{"id":1688,"date":"2022-05-26T13:40:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T03:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/?p=1688"},"modified":"2022-05-27T11:02:33","modified_gmt":"2022-05-27T01:02:33","slug":"nature-nurture-and-the-future-of-museums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mikejonesonline.com\/contextjunky\/2022\/05\/26\/nature-nurture-and-the-future-of-museums\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature, Nurture, and the Future of Museums"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is an edited version of my closing keynote for the Victorian Museums and Galleries Forum<\/a> on 18 May 2022. The event was hosted by the Australian Museums and Galleries Association (AMaGA) Victoria at Deakin Downtown. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part I<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the unceded lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation, and pay my respects to Elders past and present. I would also like to acknowledge and welcome First Nations colleagues joining us in the room and online today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though I have spent most of my life in Melbourne, I now live and work on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, and am privileged to have an office that looks over their beautiful Country. But, only a few months after moving to Canberra, those lands\u2014like much of Australia\u2019s south east\u2014were blanketed in bushfire smoke. This was the view looking over Lake Burley Griffin to the National Museum of Australia in December 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Bushfire
Canberra, 12 December 2019. Photograph: Mike Jones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were many days like this through December and January 2019-2020. Days when the smoke was so bad the Australian National University (ANU) campus closed due to health concerns, and I would sit wearing a P2 mask in my own living room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the hail. Hailstones as big as golf balls, ripping down trees, totalling cars, and smashing roofs and skylights. At the Australian Academy of Science staff formed a human chain to move archive boxes in the badly-damaged Shine Dome to a safer location. Campus was closed again. I worked at home for more than a week. The National Museum of Australia closed too, along with many GLAM and other institutions. Some buildings in Canberra are still suffering the consequences of the damage caused on 20 January 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all know what followed, and\nthe impact it has had on our lives and work, not least for people here in\nVictoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial effects of Coronavirus restrictions on the GLAM sector were widespread and significant. Two years ago this month UNESCO released a report<\/a> on museums around the world in the face of COVID-19. They found that within weeks of a global pandemic being declared 90% of museums had been forced to close their doors for a period of time. By June 2020 it was estimated American museums were losing $33 million per day<\/a>. I\u2019m sure everyone in this room has seen the effects locally, from thwarted plans and closed exhibitions to budget stress and lost staff, to impacts on mental health and well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many institutions turned their attention to online offerings. The Wall Street Journal claimed at the time<\/a> these initiatives pushed museums deeper into the digital age. It\u2019s still not clear how true this is, or whether there will be long-lasting effects on either digital initiatives or audience choices and preferences in the years to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though this presentation will mainly feature Australian, British, and American institutions, it\u2019s worth reminding ourselves that the \u2018digital age\u2019 remains very unevenly distributed. For example, UNESCO estimates only 5% of museums in Africa and Small Island Developing States were able to provide digital content. For the remaining 95% when the museum doors closed they were cut off from their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those institutions with the capacity to produce online content the question remains: if people can access the museum from home (as claimed by the British Museum<\/a>), and if this museum is always open (as claimed by Museums Victoria<\/a>), what does this do to physical attendance?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a short step from here to that recurring question: What is a museum? Is it somewhere we can visit without leaving home? If so, does the building need to be there at all? Or is the \u2018museum at home\u2019 only a museum at home because there is also a museum not at home? A place we want to access, and perhaps have accessed before, but for which we need a substitute. If so, is it inevitably a temporary substitute? Is it inevitably a poor substitute? We might look at some of the hastily-assembled virtual tours released during the pandemic and say yes. But that doesn\u2019t mean there is not the potential to do something far more interesting, including to produce digital experiences that do things a physical visit can never match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Current international debates about the definition of \u2018the museum\u2019 started several years before the pandemic. Here\u2019s what the International Council of Museums (ICOM) is seeking to replace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Again we could ask: when\nmuseums closed during the pandemic, were they still \u2018open to the public\u2019? In\nwhat way were they open, and in what ways were they not open?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came this proposed\ndefinition, which caused a storm of controversy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people.<\/em><\/p>

Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly, this could be read as more supportive of the \u2018museum from home\u2019 and the types of experiences this offers. But it was a step too far for many. A petition signed by 24 national ICOM committees challenged the text, and the process through which the definition was created. Following a new process we are back down to two possible (and fairly similar) definitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proposal A: <\/strong>A museum is a permanent, not-for-profit institution, accessible to the public and of service to society. It researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible cultural and natural heritage in a professional, ethical and sustainable manner for education, reflection and enjoyment. It operates and communicates in inclusive, diverse and participatory ways with communities and the public.<\/em><\/p>

Proposal B:<\/strong> A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These nod to contemporary ideals (that museums are participatory and diverse, with a recognition there are plural \u2018communities\u2019 under the banners of the public and society) while coming across as less politically and theoretically adventurous. After the dust has settled, perhaps these are more indicative of where we are as a sector internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ongoing debate is not just about semantics; it is about people trying to describe the nature of the museum. Nature and nurture are themes running through this talk. Interestingly, in the field of sociobiology it has been recognised<\/a> that there is often a resurgence of the nature-nurture debate during times of social unrest or at times of crisis. When this happens, there is a tendency to focus on nature\u2014emphasising what are perceived as inherent qualities as a way of explaining people\u2019s place in the world; justifying things by saying that it is their \u2018natural place\u2019. Seeking refuge in perceived certainties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Freda Salzman writes<\/a>, focusing on nature in this way is \u2018a powerful political weapon, which is used to maintain inequality and to justify our present oppressive social institutions.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s therefore interesting to note, particularly given the stresses of the last few years, how much energy has been expended on trying to define what museums are, as though answering that will help not only explain their place in the world, but justify their existence and value to the powers that be, and (at least in some quarters) justify resistance to change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To give a brief and very selective tour of some history, the value of collections as a means by which to gain knowledge and understanding about the world has been championed for a long time. Initially this was a largely personal pursuit. Francis Bacon, writing at the end of the sixteenth century, listed the requirements for a modern scholar<\/a>, including a library; a wonderful garden; collections of animals, birds, and fish; a cabinet of artefacts; and a laboratory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we are meeting in Victoria today, it’s worth noting that Frederick McCoy<\/a>, the influential first Director of the National Museum of Victoria, and one of the four first professors at the University of Melbourne, was an explicit devotee of Bacon\u2019s ideas. He collected a scholarly library, developed the museum and its collections on the University of Melbourne campus (where it remained until his death in 1899), taught subjects including chemistry, zoology, botany, mineralogy, and started a System Garden that remains on the campus to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
The National Museum, Melbourne, Vic.<\/a> McDonald, Daniel, fl. 1867-1891, photographer. [ca. 1867 – ca. 1891]. State Library of Victoria.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Bacon’s writings were among the foundational texts for the Enlightenment , which through the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> centuries focused on experimentation, observation, and the uncovering of supposedly objective and universal truths about the world. Enlightenment thinking was also inextricably woven through with racist tropes about \u2018noble savages,\u2019 and powerful nations mounting expeditions around the globe (including Cook\u2019s Pacific voyage on the HMS Endeavour<\/em>) that contributed to ongoing colonial expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some, including my own Vice Chancellor, overlook the problematic aspects of the Enlightenment and continue to champion the value of its ideas. In his annual state of the university address in 2021, ANU’s Professor Brian Schmidt positioned the \u2018undermining of the Enlightenment belief in the primacy of the truth\u2019 as \u2018the biggest problem in the world today.\u2019 Universities, he argued, are among those institutions with a key role to play in defending truth and democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to universities, by the mid-nineteenth century many large public collecting institutions had formed. Among them the Smithsonian, named for it’s founding donor, Enlightenment-era chemist and mineralogist James Smithson. Here is Joseph Henry speaking about Smithson, in a quote that is carved in the fa\u00e7ade of what is now the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Smithson was well aware that knowledge should not be viewed as existing in isolated parts, but as a whole, each portion of which throws light on all the other, and that the tendency of all is to improve the human mind, and give it new sources of power and enjoyment \u2026 narrow minds think nothing of importance but their own favorite pursuit, but liberal views exclude no branch of science or literature, for they all contribute to sweeten, to adorn, and to embellish life \u2026 science is the pursuit above all which impresses us with the capacity of man for intellectual and moral progress and awakens the human intellect to aspiration for a higher condition of humanity.<\/p>joseph henry, first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Henry’s moralistic tone\u2014similar to that seen in many museums of the time\u2014came with a dose of condescension toward those with \u2018narrow minds.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of the nineteenth century some were starting to write histories of museums, while others\u2014like George Brown Goode (from the Smithsonian again)\u2014were focusing on the future. Goode argued<\/a> for the role of museums (alongside other institutions) not just as collections of stuff (or a \u2018cemetery of bric-a-brac\u2019 in Goode\u2019s memorable phrase) but as key to educating, edifying, and uplifting the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The museum of the past must be set aside, reconstructed, transformed from a cemetery of bric-a-brac into a nursery of living thoughts. The museum of the future must stand side by side with the library and the laboratory, as a part of the teaching equipment of the college and university, and in the great cities co-operate with the public library as one of the principal agencies for the enlightenment of the people.<\/p>George Brown Goode, ‘The Museums of the Future’ (1889)<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Here we see the institutionalisation of Bacon’s private collections and facilities. There is also a clear hierarchy, with museums as the authorities, as centres of learning and sources of truth, dispensing enlightenment. But these institutions, though claiming to represent universal knowledge, encoded very particular perspectives. Here are the fourteen Secretaries of the Smithsonian, starting with Joseph Henry. Up until the appointment of the current Secretary, Lonnie Bunch, in 2019 see if you can spot what they have in common. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Portraits
The fourteen secretaries of the Smithsonian Institution. Images via Wikipedia.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the bulk of its history, the leaders of the Smithsonian Institution have been male, pale and stale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Cartoon<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(For those interested, this is an album by SF punk trio The Throwups, available via Bandcamp<\/a>. The lyrics are from their track \u2018Thought Leader.\u2019 I think we\u2019ve all met a few thought leaders in our time.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though museum leadership in European, American, and Australian institutions remained male, pale and stale for much of the 20th<\/sup> century, other shifts started to occur. One key factor here was money. Comparatively high levels of government funding<\/a> meant institutions had to be seen to be serving the people; and museums needed to make up funding shortfalls by attracting visitors and extracting revenue from them. Cue blockbuster exhibitions, and a range of other tactics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were other shifts too. Marie C. Malaro tracks some of them in her book A Legal Primer on Managing Museum Collections<\/a><\/em>.  (If that sounds a little dry, the first couple of chapters in particular are a really interesting read about the nature of museums and to whom they are accountable.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malaro\nlooks at events in the 1970s, such as the Museum of the American\nIndian <\/em>case where: \u2018the museum trustees and officers personally were sued by the\nattorney general of the state of New York for mismanagement.\u2019 Charges\nincluded: \u2018The trustees and officers failed to keep complete and\ncontemporaneous records of all collection objects [\u2026] Essentially, the attorney\ngeneral of the state of New York was saying that under his interpretation of\nthe law, a museum, as a charitable corporation, has certain obligations to\nmembers of the public (as the beneficiaries).\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those, like\nme, who are interested in the history of cataloguing and computerisation the\ncourt also ordered that an inventory be prepared of the whole museum collection\nso people could actually see what the institution held, and track any\nexchanges, gifts, or deaccessions\u2014a concept some characterised as \u2018an ominous development for the whole museum\ntrade.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Newspaper
http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/1975\/09\/06\/archives\/court-orders-an-inventory-of-indian-museum-objects.html<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Together these, and other social and cultural changes, produced a broader shift\u2014or, perhaps more accurately, a flip\u2014traced by Stephen Weil in his 1997 lecture \u2018The Museum and the public<\/a>,\u2019 from the authoritive institution dispensing wisdom to enlighten the populace, to museums as institutions beholden to the public\u2014what Weil characterises as a shift from mastery to service. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can see this idea today,\nreflected in all the ICOM definitions shown earlier. Museums are \u2018in the\nservice of society,\u2019 they \u2018hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society,\u2019\nthey are \u2018of service to society,\u2019 they work \u2018in the service of society.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\nthis is just replacing one hierarchy with another. When thinking about where we\nare now, and where to next, I want to move away from hierarchies and binary\npower dynamics to think about different structures and ways of working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to draw out other possibilities from the long, and the recent, history of museums. Emphasise the fact that Bacon and Smithson (via Henry) were interested in cross-disciplinary connections and the relational nature of knowledge, more than distinct objects, collections, or disciplines. And Goode, leaving aside his moralistic desire for a more \u2018enlightened\u2019 populace, was interested in museums as nurseries of \u2018living thoughts.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can combine this with social and cultural change driven by civil and Indigenous rights movements, and feminist and LGBTIQA+ activism; theoretical developments in museology, anthropology, and related disciplines; and broader shifts in the social sciences away from modernist and classificatory modes of thought toward an interest in networks, relationships, and interconnection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s an example from Bruno Latour which seems particularly apt in current times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The smallest AIDS virus takes you from sex to the unconscious, then to Africa, tissue cultures, DNA and San Francisco, but the analysts, thinkers, journalists and decision-makers will slice the delicate network traced by the virus for you into tidy compartments where you will find only science, only economy, only social phenomena, only local news, only sentiment, only sex.<\/p>Bruno Latour, We Have Never Been Modern<\/em>, trans. Catherine Porter (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993). <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Think of the pandemic, its emergence, and its impacts, all of which belie any attempt to separate humans and the natural world, one geographic region from another, or science from society and culture. If we are not careful, the way we work\u2014the way we document, manage, and exhibit our collections; the way we structure our institutions; the policies we develop and enact\u2014can slice up these delicate networks in ways that are difficult to repair. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together these interconnected trends help us understand the gradual emergence of different sets of priorities in museums. Some, like Duncan Grewcock<\/a>, apply the term ‘the relational museum’ to describe this re-imagining of collecting institutions as ‘connected, plural, distributed, multi-vocal, affective, material, embodied, experiential, political, performative and participatory.’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We see traces of this idea in the text of the previous, most controversial definition proposed by ICOM, particularly in its reference to \u2018polyphonic spaces\u2019. And we see elements of it in the AMaGA assertion<\/a> that \u2018Australian cultural life is a dynamic ecosystem.\u2019 The idea that this ecosystem includes museums, botanic and zoological gardens, research centres, and more is one that has a recognisable lineage back at least as far as Francis Bacon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relationships, ecosystems,\ncommunity engagement\u2014these elements require nurturing. And it\u2019s here I think\nthe future of museums lies\u2014not through recourse to the \u2018nature\u2019 of museums or\ntrying to define a fixed role in society, but in focusing more on developing\nand nurturing relationships, and fostering new forms of accountability through\nspecific relationships. Some museums have started to do this work, but as we\nemerge from the COVID-19 pandemic there is now an opportunity to do much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part II<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I want to start the second part\nof this presentation with an unnecessarily complicated diagram.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Please ignore most of the\nlanguage used here, which isn\u2019t relevant to the overall point. What this shows\nis three levels. At the top, the overall landscape in which people work; in the\nmiddle, the policies, technologies, markets, cultures, and other regimes that structure\nand constrain the way we work; and at the bottom, small networks of actors\ncreating innovations, and trying to connect these up to produce something\nlarger and more long lasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the landscape develops\nand changes, it puts pressures on the policies, technologies, and structures we\nwork with, which makes these more open to change. It creates what this diagram\ncalls \u2018windows of opportunity.\u2019 Aligning some of the emerging ideas from below,\nthese can then be incorporated into and change the regimes that shape our work,\nwhich can then contribute to changing the overall landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our landscape has undergone a\nmassive shift in the past few years. Natural disasters, pandemics, political\nupheavals, and more\u2014these have put the structures that shape our work under\nimmense pressure, disrupting them to a greater extent than people have seen for\ngenerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo by Ferdinand St\u00f6hr<\/a> from StockSnap<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also produced feelings\nof isolation; separated people from communities, families, and friends; placed\npressure on our physical and mental health; and prompted many people to\nreconsider what is most important in work, and in life. What relationships are\nimportant to us?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we rebuild and reconnect,\nnew ecosystems and social structures can emerge. New ways of working. Adrienne\nMaree Brown emphasises critical connections, or critical relationships, rather\nthan critical mass; and the value of small actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emergence emphasizes critical connections over critical mass, building authentic relationships [\u2026] emergence notices the way small actions and connections create complex systems, patterns that become ecosystems and societies <\/p>Adrienne Maree Brown, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds<\/em> (Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017).<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Collectively these small\nactions can produce ecosystems, which in turn can foster different sorts of\ncommunities and societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In talking about connections or relationships here, I want to think about them in a particular way. Not as a line connecting two pre-existing things with fixed natures, like a link between two static web pages. Not a stable, carefully-defined \u2018Museum\u2019 deciding to link up with a \u2018First Nations community\u2019, or with refugees, or with trans youth. But of relationships as a precondition for what follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nurturing particular relationships (and not nurturing others) will result in the emergence of particular sorts of museums. The relationships come first, and museums are shaped by them. Where A and B meet, something different is created; both are changed by the encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relational thinking also provides a different perspective on the \u2018truth\u2019\u2014moving away from Enlightenment notions of truth a something fixed, objective, singular, universal\u2014as outlined here by Indigenous scholar Shawn Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an Indigenous ontology there may be multiple realities, as in the constructivist research paradigm. The difference is that, rather than the truth being something that is ‘out there’ or external, reality is in the relationship that one has with the truth. Thus an object or thing is not as important as one’s relationship to it<\/p>Shawn Wilson, Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods<\/em> (Black Point, N.S: Fernwood Pub, 2008).<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And it means moving away from \u2018us\u2019 (inside the museum) connecting with \u2018them\u2019 (outside the museum) to nurture internal as well as external change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Hiring indigenous artists is cool. But who\u2019s on your board?<\/p>— Senator Briggs (@Briggs) May 13, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>