Download - The English Obsession with the New
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The English Obsession with the New
Learning at the core of museums
Bridget McKenzieFlow Associates
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Who am I?• My past is in cultural and heritage education:o Education at Tate o Head of Learning at the British Library
• Now, I run Flow Associateso helping museums, arts and heritage bodieso digital strategies, development plans, learning
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I want to ask...Why are we building so many new museums and galleries in the UK?
Do they increase cultural learning?
Do they regenerate environments and economies?
What are the alternatives?
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
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The future context for UK• Economic downturn is bad for us• Climate disruption (1 or 2 m sea level rise?)• Population growth • Biodiversity losses • Mass migration from coastal & desert
zones• As developing world develops, they will ask
for their assets back
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• Priority: Preserving heritage and knowledge• Priority: Digital access to culture and heritage• Priority: Post-oil innovation and creativity
• So, what is the future of cultural tourism?• How does this affect cultural planning?
The future priorities for UK
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Credit: Wilkinson Eyre/NMSI
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The utopian appeal of the newMuseums are utopian
A way to see and control the mess of reality
A new museum = can start fresh and tell a new story
This chance is appealing to those in power
English have a ‘cult of virginity’ – want a new one
Design for the Hirschorn Museum, Washington
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National pride, national protection
Do nations need museums to define their identity?
Do we believe a digital museum can do same as a building?
Sarkozy proposed a grand new museum of France
Now, plans to spend £650 m on digitising French culture
Striking workers at the Louvre, Paris
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New museums can be radical A real project:
Alpine Ice Research Station & museum
Design firm, R&Sie(n)
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Context: trend for new museums• Global trend for grand new museums• Why so many across the UK?• Cultural tourism is vital to UK: o 34 million foreign visitors a yearo Visitor economy = £114b or 8.2% GDPo Culture is most often given as main reason to
visit UKo London hosts Olympics in 2012
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What are we spending? • Heritage Lottery Fund has spent £4.4 billion in
15 years• More than half on new building work• How many in UK? Perhaps 80 new builds or
extensions in 12 years, for £2.7 billion?• “I'm convinced it will come off. It's a means of
developing and growing out of the recession."Prof Peter Downes, chair of new V&A project in Dundee
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Features of our new museumsLarge, spectacular, contemporary
Many by coasts or rivers
Use of new technology in the visitor experience
National Lottery, local government and private funding
BUT: many redevelopments of heritage museums too
Imperial War Museum of the North
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Birthing a new museum = a lifetime responsibility
Expensive to run
Installation challenges
Fast turnaround of exhibits
Bigger spaces, inefficient in energy
High expectations of visitor experienceMany free of charge
Ron Mueck’s ‘Girl’ arriving at Brooklyn Museum of Art
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Tate Modern’s new buildingArchitect: Herzog & de Meuron
Hoped to complete 2012?
Cost £215 million
Rear of former power station by the Thames, over oil tanks
Spaces for installation, live art & photography
Learning central to the design
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Learning facilities in the extension• “Spaces for learning, study and reflection unmatched
anywhere in the world • Spaces designed specifically by young people for young
people • Dedicated family areas; more restaurants and cafés• Dedicated Mediatech suite for personal study • Further suites for group learning • Studios for making and learning • A Children’s Gallery presenting work and interpretative
material specifically for children”
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/transformingtm/
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Museum experiences can be out in the world
High tech or low tech
What other ways?
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Runs as a social enterprise
Unemployed people train, grow vegetables, make things, sell them, help run the museum
Many others involved too: 42,000 volunteer hours a year
Mission: “We aim to help people, be active, learn new things, look at the world differently, make friends and give something back.”
Museum of East Anglian Life
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A new architecture of relationships
Trainees making a box for owls
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Their plan to develop Abbott’s Hall£3 million project to improve facilities
Restore workers’ cottages and kitchen gardens
Tell stories of people who lived there
Unemployed people will do the work, learn skills.And learn history
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Hierarchy of cultural programmingCulture
bought or commissioned
Culture cared for, displayed,
performed
Culture marketed to core audiences
Culture mediated to ‘hard to reach’ audiences
TOP RANK
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...can it be turned on its head?
FIRST: Build relationships with communities
Interactions between experts/artists & people
People’s ideas seen alongside
heritage/art/experts
Peer marketing leads to mor
e fund
s, users, art
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www.flowassociates.com
http://bridgetmckenzie.wordpress.com
•How can this change be achieved?•Could it happen here?