Since the NSW Liberals announced the proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum in 2015, our community has been campaigning tirelessly to stop it.
The people who support the Powerhouse Museum have never said that it should be at the expense of the people of Western Sydney having a cultural institution of their own. We have always said that a growing city like Sydney, that will have millions of new residents and new visitors over coming decades, can sustain both of these important cultural institutions.
Part of making this a great city for both residents and visitors is to have great spaces to visit, to preserve our beautiful historic buildings and celebrate our culture and history.
Thank you to Save the Powerhouse, the Powerhouse Museum Alliance,Deputy Lord Mayor Linda Scott and all the community groups and residents who have collected signatures, attended rallies and written letters for years. Terrific that NSW Labor have listened to this strong community campaign and made a great announcement today. ... https://www.facebook.com/BalmainElly/photos/a.422857024854128/586556658484163/?type=3&theater
SUBMISSION #1
SUBMISSION #1
FUNDING MUSEUMS ART GALLERIES,
HERITAGE BUILDINGS AND
THEIR COLLECTIONS
http://nswmuseumsinquiry.blogspot.com.au/p/funding-museums-art-galleries-and.html
FUNDING MUSEUMS ART GALLERIES,
HERITAGE BUILDINGS AND
THEIR COLLECTIONS
http://nswmuseumsinquiry.blogspot.com.au/p/funding-museums-art-galleries-and.html
• AUTHOR: Ray Norman • CLICK HERE TO LINK TO PERSONAL BACKGROUND
• STATUS: Independent Researcher, Artist & Cultural Geographer
• DATE: August 14 2016
SUMMARY
FOREWORD
• Submission made against my background and the experiences as designer-maker, academic and independent researcher.
• I believe that the inquiry is timely long needed and that it is of national significance.
• I’m aware of the fact that musingplace collections are an important component of ‘national estate’.
POLICY AND FUNDING
• Public institutions’ are generally assumed (rightly & wrongly) to receive their prime source of funding, for recurrent funding at least, is from government and that they “cannot make a profit” … thus imagined as Govt. ‘cost centres’.
• A ‘cultural landscape’ without musingplaces would be as impoverished as it might be without the ‘pragmatic institutions’.
• If cultural development has any kind priority in the determination of government budgets –Local State & Federal – it is increasingly clear that modes of funding and the paradigms ‘musingplaces’ operate within need to change away from current ‘status quo’ models and modelling.
HOW MIGHT FUNDING CHANGE LOOK
• The foundations of contemporary museums and art galleries were laid down in Medieval Europe’s wunderkammers and kunstkammers
• Currently governments maintain bureaucracies of various sizes and complexity to oversight expenditure in the cultural arena … government needs to ensure accountability.
• n the short term change is more likely to be achieved ‘at arm’s length’ from governments bureaucracies rather than from within them.
A CULTURAL TRUST FOR NSW
• It needs to be acknowledged that it is possible that exemplars exist and move on … the research needed here is for another time once the context for it is clear – or at least clearer.
• An in depth examination of the State Government’s and NSW’s Councils’ financial and in-kind commitments to their cultural collections and musingplaces in order to establish just what the current financial investment is.
• This aspect of ‘cultural development’ is needed Irrespective of impending council amalgamations … it is an exercise worth the effort to provide a snapshot of the State’s ‘cultural estate’.
• There is a credible case for a ‘purposeful’ State-wide trust cum devolved arms-length ‘funding agency’ to set up … a ‘compounded cultural collection’ that is managed rhizomatically rather than hierarchically and located throughout the State albeit strategically placed.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
• The status quo relative to musingplace funding and management is both unsustainable and undesirable, revitalisation becomes a more viable proposition.
• A changed paradigm, is likely to initiate change purposefully or otherwise.
• Looking ahead, it will be important, for individual public collections and musingplaces to establish a corporate identity, and a distinct entity, out from under the direct administrations of Local Govt. in particular.
FOREWORD: I make this submission against my background and the experiences I have gained as designermaker, academic and independent researcher. While I currently live and work in Tasmania I trained and worked in NSW. Moreover, I continue to have family and professional connections in the state plus ongoing interests in cultural institution located in NSW.
I’m responding to this inquiry because I believe that it is timely long needed and that it is of national significance. More to the point, such an inquiry being held in regard to museums, art galleries and musingplaces of all kinds needs to acknowledge that these ‘places’ need to be reimagined in a 21st Century context.
Over time I have become increasingly aware of the fact that musingplace collections are an important component of ‘national estate’. In their collections, and under the stewardship of ‘the institutions’, are held the cultural treasures of the nation. Arguably, there are serious issues that need to be dealt with and ‘the inquiry’ offers some solace here.
In this submission I’m addressing that aspect of the inquiry that is looking at:
• NSW government policy, funding and support for museums and galleries, museum and gallery buildings and heritage collections, including volunteer managed museums and museums managed by councils;
• potential funding impacts on museums and galleries affected by council amalgamations; and
• opportunities to revitalise the structure, reach, and impact of museums and galleries, and their research and collecting priorities.
 |
| CLICK HERE TO GO TO SOURCE |
POLICY AND FUNDING: In regard to ‘public institutions’ it is generally assumed (rightly & wrongly) that their prime source of funding, for recurrent funding at least, is from government. Moreover, it is equally assumed that these institution’s “cannot make a profit” and thus they are, and must be, funded as ‘cost centres’.
So far as it goes, this may well have been a reasonable business assumption that has served these institutions well enough. However, it has set up a default ‘operational paradigm’ that is focused on controlling expenditure rather than one of possessing the willingness and energy to do something new and/or innovative even if it might takes a lot of effort – and involve risk. Therefore, their perceptions of, and understandings of, sustainability is based upon risk adversity rather than risk awareness.
It follows that this paradigm, let’s call it the ‘Micawber Paradigm’ defines success (happiness?) as managing to stay within budgetary constraints while, as Wilkins Micawber did while waiting for “something to come up”. To quote him and Dickens, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.”
All is well enough when something comes up, say when sponsors and partners arrive on the scene, but in the end cost centres are designed to survive rather than succeed. It need not be like that. Public museums, art galleries, heritage buildings and their ‘collections’ are ever likely to require government funding as after all they are ‘public assets’. Leaving their fate to ‘the public’ would more than likely expose these ‘public treasure houses’ to far too much risk – risks beyond contemplation.
That said, it dose not automatically follow that musingplaces cannot be, or should not be, entrepreneurial and within constraints of risk taking operations. Likewise, it aught not be an imperative that they do not, or should not, albeit within constraints, hold and manage reserves. Such an approach might present auditing issues but in the 21st Century digital technologies are well and truly able to meet the ‘data demands’ required.
Based on the histories of ‘institutional funding’ by government at all levels it is clear that a case for alternative funding models can and should be mounted. Arguably, the ‘Cost Centre’ model does not fit the circumstances of the 21st C as well as it did in the 19th C & 20th C. What has changed most of all is society’s capacity to store and retrieve ever increasing amounts of data and translate it into useful information. By extension, this enables information to lead to new wisdoms, new understands, new knowledge, expanded opportunities, etc.
Whatever view is taken relative to all this it is clear that the ‘status quo’ is an ever decreasingly viable option and 21st C circumstances seem to demand paradigm shifts along with the new/emerging opportunities and imperatives to embrace fundamental change.
Institutional government funding models, essentially 20th C models, and the operational modelling pertaining to museums, art galleries, heritage collections, etc. – musingplaces [LINK] – are currently contentious – or at the very least contestable. The funding of cultural institutions and their activities is ever likely to be politically contentious when and if it is compared with the pragmatic funding of hospitals, schools, roads etc. – and it has ever been so. However, a ‘cultural landscape’ without these institutions would be as impoverished as it might be without the ‘pragmatic institutions’ – the very institutions that so easily win political precedence and boisterousness via their inbuilt ability to win attention.
If cultural development has any kind priority in the determination of government budgets – Local State & Federal – it is increasingly clear that modes of funding and the paradigms ‘musingplaces’ operate within need to change away from current ‘status quo’ models and modelling.
HOW MIGHT FUNDING CHANGE LOOK: The foundations of contemporary museums and art galleries were laid down in Medieval Europe’s wunderkammers and kunstkammers, its ‘great hoses’, its monasteries and its ‘universities’. In the 19th C and 20th this changed somewhat with the upsurge in colonisations, the Industrial Revolution and international industrialisation.
Against this background the resistance to change and/or the acceptance the status quo is problematic. Clearly the “the way things are” serves some well – museologist et al. However, does it serve the wider community well – that is those who fund musingplaces, and very often by conscription through their taxes, rates, etc.?
Given that ‘cost centre thinking’ does not automatically deliver the best possible outcomes for musers, or put another way, musingplaces’s Communities of Ownership and Interest – [LINK].
Currently governments maintain bureaucracies of various sizes and complexity to oversight expenditure in the cultural arena. Very often these administrations are populated with people with various levels of professional experience and understanding of the cultural operations they are administering funding support to. In practice this is ever likely to be so given the kind of accountability a government instrumentality needs to deliver.
Consequently, in the short term change is more likely to be achieved ‘at arm’s length’ from governments bureaucracies rather than from within them.
Local government amalgamations in NSW are likely to be a factor in bringing about the kinds of change that will be more than likely unprecedented. In parallel, these changes might well impact in some way upon the ways in which cultural funding, musingplace funding in particular, is imagined at a State level.
Given the immensity of what is at stake, plus the collective value – cultural, social and fiscal – of NSW ‘public collections’ just how these collections, institutions and organisations are imagined and understood is a non trivial matter.
.
A CULTURAL TRUST FOR NSW: At the outset it needs to be said that over time much of what is being canvassed here has seen some kind of precedence. However, it is not within the scope of this submission to catalogue these things. Rather, it needs to be acknowledged that it is possible that exemplars exist and move on. The research needed here is for another time once the context for it is clear – or at least clearer.
An in depth examination of the State Government’s and NSW’s Councils’ financial and in-kind commitments to their cultural collections and musingplaces would establish just what the current financial investment in this aspect of ‘cultural development’ is in fact. Irrespective of there being impending council amalgamations this is an exercise worth the effort given that it would provide a snapshot of the State’s ‘cultural estate’.
Alongside this there is an equally good case to be put in regard to initiating a wide ranging audit of the size and scope of NSW’s ‘cultural estate’. Such an exercise is not something that can be achieved with a high level of accuracy nor quickly. Nonetheless, if we truly value our cultural 'holdings; then winning this data and the information attached could well lead to more sustainability in musingplaces.
While credible research does not project its outcome, speculatively at least, it is worth considering the possibilities of: There being a credible case for a ‘purposeful’ State-wide trust cum devolved arms-length ‘funding agency’ being set up;
• There being a ‘compounded cultural collection’ that is managed rhizomatically rather than hierarchically and located throughout the State albeit strategically placed;
• There being the possibility of initiating collaborative cultural research projects facilitated by the ‘compound collection’ and/or the State-wide trust;
• Developing network linkages with other institutional and registered private collections, sponsors and donors; and
• New understandings and imaginings of what is possible and feasible being able to emerge.
NEW OPPORTUNITIES FOR CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT: If it is acknowledged that the status quo relative to musingplace funding and management is both unsustainable and undesirable, revitalisation becomes a more viable proposition.
Altogether the kinds of funding and administrative change flagged here, simply due it being a changed paradigm, is ever likely to initiate change purposefully or otherwise.
Looking ahead, change is likely to be important, possibly an imperative, for individual public collections and musingplaces to establish a corporate identity, and a distinct entity, out from under the direct administrations of Local Govt. in particular.
However, a survey of public collections indicates that:
• Many lack a standalone charter/constitution;
• Many lack an independent strategic plan than applies specifically to the musingplace’s operation and policy determinations;
• It’s not unusual for strategic planning to be aspirational and mission focused rather than purposeful and functionally accountable given the elasticity this paradigm offers in measuring performance outcomes; and
• The roles of governance and management becomes increasingly blurred to the point that the credibility of the institution may diminish as the operation grows.
When the above become evident the ‘value’ of the musingplace and its collections become compromised.
It is also evident that ’public collections and musingplaces’ operate in ways that set them apart from their Communities of Ownership and Interest (COI). Plus, over time the musingplaces governance and management can become insulated from the institution’s COI. The result is all too often that they can become closed shops peopled with gatekeepers predisposed to delivering programs to passive audiences – the receivers of information rather than the generation of new understandings. Falling or stagnant attendances are typical signposts of all the above being so.
On the pretext of preserving ‘professional standards’ old paradigm musingplaces resist, interactive programming, initiatives like citizen curatorships, proactive entrepreneurship, etc. and quite often they serially resist change. In the end such resistance is unprofessional in that it’s a sign that accountability to a COI is discretionary, and something that can be deemed to be rather than it being a requirement. orobligation
The revitalisation of public musingplaces is ever likely to require more than cosmetic change. While it is not within the scope of this submission to speculate upon, what the kind of change flagged here might look like, it is clear that a course needs to be set for change if its acknowledged that that status quo is delivering less than it might.
Nonetheless, proactively exploring the legal, regulatory and cultural paradigms that will stimulate change should be a priority. Albert Einstein said that “there are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Likewise, someone, somewhere has said that miracles can happen if you create the circumstances for them and you’re prepared to stand back.
Putting a ‘Cultural Trust’ in place as a standalone facilitator for 21st C musingplaces may well put the circumstances in place for positive and productive change – plus the facilitation of meaningful change.
_________________________
Ray Norman – Artist, Metalsmith, Networker, Independent Researcher, Currently a Launcestonian, Cultural Theorist, Cultural Geographer and a hunter of Deep Histories ... Ray is Co-Director of zingHOUSEunlimited, a lifestyle design enterprise and network offering a range of services linked to contemporary cultural production and cultural research. Ray is also engaged with the nudgelbah institute as a cultural geographer. That institute's purpose is to be network of research networks and to be a diverse vehicle through which place oriented scholarship and cultural endeavours can be acknowledged, honoured and promoted.... LINK
If cultural development has any kind priority in the determination of government budgets – Local State & Federal – it is increasingly clear that modes of funding and the paradigms ‘musingplaces’ operate within need to change away from current ‘status quo’ models and modelling.
 |
| CLICK HERE |
HOW MIGHT FUNDING CHANGE LOOK: The foundations of contemporary museums and art galleries were laid down in Medieval Europe’s wunderkammers and kunstkammers, its ‘great hoses’, its monasteries and its ‘universities’. In the 19th C and 20th this changed somewhat with the upsurge in colonisations, the Industrial Revolution and international industrialisation.
Against this background the resistance to change and/or the acceptance the status quo is problematic. Clearly the “the way things are” serves some well – museologist et al. However, does it serve the wider community well – that is those who fund musingplaces, and very often by conscription through their taxes, rates, etc.?
Given that ‘cost centre thinking’ does not automatically deliver the best possible outcomes for musers, or put another way, musingplaces’s Communities of Ownership and Interest – [LINK].
Currently governments maintain bureaucracies of various sizes and complexity to oversight expenditure in the cultural arena. Very often these administrations are populated with people with various levels of professional experience and understanding of the cultural operations they are administering funding support to. In practice this is ever likely to be so given the kind of accountability a government instrumentality needs to deliver.
Consequently, in the short term change is more likely to be achieved ‘at arm’s length’ from governments bureaucracies rather than from within them.
Local government amalgamations in NSW are likely to be a factor in bringing about the kinds of change that will be more than likely unprecedented. In parallel, these changes might well impact in some way upon the ways in which cultural funding, musingplace funding in particular, is imagined at a State level.
Given the immensity of what is at stake, plus the collective value – cultural, social and fiscal – of NSW ‘public collections’ just how these collections, institutions and organisations are imagined and understood is a non trivial matter.
 |
| CLICK HERE |
An in depth examination of the State Government’s and NSW’s Councils’ financial and in-kind commitments to their cultural collections and musingplaces would establish just what the current financial investment in this aspect of ‘cultural development’ is in fact. Irrespective of there being impending council amalgamations this is an exercise worth the effort given that it would provide a snapshot of the State’s ‘cultural estate’.
Alongside this there is an equally good case to be put in regard to initiating a wide ranging audit of the size and scope of NSW’s ‘cultural estate’. Such an exercise is not something that can be achieved with a high level of accuracy nor quickly. Nonetheless, if we truly value our cultural 'holdings; then winning this data and the information attached could well lead to more sustainability in musingplaces.
While credible research does not project its outcome, speculatively at least, it is worth considering the possibilities of: There being a credible case for a ‘purposeful’ State-wide trust cum devolved arms-length ‘funding agency’ being set up;
• There being a ‘compounded cultural collection’ that is managed rhizomatically rather than hierarchically and located throughout the State albeit strategically placed;
• There being the possibility of initiating collaborative cultural research projects facilitated by the ‘compound collection’ and/or the State-wide trust;
• Developing network linkages with other institutional and registered private collections, sponsors and donors; and
• New understandings and imaginings of what is possible and feasible being able to emerge.
Altogether the kinds of funding and administrative change flagged here, simply due it being a changed paradigm, is ever likely to initiate change purposefully or otherwise.
Looking ahead, change is likely to be important, possibly an imperative, for individual public collections and musingplaces to establish a corporate identity, and a distinct entity, out from under the direct administrations of Local Govt. in particular.
However, a survey of public collections indicates that:
• Many lack a standalone charter/constitution;
• Many lack an independent strategic plan than applies specifically to the musingplace’s operation and policy determinations;
• It’s not unusual for strategic planning to be aspirational and mission focused rather than purposeful and functionally accountable given the elasticity this paradigm offers in measuring performance outcomes; and
• The roles of governance and management becomes increasingly blurred to the point that the credibility of the institution may diminish as the operation grows.
When the above become evident the ‘value’ of the musingplace and its collections become compromised.
It is also evident that ’public collections and musingplaces’ operate in ways that set them apart from their Communities of Ownership and Interest (COI). Plus, over time the musingplaces governance and management can become insulated from the institution’s COI. The result is all too often that they can become closed shops peopled with gatekeepers predisposed to delivering programs to passive audiences – the receivers of information rather than the generation of new understandings. Falling or stagnant attendances are typical signposts of all the above being so.
On the pretext of preserving ‘professional standards’ old paradigm musingplaces resist, interactive programming, initiatives like citizen curatorships, proactive entrepreneurship, etc. and quite often they serially resist change. In the end such resistance is unprofessional in that it’s a sign that accountability to a COI is discretionary, and something that can be deemed to be rather than it being a requirement. orobligation
The revitalisation of public musingplaces is ever likely to require more than cosmetic change. While it is not within the scope of this submission to speculate upon, what the kind of change flagged here might look like, it is clear that a course needs to be set for change if its acknowledged that that status quo is delivering less than it might.
Nonetheless, proactively exploring the legal, regulatory and cultural paradigms that will stimulate change should be a priority. Albert Einstein said that “there are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Likewise, someone, somewhere has said that miracles can happen if you create the circumstances for them and you’re prepared to stand back.
Putting a ‘Cultural Trust’ in place as a standalone facilitator for 21st C musingplaces may well put the circumstances in place for positive and productive change – plus the facilitation of meaningful change.
 |
| LINK |
Ray Norman – Artist, Metalsmith, Networker, Independent Researcher, Currently a Launcestonian, Cultural Theorist, Cultural Geographer and a hunter of Deep Histories ... Ray is Co-Director of zingHOUSEunlimited, a lifestyle design enterprise and network offering a range of services linked to contemporary cultural production and cultural research. Ray is also engaged with the nudgelbah institute as a cultural geographer. That institute's purpose is to be network of research networks and to be a diverse vehicle through which place oriented scholarship and cultural endeavours can be acknowledged, honoured and promoted.... LINK
SUBMISSION #2
SUBMISSION #2
REIMAGINING THE POWERHOUSE
COLLECTION AND ITS GOVERNANCE
http://nswmuseumsinquiry.blogspot.com.au/p/reimagining-powerhouse-collection-and.html
• AUTHOR: Ray Norman • CLICK HERE TO LINK TO PERSONAL BACKGROUND
• STATUS: Independent Researcher, Artist & Cultural Geographer
• DATE: August 14 2016
SUMMARY
FOREWORD
• Submission made against my background and the experiences as designer-maker, academic and independent researcher.
• I believe that the inquiry is timely long needed and that it is of national significance. It has been amply demonstrated the proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum site in Ultimo and its proposed move to Parramatta is at the very least contentious.
• The transparency of advice to the government in regard to cultural and social issues should be a primary concern for musingplace governing bodies.
PUBLIC COLLECTION ACCESS
• The collection material held in Australia’s musingplaces – museums, art galleries, heritage builds, botanical gardens, libraries, etc. – make up an important component of the nation’s wealth – a public treasury.
• Access to the data and information held in, and added to, these collections over time is an issue that should not be trivialised.
• While ever a musingplace’s primary ‘audience focus’ is upon who those walk through their front doors their modus operandi can largely be regarded as something out of the 19th C – albeit an attitude that persisted through the 20th C and into the 21th C.
• More and more, audiences no longer either expect to be, or want to be, understood as passive receivers.
• Musingplaces work hard to maintain that for which they are traditionally known and they also become the victims of the expectations of their own ‘historic treadmill’
• It is no longer tenable for musingplaces to be the governed for those seeing themselves as passive receivers nor justifiable to allow collections to fall into the hands of gatekeepers and ‘the experts’ as they’re no longer essential.
THE POWERHOUSE DILEMA
• There were always alternatives strategies to he proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum’s Ultimo site. Likewise, the proposal to move the institution to Parramatta, or anywhere else, is arguably foolishness of the highest order.
• There is a need to do an operational audit of the Powerhouse in order to assist in the navigation a course through the contention and overcome the lack of either a ‘road map’ or a survey of the cultural landscape. • Ideally some kind of ‘middle way’ needs to be navigated and a path of moderation, between the extremes of indulgence and indignity found
• What is clearly and undeniably of the most value is “The Powerhouse Collection”.
• On the available evidence, that building a multidimensional ‘Community Cultural Enterprise’ built on the foundations of the Powerhouse Collection might be a starting point for a reimagining and revitalizing what the foundations have previously supported.
• There is a need to avoid predetermining rankings in a hierarchy ... hierarchical relationship are bound to fall over in relation to the hierarchical weaknesses in the pyramid ... And organic alternatives allow for elements – branches? – to be removed if they fail and without destroying the whole
ADVISORY MECHANISMS FOR MUSINGPLACES AND GOVERNMENT
• The acknowledgement of the need to develop mechanisms for providing transparent and fearless advice to the government on priorities for NSW musingplace, museums and galleries specifically, is an important development.
• Given all that communities have invested in these institutions the advice base from which they operate is non-trivial.
• ‘Citizens Juries/ Assemblies’ offer a way forward ... the newDEMOCRACYFoundation has played a facilitating Citizen’s Juries in Australia for some time
• History has shown that ‘peer groups’ and ‘expert committees’ have much to offer but they have the inherent capacity to become controlling mechanisms – or at worst decorative bodies that make autocratic managements appear 'democratic'.
• Citizens Juries/Assemblies offer opportunities for expertise to drawn upon via expert witnesses etc. ... every jury is ‘fresh’ thus the advice they a offer the ultimate decision makers is likely to be useful and relevant.
FOREWORD
• Submission made against my background and the experiences as designer-maker, academic and independent researcher.
• I believe that the inquiry is timely long needed and that it is of national significance. It has been amply demonstrated the proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum site in Ultimo and its proposed move to Parramatta is at the very least contentious.
• The transparency of advice to the government in regard to cultural and social issues should be a primary concern for musingplace governing bodies.
PUBLIC COLLECTION ACCESS
• The collection material held in Australia’s musingplaces – museums, art galleries, heritage builds, botanical gardens, libraries, etc. – make up an important component of the nation’s wealth – a public treasury.
• Access to the data and information held in, and added to, these collections over time is an issue that should not be trivialised.
• While ever a musingplace’s primary ‘audience focus’ is upon who those walk through their front doors their modus operandi can largely be regarded as something out of the 19th C – albeit an attitude that persisted through the 20th C and into the 21th C.
• More and more, audiences no longer either expect to be, or want to be, understood as passive receivers.
• Musingplaces work hard to maintain that for which they are traditionally known and they also become the victims of the expectations of their own ‘historic treadmill’
• It is no longer tenable for musingplaces to be the governed for those seeing themselves as passive receivers nor justifiable to allow collections to fall into the hands of gatekeepers and ‘the experts’ as they’re no longer essential.
THE POWERHOUSE DILEMA
• There were always alternatives strategies to he proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum’s Ultimo site. Likewise, the proposal to move the institution to Parramatta, or anywhere else, is arguably foolishness of the highest order.
• There is a need to do an operational audit of the Powerhouse in order to assist in the navigation a course through the contention and overcome the lack of either a ‘road map’ or a survey of the cultural landscape. • Ideally some kind of ‘middle way’ needs to be navigated and a path of moderation, between the extremes of indulgence and indignity found
• What is clearly and undeniably of the most value is “The Powerhouse Collection”.
• On the available evidence, that building a multidimensional ‘Community Cultural Enterprise’ built on the foundations of the Powerhouse Collection might be a starting point for a reimagining and revitalizing what the foundations have previously supported.
• There is a need to avoid predetermining rankings in a hierarchy ... hierarchical relationship are bound to fall over in relation to the hierarchical weaknesses in the pyramid ... And organic alternatives allow for elements – branches? – to be removed if they fail and without destroying the whole
ADVISORY MECHANISMS FOR MUSINGPLACES AND GOVERNMENT
• The acknowledgement of the need to develop mechanisms for providing transparent and fearless advice to the government on priorities for NSW musingplace, museums and galleries specifically, is an important development.
• Given all that communities have invested in these institutions the advice base from which they operate is non-trivial.
• ‘Citizens Juries/ Assemblies’ offer a way forward ... the newDEMOCRACYFoundation has played a facilitating Citizen’s Juries in Australia for some time
• History has shown that ‘peer groups’ and ‘expert committees’ have much to offer but they have the inherent capacity to become controlling mechanisms – or at worst decorative bodies that make autocratic managements appear 'democratic'.
• Citizens Juries/Assemblies offer opportunities for expertise to drawn upon via expert witnesses etc. ... every jury is ‘fresh’ thus the advice they a offer the ultimate decision makers is likely to be useful and relevant.
FOREWORD.
I make this submission against my background and the experiences I have gained as designermaker, academic and independent researcher. I currently live and work in Tasmania but I trained and worked in NSW and I have family and professional connections in the state. I also have ongoing interests in cultural institution located in NSW.
In particular I’m responding to this inquiry because I believe that it is timely and long needed. In addition, I believe that the inquiry is of national significance. More to the point, such an inquiry being held in regard to museums, art galleries and musingplaces of all kinds needs to acknowledge that these ‘places’ need to be reimagined in a 21st Century context.
Providing access to the collections of NSW public museums and art galleries is both a fundamental necessity and an obligation that falls to the governing bodies of the institutions and the managers of the collections.
In particular I’m responding to this inquiry because I believe that it is timely and long needed. In addition, I believe that the inquiry is of national significance. More to the point, such an inquiry being held in regard to museums, art galleries and musingplaces of all kinds needs to acknowledge that these ‘places’ need to be reimagined in a 21st Century context.
Providing access to the collections of NSW public museums and art galleries is both a fundamental necessity and an obligation that falls to the governing bodies of the institutions and the managers of the collections.
As has been amply demonstrated the proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum site in Ultimo and its proposed move to Parramatta is at the very least contentious. If sought there are indeed alternative strategies and enhanced methodologies to support 21st C museum development and to facilitate improved access to the collection material.
The transparency of advice to the government in regard to cultural and social issues should be a primary concern for musingplace governing bodies. NSW museums and galleries, indeed its musingplaces, should and could be pursued somewhat more proactively than is currently evidenced.
The collection material held in Australia’s musingplaces – museums, art galleries, heritage builds, botanical gardens, libraries, etc. – make up an important component of the nation’s wealth – a public treasury. Access to the data and information held in, and added to, these collections over time is an issue that should not be trivialised.
In the greater part of the 19th & 20th Centuries it largely fell to ‘the keepers’ to interpret the material in collections and provide it to audiences largely understood as passive receivers of knowledge – wisdom even. In a 21st C context by-and-large this kind of thinking is no longer appropriate. The keepers cum curators – collection stewards – who were once the ‘most knowledgeable’ can no longer make such claims.
While ever a musingplace’s primary ‘audience focus’ is upon who those walk through their front doors their modus operandi can largely be regarded as something out of the 19th C – albeit an attitude that persisted through the 20th C and into the 21th C. Even if this generalisation possibly discounts far too much, overall musingplaces work relatively hard to maintain that for which they are traditionally known. They also become the victims of the expectations of their own ‘historic treadmill’.
More and more, audiences no longer either expect to be, or want to be, understood as passive receivers. Likewise, they are becoming less and less enamoured with being presented with regurgitated wisdom, or presented with the way something should be seen and understood. The convenience and value of shorthand labelling shrinks in relevance as passive audiences evolve into proactive COIs. The traditional paradigm musingplaces operate within can in part be explained by the imperative to ‘protect the collections’ but the strategies along with rhetoric becomes less sustainable with the fast-moving evolution of digital and other emerging technologies.
While there is little that can replace the haptic experiences of ‘real things’ can provide, nonetheless evolving technologies allow for deeper explorations. Moreover, the data and information extractable from musingplace collections not only grows dynamically, it is transmissible to ever increasing numbers of active musers.
It is no longer tenable that they be the governed for those seeing themselves as passive receivers. Neither is it justifiable to allow collections to fall into the hands of gatekeepers and ‘the experts’ as former are no longer needed and the latter are no longer essential.
There were always alternatives strategies to he proposed sale of the Powerhouse Museum’s Ultimo site. Likewise, the proposal to move the institution to Parramatta, or anywhere else, is arguably foolishness of the highest order.
Taken together the assertions that are being bureaucratically presumed to have veracity simply demonstrate a paucity of understanding relative to the values invested in, and held in, musingplaces.
That said, it’s not automatically the case that the status quo should, or even could, be maintained. The American President, Ronald Regan apparently once said “the status quo is simply Latin for the mess we are in” and at least on this occasion he was insightful. It’s more than likely that the proposition is based upon a set of beliefs and shallow reasoning.
However, on it current site, like many musingplaces that operate in a mindset largely framed by a 20th C paradigm, it is likely that:
- Visitor numbers are either plateauing or flagging;
- The cultural landscape is evolving into something other than the one that originally lent substance and relevance to the institution and its collections at the turn of the 20th C;
- It may be argued that the real estate value invested in the institution currently arguably exceeds the value of the presumed ‘social license’ to occupy it.
Even with these things there will inevitably be contention as various groups play their hands and in circumstances where rank is likely to be pulled.
While rationales 1, 2, & 3 all might have veracity they might as well have been framed in a vacuum unless the full spectrum institution’s COI has been included in the conversation. If that is to be done it seems that it is either a work-in-progress or possibly on some future unarticulated agenda.
Ideally some kind of ‘middle way’ might be navigated where the path of moderation, between the extremes of indulgence and indignity. This just might provide the wisdom required to achieve a win-win worth having.
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| COLLECTION LINK |
What is clearly and undeniably of the most value is “The Powerhouse Collection”. However, it needs to be said that this collection, in its entirety, can be governed other than the way it is currently. Moreover changes in governance would/could also mean a paradigm shift in regard to the collection’s management. That is changes in regard to the institution’s articulated purpose, objectives, the rationales for them and ways outcomes will be achieved and measured.
Rather than a smooth transition from one circumstance to another it is ever likely that there will be unforeseen consequences. It would seem that there are reasons to change almost every aspect of ‘The Powerhouse Operation’ but if meaningful change is to be undertaken there needs to be careful and considered navigation.
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| Click on the image to enlarge |
It would seem, on the available evidence, that building a multidimensional ‘Community Cultural Enterprise’ built on the foundations of the Powerhouse Collection might be a starting point for a reimagining and revitalizing what the foundations have previously supported.
What might a multidimensional ‘Community Cultural Enterprise’ look like? The answer to that could be almost anything but its important to identify what it would not be like. Firstly, it wouldn’t/shouldn’t be imagined as a ‘cost centre’. After that it wouldn't need a corporate structure that inhibited income generation, audacious initiatives nor risk taking within bounds.
The chart here simply identifies the components of such an operation and avoids predetermining rankings in a hierarchy. Each operation would need to determine its own relationships. However, hierarchical relationship are bound to fall over in relation to the hierarchical weaknesses in the pyramid that requires nothing less everyone in place fulfilling a purpose.
The organic alternative allow for elements – branches? – to be removed if they fail and without destroying the whole structure/organism. As it is with trees, new branches can grow to replace those that needed to be removed for whatever purpose.
The organic alternative allow for elements – branches? – to be removed if they fail and without destroying the whole structure/organism. As it is with trees, new branches can grow to replace those that needed to be removed for whatever purpose.
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| Link to newDEMOCRACY |
The acknowledgement of the need to develop mechanisms for providing transparent and fearless advice to the government on priorities for NSW musingplace, museums and galleries specifically, is an important development. Given all that communities have invested in these institutions the advice base from which they operate is non-trivial.
It would be possible to look at the precedence provided by other jurisdictions in Australia and internationally and then search for a common denominator that appears to fit the circumstances of the future. The flaw here is that the future was never predictable given the complexity of the factors in play. Thus any common denominator will fail the ‘future test’ simply because it offers no real possibility of succeeding.
On the other hand ‘Citizens Juries/ Assemblies’ are being employed around Australia and the United Kingdom and particularly in the area of Local Govt. The newDEMOCRACY Foundation has been facilitating Citizen’s Juries in Australia for some time in response to a range of issuers. In fact this inquiry is a Citizen’s Jury of a kind.
The alternatives to this kind ‘judgement and advice’ paradigm is likely to be a self-serving and liable to grow into somewhat monolithic structures designed to provide predictable or trustable outcomes relative to situations that have not yet arisen. The flaws here should be obvious but nonetheless some management functionaries often feel more comfortable within such structures.
Citizens Juries /Assemblies offer the advantage of the potential of being purposeful and circumstance focused. Moreover once their task is complete they simply dissolve back into the communities from which they were assembled. The next time a ‘jury’ is required it can be assembled and resourced as required. .
History has shown that ‘peer groups’ and ‘expert committees’ have much to offer but they have the inherent capacity to become controlling mechanisms – or at worst decorative bodies that make autocratic managements appear 'democratic'.
Also, they have the capacity to selectively and subjectively privilege some information over and above alternative evidence and in ways that is not always criteria based – arguably it’s also seen as their job to do so.
Citizens Juries/Assemblies also offer opportunities for expertise to drawn upon via expert witnesses etc. Given that they can be empanelled on a needs basis and that every jury is ‘fresh’ the advise they are liable to offer the ultimate decision makers is likely to be useful and relevant.
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Ray Norman – Artist, Metalsmith, Networker, Independent Researcher, Currently a Launcestonian, Cultural Theorist, Cultural Geographer and a hunter of Deep Histories ... Ray is Co-Director of zingHOUSEunlimited, a lifestyle design enterprise and network offering a range of services linked to contemporary cultural production and cultural research. Ray is also engaged with the nudgelbah institute as a cultural geographer. That institute's purpose is to be network of research networks and to be a diverse vehicle through which place oriented scholarship and cultural endeavours can be acknowledged, honoured and promoted.... LINK
It would be possible to look at the precedence provided by other jurisdictions in Australia and internationally and then search for a common denominator that appears to fit the circumstances of the future. The flaw here is that the future was never predictable given the complexity of the factors in play. Thus any common denominator will fail the ‘future test’ simply because it offers no real possibility of succeeding.
On the other hand ‘Citizens Juries/ Assemblies’ are being employed around Australia and the United Kingdom and particularly in the area of Local Govt. The newDEMOCRACY Foundation has been facilitating Citizen’s Juries in Australia for some time in response to a range of issuers. In fact this inquiry is a Citizen’s Jury of a kind.
The alternatives to this kind ‘judgement and advice’ paradigm is likely to be a self-serving and liable to grow into somewhat monolithic structures designed to provide predictable or trustable outcomes relative to situations that have not yet arisen. The flaws here should be obvious but nonetheless some management functionaries often feel more comfortable within such structures.
History has shown that ‘peer groups’ and ‘expert committees’ have much to offer but they have the inherent capacity to become controlling mechanisms – or at worst decorative bodies that make autocratic managements appear 'democratic'.
Also, they have the capacity to selectively and subjectively privilege some information over and above alternative evidence and in ways that is not always criteria based – arguably it’s also seen as their job to do so.
Citizens Juries/Assemblies also offer opportunities for expertise to drawn upon via expert witnesses etc. Given that they can be empanelled on a needs basis and that every jury is ‘fresh’ the advise they are liable to offer the ultimate decision makers is likely to be useful and relevant.
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| LINK |
Ray Norman – Artist, Metalsmith, Networker, Independent Researcher, Currently a Launcestonian, Cultural Theorist, Cultural Geographer and a hunter of Deep Histories ... Ray is Co-Director of zingHOUSEunlimited, a lifestyle design enterprise and network offering a range of services linked to contemporary cultural production and cultural research. Ray is also engaged with the nudgelbah institute as a cultural geographer. That institute's purpose is to be network of research networks and to be a diverse vehicle through which place oriented scholarship and cultural endeavours can be acknowledged, honoured and promoted.... LINK
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