Having been to Perth and back since (with much food for thought from that trip), it seems like ages ago that I went to TEDxAdelaide (my preview post is here). But it was less than a fortnight ago (12th November to be precise).
The TEDxAdelaide team have done a speedy job of posting the talks online – see a list here.
If you want to get an overview of the day, try starting with the end – the wrapup poem by Tracy Korsten. While I’m not 100% sure how well it will translate to people who weren’t there, it was a witty and succinct summary of the day – and might give you a hint of which of the other talks might interest you.
My pick of the bunch is Why Things Hurt by Lorimer Moseley. Never has pain been so entertaining! And it was a brilliant example of science communication (I now see the neurobiology of pain in a completely different light). Loads of the other talks had science or technology themes, while scriptwriter Emily Steel got us thinking along the lines of – what is science anyway? What is the story behind the science?
Another one of my favourites was the talk by TACSI’sBrenton Caffin about the disconnect between the kafka-esque bureaucracy of many public services, and the often dedicated individuals who work in them.
I’m sure there are many other pithy observations I could make, but a lot of those would have been based on jottings I made on the day – in that notebook I lost in Perth. Oh well, you’ll just have to watch them for yourself!
John Holden from UK thinktank Demos gave the opening keynote of the conference. He described three main forms of culture:
“High” culture – this category includes the fine arts, opera and other cultural pursuits that are considered the pinnacle of cultural expression. They rely on patronage (either philanthropic or government), as their relatively limited audiences are not large enough to make them self-sustaining. However, this lack of broad appeal is worn like a badge of honour by proponents of High culture. As soon as something becomes too popular, there are accusations of ‘selling out’ or ‘dumbing down’ – thus by its own circular logic, High culture can never be popular culture. (As Holden said, this would be like BMW saying “our last car was too popular – what did we do wrong?”) High culture has gatekeepers, “experts” who act as arbiters of taste.
“Commercial” culture – popular culture which is self-funded commercially, such as television, movies and pop music. They depend on attracting large enough audiences to fund their production and dissemination. By the assumptions of the High Culturists, commercial culture will always be of inferior quality, although this distinction is not necessarily drawn by audiences. They will find quality in any medium. Holden asks – is a popular drama such as the West Wing automatically inferior to an obscure stage production with a limited audience? Similarly to High culture though, Commercial culture has gatekeepers too – someone has to provide the initial capital investment to commission the program or award the recording contract, or else it never gets made.
“Home made” culture – the culture we produce ourselves in our own homes and communities: creating our own music, crafts and performances for sharing among our peers. This is the oldest form of culture. Since it relies on our own initiative and creativity rather than money, there are no central gatekeepers deciding who makes or does what. In the 20th century, home made culture was somewhat marginalised by the explosion of commercial culture. However, the internet and social media has since lowered the cost and complexity of sharing and disseminating home made culture (Holden observed, “everyone I know under 25 is in a band”). In fact, the rise of home made culture is threatening the traditional gatekeeper role of the commercial culture producers, most notably in the music industry where the traditional record company’s business model is in terminal decline.
Holden observed how the boundaries between the three cultural types were being blurred and redefined. He challenged the cultural sector to acknowledge and respond to this change in relationship between ‘expert’ and ‘audience’. Holden predicted that while the traditional music megastore may be a thing of the past, soon in its place will emerge niche music stores that essentially ‘curate’ the mass of material being circulated in cyberspace. This example is a good one to ponder for museums who wonder what the changing landscape means for the role of curatorial expertise. It occurs to me that the time of the ‘expert’ isn’t dead, but that the role will evolve from being one of Gatekeepers to one of Guides.
Memories and stories
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The following session had three keynotes, from Dr Viv Golding, Gail Richard, and Sam Walsh. They were all broadly about the role of memory and stories in our communities and bringing life to museum collections, albeit from very different perspectives (Viv is a museum studies academic; Gail is an interpretive trainer and Sam is from the mining sector).
Speaking to delegates afterwards, it appears these talks divided opinion somewhat. From my own perspective, I thought a lot of what Viv Golding talked about (the role of multisensory experiences in evoking memory and incorporating multiple voices in exhibition spaces) were things that exhibition designers and planners were doing already. She spoke about her work with a Carribbean Women’s group in a museum, but it was not apparent how this project subsequently influenced the design or implementation of exhibitions or programs in the museum (which is where my interest lies).
Gail Richard discussed cultural differences in communication, broadly dividing cultures into “low context” and “high context” communicators. Low context cultures, such as Western cultures, rely more heavily on explicit language and clearly articulated procedures in the way they conduct business. Directness is valued because it gets to the point and doesn’t waste people’s time. Conversely, in high context cultures, what is actually said is less significant than its nuances. There is more emphasis placed on non-verbal communication and building relationships gradually. Directness can be taken as rude or aggressive. She offered tips for bridging the gap between high and low culture communicators. I thought it was interesting, and the Twitter feed was positive, however I spoke to someone else who felt that the low context vs. high context model was an oversimplification bordering on stereotype. Another difference in communication styles perhaps?
Hat tip to the other conference bloggers
Some other blog articles I’ve found from the At the Frontier conference – I’ll post more if I become aware of them:
A couple of weeks ago I finally made the time to check out the Saatchi Gallery in Adelaide: British Art Now exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The Art Gallery has turned over some 70% of its total exhibition space to the display of items from the famous (infamous?) Saatchi Gallery in London.
I’m not going to pretend to know or understand anything about contemporary art – I’m not sure if ‘understanding’ is even the point of the particularly iconoclastic and challenging brand of art that Saatchi seemingly favours – so I’m not going to contribute to the ongoing ‘is this really art?’ debate that surrounds these kinds of works. Rather, I’ll share some general impressions and pieces I found interesting.
Firstly, particularly given my recent post on the issue, I should observe that there were no obvious restrictions on photography without flash, making experiences like this possible:
Photography seemingly *is* allowed when it's contemporary art on display. This makes me seriously question the logic of "copyright" claimed by other museums. If it's not an issue for works where the artist is still living, why is it an issue for the old masters?
I don’t go to contemporary art exhibitions expecting an overall theme or ‘interpretive message’ to emerge as I might expect at a science or history exhibition. But one thing I did notice about a lot of the art on display was that it seemed to be as much about the process of making art as it was about the finished piece itself. This is exemplified by Juliana Cerqueira Leite’s three works Up, Down and Oh.
Leite’s work “Oh”
The label for “Oh” describes the painstaking process of creating the clay mould for the balloon structure:
A similar process was used to create the works “Up” and “Down” by hand-digging into a large block of clay, either from the bottom up or top down, and then casting the form created in plaster. “Up” is black to represent the increasing darkness of boring up into the clay block. “Down” in particular shows numerous indentations from the artists hands and knees as she excavates the clay.
"Up" (left) and "Down" (right)
Probably one of the most well known and controversial works on display was “My Bed” by Tracy Emin. I was living in the UK the year this work was shortlisted for the Turner Prize and I remember the media and political outcry it caused at the time.
“My bed” by Tracy Emin
While I’d seen many pictures, descriptions and criticisms of the work before (so its contents were no surprise), the label accompanying the work gave me a new insight: apparently, the idea of the piece came about after Emin (legendary for her hard living) woke up after a two-day drinking bender, feeling lucky to be alive after all she had drunk. Looking at the squalor of her room, it occurred to her that, had she died, this would have been the setting her body would have been found in. This piece of back story made me look at the work with fresh eyes as a statement on mortality and the legacy we leave.
On reflection though, I think my favourite work in the exhibition is one I almost missed – Tessa Farmer’s “Swarm”. At first glance, it just looks like a display case suspended with dead insects, and I almost walked straight past thinking that was all there was to it:
"Swarm" by Tessa Farmer (photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/appelogen/5179704948/sizes/z/in/photostream/)
However, while in one sense it is indeed a case of dead insects, Farmer has used insect parts to create amazingly intricate sculptures of fairy-like creatures waging battle:
Close-up of 'swarm' showing the army of creatures made from dessicated insect parts.
I could have spent ages looking at all the different pieces and their amazing attention to detail. Although this was getting towards the end of my visit and by this stage my feet were killing me.
This brings me to some final comments about the design and overall experience of the space – the works were well-spaced out, allowing each its own space to ‘breathe’ and allowing viewing from multiple vantage points. There are apparently something like 120 pieces on display, spread over what I’d guess to be at least 2000-3000 square metres of gallery space. However there was precious little seating provided over this large area (I only remember seeing one seating unit), hence my aching feet towards the end.
My other issue is that I could have very easily have missed half of the exhibition: it is spread over two levels, one that is accessed via the main entrance on North Terrace, and another level two floors below (the middle floor is the rear access to the Gallery and includes the cafe and shop). I only realised there was more to see when I joined a guided tour of the exhibition after I thought I’d already ‘seen everything’ and was just curious about what the tour guide would have to say. The two parts of the exhibition were linked by a staircase where there were temporary signs that indicated you needed a ticket to enter. However there was nothing on these signs to suggest that the exhibition continued on another level. Had I decided to bypass the shop or cafe and go back the way I came in, I could have missed the lower level completely.
Photography is a spectator sport only in most galleries
The “No Photography” sign. It’s so ubiquitous that even when I don’t see a sign, I’m still wary that if I whip my camera out a stern-looking security guard will materialise to have words. ‘No photographs’ is still the default setting in many museums and most galleries, to the extent that when the ban is mostly absent, as it is in GoMA, it brings a markedly different complexion to the exhibition environment.
Not all exhibitions are so censorious of photographic activity – indeed, in one of the first exhibitions I worked on, at the National Space Centre in Leicester, some exhibits were deliberately planned to work as photo opportunities. Generally speaking, hands-on exhibitions and venues that target families seem to welcome photography as an important way for their visitors to record, share and recollect experiences.
A quick tot-up of my ‘Exhibit Photos’ file folder revealed some 3000 images of exhibits and exhibitions, in approximately 20 cities around the world, all taken since I first bought a digital camera back in 2003. For me, this is a valuable repository of all the places I’ve visited; the good, bad and ugly of exhibit ideas; and a way to remember far more than if I’d travelled with just my eyes, ears and unaided memory. Just looking at the pictures brings back the experiences, and I remember far more about what I did, how I felt and what I learned at all the exhibitions I’ve been fortunate enough to have visited. Without these images, most of these experiences would have been lost in the blurry mists of time.
Admittedly, the purpose of my photographic jaunts was primarily professional (and the emphasis of each batch of photos is an inadvertent record of whatever particular kind of exhibition I happened to be researching at the time – it inevitably influenced what was ‘photo-worthy’). Even so, compact digital cameras (and more recently smartphones) have transformed photography from a way of documenting holidays and special occasions to the way we increasingly document and share our day-to-day lives. We see, therefore we photograph. We photograph, therefore we share. These actions help to reinforce our memories and add value to our experiences. But have museums recognised this cultural shift? And are they doing anything to accommodate it?
The photography ban is based on some sound reasoning. However, I want to deconstruct some of this reasoning to see if it still holds in the 21st century, or whether museums and galleries are simply sticking to historical habit to the detriment of the visitor experience:
Conservation reasons: Light damages delicate objects like paper and textiles. Their ideal environment from a conservation perspective is complete darkness, so having sensitive objects on public display at all is always a matter of compromise at some level. So banning flash photography makes sense. Non-flash photography may be impractical (although not damaging) as the objects are often displayed in low-light environments. However, while it depends on the objects of course, I wonder if the ‘no flash’ rule is applied more liberally than it needs to be, given that modern camera flashes are nowhere near as UV-intensive as the old-fashioned ones that the rules were presumably designed for?
Pointless or disruptive photography: in these circumstances, banning photography makes perfect sense. Other people snapping and flashing away (in the photographic sense) can inhibit the experience of other visitors, particularly during shows or theatrical presentations. One person’s right to document their day shouldn’t trump the rights of other visitors to enjoy the experience in peace if they so wish. Live animals displays are also an inappropriate subject for flash photography. A final note in this regard, I always have to have a bit of a giggle to myself when I see people attempt to take a flash-photograph of a projection. Do they really not realise that all they are capturing is a blank screen?
Copyright reasons: this is the big one. And by far the knottiest. It sounds serious, but at the same time is sufficiently vague that it can seemingly be used as a convenient excuse to point to in order to stick to the comfort zone of the status quo. This is a cynical interpretation, to be sure, but visitors are seldom given any evidence to counter such cynicism. Sometimes it seems as if copyright is too complicated to figure out; that it’s easier for museum and gallery management to just lump everything together into the intellectual property equivalent of the maximum security wing. Looking at society more broadly, the copyright genie is well and truly out of the bottle – attempts to bring it back under old business models seem doomed to failure (the recording industry and rights management is a salutary tale here). In any case, I find it hard to understand how a few iPhone snaps in a gallery pose a serious copyright threat to anyone: people will still want to buy properly produced prints and postcards of the items they really like, and how can the extra publicity generated by the sharing of photos be a bad thing for artists’ careers?
I’m not saying that photography should be a free-for-all by any means. But I think the default should be for museums and galleries to allow photography unless there is a good reason not to (rather than the ban being the norm). Rules with clear reasons (i.e. signs which explain why photography or flash are not permitted in certain areas) are more likely to be respected than blanket bans which appear to treat the public with suspicion.
Some people, because they do not value photography themselves, may not consider it an issue. Going further, some may even consider taking snaps too vulgar or somehow not reverent enough for the gallery environment. But then again, the ‘establishment’ has been complaining about the poor behaviour of ‘the uneducated masses’ in museums for as long as public museums have been in existence. And if photography is done respectfully of objects, their creators and other visitors, where is the harm?
A couple of weeks ago, I referred to Culture Segments, which was developed by UK-based firm Morris Hargreaves McIntyre as a way of describing different audiences for the cultural sector.
It identifies 8 different audience segments, based on people’s interests, attitudes, and extent to which they value culture as a part of their day to day lives:
“the segments are distinguished from one another by deeply-held beliefs about the role that art and culture play in their lives, enabling you to get to the heart of what motivates them and develop strategies to engage them more deeply.”
Briefly, the eight categories can be described as:
Enrichment: an older more mature demographic; most likely to visit heritage sites and gardens; relatively conservative and fixed in tastes and habits.
Entertainment: younger adults who are less interested in the arts; most likely to frequent ‘must-see’ events, theme parks and sporting events; tend to stick with what is seen as ‘popular’
Expression: people with a wide range of interests of which arts and culture are an important part; they enjoy intellectual stimulation and seek communal experiences in their leisure time
Perspective: home-oriented; mostly interested in outdoor-and nature based activites; they do not see arts and culture as important aspects of their lives but can be tempted if their relevance is made clear
Stimulation: active and adventurous, they like being at the cutting edge; innovators and early adopters; will seek out contemporary art forms like street art and music festivals in contrast to traditional arts and culture
Affirmation: view arts and culture asa way of spending quality time with friends and family; they actively seek educational experiences for their children; seek self development and peer affirmation
Release: younger adults with busy working and family lives; arts have moved down their list of priorities as they struggle to fit everything in; need convincing that arts can be enjoyable for children
Essense: active cultural consumers and creators; they avoid mainstream activities and like to be seen as discerning and sophisticated in their tastes; like to be the ‘first to discover’ the new and unknown
Each segment is described in further detail in the Culture Segments document (downloadable as PDF), including education levels, age profiles, cultural spending habits (split between tickets, food & drink and souvenirs) and ways to target each group more effectively. It’s based on the UK population but I imagine the general principles would be applicable elsewhere, if not the specific stats.
These audience segments are different from the visitor identities I have written about earlier – they are describing different things for different purposes.
The principal difference, as I see it, is that visitor identities are based on the circumstances of a particular visit to a particular site; these may change from visit to visit and from site to site. (For example, the same person can be a ‘Facilitator’ when taking their children to a Natural History museum, but an ‘Experience seeker’ when visiting The Louvre on holiday.)
By contrast, the audience segments are intended to be a measure of how likely you are to be a visitor to a cultural venue in the first place. (This is in keeping with my definition of ‘audience’ as being a bigger population than ‘visitors’ – your audience comprises all your potential visitors.)
Having said that, there might be some patterns and relationships between the two: I could imagine ‘Stimulation’ and ‘Entertainment’ segments being more likely to be ‘Experience seekers’, ‘Affirmation’ more likely to be ‘Facilitators’, and so on. It would be interesting to study this in more detail.
In my last blog post, I talked about the beauty of simplicity in storytelling – being selective in what you say so that it comes through clearly and compellingly. This approach has its critics though, who argue that we are defined as much by what we don’t say as by what we do.
Postmodern critiques of museums have pointed out the shared history that museums have with the colonialism and imperialism of (particularly) the 18th and 19th centuries. Museums were repositories of colonial bounty, sometimes sourced via practices that would be considered highly unethical by today’s standards. Objects were classified and ordered according to systems that mirrored the prevailing natural, social and cultural hierarchy. ‘Naturally’, the white western European gentleman occupied the top tier as the pinnacle of civilisation and scholarly knowledge.
Knowingly or otherwise, museum curators reinforced this sociocultural worldview. Museums placed ‘primitive’ Indigenous cultural artefacts alongside Natural History collections – thus positioning them as part of ‘nature’ and not ‘culture’ (and definitely not civilisation!). There was no space for other interpretations of the objects and their meanings besides that of Western scholarship – in the parlance of Postmodernism any alternative interpretations or voices were ‘silenced’.
19th century museum interior (Source http://www.flickr.com/photos/museemccordmuseum/2865472738/)
Museums of the time may have ostensibly had public education as part of their mission, but there was little concession made for the prior knowledge or interest of the visitor. The visitor had no choice but to engage with the displays on the curator’s terms, and if the minimal interpretation provided was insufficient for understanding it was a deficiency in the visitor not the curator. Commentators of the time lamented that increased public access was bringing the ‘wrong sort’ of visitor to the museum, who failed to appreciate the collections in a way that they deemed appropriate.
Constructivism emerged in the second half of the 20th century as part of a backlash against this ‘master narrative’ worldview, as the social and political role of the museum changed. This was done in a broader academic context where implicit power relationships in society were being deconstructed and questioned.
Consequently, the desire to allow for multiple interpretations has made the idea of a strong narrative or storyline an anathema for some. A storyline is considered an imposition, potentially ‘silencing’ other perspectives or interpretations that the visitor may make if allowed to engage with the objects more freely.
However, this brings us to a conundrum – exhibitions developed along postmodern or constructivist principles can be just as baffling to visitors as the minimally-interpreted elitist institutions of times past.
The freedom to have multiple points of entry and thus interpretation can just as easily manifest itself as a space which is confusing and disorientating. Juxtapositions of objects with no overlying message or storyline can be interpreted by visitors unversed in the constructivist viewpoint as being ‘a mess’ or ‘all over the place’. Rather than liberated from an imposed institutional storyline, visitors can end up feeling confused and demoralised. A lack of storyline may even be interpreted as a lack of intellectual courage on the part of curators – an accusation levelled at museums by Amanda Lohrey and the subject of my first blog post nearly a year ago.
Postmodernists may argue that visitors need to be ‘educated’ into new interpretations and to be present with their discomfort at the lack of narrative, in order to give new meanings and interpretations space. But this point of view seems to be just another version of ‘the visitor is at fault’ arrogance of the Victorian-era curators.
I am not opposed to multiple interpretations and leaving things open to visitors making their own meanings. But sometimes (and apologies if this is a bit ironic), the fact that this is the intent needs to be made clear somehow. Otherwise, if taken to extremes, the constructivist approach may well end up substituting one type of elitism for another.
Once I found that out, I had to drop by and see what all the fuss was about. GoMA in particular came highly recommended, with its 21st Century: Art in the First Decade Exhibition which dominated the museum’s three (I think!) vast levels.
Rather than give a comprehensive review of such an exhibition (when others can do it far better than me), I thought I’d just take the chance to share some images and general observations.
View of the entrance lobby: the space immediately opens up across multiple storeys, feeling bright and open but also dramatic. The display on the right hand side is a wallpaper made up of NASDAQ figures, and is part of a piece making commentary about the Global Financial Crisis. Beyond are twin slides - and you ask yourself: could I really ride these?? This is an art gallery here!! (You can; but I didn't)
First off, the fact that I can share images at all is probably worthy of a comment in itself: art galleries in particular are often loath to allow photography (usually for copyright or conservation reasons). This might be understandable, but also confers a type of ‘hands-off’ reverence to the experience.
As a society, I think we’re becoming more accustomed to documenting and sharing our experiences through photos via social media and other networks; this ability to share becomes often becomes an integral part of the experience itself. I wonder if this relatively permissive attitude to photography is a contributing factor to making the museum feel more open and welcoming, and consequently appealing to a different type of audience (I think I saw more teenagers in the space of one afternoon than I’ve seen in all my other previous art gallery visits put together – and no they didn’t look like a school group).
Teenage girls at a display which allowed visitors to apply bindis to themselves
Another thing which was unusual in the context of an art gallery: queues. While queues to enter a whole exhibition are common enough, these were queues to see particular exhibits or take part in certain experiences which were only available to small groups of visitors at a time.
I’m usually a studious avoider of queues – probably a sign of an impatient temperament – but since I was on no fixed timetable and was feeling perfectly content to happily wander and lose myself amongst the displays, I did something I almost NEVER do: join a queue when I don’t know what it’s for:
Almost alone in the centre of a large gallery, the brilliantly lit spheres are surrounding a reflective black box that is almost lost in the darkened room; it makes a kind of infinity mirror for the spheres surrounding it. Notice the queue lining the far wall.
The queue was to enter the box in the middle of the room (4 at a time) which closed and surrounded you in a reflective UV space:
The view from inside the box: the floor is a small peninsula surrounded by a layer of water. The UV reflective (ping pong?) balls are suspended by fishing wire.
This was just one of several immersive exhibits, for instance the ‘swimming pool’ which was more than it first seemed:
School children at the bottom of the pool. . . .?The view from the other side: the water is only an inch or two deep and the rest of the pool is accessed by an almost secretive rear entrance.
As well as the room filled with balloons:
The Balloon Room, or to give it its proper name: Work No. 965: Half the air in a given space (purple) by Martin Creed
This one in particular got me thinking about the blurred boundaries between interactive science and interactive art (in many cases, it’s all in the interpretation). I happened to overhear a young girl say as she left the room: “you could really feel the static electricity in there”, thus spontaneously articulating something which science-based balloon shows have long demonstrated (and may she’s seen that before and made the connection?)
Overall, these exhibits created a sense of fun and delight which you seldom see in the hallowed ground of the art gallery, and in some ways reminded me of the spirit of the science centre. This creates its own challenges – art isn’t made to be bulletproof the same way interactive exhibits are – as was demonstrated by this exhibt made from plastic bags, and which school children couldn’t resist getting under:
The school children loved getting under this installation and pretend to be holding it up while one of their friends took a photograph
But this was one of the few exhibits I saw which was keeping the security guards busy as they tried to direct the enthusiasm of the school kids into non-destructive outlets.
Not all exhibits allowed photography, but I’ll mention just one of these: From here to ear by Celeste Boursier-Mougenot. This installation contained a couple of dozen live finches in a room which incorporated a series of perch structures made from wood, coathangers, harpsichord strings and a sound system. It’s a bit hard to describe but here’s the label which was at the entry to the exhibit:
And that label leads me to my final observation: the technology side of things. The whole museum had free wi-fi access and several exhibits were accompanied by QR codes (like the example above) which allowed you to access podcasts and short movies about particular works. Before this exhibition, I’d never actually got around to experimenting with QR codes. But thanks to the available wi-fi, I managed to download a QR reading app and found it very easy to use. This options also gives you the opportunity to save materials on your phone for future reference.
The 21st Century: Art in the First Decade exhibition closes on April 26. While I wasn’t sure which exhibits were part of that particular exhibition and which might be there on a more permanent basis, I’ll definitely want to visit GoMA again for a second look next time I’m in Brisbane.
Australia is no stranger to extreme weather, and recently such events seem to be increasing in frequency and intensity. Just in the past few weeks, vast swathes of Queensland have been swamped by flooding. Brisbane, a city which only a few years ago was under severe water restrictions due to drought, was inundated and low-lying suburbs completely submerged. Shortly afterwards the north of Queenland was battered by Cyclone Yasi; while at the same time there was flash flooding in Melbourne and bushfires in Perth.
Living in Australia, the forces and vagaries of nature are a part of life. The effects of punishing droughts, catastrophic floods and devastating fires have all seared themselves into the national consciousness. Or have they?
ABC Radio National’s Rear Vision recently aired a program titled “Deluges that have gone before: floods in Australian history” (transcript available). Drawing upon historic major floods, in particular the 1893 and 1974 Brisbane floods, the program looks at what happens as these events fade from living memory and to the back of the collective consciousness.
Aerial view of the 1974 Brisbane Flood (State Library of Queensland)
Early European settlers ignored the warnings of Aboriginal inhabitants by building towns on flood plains. As historian Emily O’Gorman said:
“It seems to have been listened to with interest, but largely ignored. Later kind of retrospective accounts after a number of floods, people from outside Gundagai who knew about these warnings speculated that there was perhaps an element of racism at work, as well as I think the validity of oral testimony itself was in question, where the records of floods needed a numerical height to be taken seriously at that time.”
But even when prior events have been in the written historical record, and the subject of Government enquiries, lessons have not always been learned. Richard Evans, a historian who has specialised in the aftermath of natural disasters, has found a pattern in the way lessons fade from memory and are eventually lost:
“Reading the reports of various official inquiries . . . they are eerily similar. They will almost inevitably find very similar contributing factors to the severity of the disaster; they will make very similar recommendations, and they will, sad to say, usually be largely ignored in the longer term. In the short term there will be interesting commitment, but it doesn’t last more than a few years, certainly it doesn’t last decades. What really strikes me is how we have the disaster, we have the inquiry, we find out the same painful bitter lesson that too many of the people who live here don’t understand the nature of the place they’re living in, and then they forget it again. And then in the course of a generation or generation-and-a-half, the disaster recurs . . . and again we forget”
The problem, it appears, with enquiries, reports and recommendations is that they lack a permanent presence. Eventually they are retired to a shelf somewhere; there is nothing to keep the experiences and lessons learned fresh in the minds of communities over a period of decades or generations.
So can museums play a role in keeping these memories fresh and ever-present, thus helping us prepare and avert disasters better in the future? This was something that historian Helen Gregory suggested during the program:
“. . . because natural disasters are such a feature in Australia, it struck me that for instance, Victoria could have a museum of the bushfires, Brisbane could have a museum of the floods . . . there is a real, not just a community memory function in having a museum, to cover all the floods . . .because this is very much part of the city’s history and its relationship to the river. Not only is that important for the memory of the whole community, but to give people the opportunity to have their stories recorded . . . I think that Brisbane has a wonderful opportunity for developing a special repository for floods . . .”
Now obviously there are practical issues: museums are a significant capital and operational undertaking, not to be entered into lightly. But if something like this helps us better prepare for disaster in the future (perhaps in the context of an existing museum, if a dedicated museum is not feasible), it would be worthwhile.
In this vein, the theme for 2011’s International Museums Day, which is held around May 18 each year, is “Museums and Memory”. The purpose of this theme is to highlight the role that museums can play in collecting and preserving the objects and stories which constitute a community’s memory.
Australia’s relationship with its history of natural disasters is a timely example.
Or . . . how a techie novice came to embrace social media.
Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve learned until you come across someone who is yet to embark on that particular learning curve.
I came to realise this recently when I started to talk about Twitter at a conference, only to be met with a lot of blank looks. Almost by accident I have become a citizen of the Twitterverse, and it is only when I encounter non-tweeters that I realise how much I’ve learned about social media over the past few months.
First some background about my relationship with ‘technology’ – I’m not an early adopter. I’ve long believed that there are two main types of people when it comes to attitudes to technology:
“What does it do?”types – these are the people who are turned on by technology in and of itself. They like experimenting with new gadgets and technology. They like the functionality, and play with it to discover applicability.
“What does it do for ME?”types – these people aren’t necessarily anti-technology, but they’re more cautious. They don’t particularly like playing with gadgetry. But when they find an application that fits with their day-to-day lives, they’ll embrace it with both arms._
(Yes OK there is a third type, those who are inherently suspicious of technology in all its forms and wish it would go away. If you are in this category you won’t be reading this post anyway because that would mean switching on a computer.)
I fit into the second category: I’m not all that confident with gadgetry and have never felt particularly web-savvy (although I’m starting to realise I probably know more than I think I do – osmosis is a powerful learning tool).
As a Type #2 person, I had adopted a bit of a ‘wait and see’ attitude to Social Media. I joined Facebook and LinkedIn in 2007, and this was in response to specific needs that presented themselves at the time. It was not long after I moved back to Australia from overseas, and these sites were a handy way of keeping in touch with friends from the UK and make new business contacts respectively. And I’ve been a reasonably regular user of each since. But I think Facebook is more of a tool for sharing with people you know rather than for meeting new people, and LinkedIn is quite focused in its remit and tends to be a more formal networking space.
By comparison, Twitter is far more powerful and versatile as a communication and networking tool. I opened a Twitter account out of curiosity in late 2009 but it sat more or less dormant until the middle of this year, which was when I embraced the Twitterverse.
So what were the catalysts for this change, at least in my circumstances?
Change of work situation: in the middle of this year I left full time work and started working from home. This gave me a desire to connect with people so I didn’t feel isolated; it also gave me time & space to get to grips with how Twitter works and how it could work for me (not that leaving your job is necessary to get your head around Twitter!)
Programs like TweetDeck and Echofon: I never really figured out how to incorporate the Twitter website into the texture of my daily life, and have only just recently taken the plunge to buy a smartphone (as a Type #2 person, I’ve been getting by on my partner’s hand-me-down phones for the past decade). I found that TweetDeck was easily customisable, incorporated Facebook and LinkedIn into a kind of one-stop-shop, and could happily run in the background on my desktop. Meanwhile Echofon was a handy application for using on my iPod touchto follow live Twitter feeds in front of the telly. Being able to do this gave me a feel for how the medium worked. (An aside: I only have an iPod Touch because Dad was given one as a freebie. It took me ages to figure out what the point of it was, but it is now is my near-constant companion – typical Type #2 behaviour!)
Finding stimulating people to follow: I’d heard all the hype about Twitter being all about celebrity banalities and people broadcasting what they had for breakfast. I didn’t think it was necessarily a place where grown-ups congregated to discuss things of significance. But I knew a few fellow science communicators had been tweeting for a while, plus I’d become aware of a couple of museum professionals with an interest in social media. So following these people seemed like a good place to start. Then, by following the #qanda hashtag during ABC TV’s Q&A and also the #auspol discussion during the lead-up to the Australian Federal Election, I also found more interesting people to follow. Plus there is a lively Twitter community in Adelaide and it wasn’t long before I found them and / or they found me.
Getting over ‘stagefright’: I’m a fairly extroverted person, but I feared an off-the-cuff statement being preserved for all eternity in the virtual sphere. What if I couldn’t think of anything profound to say in 140 characters or less? What if I say something that comes across as stupid and it comes back to haunt me? I must say I’m still *relatively* careful about what I say in a tweet. But I now see that in the general scheme of things, my tweets are but grains of sand on a virtual beach – most people will only be half paying attention (at best) to anything I say unless I really go to town. Small sins are readily forgiven.
Encountering a real community in the virtual sphere: through Twitter, I have participated in lively debates and discussions, shared links and valuable information, expanded my business networks, live-tweeted from conferences, kept up with breaking news and found out about forthcoming events happening in the Real World. (e.g. TEDxAdelaide had a strong Twitter presence before, during and after the day itself). I’ve even been to the movies and a picnic organised by #socadl. (Adelaideans in social media.) In short, I’ve made friends, broadened my professional network and come to know people I never would have encountered if I hadn’t taken the plunge into Twitter.
So my advice to the reluctant would be: give it a go! Terminology like handles and hashtags might seem a bit alien at first, but a bit of trial and error goes a long way. And it’s a great opportunity to feel part of a community of ongoing conversation.
Last night was Museums Australia (SA)’s annual Panel event, which this year was on the theme Inside Out. The purpose of this theme was to look at how boundaries between the traditional “gatekeepers” of arts and culture were changing: bringing new types of art into museums; and taking museums’ collections into new types of settings and to new audiences. And of course, what are the implications of these changes?
Jaklyn Babington, the National Gallery’s Assistant Curator of International Prints and Drawings, talked about the new Space Invaders exhibition of street art. Street art encompasses a lot of different media beyond spray cans – there are stencils, paper cut-outs, stickers, even textiles. Jaklyn described how the boundaries between ‘street art’ and ‘public art’ are blurring, with many street artists working under two identities – their ‘street’ name when preserving their anonymity for legal reasons, and their real names when working in more conventional gallery settings. But this shifting of identities can cause problems with accessioning and crediting of work, particularly when street artists are used to staying under the radar for legal reasons. It can take a while to build trust.
Jaklyn and the Space Invaders exhibition (from the Australian)
Jaklyn also described how she has been working with street artists – whose work is inherently ephemeral – to translate their pieces into more robust media to meet the Gallery’s requirements (using archival paper, etc).
The process has had its challenges and detractors – the exhibition has polarised people, with some loving the fact the NGA has embraced this part of the arts culture, while others complaining that it is glorifying vandalism. There have also been some issues with the Gallery building being ‘tagged’ since the exhibition opened (supporting the Security Dept’s assertion that this kind of thing attracts the ‘wrong’ kind of people and will all end in tears), and some unconventional behaviour by artists (such as one getting naked and jumping into a water feature at the launch!).
Allison Russell, fresh from a Churchill Fellowship looking at Museums and Communities in the UK (documented in this excellent blog), spoke about Arts in Health: how museum collections are being used in healthcare settings. She spoke about how bringing collections into hospitals has a demonstrable impact on the recovery and wellbeing of patients. For instance the tactility of the objects, and the conversations around them, helps the memory of patients with dementia. Art can also help offset the cold and clinical nature of the surroundings.
Allison shared some poignant anecdotes: a patient who had suffered complete memory loss as the result of a nervous breakdown found the art on display at Flinders Medical Centre (Adelaide) helped her piece together her mind again. Allison also sat in on a session for Muslim women with profound disabilities at a museum in Leicester (UK).
While these types of interactions can prove utterly life-changing for some individuals, it can be hard to demonstrate and justify if the museum’s KPIs are based on attendance figures alone. Allison described the Generic Social Outcomes which have been developed in the UK to equip museums to measure these outcomes meaningfully. (These social outcomes are a companion to the Generic Learning Outcomes which were developed to embrace a more broad definition of learning than simply cognitive gain.)
Niki Vouis, Project Manager of Craftsouth, and Annalise Rees, artist in residence at SA Museum, gave their perspective on the partnerships between artists and the Museum which have been taking place for several years.
Niki Vouis talked about Inside SAM’s Place: the Laurosto collection which was staged at the Museum earlier this year. Inspired by the museum’s collection, local artists made a fictional collection of animals, artefacts and minerals of a 19th century explorer they called “Sam Laurosto”. These objects were dispersed among the museum’s main collection, and visitors could follow the journey and exploits of the fictional Laurosto throughout the Museum’s permanent exhibitions.
One of the Laurosto collection's fictional creatures, by artists Tom Moore and Lauren Simeoni. Photo by Rachel Harris (from SA Museum Website)
Annalise spoke about the installation she has recently created: From my house to Antarctica. This work has drawn inspiration from the Museum’s Mawson collection and will involve students creating their own Antarctic adventure. Annalise hopes to be able to go to see Antarctica in the flesh sometime soon, to further advance her artistic inspiration.
Subsequent discussion was lively as the speakers and the audience explored some of the issues associated with unconventional collections and settings. How can we take museum staff and traditional audiences with us as we challenge conventions and boundaries? What are the implications for the cultural role of the museum as a source of “authority”? How do we balance depth of experience for a few, versus breadth of reach for the many?
I find the challenging of boundaries exciting, but even I’m still a bit conflicted. For instance I loved the concept of the Laurosto collection. In incorporating the art in with the main collections, I saw parallels with the Banksy vs the Bristol Museum exhibition, which took the UK by storm in the summer of 2009. But I’m also concerned about mixed messages – there is a lot of evidence to suggest that when people go to Natural History or Science museums, they aren’t expecting ‘art’ so therefore don’t really recognise it when they see it. Art in these settings tends to get taken literally, at face value. Does this matter if people don’t ‘get’ it? Maybe it doesn’t, but I do feel for the visitors that felt a bit cheated when they realised an object they were just marvelling at was fictional. And what of those visitors who didn’t realise at all? It makes me wonder if we need to make our intentions a bit clearer sometimes. Without, of course, resorting to big red arrows pointing at things saying ‘this is art’.
