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| Photo: Lisa Reihana, in Pursuit of Venus [infected], 2015, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of the Patrons of Auckland Art Gallery, 2014 (still from panoramic video interpretation of 1804 French scenic wallpaper Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique) |
Veronica Macno
Executive Summary
I
would like to acknowledge the generous support I received with a MA2016
National Conference Bursary to attend the Museums Australasia 2016 Conference:
Facing the Future: Local, Global and Pacific Possibilities from 15 – 19 May
2016 in Auckland, New Zealand. I would also like to acknowledge the
support given to me by my employer, Arts Tasmania, enabling me to attend the
Conference as part of my professional development.
The main objectives of attending the conference
were to: to engage with museum professionals; further develop and broaden my
own museum professional development and to experience some aspects of the arts
and cultural heritage sector in Auckland.
Key
Note Speakers
Moana
Jackson Ngăti Kahungunu Ngăti Porou: Moana
Jackson’s keynote address set the scene for the Conference with his focus on
monuments, museums and memory and how and why they interact. In
particular his thoughts about museums as monuments and how stories and/or
histories are often partially or incorrectly presented resonated with me
throughout the Conference. The main take home messages that stuck
with me were that there are many stories to be told, many voices to be heard
and that every story told as the history of their country is an Indigenous
story.
David
Garneau Métis: In referencing his own Indigenous
community, one of the most thought provoking aspects of David Garneau’s keynote
address was the notion of how important (or more accurately absolutely
imperative) it is to present stories and /or histories from the point of view
of the locals living in the community. That is, much of the
knowledge and understanding of the cultural material of a community is held by
the people within the community and that this should be shared with the museum
sector professionals and presented as authentic, balanced and inclusive
stories/histories.
Dawn
Casey:Dawn’s notion in her keynote address
that museums should strive to be a social agent for social change and should
continue to do so was an important point to raise in the context of the
Conference title: Facing the Future: Local, Global and Pacific Possibilities.
Elizabeth
Merritt
I
found Elizabeth to be one of the most engaging and energetic keynote speakers
of the Conference with ideas and theories that I found most relevant to me as a
museum professional and as a Roving Curator working with the small museum
sector in Tasmania. In particular I found the juxtaposition of
Elizabeth’s thinking about the future of museums (as illustrated by the Center
for the Future of Museums) in relation to how important it is to consider how
much and what we collect today, examining what is the value and benefit of
collections to the community and policy making for collections, re:
deaccession, issues of storage and conservation highly relevant.
Boon
Hui Tan: Boon Hui Tan’s keynote address spoke
about the local global aspect very succinctly and linked the two notions of
think and act locally to attract global interest and attention. In particular
his discussion about local collections staying local but making connections
with other local communities resonated with me as a museum professional in
Tasmania and as part of the broader museum sector in Australia. His
point about specialising in the local was a theme that had been spoken about in
some of the other keynote addresses and how it is important to listen to and
value the local knowledge and how this can attract global interest and
attention.
plenary: A
Plenary session was presented by a number of prominent speakers (Robert R
Janes, Daryl Karp, Elizabeth Merritt, Albert Refiti, Lisa Reihana and Peter
White) and provided numerous provocations which I found both interesting and
useful as a museum professional and as a Roving Curator working with the small
museum sector in Tasmania: “what is your public value to the community”,
“rethink and deconstruct who we recruit as employees in the museum sector to
address diversity for visitors and what is presented in our museums”, “museums
should be less concerned with education and become places people love and engage
with” and “important to present a balanced viewpoint of First Peoples in
museums”.
parallel
sessions: My choices for the parallel sessions were all useful,
informative and relevant to me as museum professional and some in particular
were useful to my role as a Roving Curator working with the small museum sector
in Tasmania. Some of my choices included: the public value of
museums, collections and strategy, new ways of story telling, visitor research
for exhibition development and does consensus stifle innovation. A couple of
the highlights of the parallel sessions for me was the site visit to the
collection store of MOTAT and the new ways of story telling session, which
included five different papers. Wendy Lugg’s Mapping Memory – an
online exhibition was a project that I thought could be relevant in my role as
a Roving Curator, either for our annual 10 Objects – 10 Stories:
celebrating community collections exhibition or for some of the groups
we work with? Wendy’s exhibition project had both a physical
presence and then developed for an online profile.
Benefits and
Outcomes
There
were numerous benefits and outcomes, including the opportunity to network with
a wide range of museum, art and other related professionals, be inspired by
current, new and innovative theories and ideas, the opportunity to visit some
of Auckland’s best cultural organisations, such as the Auckland War Memorial
Museum and the Auckland Art Gallery. However, most importantly
I gained a number of useful and practical ideas through presentations,
workshops and conference participants that can and will be put into practice in
my role as a museum professional and as a Roving Curator working with the small
museum sector in Tasmania.
Geoffrey Dobson
Kia’ora
Firstly, I
am grateful to have received a Museum’s Australia bursary, administered through
the Tasmania Branch, enabling me to attend the Museums Australasia 2016 joint
conference in Auckland. The Burnie City Council fully supports professional
development opportunities for staff, such as attending conferences and summits,
but due to limited financial and personnel resources it is difficult to attend
all the key conferences that relate to the core functions of the Burnie Arts
& Function Centre (BAFC) and Burnie Regional Art Gallery (BRAG). My
position, as the Director of BAFC/BRAG, is required to take an active interest
and interact with multiple sectors, including: function and events; performing
arts; visual arts and cultural heritage sectors. Therefore it was of great
benefit to engage with a broad, trans-Tasman network.
To my
embarrassment I had not attended a Museum’s Australia conference in the past.
In 2014 I was travelling on a Churchill Fellowship at the time the conference
was being held in Launceston. Admittedly, in the past my perception of Museums
Australia had been misguided. I had previously assumed the organisation was
purely acting for the museum and cultural collecting sector. I had not fully
appreciated the cross-over and cross disciplinary content relating to the
public gallery sector (I also note the wording on the back of the 2016
Conference Booklet, Museums Galleries Australia National Conference
2017).
I believe it
is important to place in to context the situation of BAFC/BRAG as I left for
Auckland. The Centre was facing significant budget cuts and setbacks in-line
with the new financial year 2016/17. Hence, while I was at the conference my
mind was drifting to the pending restructure of the Centre, including
redundancies, loss of hours, amendments to opening hours, and major cuts in
local government funding. From my perspective the conference title of Facing
the Future could not have been a more appropriate.
I can only
report on my own observations of the conference. From the outset, I immediately
felt the integration and appreciation of colonial and Maori culture was
exceptional. I don’t recall one speaker from New Zealand who did not address
the audience in the indigenous language, regardless of whether it was prior to
the start of a keynote or smaller breakout session.
It was this
heightened level inclusiveness that set the tone for the overall conference, a
feeling of goodwill, welcoming and pride permeated the three major days of the
conference.
It was
fascinating to hear an opening keynote address from someone operating outside
the museum and gallery sector. Because of his achievements in New Zealand and
his respected International career, Moana Jackson’s keynote was received with a
certain amount of awe in the room. His comments about museums as monuments,
linked with the importance of relating effective and correct information,
framed discussions for the proceeding days. Jackson tasked directors and
curators to balance reporting culture and history for the now, while honouring
the past appropriately, considering the past may have multiple understandings
and contexts.
It was an
interesting choice by the conference organisers to open with two keynote
speakers. I felt there were some contractions between the two, but essentially
David Garneau, who shared the opening keynote segment with Jackson, reinforced
Jackson’s position. Garneau provided a case study, referring to his own
indigenous community, referencing objects and their importance to communities.
His thoughtful comments about sublimation, in the context of the Manitou Stone
– a sacred meteorite, no doubt resonated with many in the room who manage
important pre-colonial collections.
I cannot
recall which of the two opening keynotes referred to Captain Cook’s Bark
Shield, mentioning that as an object it would not exist if it was not
collected, and therefore it is the story and not the object that is ‘titled’
and ‘labelled’. This story highlighting any object is subject to perspective.
Garneau’s
closing comments about curating towards conciliation as opposed to
reconciliation was as much a provocation as any heard throughout the duration
of the conference. The actual provocations for the conference were posed by six
prominent arts and culture leaders, including one by Robert Janes via recorded
message. Janes presented a global approach, encouraging the cultural sector to
instruct global policy. Janes mentioned that the museum, as the entity,
shouldn’t be frightened to ‘upset its perceived neutrality’.
The futurist
Elizabeth Merritt featured heavily throughout the conference as a presenter,
panellist and provocateur. I perhaps followed her in the program as I enjoyed
listening to her viewpoints and theories. She opened day two with one of her many
questions, ‘what is the value proposition of your collections’. She linked this
question with accessibility and the collection’s benefit to the community over
time. Her theories provided useful tools for critical programming analysis. I
did find her proposition ‘how to we become relevant to audiences now’,
interesting seeing she is the Founding Director of the Centre for the Future of
Museums. Perhaps part of my enjoyment came from the theatrics of her
presentation on day two, which included a science fiction-esque soundscape that
took me quite some time to understand was actually part of her presentation.
As the
conference and conversations developed, I began to contemplate the proposed
merger of the Burnie Regional Museum and Burnie Regional Art Gallery. These
thoughts were influenced by one of the reoccurring questions of the conference,
the question of which story to tell. I reflected on the Early Burnie permanent
exhibition on display at the Museum and the lack of local aboriginal content in
the Gallery’s permanent collection. It might be dismissive to mention, but the
story currently being told by the Museum and Galley is mostly, if not entirely,
colonial history. Another unsurprising undercurrent of the conference was
collection management. I did attend several sessions under the Collections and
Strategy heading. This did not serve me well. It only raised my anxiety about
the current state of the Gallery’s collection. One of the more entertaining
sessions, titled Slay the Dragon, did help to lesson my anxiety somewhat due to
the presenters humour and novel approach. Slay the Dragon posed the idea of
closing the gallery for several weeks to simply re-catalogue, digitise d update
the Gallery’s current database in a consolidated period of time - likened to a
Toyota assembly line.
The
conference also provided me with the stimulus to rethink the Gallery’s approach
to programming. The Gallery does have a significant amount of space for a
regional gallery, and there is the opportunity for a permanent hang or
collection gallery. The development of which should increase the Gallery’s
reach by creating relevant creative learning and public programs.
My note pad
is filled with many great anecdotes from the conference: what can we do to make
people stay for longer; what is our social story of going to the museum; how to
tell unsafe stories in safe places; welcome to the museum, do we really mean
it; everything starts with the customer. My favourite anecdote would have to
have come from Emma Burns, Curator of Natural Science, Otago Museum, who simply
said we all have to ‘think harder’. My note pad has evidence of things written
down in the dark, tables and graphs scribbled during keynotes, too numerous to
recount.
Did I come
away from the Museum’s Australasia Joint Conference thinking ‘Local, Global and
Pacific Possibilities’? In truth, not entirely. My mind was preoccupied with
the pending end of financial year restructure of BAFC/BRAG and anticipating the
angst that would surely follow. However, the content of the conference devised
to think ‘Local’ was invaluable and entirely appropriate for Burnie Regional
Art Gallery and Museum.
As mentioned
afore, it was delight to attend the conference and only possible due to the
financial assistance from Museum’s Australia, Tasmania branch office.
