Bid to blow away museum dust
MARY MACHEN
SEPTEMBER 7 2014 - 11:06PM
WHILE there may be momentum to introduce independent administration for Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, arts advocate and artist Ray Norman believes it is not happening soon enough.
He also questions the energy being put into marketing the institution as a tourism asset, volunteering that one smart move could be to ‘‘bundle’’ the state’s museums and heritage buildings in a cultural development and tourism marketing drive.
‘‘Enterprise and freedom in imagining encourages cross-pollination and could let the museum ooze out from the white box,’’ said Mr Norman.
‘‘At present it strikes me that museums operate on an assumption that it’s inappropriate to generate income.
‘‘They certainly can generate sustainable incomes, but maybe we need to consider profit not only as a fiscal dividend.
‘‘The profit can also be in social dividends, intangible cultural dividends.’’
Right now, maintains Mr Norman, the lines between management and governance at QVMAG are blurred.
‘‘We need to avoid bureaucracy and move towards an administration model that encourages community ownership and enterprise as opposed to stakeholders,’’ he said.
Last month Mr Norman, a Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board staff member in the 1980s, resigned from the QVMAG Governance Advisory Board.
While the circumstances remain unspecified, it’s understood there was unease about his outspoken advocacy for a more independent operational system and disquiet over missed marketing opportunities.
‘‘The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s funding debacle is arguably due to the institution’s uncritical adherence to its cost-centric operational model,’’ says an unshackled Mr Norman, referring to TMAG’s shock revelation that it was operating on a $4 million budget blowout. [TMAG also lost its long-time director Bill Bleathman in December after a 12-year tenure.]
‘‘We have to start looking for a model that would best suit the QVMAG to better engage their communities. The QVMAG is an unusual beast given it is in two locations and is both an art gallery and a museum.’’
In the 12 months from July 2013, it attracted 128,734 visitors.
Mr Norman said it was disappointing that the QVMAG’s collection, valued at $231.9 million three years ago, continued to be entrusted to councillors rather than curators – as he puts it, ‘‘appointed trustees with domain knowledge’’ – and experts in individual fields. ‘‘Undoubtedly there needs to be wider advice sought from within the community given the weight of responsibility falling to aldermen as trustees,’’ he said.
‘‘The LCC is under an obligation to devise a better working model given it raises 3 per cent of its rate revenue on the back of cultural endeavour and development.’’
‘‘Given the success of MONA, and TMAG’s visitor numbers since MONA, it’s a no-brainer that museums and galleries can play a vital role in developing cultural tourism outcomes.’’
Mr Norman said an umbrella network that oversaw the administrations of all public art galleries and museums, the National Trust and the state’s heritage estate together could be a solution.
‘‘Everything these organisations care for is part of the national estate, and all these organisations should be working together as they would attract the same tourist demographic.
His call came as the state government released figures for the 12 months to March showing that a record 1.06 million people visited Tasmania, with a 1.5 million target set for 2020.
QVMAG director Richard Mulvaney would not be drawn into critical discussion about the current operation model of the QVMAG, but he did venture that ‘‘there is strong recognition that we need to do something different’’.
‘‘Like Mr Norman, I and many others understand the importance of cultural institutions in our community and how they impact and affect our lives’’.
Arts advocate Ray Norman at the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery at Royal Park, where, he believes, change is not happening fast enough. Picture: GEOFF ROBSON
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