cyclone-affected areas – in far western Queensland, central Australia and now parts of Victoria – we are still waiting to learn what damage has occurred to museums, galleries, libraries and cultural centres in these communities. It is possible that a number of institutions escaped damage at all. As a member of the Cairns Historical Society, the Mareeba Historical Society and the Eacham Historical Society – since I have an interest in the history of these communities, and have written articles and papers on the Atherton Tableland and a book on Townsville during World War II – I have not been advised so far of any damage to these societies, their museums or collections. It is likely however that the historical societies and community-based museums in Tully, Cardwell, Port Hinchinbrook and Mission Beach have suffered extensive damage, since these centres bore the full impact of the cyclone as it passed through their communities. The Cardwell Historical Society has already supplied MA with graphic images of the devastation to their museum caused by TC Yasi. The Queensland State Museum has a number of regional museum officers who are based in the affected communities as well as in the field. These are crucially located staff, who can directly report on and assist the societies and museums whose buildings, collections and facilities have been damaged substantially by the cyclone and floods. Blue Shield Australia (the Australian national committee of the International Committee of the Blue Shield), the Queensland Museums and Galleries Service, and the Royal Historical Society of Queensland (of which I am also a member) will be closely monitoring the situation in these cyclone-affected communities and provide us with an update on the situation and the scale of damage that has occurred. Any damaged museums, historical societies, libraries, galleries and cultural centres are eligible to apply for financial assistance to rebuild their facilities and conserve their damaged collections. The federal government introduced its flood levy legislation into Parliament on 8 February, and it will be interesting to see whether the legislation gains adequate support to be passed. At the time of writing immediately afterwards: the debate over the legislation might take some days, since the legislation must also go to the Senate for
consideration and be put to the vote there as well. We are keeping Museums Australia members updated on the situation in far north Queensland and elsewhere both on the MA website (with links to the Blue Shield Australia website) and through our e-Bulletins. Hopefully the scale of the damage will not be too extensive, damaged facilities can be repaired soon, and most collections that have suffered damage can be conserved as quickly as possible. Dr Darryl McIntyre, President of Museums Australia, has had a long-term interest in the histories of many of the affected communities in Queensland. Citation for this report: Dr Darryl McIntyre, ‘Tropical Cyclone Yasi and its impact on far north Queensland’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Feb. 2011, pp.16.
Disaster preparedness and response in NSW Since September last year, New South Wales has been experiencing extremely wet conditions with floods occurring in various parts of the state, and 77 councils have declared natural disaster zones since 1 December 2010. An extreme weather event on 15 October in the Riverina area led to flooding in many towns in the Riverina and south-west slopes regions, including Adelong, Holbrook, Lockhart, Tumbarumba and Wagga Wagga. Lockhart received 200 mm of rain over three days, on top of floodwaters from the Brookong creek and other local waterways. This led to major flooding of the town centre, including Green’s Gunyah Museum, where water ran through the museum at a height of up to a metre. The waters rose rapidly, leaving the museum volunteers with little time to move the collection before they had to leave. The flood’s force coursing through the museum was great enough to push over a chest freezer, dropping several textile boxes into the water. Several large, heavy timber and metal objects were knocked over, as were bottles on low shelves. Much of the museum’s institutional records and paper-based collection items on low shelves and filing cabinets were water damaged. The museum’s carpets and many older showcases were damaged beyond repair. With the waters receding as quickly as they had risen, volunteers were able to start the clean up process on the following morning. Libby Newell, Museum Advisor, joined them with supplies of paper towel and other materials that were running low in the town. Further assistance came from the Museum of the Riverina, which sent staff as well as equipment, including ‘damp monitors’ and fans. The museum quickly set up a salvage operation – with areas set aside for air drying and cleaning. Despite homes being flooded throughout the town, there was an incredible response from the community, with many turning up to give a few hours each day to help out. This has really buoyed spirits within the museum and reinforced the place of the museum within the town.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 17
above:
Exterior of Greens Gunyah Museum (Lockhart and District Historical Society) in Lockhart, NSW, during the flood in October 2010. Photo: Cheryl Gowland.
Further flooding occurred in the region in early December. The Wagga Wagga Regional Gallery received warning that the institution was likely to be flooded, and staff immediately put their disaster preparedness plan into action. The entire collection, including items on exhibition, was removed to the Charles Sturt Regional Archives for safe keeping, and the gallery closed down. On impact, the lower exhibitions and storage areas were flooded, but the collection was not damaged. The gallery remained closed for five days to allow time to check electrical wiring and clean up water-affected spaces. Unfortunately the parquetry flooring of the lower floor has been badly damaged, and that space will remain closed whilst repairs to the lower floor are undertaken. Upper gallery spaces and the separate glass gallery have all returned to public access. In response to these events, and the general flooding that was occurring from the Orana region in the north through to the Riverina and Murray regions in the south, M&GNSW decided to focus on disaster preparedness and response at our biannual Museum Advisors meeting in December 2010. Museum Advisors Libby Newell and Vanessa Keenan spoke about experiences in Lockhart and Tumut Shires respectively, and Julia Davies, Outreach Officer with the Museum of the Riverina, gave a broader perspective on the Riverina region. Tamara Lavrencic, Collections Manager with the Historic Houses Trust, provided an overview of the HHT’s approach to disaster preparedness and response. Kay Süderlund, from Preservation Australia, spoke of the recently formed HEART (Heritage Emergency Action and Response) program of the Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material (AICCM). The day provided a timely opportunity to share experiences and new approaches to the topic, and a summary of the outcomes can be found on M&GNSW’s blog <http://mgnsw.blogspot.com>. While floods have had a serious direct impact only on two cultural institutions, flooding across the state has had an impact on many museum and gallery communities. Museum Advisors have had to delay visits while adverse weather has prevented travel, and M&GNSW postponed an event in Dubbo in early December, since flooding was preventing many delegates from reaching the event. At various times between October 2010 and February 2011 communities have been isolated by floodwaters, putting a strain on already stretched resources, not to mention the damage to local crops and businesses. The community response in Lockhart, and the prompt action taken in Wagga Wagga, show how disaster preparedness does pay off. No doubt this is reflected across the country with the prompt response of many to such widespread disasters, greatly reducing their impact on our distributed national collection. Sarah-Jane Rennie is the Manager of Sector Development at Museums and Galleries New South Wales. Citation for this report: Sarah-Jane Rennie, ‘Disaster preparedness and response in NSW’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Feb. 2011, pp.17.
Museums Australia (Vic) – flood responses Victorian museums have been deeply affected by the floods both in January and February, with some museums, particularly in central Victoria, still recovering from flood events in 2010. Up to 100 museums across metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria have been directly affected. To date, the Charlton Golden Grains Museum has been severely affected and awarded the maximum amount of disaster response funding from Arts Victoria, part of the Victorian Department of Premier and Cabinet, with a further three requests under consideration. Many more museums have been indirectly affected due to the devastating effects of flood in communities, with staff and volunteers in some areas unable to operate museums while reparation works are done on their homes and civic buildings. The MA (Vic) team has pledged support via phone calls and site visits to affected museums, as well as coordinating the list of museums in affected areas. Support efforts continue between us and the peak bodies, including the Public Galleries Association of Victoria, Royal Historical Society of Victoria, AICCM and Blue Shield Australia, and state cultural organisations – these being Museum Victoria, the National Gallery of Victoria, State Library of Victoria, Public Records Office Victoria and Australian Centre for the Moving Image. MA (Vic) is enormously grateful to colleagues in peak bodies and state institutions – in particular the Public Records Office Victoria and the Ballarat Collections Network – for donating storage and archival materials, specialist advice and elbow grease to museums just when help was needed. We thank Arts Victoria for their Disaster Funding initiative, and industry supporters who provided storage materials and freezer space for wet items. We must also acknowledge the large number of amazing neighbours who quietly pitched in to sandbag buildings, move precious treasures to higher ground or secure storage, and have been helping our communities get back to normal. The MA (Vic) team has also worked via peak body networks to offer support to colleagues in Queensland and Perth affected by flood and fire respectively. For more details about the Victorian flood response and available support, see MA (Vic)’s special webpage for updates: <www.mavic.asn.au/disaster-response> or phone 03 8341 7344 (Regional Freecall 1800 680 082). [] Laura Miles is Executive Director of MA (Vic). She is a former science journalist with experience in media relations, media training, event management and not-for-profit associations. She was a founding director of <www.alphagalileo.org>. Citation for this report: Laura Miles, ‘Museums Australia (Vic) flood response’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Feb. 2011, pp. 17.
18 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Preserving Brisbane’s built heritage
The Commissariat Store, Brisbane, damaged by a burst water main during the Brisbane floods
Ruth Kerr
E above: top:
Ruth Kerr
William Street side of the Commissariat Store showing street on left and collapsed retaining wall. Photo: Ruth Kerr.
arly in the morning of 13 January 2011 in Brisbane, a water main below the William Street footpath burst on the William Street side of the Commissariat Store building at 115 William Street – threatening one of the two buildings in Queensland surviving from the 1820s. The masonry-constructed Store, dating from 1829, is home and headquarters for the Royal Historical Society of Queensland (RHSQ) and a vital component of Queensland’s rare built heritage from the colonial period. The explosive lateral force of the water took out the 1890 concrete retaining wall of the Commissariat Store; this in turn caused the collapse of the convictbuilt retaining wall at the rear, situated well below the William Street level. Falling debris punched a hole in the back wall of the ground floor of the Store itself, to the right of the building as viewed from the street. Fortunately, no water entered the Store, however there is mud right through the yard from the burst water main and rubble strewed on the ground floor. There can be no access to the property from William Street until the footpath and retaining wall are made good. There appears to be no structural damage to the actual Store building itself, and the Department of
Public Works (as landlord) moved at once to stabilise the middle floor by shoring the supporting beam – itself not damaged, but subsiding slightly with its own support gone at one end near the rear wall. In the first critical days RHSQ President, Carolyn Nolan, conservation architect and RHSQ member, Donald Watson, and other colleagues met with Chief Architect, Tom Fussell, of the Department of Public Works, and Jinx Miles, conservation architect, who has been appointed by the Queensland government to oversee heritage issues. Stonemasons were soon assigned to repair work, and security guards covered the area round the clock. Meanwhile the State Archivist, Janet Prowse, readily provided great assistance from the public records side, enabling due consultation of our archival resources and historical memory. Within a short time it was possible to report that there was no damage to any of the Society’s collection, and everything in the building was secure. Katy Law and Ruth Kerr ensured that a strong visual record of the damage was captured in photographs, which were quickly shared by email, via Facebook and on the RHSQ website. The Royal Australian Historical Society, a key colleague body, has also featured the event on their RAHS website. While no presence inside the Store is possible for some weeks, the RHSQ is meanwhile maintaining
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 19
right:
Inside of ground floor of Commissariat Store showing hole punched in wall and part of the retaining wall intruding and stones from the wall on the floor. Photo: Ruth Kerr.
far right:
The collapsed 1890 retaining wall and the fence against the ground floor wall of the Commissariat Store. Photo: Ruth Kerr.
its operations as usual. The office has partially moved on a temporary basis into National Trust House, 95 William Street; telephone connections have been diverted; and administration is proceeding normally from this interim nerve-centre. There will be substitute venues provided for scheduled lectures and ‘At Home’ events to maintain normal activities – thanks to the generous support of several organisations. Meanwhile the Bulletin and the Queensland History Journal continue to be produced and sent out as usual. Advice received at this stage is that our collections should stay where they are in the Store; data loggers, and subsequently dehumidifiers, have been installed there to record humidity and temperature and prevent any deterioration to the collections. Queensland State Archives has meanwhile been regularly updated – since they had offered to store any flood-damaged items should this prove necessary. In terms of ensuring a good flow of public information: all RHSQ members on email have been informed of the events in two News announcements. The FAHS delegates and several other history organisations have been similarly informed. Information has meanwhile been reported at two teleconferences of Blue Shield Australia’s ‘pillar’ members and colleagues in January. Ironically, the Commissariat Store was not affected by the flood in the Brisbane River. The river water only came to the back gate on Queen’s Wharf Road.
Statement of Significance for the Commissariat Store The Commissariat Store beside the Brisbane River in central Brisbane dates from 1828, when construction began. It was completed in 1829, and is a highly significant convict-built building. The Store initially provided food and clothing for convicts and military personnel. It demonstrates the evolution of Queensland, being one of only two extant buildings surviving from the Moreton Bay penal settlement, and for over 130 years it was used as a government store. The Store is a rare survivor of a convict structure and the second oldest extant building in Queensland (the Windmill being the other building). The Commissariat Store is one of four such commissariat buildings in Australia. It shows evidence of early building construction techniques and use of local materials.
The Commissariat Store, yard and Miller Park have potential to yield further information through archaeological investigation about the convict period. The Commissariat Store is a good example of a colonial warehouse of the period, and features solid stone walling, with robust timber framing internally. The building’s symmetry, proportions, hipped roof and small eaves reflect several key characteristics of Old Colonial Georgian architectural style. In its simplicity and detail, the utilitarian structure has a symmetry that is aesthetically pleasing. The top floor of a different fabric is sympathetic to the two older storeys, and preserves the integrity of architect Kempster’s original design. Its historic styling, solid masonry walling and streetscape values are meanwhile part of its aesthetic characteristics. The Commissariat Store is listed on the Queensland Heritage Register, the Brisbane City Council Heritage Register, the Register of the National Estate and the National Trust Register. The Society believes it should be on the National Heritage Register as well. [] Dr Ruth Kerr OAM is an experienced professional historian; a public servant in agriculture policy in Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (QLD); and has been involved in the historical society movement in Queensland for several decades. Ruth is currently Hon Secretary and has been President of both the Royal Historical Society of Queensland and the Federation of Australian Historical Societies. Citation for this article: Ruth Kerr, ‘The Commissariat Store, Brisbane, damaged by a burst water main during the Brisbane floods’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, February 2011, pp.18-19.
20 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
‘First We See’ Report – The potential of visual education in the national curriculum
First We See... Visual learning and ‘visuacy’
T
he following article on a National Review of Visual Education in Australia (2008) is provided by the coordinator and final author of the Review, Dr Diana Davis. The work of a distinguished Australian artist, Peter Tyndall, is introduced as providing a parallel commentary (not illustrations) to this important review, and the discussion of its findings. Peter Tyndall’s work is particularly rich in dialogue with Diana Davis’s article, since his own work has for many years explored the complex questions of visual understanding, visualisation and recognition of works of art. Museums Australia thanks Peter Tyndall for permission to include his work in this context – and readers are advised of further material accessible in his bLogspot at <http://bLOGOS-HAHA.blogspot.com>. [Ed./BM]
left:
TYNDALL, Peter
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA (Portrait of the Viewer at the Moment of Enlightenment)
right:
TYNDALL, Peter
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA
Diana Davis
S
cientists and engineers, historians, writers, artists and mathematicians typically take for granted the capacity to see and to hear. Most people, after all, are born with two functioning eyes and ears. But does the possession of two ears mean that one is able to listen? Does the possession of two eyes necessarily confer on one the capacity to see across all dimensions? To what extent might specific disciplinary training even serve to create blinkers to seeing? The recent report, First We See (2008), poses a range of questions in this regard.
Extracts from First We See. Report of the National Review of Visual Education (author: Diana Davis), 2008. Why does Rolls Royce send its engineering trainees to spend a week at Tate Liverpool? The answer is that the company wanted to create ‘a new model for learning’, which integrated: … [the] acquisition of technical skills with the development of personal, critical and creative thinking skills through engagement with the work of artists…. The training sessions established a direct link between the processes applied in the work of engineers and those used in developing artists’ practice. Rolls Royce wanted to develop participants’ creative thinking skills, enhance trainees’ confidence, communication and project management skills and increase their understanding of modern and contemporary art. [1] Neil Fowkes, Rolls-Royce Learning Delivery Manager, stresses the importance of the program in meeting some of the trainees’ development needs through ‘using art as an exploration vehicle for developing the creativity and innovation we need in the business world.’ [2] Why is the Twenty-Seventh Avenue Solid Waste Management Facility and Recycling Center in Phoenix, Arizona, both a tourist attraction and source of city pride? The answer is that, when the facility
was in the design stage, the city’s chief of works was dissatisfied with the design submitted by the engineers, so he commissioned two artists: … [who] came up with their own design for the $18 million facility, a plan that separated trucks from cars and rerouted traffic so that it progressed in a grand one-way loop around the site, rising from a desert landscape to the height of the building. They relocated the building to allow for dramatic views of it and from it – and to allow winds to carry the smell of garbage away.[3] Their more economic plan was adopted and realised through teaming the artists with engineers and architects. The artists’ concept was to turn the out of sight, out of mind approach to garbage on its head: Every element of our design contributes to the idea of transformation, reclamation, educating the public towards issues of waste, the need to recycle, [and] the relationship of the building to the landscape around it . . . [I]t was a great opportunity to provide vistas so people could see the city (where the garbage comes from) and its effect, if it is not recycled, on the natural environment, which is also in clear view.[4] The result was that Public Works Director Mark Leonard later argued that the inclusion of artists on design teams is ‘imperative for waste management projects’: A lot of us in the industry look at things in a certain
1. Cited in Diana Davis, First We See. Report of the National Review of Visual Education. Australian Government: Australia Council and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra, 2008. The particular case reference can be accessed at: <08businessconnect. com/Resources/ b/6/b6e3f576-927c4082-aa24-20e8232e2eac.pdf> 2 ibid. See:<http://www.rolls-royce. com/community/community/tate. jsp> 3 ibid. Temin, 1994 – see References. 4 ibid. Singer interview, Finkelpearl, 2000 (References). See further at <http://greenmuseum.org/generic_ content.php?ct_id=238>.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 21
5 ibid. (Interview for First We See report.) See <http://greenmuseum. org/generic_content.php?ct_id=239> 6 ibid. Graddy (2007), References; and see:http://greenmuseum.org/generic_ content.php?ct_id=238> 7 ibid. Liedtka (2006:18). References. 1. Endnotes 8 ibid. Wind (2006). References. 9 ibid. Wind (2006), p.23 10 ibid. Costantoura (2001), p.431. See References. 11 First We See report , op.cit., pp.1-3.
way . . . [but] artists come in, and they look at it differently. They look at ways that you can design a facility differently, or accomplish environmental or ecological education from a point of view that is broader and has many more components to it than, in my opinion, any of us professionals would ever achieve. They look at a way that it could be done that could attract [the public] more, be of more interest to people, that will be . . . more beneficial to the operation, and we’re living proof of that. [5] In both cases above, the visual problem-solving perspective was seen to be a critical dimension to success and advancement. S.E. Graddy, in a 2007 study of ‘Art, Ecology, and Community’, examined a number of such projects and, concluded that Creative thinkers, working with organizations or on their own, have created unique programs and artworks that show the potential art [and artists] have to creatively transform problems into opportunities.[6] The application of creative habits of mind is far-reaching and potentially exponentially developmental for a country like Australia, which – being yet too young to rely on a rich national tradition – has the open-mindedness to innovate. Jeanne Liedtka…asks (2006) what might happen ‘If Managers Thought like Designers’ and argues that design is the secret weapon for competition in the 21st century: ‘Great design occurs at the intersection of constraint, contingency, and possibility’[7]
Developing from Rishel’s dictum that ‘Artistic creation is ahead of the curve – it creates the curve’, Y. Wind identifies the reality that: [T]he challenge is much broader than encouraging innovation; it lies in cultivating a creative approach and curiosity in life and work, challenging and testing our current mental models, and engaging in active experimentation with new mindsets and approaches.[8] And Wind further acknowledges that: This individual creativity is at the heart of the creative leadership that will drive new ideas in our organizations and throughout society.[9] This view shows a marked shift from the past, when art was regarded as the province of only the talented élite. Indeed a Saatchi and Saatchi Report (2001) found that the majority of Australians would like to see a democratisation and demystification of the arts, including recognition of ‘the ‘little a’ arts’…. the ‘modern’ arts [which] help us to push the boundaries of our thinking and enjoy creativity that suits our lives today’.[10] Certainly ‘the ubiquity of the visual in all areas of contemporary society points overwhelmingly to the reality that this represents a 21st century skill area so fundamentally important that Australia must ensure that no child leaves school without it.’ [11]
22 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
‘First We See’ Report –The potential of visual education in the national curriculum
First We See is the report that resulted in 2008 from a National Review of Visual Education. The impetus for this Review was foregrounded by the view of peak body NAVA (the Sydney-based National Association for the Visual Arts) that there is at least some degree of mismatch between the visual education provisions in Australian education and emergent societal realities.
left:
TYNDALL, Peter
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA (Sunflower gatherers with projection-space)
The NRVE Review (First We See): context and intent Commissioned by the Australia Council, the Review’s conduct was the result of an innovative partnership between three key government arts and education agencies over two years. The primary aims of the Review were to: • provide a preliminary overview of national and international visual education research; • map the curriculum for visual education in Australian schools and how it is implemented; • identify the elements of best practice in the delivery of visual education; • analyse the current provision of teacher education (pre-service and in-service) for visual arts, craft, design and visual communication; and to use these data to • develop options for strategic actions related to visual education for consideration by Government, educational bodies and providers, and other groups with an interest in this field. In pursuing these aims, a number of key questions were addressed as follows: • What is the significance of visual education that is different from the arguments for arts education in general? • What is the current situation in Australian schools? • What is the national and international experience? • What are the major issues/concerns? • What are the knowledge gaps/future research needs? • What works well? • What might we do to move towards an ideal?
Key findings in relation to schools The national review found that visual education does have potency and significance that distinguish it clearly from the other arts. While at one level the arguments for arts education per se are obviously applicable, the fundamentals associated with visual learning, communication and response are so ubiquitous in the 21st century that their demands are at least on a par with the curriculum stalwarts of literacy and numeracy.
‘Visuacy’ In essence the Review found that the traditional basics are no longer sufficient to equip students to operate effectively in the innovation oriented, digitally wired ‘age of images’. The report argues that, in order to encapsulate this area as part of a new triumvirate of basics, an overarching concept is needed. This resulted in the term visuacy which is defined as the ability to create, process, critique and appreciate the spectrum of visual phenomena in the individual’s external and internal environment.[12] The findings of the national review raise a number of areas for concern. 1. The ‘Arts’ – typically comprising Dance, Drama, Music and Visual Education – are one of eight learning areas in the curriculum for the compulsory years of schooling in all States and Territories. While since the publication of the Review, the then-Arts Minister, Peter Garrett, and all members of the Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) reached a subsequent agreement to include visual
12 ibid., p.11
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 23
and performing arts in the second phase of the development of the national curriculum (Garrett, April 17, 2009), this new goal remains the good news in prospect only. It is yet to be realised. The current reality meanwhile, according to the national review, is that … if one assumes that the four main Arts disciplines are accorded equal time in the curriculum, Visual Arts would have, in New South Wales, between 22.5 and 37.5 minutes per week, and in Queensland 35.7 minutes. If Media were to be included in the Arts area, as is the case in some States/Territories, this allocation would be reduced. [13] This means, of course, that any program of visitation to a museum or gallery would require creative timetabling over some weeks – as well as co-operation from peers – to have any chance of happening at all. 2. At the junior secondary level the Arts are often scheduled en bloc for, say, half a semester – so that a student might choose any two of the four or five arts options over a semester. In the next semester, a similar smorgasbord of foreign languages might be offered. This kind of programming offers even the most dedicated teacher relatively few options in terms of breadth – or depth – of content exploration. At the senior secondary school level during the period 1996 to 2006, fewer than 6 per cent of students studied any visual education subject at all. 3. An overarching problem besetting visual education (and this may also apply to the other arts) has been the perception that its purpose is to train artists rather than to educate all students visually. In the compulsory years of schooling, its role should be to achieve visuacy for all students in the same way that Mathematics aims to achieve numeracy and English to achieve literacy. 4. A further problem is that current visual education inputs at the primary level would seem to be minimal, given an average recommended weekly time-allocation of between 22.5 and 37.5 minutes per week. Such an allocation would seem to pose considerable challenges to teachers who strive to achieve a balance between the key areas of making/ creating, responding/appreciating, and analysing/appraising, as recommended in visual education curriculum frameworks. 5. It is also problematic that the Arts curriculum framework in most States/Territories does not differentiate between the visual and performing arts, with the potential for a one size fits all philosophy to drive classroom implementation. Furthermore, there appear to be no mechanisms in place to ensure that
an individual teacher’s penchant for one Arts discipline does not privilege that discipline at the expense of others. 6. An additional issue is that the Arts appear to exist in isolation from other curriculum groupings; they seem also to subsist at the bottom of the curriculum hierarchy. One manifestation of this is the apparent lack of the specialist physical facilities necessary to support the balance implicit in the visual education curriculum – more than 75 per cent of responding primary schools indicated that visual education takes place in a general purpose classroom. Of respondent secondary schools, it appears that in only half of these is visual education available to all students.
The fundamentals associated with visual learning, communication and response are so ubiquitous in the 21st century that their demands are at least on a par with the curriculum stalwarts of literacy and numeracy. The data relating to teacher expertise, meanwhile, shows that, across all sectors of schooling at the primary level, visual education is dominantly the responsibility of the classroom generalist teacher. Whilst a discipline specialist is the norm at the secondary level, the number of participating students is commensurately lower. Across all secondary schools responding to the Review, it must be noted that less than 50 per cent of these schools indicated that all students were provided with visual education.
]
Involvement of external providers in visual education Schools were requested to indicate the involvement of categories of individuals/organisations in the provision of visual education in their schools. Fewer than 25 per cent indicated the involvement of external organisations or providers, the category in which it might be expected that museums and galleries would feature. However there were State/Territory differences in that more than half of the respondent schools in NSW, Victoria and South Australia reported some level of partnership with an art gallery or facility.
13 ibid., pp.98-99.
24 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
‘First We See’ Report –The potential of visual education in the national curriculum
Teacher education
left:
TYNDALL, Peter
detail
The Review’s findings suggested that discipline-related offerings in teacher education programs were neither extensive nor compulsory:
A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA with PUPPET CULTURE FRAMING SYSTEM
The dominant discipline category … [appears to be] Studio Practice in which the major aim is to develop student teachers’ practical skills, knowledge, confidence and capacity in order to help them value art in education and for them to acquire some basic art skills. The design of such units is predicated on knowledge and experience of entering teacher education students’ arts experience. There is also evidence that considerable emphasis in such units is placed on the reduction of ‘art anxiety’ in students (Genever, 1996). A number of writers in the area (e.g., Jeanneret, Brown, Bird, Sinclair, Imms, Watkins and Donelan (2006)) observe that ‘many pre-service primary teachers have had negative prior experiences with the arts’ and that ‘… unpacking the baggage” that comes with the students is almost as important in some cases as acquiring knowledge and skills associated with the discipline’ (Jeanneret et al, 2006: 79). Dinham’s (2003) first-year cohort study, for example, found that nearly 60 per cent of primary student teachers had not had any visual education beyond Year 8 at high school, while approximately 75 per cent had not undertaken any arts education in the preceding five-year period. Of Dinham’s (2003) cohort, almost 30 per cent admitted a lack of interest and/ or confidence in visual arts. Lack of recency, of interest and prior low levels of skills acquisition no doubt provide a potent recipe for art anxiety. As Eisner (1999) has observed, ‘we are expecting teachers to teach what they do not know and often do not love’ (Eisner, 1999: 17). [14] Both the available data and a literature review have revealed the very clear message that generalist classroom practitioners are only too painfully aware of the limitations of their visual education skills, and fearful of taking any risks in the enterprise. Indeed one of the Principals interviewed in association with the good practice case studies identified the ‘recruitment of teachers with an education to meet the [school’s] vision for visual education’ as a significant problem’.[15] In terms of good practice, the data collection team for the visual education review identified a number of learning sites that evidenced perceived exemplary characteristics in respect of visual learning for students. However, the nine case study reports highlighted in the national Review tended to be more inward- than outward-looking, since only two mention activities involving art galleries, and only one mentions a museum.
Collection: City of Ballarat Fine Art Gallery
right:
TYNDALL, Peter
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA (Head of the Viewer)
Recommendations The 2008 Review of visual arts education makes four overarching recommendations, the third of which has direct implications for Australia’s museums, galleries and collecting institutions: The Review recommends that the potential of partnerships between schools and appropriate external agencies/ organisations to contribute to visual education be explored and a program of implementation determined.[16] What might such partnerships achieve? How are they likely to add value to what can be achieved within the context of school learning? The First We See report begins – as this article reiterated as a leadin – by posing the question, ‘Why does Rolls Royce send its engineering trainees to spend a week at Tate Liverpool?’. In fact the Tate gallery in Liverpool pairs engineering trainees with visual artists and poses problem-solving tasks that they must undertake and
14 ibid, pp.178-9. 15 ibid., p.160. 16 ibid., p.214
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 25
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The 2008 Review of visual arts education makes four overarching recommendations, the third of which has direct implications for Australia’s museums, galleries and collecting institutions. resolve jointly. In thereby taking both groups out of their respective comfort zones, and juxtaposing often mutually unfamiliar ways of approaching problems, both groups are exposed to and potentially acquire new habits of mind. For neither group would their typical learning context provide such an opportunity, such out-of-field challenges. With whom might such creative, problem-solving partnerships be formed in the school learning context? There are a number of external agencies, organisations and groups of individuals who have the potential to contribute in diverse and powerful ways to visual education across the educational spectrum. Obviously these encompass museums, galleries, libraries, archives and related bodies, as well as individual artists.
Potential implications for museums While there can be no doubt that museums and galleries in Australia already have very strong, imaginative and vigorous education programs, the national Review suggests a number of concerning facts that impact negatively upon the reach of such programs. Put baldly, these are as follows: • The maximum recommended curriculum time provision for visual education is scant at less than 40 minutes per week; • Forty minutes makes it logistically impossible for a teacher, however enthusiastic she or he may be, to plan museum or gallery visits under normal school timetabling circumstances; • The data collected by the Review team suggests that, although there is a dedicated budget in most schools for visual arts subjects, there is no data in relation to what such budgets are designed to cover; their perceived adequacy in terms of what teachers would like to achieve in their learning programs; or their provision for external collaboration; • The good practice case studies provide little evidence of integral relationships with museums and/or galleries; • Many classroom primary teachers are anxious about their own levels of knowledge and skill in
the visual education area – and, moreover, teacher education and professional development in this area are perceived to evidence significant room for improvement; • Finally, human nature being what it is, teachers are likely to avoid or, at the very least, minimise involvement in areas in which they feel uncomfortable. It is not unreasonable to surmise that exposure to trained and knowledgeable museum staff may well be perceived by teachers as a little threatening. What, then, are some of the consequential challenges for the museums and galleries sector? • To begin with, what might be the possibilities for involving schools with museums on a cross-curricula basis – which could make it possible, first, to create blocks of school time in which meaningful collaborations could take place, and second, to create an entry point for teachers through, say, history or science? It is worth noting that such a measure could potentially nullify the anxieties inherent in a visual education entry point? • Second, we might consider how such cross-curricula partnerships/collaborations might be used also as a professional development opportunity to educate teachers visually. • We might also ask, what other forms/styles of partnership might be initiated productively to serve similar ends? Further salient questions might be posed as follows: • What might/ought to be the curriculum reach of museum collections? • To what extent might there be hitherto unexplored roles in community/social inclusion education? • How might museums take a leadership role in preservice teacher education? And in other forms of post service professional development? • To what extent might museums/galleries initiate programs designed to reduce/remove the ‘art anxiety’ experienced by many teachers? Certainly what emerged from the visual education literature review focusing on the preceding decade was that there seems to be a much more expansive vision for the educative role of museums and galleries than had been revealed initially – yielded in the data collected by the team for the Review.
26 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
‘First We See’ Report –The potential of visual education in the national curriculum
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Certainly what emerged from the visual education literature review focusing on the preceding decade was that there seems to be a much more expansive vision for the educative role of museums and galleries than had been revealed initially. Sampling international practice
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TYNDALL, Peter
detail A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something ... LOGOS/HA HA
17 ibid, p.198.
Towards the end of the national Review, when it had become clear that there were many museum and gallery initiatives worth exploring both in the Australian and the international context, there was one window of opportunity for me to pursue in association with an international conference. Sadly this exploration could in no way be described as systematic, since it was very much constrained by time, opportunity and word-of-mouth report. For the last of these reasons, however, it is worth sharing some sense of the initiatives that intrigued me in my all-too-brief and restricted scan of practice and thought abroad. • In the UK, Alex Woodall had, as a student, encountered the Object Dialogue Box produced as part of an inter-generational project by the Norfolk County Council, then commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Second World War. The aim of the box was to stimulate creative thinking around the themes of loss, conflict and memory. Later, as a staff member at Sheffield Millennium Galleries, Alex Woodall commissioned Hedsor – the same art educationalists who had worked on the Norfolk project – to develop a box to stimulate connection to a touring exhibition entitled Palace and Mosque. The hexagonal box that resulted unravels to reveal about 20 mysterious objects – either unusual in themselves or rendered unusual because of their connection with another object – each designed to allow students to explore complex questions, and to be challenged by objects to think in diverse and creative ways about issues concerning identity. • The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has a Schools Outreach Program, which introduces the museum collections to schools. Museum staff teach classroom-based sessions in ways not available to classroom teachers. The Ashmolean has also partnered with teachers at the Oxford Hospital, exploring the potential for use of the museum’s exhibits in therapeutic art activities for-long term hospitalised children. In addition, the Ashmolean partners with both the National Gallery (London) and the teacher education program at Oxford Brookes University in relation to the Take One Picture project. • The Take One Picture project is the National Gallery’s countrywide scheme for primary schools. Each year
the Gallery focuses on one painting from the collection to inspire cross-curricula work in primary classrooms. During a one-day Continuing Professional Development course at the Gallery, teachers are given a print of a painting. The challenge is then for schools to use the image imaginatively in the classroom for work across the curriculum, as well as using it as a stimulus for artwork. • National Gallery Education in the UK also organises one-day professional development courses for both individual primary teachers and whole staff groups, using paintings from the National Gallery’s collection as a focus for integrating art into the primary curriculum. Courses offer general principles of working with images – either reproductions in the classroom or works in local galleries. These courses also look at ways of using pictures in the teaching of subjects such as literacy, history and science. • Of the 20 or so co-located museums and galleries in Frankfurt, 16 offer children’s birthday celebration events. A number also offer other family participation programs. One runs a program for unemployed youth that uses the museum context to raise both self-esteem and work-readiness for participants. Overall, despite the small scale and restricted nature of this scan of international institutions, a broad and evocative snapshot emerged: [T]he dominant impression was one of museums/ galleries which • are aggressively and creatively democratic in their reach into their communities • cater for identified community sub-groups (and age groups) in highly inclusive ways • establish connections with the reality markers of ordinary people’s lives (birthdays, family outings, childcare, Third Age) to create engagement with museum/gallery collections • create programs which value the genuine and idiosyncratic response from the perspective of each individual • and perceive the reach of education more broadly than the formal schooling years, and hence utilise collections and programs in socio-cultural engagement programs with targeted groups in need of community assistance. [17] Finally, in view of the current scoping of the arts in the second phase of national curriculum development, the museums sector has a wonderful opportunity to participate, to contribute, and to shape the future. [] Dr Diana Davis is a Visiting Senior Professorial Fellow in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts at the ANU, Canberra. She has taught at RMIT, Monash University and James Cook University, where she was initially Professor of Education and then Foundation Professor of Creative Arts, in which role she variously headed the Departments of Creative Arts, Art and Design, and Music before their amalgamation into the College of Music, Visual Arts and Theatre under her leadership. Citation for this article: Diana Davis, ‘“First We See” Report – The potential of visual education in the national curriculum’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Feb.2011, pp.20-27.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 27
References Arts and Business, MMC Arts, Business and Employees Award (2004) www.absa.org.uk/render. aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,5,16 Accessed 14 November, 2007. Australia Council for the Arts (2006) Backing Our Creativity: research – policy – practice, National Education and the Arts Symposium 2005, www. australiacouncil.gov.au/about_us/ organisation/policies/education_and_ the_arts_network_nean Accessed 18 December 2007. Costantoura, P. (2001) Australians and the Arts, Sydney: Federation Press. Davis, Diana (2008) First We See: Report of the National Review of Visual Education. Australian Government: Australia Council and the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Canberra.. Dinham, J. (2003) The Challenges for Art in Teacher Education. Presentation at the National Summit, Australian Institute of Art Education, December, Perth. Eisner, E. (1999) ‘ The national assessment in the visual arts’, Art Education Policy Review, 100, 6: 16 – 19. Finkelpearl, T. (2000) Dialogues in Public Art, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press Garrett, Peter (2009) Ministerial Press Release, April 17. Genever, M. (1996) ‘Art Anxiety: Framing some responses’ in McGinty, S. & Fitzpatrick, L.A. (1996), 63 – 69. Graddy, S.E., (2007) Creative and Green: Art, Ecology, and Community, www.green museum.org/generic_content. php?ct_id+238 Accessed 18 December 2007. Jeanneret, N., Brown, R., Bird, J., Sinclair, C., Imms, W., Watkins, M. & Doneln, K. (2006) ‘ Encounters with engaging pedagogy: Arts education for the pre-service primary generalist’ in Australia Council for the Arts (2006), 78 – 82. Liedtka, J. (2006) ‘If Managers Thought Like Designers’, Rotman Magazine, Spring/Summer: 14 -19. McGinty, S. & Fitzpatrick, L.A. (1996) Tertiary Teaching: Models of Innovative Practice Townsville, Qld.: Centre for Social and Welfare Research, James Cook University. Rolls Royce (2006) Learning Delivery Manager Neil Fowkes. www.rolls-royce.com/media/showPR. jsp?PR_ID=40340 Accessed 10 December. Temin, C. (1994) ‘A Model for Public Art (27th Ave. Solid Waste Management Facility, Phoenix Arizona’, The Boson Globe Magazine, July 24. Wind, Y. (2006) ‘Managing Creativity’, Rotman Magazine, Spring/Summer: 20-23.
28 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Professional development partnerships with the UK
International internship at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, Canberra Kate Chatfield
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’m not the usual intern. It’s been a while since I was a student. I’ve been working in the museums sector in the UK for more than ten years, and have had several roles including Volunteer, Front of House, Collections Assistant and Exhibitions Assistant. My current role is as Exhibitions Manager at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. I have been curating exhibitions at the museum since 2001, and led the exhibitions design team during the museum’s £12.5 million capital redevelopment project. The museum closed for this redevelopment in October 2007 and reopened in March 2010. By then, the building had doubled in size and greatly expanded its facilities, incorporating new long-term exhibition galleries, reception, shop, cafe, textile conservation studio, archive and reading room. The original museum building, a converted Edwardian hydraulic pumping station, was restored as part of the project and now houses two changing exhibition spaces, a learning studio, staff offices and corporate hospitality spaces. Soon after the museum reopened I received an email from Greg Lissaman, Exhibitions and Public Programs Manager at the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra, Australia. He and his colleagues were interested in our new Community Gallery and how we programmed it. We exchanged a few emails, and I was pleased to learn that our museum was being watched from so far afield, as well as to be able to help by answering a few questions. I thought nothing more of the exchange until, in the middle of August 2010, I received an email from the Museums Association (the UK equivalent to Museums Australia). I was in the process of working towards gaining my Associateship of the Museums Association (AMA). This is a professional development qualification which is awarded by the Museums Association. To achieve this qualification, you have to submit career development plans that involve you in workbased activities to gain new skills and competencies, strengthen areas of weakness in your CV, improve your network of contacts, and make a contribution to the museum sector generally. The email I received from the MA was a copy of a communication informing those working towards the AMA about the Trevor Walden Bursary, which was available to fund professional development activities towards gaining the qualification. The email stressed that the Trevor Walden Trust favoured applications that sought to develop international or creative learning experiences. I realised I already had a good contact at the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra, thanks to the correspondence I’d had with Greg Lissaman, and I wondered if he would value the opportunity to talk face-to-face about some of the issues we had corresponded about earlier. There were interesting parallels between the two organisations that suggested there could be lots of scope for sharing of experiences. The Museum of Australian Democracy had opened
above:
Kate Chatfield (left) and Rebecca Kellett (Schools Learning Officer at MoADOPH, Canberra).
after a major redevelopment of Old Parliament House in May 2009. The new institution, having been transformed from an historic architectural monument into a fully purposed new museum within a nationally focussed site for all Australians, was just under a year ahead of us in the post-opening period of a museum’s re-development. Therefore Australian colleagues’ experiences would be able to inform the way I approached future developments at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. The redevelopment in Canberra, focussed on creating a new institution, the Museum of Australian Democracy, and the People’s History Museum, Manchester, shared some features. Both encompass, in their central theme, the struggle for democracy of ordinary working people waged in, or derived from, the UK – so even their central subject matter shared many connecting features. After securing the support of my line manager, I dropped Greg an email to let him know about the bursary, and to explore whether MoAD would be interested in hosting a short internship for me, as part of my AMA professional development program. I was delighted to receive a positive response, and immediately put together an application to the Trevor Walden Trust, for funding to cover my travel to Canberra. All moved positively and incredibly quickly, and three months later I was on a flight to Australia. My internship hosting in Australia occurred between 8 and 26 November 2010. There were several main aims of the venture. I wanted to strengthen the relationship between the two museums, specifically looking at community-focussed exhibitions to enable skills and knowledge sharing to improve the ways both organisations work with communities in this area. I was also keen to increase my confidence through working in another organisation that covers similar thematic concerns to the People’s History Museum. And I hoped to be able to use the knowledge gained in informing current work on our future exhibitions strategy after returning to my home institution in the UK. The internship consisted of my being attached as a member of the Visitor Experience Team for three weeks at MoAD in OPH. During this time I attended (and to varying degrees contributed to) regular departmental, interdepartmental and external meetings. This gave me the opportunity to observe how the
left: Staff of Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre and Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House, Canberra. Photo: Greg Lissaman (MoADOPH).
Museums Australia Magazine –Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 29
museum managed interdepartmental communication, which also enabled me to gain an insight into how a larger museum is structured. This was an extremely valuable experience, as I had only worked previously in the People’s History Museum since graduating from my Art Gallery and Museum Studies MA course in 1999. I was also enabled to carry out tasks related to a specific community initiative, thereby sharing my experiences as the co-ordinator of community exhibitions at the People’s History Museum. In addition to this productive working environment, and extension of my experiences in the UK, my time at the Museum of Australian Democracy also opened up the unique opportunity for me to undertake an Indigenous People’s Cultural Awareness training course, which members of MoAD staff were attending in preparation for an extension of a project with the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre in Western Australia. This experience gave me an invaluable insight into the sensitivities of carrying out a project with Australian Aboriginal communities, and it was completely absorbing to be taught by members of the Indigenous community on the themes of a culture that I knew little about. In my third week, I was invited to make One of the most valuable things a presentation about about the internship in Australia my own museum, its redevelopment and was the space and reflective post-opening experidistance it gave me from the ences to MoAD staff. Approximately thirty People’s History Museum’s members of staff day-to-day activities... while attended, and the presworking in and observing how entation was followed another organisation functions by a Q&A session about the People’s History in another hemisphere. Museum. This engagement sparked off several conversations and discussions about display issues, both organisations’ collections and collection policies, and potential ways that the two organisations could work together in future. One of the most valuable things about the internship in Australia was the space and reflective distance it gave me from the People’s History Museum’s day-to-day activities: to assess my own museum in a larger framework, and reconsider the roles I play within it, while working in and observing how another organisation functions in another hemisphere. I was therefore assisted to discuss the ideas this initiated with staff at the Museum of Australian Democracy. MoAD staff were incredibly generous with their time, and I had discussions about a huge variety of topics – from interpretation and display issues, collections management systems, people management strategies and event management, to strategic planning. I also observed several learning sessions, and was able to discuss the different approaches of the learning departments of the two organisations
Voters Section of the People’s History Museum. Photo: Headland Design Associates.
[
– something I have been able to share in reverse with the learning team at the museum in Manchester following my return. At the end of the internship abroad, I came away with renewed enthusiasm and energy with which to tackle some of the trickier issues I have to deal with in my own museum. In fact I brought back a 23-point plan that included new approaches, reinforced aspirations and even incorporated some totally new ideas. I am extremely grateful to the People’s History Museum for its support in permitting me to travel to the other side of the world for three weeks; to the Trevor Walden Trust for its sponsorship of the internship; and of course to the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra. The MoAD staff were wonderfully welcoming and so generous with their time and knowledge. Following discussions with various members of staff in consequence of my experience, both institutions are now interested in continuing the relationship in various ways, possibly including future short internships (in Manchester as well as Canberra). I hope these connections gained will continue to flourish and benefit both organisations. In terms of my personal professional development, the experience has helped me grow in confidence; it has enriched my CV; and through observing roles in a larger organisation, the internship period in a very different environment has given me a clearer idea of my future career aspirations. And for the cherry on the cake: I had the final review of my continuing professional development qualification with an assessment panel of the Museums Association in London after my return to the UK, and am pleased to report that I was awarded the AMA in December 2010. [ ] Kate Chatfield MA (Hons), MA, AMA, is Exhibitions Manager at the People’s History Museum, Spinningfields, Manchester, UK. <www.phm.org.uk> <exhibitions@phm.org.uk>. Citation for this text: Kate Chatfield, ‘International internship at the Museum of Australian Democracy, Old Parliament House, Canberra’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Feb. 2011, pp. 28-29.
30 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Some questions for significance assessment in the community museum context
Assessing significance and snaring contradictions: some issues for community-based collections Bill Storer
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n addition to being born at any early age, I’ve long pondered some of the wrinkles across the brow of regional communities, who experience the world in their own unique ways. I offer a few words about assessing the significance of collections, and how this enterprise flutters across different contents and contexts of collections regionally, as well as being influenced by the distinctive characters of their host institutions and location. There are subtle differences between significance assessment of a single object and that for a whole collection. The single object ‘stands’ on its own merit and story. Each item has made its own particular journey into a museum collection, perhaps from a long distant source-context and without other like items accompanying it at the time. Re-appraised today, the individual object might not even be well-aligned to ‘fit’ the current mission and dominant purposes of the museum that houses it. For regional and community-based museums especially, a collection’s objects – the whole range and often stubbornly disparate nature of objects surviving as testimony to people’s lived history and emblems of collective memory – are assessed in many of their relationships: to each other; to the purpose of the collection or institution housing them; and in the further connections of the collection both to the source-communities of an item’s origin and to the communities it serves today. It is challenging to pursue these varied relationships and evaluate how all judgments about an object may be finally ‘fitted together’ in determining its significance. A community museum collection may not contain a single object of stand-alone ‘national significance’. However the collection as a whole may nevertheless be of a certain ‘national significance’, through its ability to demonstrate one or more aspects of a community’s development and existence as part of a national history – involving many local stories threaded into a larger narrative of collective development. The purpose of a museum and its collection reflects the sense of place and importance of a community to its continuing members and successors – uncovering that community’s past, illuminating its present and challenging its future. A community museum collection can also indicate – through lack of inclusion – aspects of prejudice, bigotry, racism or other negative features of local community development. The collection proclaims the values of its community locally, nationally and internationally. These are the multiple and sometimes contending strands of its ‘significance’. When the first version of Significance[1] was published, I was neck deep in collection management issues in a regional context, and did not give due consideration initially to the importance of this complex process for community museum collections. At the time, my committee of management was
not willing to discuss the purpose of the museum and its collection. The committee’s attention was task-focused on getting the collection catalogued: to identify each object, give it an accession number, and allocate details of its location. Object provenance was not really an immediate concern, giving way to urgent objectives and a productivity mind-set: ‘Just get the item accurately recorded for the catalogue!’ Upon reflection later, I realised that the process of significance assessment seems in some ways quite straight-forward and applicable to all collections. However the concept is nevertheless complex and difficult to explain to new learners. The subtle evaluation involved (with all its sub-strands) may also be difficult to justify for a set of what seem like ‘ordinary’ objects in a collection, especially for good volunteering colleagues with little previous museum experience. The examples quoted in Significance (version one) seemed to illustrate extraordinary objects and focus on national collections. Ten years on, Significance 2.0 [2] and the benchmarking developmental tool for the museums sector, National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries [3], have been published. Significance 2.0 has been previously reviewed in a previous Museums Australia Magazine. [4] In the twenty-first century, local government, state and national agencies, together with local communities, require assurance of the ‘worth’ of any collection. They accordingly need some of the evaluations yielded by significance assessment. In the nine Guiding Principles set out in the 2008 National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries, one of these – Principle C1 – is related specifically to a museum’s collection and its significance: The museum’s collection represents the significant stories and interests of its diverse and changing communities. This principle is supported by five stated standards, with defining benchmarks as follows: • The museum develops its collection to reflect its unique purpose and the significant stories and interests of its diverse and changing communities. • The museum knows the significance of its collection. • The museum aims to have unconditional legal ownership of its collection. • The museum has an effective system to record and retrieve information about its collection. • The museum makes its collection accessible in digital forums and in online environments, as resources permit. Significance and Significance 2.0 both describe the process recommended for conducting an assessment of significance of museum collections. In each edition, the process begins with the need to ‘collate the collection records and museum archives’. A major challenge, however, is presented immediately by the varying completeness or otherwise of
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Bill Storer.
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Significance 2.0, published by the Collections Council of Australia Ltd, <significance. collectionscouncil.com.au>.
1. Heritage Collections Council, Significance: a guide to assessing the significance of cultural heritage objects and collections (Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, Commonwealth of Australia, 2001). 2. Roslyn Russell & Kylie Winkworth, Significance 2.0: a guide to assessing the significance of collections (Adelaide, South Australia: Collections Council of Australia, 2009). 3. National Standards for Australian Museums and Galleries: http:// museumsaustralia.org.au/site/ resources_national_standards.php 4. James Warden, ‘Assessing the significance of collections: the level of Significance 2.0’, Museums Australia Magazine, Canberra, Volume 18 (Issue 2), December 2009, pp. 22-23. 5. www.nla.gov.au/chg/ SignificanceAssessments.html#Cost
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the collection records and museum archives across the huge range and types of institutions that make up the landscape of our regional and community-based museums. In many instances, there are still handwritten records providing basic inventory provisions. In other cases. a collection might have been catalogued using a computer-based collection management system [CMS], with most objects now recorded electronically. The CMS record often provides a description of an object and details of the donor; and in a few cases, it also records the associated provenance and provides an identifying image. The standard of electronic records describing collections is nevertheless variable and often incomplete.
Object files Any data not recorded on a CMS should be found in an object file. Unfortunately, with theincreasing use of computer-based CMS tools for collections management, some organisations now assume that there is no need to continue to maintain object files. Original donor forms, other primary documents and oral histories related to the provenance of an object and vital research data are sometimes kept, but separated from each other. It is imperative that an object file is maintained, to conserve the links between the donor, the provenance of an object and research about the object. This information is needed so that the collection objects and their provenance can be assessed more broadly in terms of the stated mission and ‘purpose’ of a museum.
Provenance So what mysteries does provenance unravel? For many community museums, provenance touches on the heart of the reason for the museum collection to exist, enabling understanding of the particular and often strange journeys objects have made into their present home within a public collection. Provenance has many facets and all need to be considered. One aspect is the story about when and where an object was made, and how it came to be in a district: How was it manufactured? By whom? and Was it purchased within the district or brought in from elsewhere? Another aspect concerns the identity of the person(s) who brought an object into the district and why: Was it an aspect of new technology? Did it support a local industry? Further, who used the object and how did it perform? Was the object useful? For how long? Was it superseded, and by what? Were there many of these objects in the district, and if so, how did this particular object come to be in the collection? While not an exhaustive list, the sketch of issues above, and answers to these questions, should be considered right across the horizon of objects within a museum’s collection. Using the CMS (or card records), interconnected lists need to help refine understanding
of objects through details such as donor, industry, locality, date, user, purpose and other aspects, to afford a sense of their individual and grouped relevance to the museum’s main story and purposes. This process is generally understood as ‘mapping the collection’.
Collection mapping Being able to ‘map’ a collection is an important element of any significance assessment. For instance, if the main purpose of a museum is to collect domestic appliances used in its local district, and the collection map shows objects manufactured in the late-nineteenth century, pre-World War I and post-World War II periods up to the 1970s, then ithecollection is not representative of other significant periods: pre-European settlement; early settlement; 1920–1940; 1980-2000 and the present. Understandably, it may not be possible to find objects used locally within the missing periods, but this awareness gives a museum some developmental signposts about what to look for in future. Similarly a map of industries represented in a collection might highlight the under- or over-representation of some activities. A collection map is therefore a useful working guide to understanding representative strengths (and weaknesses) of any collection, and is a useful communications tool for many purposes (including reports and advocacy), as well indicating goals for further development of a museum’s collection overall.
Museums history and collection context Another crucial element that comes into play in a significance assessment, which is more important for total collection-level evaluation than for individual objects, is the general interpretation of the history of any particular museum and its collection, together with the ability to articulate its relevance to a range of stakeholders. A case-example can highlight these observations. A regional museum that was established in the late 1970s, primarily as a tourist attraction, was set up to collect and keep historic records of war for people of the district. In the early 1990s, the local City Council assumed responsibility for the museum – because the volunteer management committee had ceased to exist and other parties did not wish to be involved. By 2002, the Council had developed its own museum policy, stating that the purpose of the museum was to collect, conserve, research, document, store or display items relating to military equipment and memorabilia used by or relevant to the district, or district people. While there are some obvious connections to the earlier mission statement, this current overriding purpose is actually quite different from the original, and therefore directs attention, priorities and allocation of resources differently. One consequence of the changed Council framework and policy directives indicated above was that a number of objects long held in the collection, but with
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Some questions for significance assessment in the community museum context
little or no provenance, fell completely outside the current main purpose of the museum, and therefore reasonably should be de-accessioned. The Council meanwhile wished to dispose of some of the large pieces of equipment with no provenance, since these required expensive restoration/conservation treatment and exhibition support to maintain. Unsurprisingly, local ex-service organisations were soon alarmed at the thought that a wholesale dismantling of a long-held collection was intended. Meanwhile other client groups, especially schools, were satisfied with museum programs, but preferred that some large equipments be retained for their impact (the wow factor). And some of the founding volunteers were bitterly opposed to any changes at all. Subsequently consultations were conducted with all stakeholders, and others, for a significance assessment of the collection to be achieved. The interviews conducted in this process identified issues of concern, as well as highlighting erroneous and sometimes malicious rumours by then circulating about the museum and its future. Continuing discussions led to the establishment of an advisory group, whereby contending parties were enabled to share points of view and resolve many differences. This case-example of a museum undergoing major changes in its purpose and orientation, without sufficient tools or well articulated regard for the public stakeholdership involved in its community base and history, reveals how a museum may run into trouble unnecessarily – risking an undermining of the public trust on which it depends, especially for crucial volunteer support and audience engagement.
Strategic planning & significance assessment Community museum committees (or boards) that ‘sign up’ for a significance assessment often have a strategic plan whereby the assessment is a precursor for other projects, including conservation or exhibition programs. The committee may be highly energised to achieve the strategic goals of which the significance assessment is the first hurdle. However, significance assessments are too important to be ‘rushed through’, simply to meet grant funding deadlines for the next stage of an original plan. It is appropriate for a collection assessment to expect and/or require more than one ‘site visit’. This would allow the submitting museum to understand the issues it needs to resolve before later visit/s are undertaken, enabling more detailed analysis for the assessment process . Extending the process of collection evaluation in this way would inevitably require a re-assessment of the strategic planning goals institutionally – a worthwhile pause in many cases. Another consideration relates to collections that hold ‘stand out’ significant objects, where promotion of these iconic items often focuses attention on these to the detriment of other parts of the collection. A frequent misconception is that the most significant
objects will simply ‘carry’ the remainder of the collection. But not so! This often leads to lazy thinking, and diverts attention from the overriding objective of a public institution: that the full range of objects in a collection should be cohesive and complementary to each other as well as to the purpose of the museum, its story and its community. My purpose in highlighting the above considerations in the subtle process of assessment of a collection is to raise a general question about the time necessary to complete the task. When collection records are incomplete, collection mapping is difficult. A significance assessment meanwhile necessitates that this work be done or completed by the assessor. Regardless of the completeness of records, more time than the recommended twodays site visit, [5] is needed to collect and collate data, to identify themes, and to assess the physical state of a museum’s collection.
Stakeholder consultation Another matter that requires more time at the site locality involves the need to consult with stakeholders. An assessee museum will be able to identify most of these; however, time is required to consult adequately with all apparent stakeholders, and to note their views – and give due value to their engagement – in arriving at an understanding of the often complex social underpinnings and importance of a collection to its supporting community. Significance assessment should be understood to supply the basis for strategic planning, rather than be a lock-step instrumental task in a multiple grant application program. The assessment should not be considered to be a mere hurdle to be jumped before getting on to the next part of a race. The process is important enough to be given the preparation and training appropriate to a major event in its own right. Allow sufficient time and resources to complete the process of significance assessment effectively, and the results will benefit the museum in a multitude of ways, far into the future. [ ] Bill Storer is Secretary and a member of the National Council of Museums Australia. He has a long history of organisational investment in the annual Regional and Remote program of workshops that form an adjunct the annual Museums Australia National Conference. He is President of the Community Museums National Network of Museums Australia. Citation for this article: Bill Storer, ‘Assessing significance and snaring contradictions: some issues for community-based collections’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, Feb. 2011, pp. 30-32.
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 33
In memorium
A tribute to Glen Johns, 1936–2011 Roslyn Russell
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Roslyn Russell.
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Glen Johns and Elizabeth Masters (rear) with presenters Ellie McFadyen and Pip McNaught (front) at Working Spaces 3, Galong 2009. Photo: Roslyn Russell.
1. Glen Johns, ‘An annual weekend of training workshops for volunteers’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.18 (Issues 3&4), Museums Australia, Canberra, June 2010, pp.37-38.
he community and volunteer museum community lost one of its most effective and hard-working leaders on 31 January 2011, when Glen Johns, of the NSW Lachlan Chapter of Museums Australia, passed away suddenly, after a resurgence of cancer for which he had undergone surgery in recent years. Glen was the guiding spirit and tireless organiser behind the very successful Working Spaces for Museum Volunteers – a series of annual weekend workshops that have been held since 2007 at St Clement’s Conference Centre, at Galong. These memorable workshops, drawing recurrent participants over successive years, were organised by Glen in the distinctive setting of a former monastery complex at St Clement’s, near Yass. The workshops were the subject of a commissioned article by Glen Johns himself in a previous issue of Museums Australia Magazine.[1] Glen’s funeral in Canberra was attended by members of the Lachlan Chapter of Museums Australia, Museums Australia President Dr Darryl McIntyre and National Director Bernice Murphy. Presenters at successive Working Spaces weekends came from the national collecting institutions in Canberra and from Museums and Galleries NSW. Those who attended the funeral heard from his partner, Elizabeth Masters, and his son, Neil Johns, of Glen’s varied careers – as a radio announcer, fundraising consultant and, more recently, the host (and chef ) of a popular bed and breakfast, ‘Henwood House’, in the old ANZ Bank building at Boorowa, NSW. We also heard of Glen’s love of history and museums and his contribution to the development of the ‘Shamrock Trail’, identifying the many sites associated with Irish people in the Boorowa area. Glen brought to all these occupations, and to his organisation of Working Spaces, the same meticulous attention to detail and a high level of managerial skill. Those who attended Working Spaces as presenters always received program information – including lists of those who were attending their workshops – well ahead of time, allowing us to tailor our offerings to the audience. Afterwards we received feedback on our workshops, and photos – we certainly felt that our contributions were appreciated. And the weekends at St Clement’s Conference Centre at Galong began to feel like a large family reunion – a family that has now suffered the loss of its patriarch. Pip McNaught from the National Museum of Australia paid a tribute to Glen from his museum sector colleagues who have acted as presenters at Working Spaces, and she recalled his innovative and witty approach to the program. She referred to some of the titles he had given to workshops: ‘Let the Sparkle Back into Your Costumes’, and her (and my) favourite, ‘Provenance is not a Place in France’. These are only two of the many titles Glen devised to convey the idea that learning about such aspects of museum
work as preventive conservation, writing grant applications, significance assessment, graphic design and oral history, among other topics, can also be fun. Pip McNaught also recalled that the bell that Glen used to call us all to order grew in size over the last four years – from tiny ‘Tinkerbelle’ to the current ‘Clarabelle’, a large cow bell. Clarabelle was wielded to great effect at last year’s Working Spaces, when on the Saturday night a representative from each volunteer museum had to deliver a statement about their museum’s most significant object in one minute, after which they were ‘gonged off’ by Clarabelle. This session, called ‘Postcards from Home’, was, needless to say, a great success. Working Spaces has provided an important opportunity to bring together volunteer museum workers and their colleagues from the museums sector for training at the regional level. Volunteers appreciate training but are not necessarily able to take advantage of TAFE courses and other training opportunities available to those in employment. Working Spaces has accordingly made a significant contribution in providing such training for the highly valued volunteers of our local and regional museums. The fact that volunteers in museums value what Working Spaces can give them is well attested by the fact that the workshops – kept to a manageable size for effective interaction – are booked out well in advance each year. And people come from considerable distances to attend, some travelling from as far afield as Victoria and northern New South Wales, as well as from Sydney and the area covered by the Lachlan Chapter of Museums Australia. The members of the Lachlan Chapter of Museums Australia, as well as those who present workshops, intend to continue the Working Spaces tradition. This year’s Working Spaces will be conceived as a tribute to Glen Johns. We will miss him, but we know that he would want us to carry on the work to which he was so committed. We extend our sympathy to his family, and especially to his life partner, Elizabeth Masters. [] Roslyn Russell, a museum consultant and former Editor of Museums Australia Magazine, has presented workshops on significance assessment at Working Spaces since the inception of the program in 2007. Citation for this article: Roslyn Russell, ‘A tribute to Glen Johns’, Museums Australia Magazine, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Museums Australia, Canberra, February 2011, pp.33.
34 Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011
Book Review: Museums and the Public Sphere
Inara Walden (reviewer)
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Inara Waldren.
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Jennifer Barrett, Museums and the Public Sphere (WileyBlackwell, 2011).
1. Jennifer Barrett, Museums and the Public Sphere (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). 2. Eileen Hooper-Greenhill, Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture (Routledge, 2000). 3. The ABS survey of Australian Museums 2007-08, cat.no.8560.0, found almost 3 times as many virtual visits than actual museum visits, reporting an estimated 17.8 million museum admissions against 51.5 million unique online visits.
useums tend to justify their ongoing existence, funding and relevance in relation to serving ‘the public’, so it is valuable to investigate just who that public might be. In her new book, Museums and the Public Sphere,[1] Jennifer Barrett, director of Museum Studies at the University of Sydney, delves into nuanced meanings of the term ‘public’ as it relates to the museums sector. She points out that it can be a ‘slippery and evasive’ term, and for this reason is often considered either too nebulous or too obvious to warrant much critical reflection. Who is this ‘public’ that museums say they exist for? Barrett points out that it must surely include the audience sectors, communities and individuals who visit museums, as well as those who do not. In recent decades, traditional ‘non-visitors’ have become the focus of efforts to tempt or attract ‘new audiences’ to museums. In the era of ‘new museology’ since the 1980s, emphasis has been placed on trying to engage ‘communities’ and increase ‘accessibility’, in response to criticisms that museums and galleries are elitist and inaccessible. With funding and futures at stake, museums, libraries and other public institutions have been forced to try to prove their worth, pursuing more visitor-centred approaches to what they do. The ‘democratising’ of the museum has brought a new emphasis that goes beyond visitor feedback to deeper content engagement, both online and in the museum’s physical spaces. Tagging, blogging and use of social networking are just some of the means museums are employing to encourage people to become content users and creators, rather than merely consumers or receivers of curatorial ‘wisdom’. Increasingly museums also directly consult, engage and partner with particular communities – Indigenous, ethnic, location-specific or special interest groups for example – in their ‘devising of exhibits’. Barrett correctly identifies the changing status of curators in this scenario, within the ‘post-museum’ environment described so eloquently by Eileen HooperGreenhill – a long-standing interpreter of the museums sphere from within the highly influential museum studies department of the University of Leicester. The post-museum leaves behind centuries-old assumptions about the role of museums as collectors, classifiers and presenters of artefacts and specimens to ‘produce an encyclopaedic world-view, understood from a Western perspective’.[2] Centre-stage now are notions of cultural diversity, accessibility, engagement and the use of objects rather than merely their continued accumulation. By engaging in dynamic co-productions of events and exhibitions the museum is able to incorporate many voices and perspectives. Advances in technologies have strongly contributed to implementing new models of engagement, with people increasingly keen to contribute their stories and views to discussions going on in or around the museum, its collections and exhibitions.
The ‘demise’ of the curator as the museum’s authoritative dispenser of knowledge has occurred alongside the shift to more ‘collaborative knowledge creation’ and communications. The role of the curator still encompasses scholarship, creativity and interpretive leadership; however it also necessarily involves collaboration and facilitation, working within multidisciplinary teams of museum professionals, and in partnership with external parties, artists and communities to develop and present content. In the view of a number of commentators cited by Barrett, the museum is becoming a ‘contact zone’, more like a cultural centre, with less emphasis on the ‘visual culture of display and classification’ and more on communication. This includes using technology to establish relationships with communities and individuals outside the physical structure of the museum. The museum is no longer limited by its own walls. Barrett gives the example of the NSW Migration Heritage Centre, with no physical presence or place that people can visit, which produces and uploads content through online exhibitions and features to allow people to access the stories and themes associated with collections held privately or in disparate institutions. Public space is frequently considered a prerequisite for democracy to exist, as it provides physical spaces for people to congregate, to protest or simply spend time. It is interesting to ponder the impact of the internet on the assumption that societies need physical locations for ‘speakers corners’ in order to be fully democratic. How relevant is this notion now that so much debate, politicking, rallying and discussion takes place online? As the numbers of virtual visits to museums grow exponentially, already well outstripping actual museum visits,[3] it is timely to consider the relevance of physical museums in public life. Do people still want to attend in person to see objects and artworks in exhibitions arranged in the physical spaces of museums? I believe they do. These are experiences facilitated, enhanced and extended by internet visits, not replaced by them. The burgeoning popularity of festivals of ideas, writers festivals, city talks and debates in recent years also indicates that people still have a strong desire to come together for real world experiences, listening and debating issues. It’s convenient to go online or watch TV to engage with new ideas and debates, but being present at a public forum is still attractive and important for many people. Beyond the scope of Barrett’s discussion, I digress to consider a seismic shift we’ve seen in the landscape of Australia’s museums and galleries sector in the past eighteen months, with the opening of two spectacular new offerings. Both are privately funded galleries providing free entry to the general public, without commercial imperatives to sell artwork. The White Rabbit in Chippendale, an inner-city suburb of Sydney, presents visitors with a stunning array of contemporary Chinese art from the growing
Museums Australia Magazine – Vol. 19 (3) – February 2011 35
Top: The Australian Museum’s Juraassic Lounge exhibition at night. Photo: Inara Walden. Above: Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), Hobart. Photo: Bernice Murphy.
4. Sharon Verghis, ‘Judith Neilson: Private passions made public’, The Australian, 21 August 2010. 5. ‘Ghost train gives a glimpse of future’, Spectrum, Sydney Morning Herald(weekend edition), 5-6 February 2011.
collection of wealthy South African-born financier Kerr Neilson and wife Judith. More recently great excitement attended the January 2011 opening of gambling millionaire David Walsh’s Museum of Old and New Art (MONA), in a riverside suburb of Hobart. These ventures represent a wave of cultural philanthropy that has been building in Australia since changes to philanthropy laws in 1999 offered private collectors and companies tax concessions in return for showing their art to the public.[4] These new museums confound our usual frames of reference for what makes a museum or gallery a ‘public’ institution. The White Rabbit and MONA both tick many of the usual boxes we use to define public institutions in terms of access, care, research and contribution. They each present and explore artworks or objects and communicate information about them freely to the general public. They even fulfil the criteria of being not-for-profit; though not supported from the public purse. Art critic John McDonald recently described MONA as a ‘must-see’. In his view: ‘With its state-of-the-art facilities, bold and startling collection and radical approach to exhibition design, it sends out a challenge to Australia’s established public art museums.’ In fact McDonald claims that MONA is ‘twice the size of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art and far more entertaining.’[5] In an increasingly competitive arts and culture environment, we see public museums actively ‘relaxing’ long-standing rules around things like food and drink in museum spaces, permission to take photographs, and the types of activities allowed to be staged. Aiming to attract a cooler, younger crowd, the Art Gallery of NSW, the State Library of NSW and Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art have each staged successful ‘art-after-hours’ events in recent years. These late opening nights feature music, drinks, talks and performances, including comedy and celebrity appearances. Some conservators and old school curators will be shocked at the prospect of the Australian Museum’s new Jurassic Lounge, promoted as a chance to ‘roam the spectacular spaces of the museum’ in a laid back environment, with ‘drink in hand’, while seeing the ‘hottest’ new artists and getting ‘a different take on the museum’s treasures’. This is surely a brave new world of public access! I recently went along to check out Jurassic Lounge and enjoyed myself. This is an inspired way to attract new visitors to come and play at the museum, enticing a cohort of groovy 20- to 30-year-old Sydneysiders who would otherwise be very unlikely to visit. The museum was transformed by coloured lights, music and projections, roving costumed performers and other gimmicks, that gave it a youth festival vibe. People had queued down the street and around the corner waiting to get in; the special evening talk on the science of love and attraction was already sold out. Once inside, visitors frolicked in pairs or small groups, interacting with the exhibits and displays, learning and having fun. Visitors flitted from space to space,
with a drink in one hand and a torch in the other (the lights in many galleries were dimmed, with special coloured gel spots added to create a magical feel, and torches handed out to facilitate fun exploration). Best of all was the silent disco staged beneath suspended dinosaur skeletons, allowing punters with headsets to groove to the sounds of alternating DJs. If museums have traditionally been tightly controlled public spaces (no photography, food or drink, no touching artworks, no running, loud voices, etc), a loosening of these controls seems to be underway and is perhaps inevitable. Barrett points out that traditional notions of public space have been wrong to assume the existence of a single ‘public’, when in fact there have always been multiple ‘competing publics’, whose needs vary over time. Australian museums are increasingly acknowledging and playing to their different publics. Let’s hope that things like custodianship, scholarship and knowledge continue to be valued in museums, along with this new party vibe. Barrett’s book about museums and the public sphere is an intelligent contribution to a much needed debate on where museums stand today: What do they offer? and Who are they for? At a time when there has never been so much excitement about what private museums and galleries have to offer, it is important for public institutions to be open to engaging with many audiences. Accessibility and communication are crucial if museums are to remain current, relevant and exciting places that people want to retain and spend time in. [] Inara Walden is curator at the Museum of Sydney. She specialises in Australian social and cultural history with a particular interest in photography. Recent exhibitions include Drugs: a social history (2003), Sydney Now: new Australian photojournalism (2008) and Convict Sydney at the Hyde Park Barracks (2010). She undertook a study tour of USA museums as recipient of the Phillip Kent Staff Development Fund Award in 2007 and judged the City of Sydney’s Art & About photography competition in 2008. Inara is currently researching the NSW Freedom Ride. <www.hht.net.au> Citation for this article: Inara Walden, Public museums, private passions: Museums and the Public Sphere by Jennifer Barrett [Book Review], Museums Australia Magazine, Museums Australia, Canberra, Vol.19 (Issue 3), Feb. 2011, pp.34-35.
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1. Endnotes