Big Boys at Te Papa 2

As a supplement to my last blog post 'Big Boys at Te Papa' on the Museum's 'Gallipoli: The scale of our war' exhibition and my comment about the reported NZ casualty numbers, interesting research has just been published, which confirms that the real rate is about half what had been stated (see the Te Papa blog for more details). 

I had certainly come to a view that the casualty rate of 93% would have been emblazoned on the minds and psyche of every New Zealander if it were true. But what it has thrown up is that there were in fact casualty rates of this level in the First War. The Newfoundland Regiment went over the top at Beaumont-Hamel in the Battle of the Somme, on that fateful day of July 1st 1916, where 30,000 men were killed or wounded before breakfast and 60,000 by the end of the day. The Regiment went into action 753 strong and only 68 answered the roll call the next day, a casualty rate of 91%.

The effect of such a loss on the local community must have been cataclysmic.

Big Boys at Te Papa

I’ve been lucky enough to see quite a few WWI commemorative exhibitions around the world in the last couple of years, but none as powerful as Te Papa’s 'Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War' exhibition in Wellington.

Designed and built at a reputed cost of over $8 million by NZ film wunderkind and Weta Workshop founder, Richard Taylor, the set and prop designer behind the Lord of the Rings epic. This is a hybrid between a film set and a museum exhibition. The immediate reason I loved it is the stunning 5 times life-size figures that dominate the space in every way. They are masterful creations, the detailing simply awesome using every tool in the film set maker’s kit. 

But what I found most refreshing was the approach to the narrative. Instead of objects neatly labelled in showcases with storyboards on adjacent walls, every available wall space is plastered with text and photos in a highly accessible and readable way. You don’t need to work through all of it, as there are lots of individual stories, but at the same time a continuity of narrative, based around the real stories of the over-size figures, holds it all together and draws you on. One bloke survives a death sentence at a court martial (for falling asleep on duty) only to turn up later in the exhibition being killed in action four days afterwards.

Why did I find it more emotional than others I have seen? It’s very personal, it only tells the Gallipoli story from landing to evacuation, and it brings home better than any of the other exhibitions the devastating impact of the War on so many families in such a small country.

Which brings me to my one gripe. The final storyboard identifies the NZ casualty rate as 93% of those who landed were killed or wounded. An asterix beside the number leads to a footnote along the lines of ‘still to be verified'. I was so struck by that astonishing number that I went hunting. Two minutes on the web led me to the 1919 official history, 'The New Zealanders at Gallipoli', in which British General Sir Ian Hamilton wrote that a total of 8556 New Zealanders landed on the peninsula – of whom 7447 were killed or wounded, a casualty rate of 87% (not 93% but still staggeringly high). A minute more and I was at the official NZ Government’s WWI centenary site where David Green, Historian at the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, explains that through erroneous counting the real New Zealand casualty rate was 53%, similar to that of the Australians whom they fought alongside.

I’ve raised this with Te Papa and they have advised that research is still being undertaken, and they hope to have the final number clarified shortly. But don’t let that stop you visiting a great exhibition. 

Museums and the Buzz at Otago

The latest edition of ICOM News contains an interesting article which identifies three aspects to successful museums as follows:

• Community engagement, i.e. ensuring that your local community is closely involved with the museum, both within and without
• Innovative and unexpected exhibitions – exhibitions that offer fresh perspectives
• Doing things well – maintaining high standards in everything from museum design to cleanliness of toilets

I would add a couple more, namely:

• A strong corporate culture
• A social space, namely a museum where people feel welcome and want to return to, where they are happy to meet their friends

So it’s always stimulating to unexpectedly come across a museum which is eminently successful, and I have just been lucky enough to spend 24 hours in Dunedin, New Zealand at the Otago Museum with the Director, Shimrath Paul and the Director Exhibitions, Development and Planning, Clare Wilson.

New Zealand consistently out guns Australia with its visitor numbers, with Te Papa in Wellington the most visited museum in Australasia at a cool 1.5 million last year. And the Otago Museum is no exception with an amazing 600,000 during a special exhibition year in 2008-09 but still in a regular year over 400,000. This is in a city with a population of only 120,000 and not much more in the local rural catchment area. Compare that with the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney (population currently 4.2 million) on 470,000 visitors in 2009-10.

Has this achievement come from following these criteria for successful museums?

Let’s check it out:

• Community engagement. The Otago Museum has a complicated governance model being essentially a regional museum with funding from a number of local councils. Each of these has to be kept happy as rate payers monies are being channelled to the Museum . Last year the Museum was Winner of the Otago Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award for Tourism, reached out into communities in Otago with a SciCity based outreach programme, and ran Halloween guided tours round the Museum alongside a fortnightly series of live performances from kapa haka to Irish dancing. It’s noticeable that the museum guides are called communicators in the staff list, reflecting the importance the Museum sees in their role in this area with the community.
• Doing things well. The Director did tell me they have discovered a number of people come to the Museum only to use the toilets so that part of the criteria is being achieved! But the Museum does present well with succinct signage, solid looking interactives and clear labelling.
• Innovative and unexpected exhibitions. Two particular exhibitions caught my eye. One was a series of mini exhibitions in the foyer as a ’taster’ to the permanent exhibitions , being no more than a large showcase of, in turn, Indian ornate daggers, Macedonian pottery and Sir Edmund Hillary’s personal memorabilia. These change every two or three months. The other was a completely unexpected delight, namely a rainforest exhibition which morphed into a Butterfly gallery with live butterflies. Spectacular and a real draw card for repeat visitors, as the butterflies only last a few days so are constantly changing.
• A strong corporate culture. This is where the Museum really does excel – you can feel it in the place just chatting to staff. And they have done this by creating a Strategic Plan into which all staff contributed during an intensive bonding session away from the Museum, and then more importantly actually sticking to what the Plan says they were going to do. Indicative of this is that in the staffroom there is a list of “behaviours we need and respect” and “ behaviours we will not tolerate”. Check out the Plan on their website, where these are listed – it is well worth a read.
• A social space. The entrance was redeveloped to reorientate the face of the Museum from a busy road to the local park a few years ago and the result is an airy glass walled atrium which is inviting and full of buzz and people. The café is in this space, and the coffee was excellent – such an important part of museum visitation if people are going to be encouraged to return. Indicative of this, the Director was himself checking out the coffee as a new barista had started the day I was there.

So if you are down that part of the world I do recommend you call in.

Julian Bickersteth
Managing Director
internationalconservationservices

Museum Directors – changing of the guard

No sooner have I cited the eminent scholar, Christopher Menz, Director of the Art Gallery of South Australia as an example of a scholar director, than he chooses not to renew his contract after 5 years at the helm. The reason Menz gives is that state funding is inadequate to run the Gallery at a professional level. John Mcdonald (the art journalist and formerly senior curator at the NGA) has picked this up and delivered a broadside at the general paucity of gallery funding in SMH today.

Whilst I am sure John has a good point, I am not buying into that discussion today. Of more interest are a couple of things:
1) The AGSA Chairman, Michael Abbott was clearly put out that Menz did not consult him before resigning and, reading between the lines, is not close to Menz. That may partly be because Menz directly criticizes the Premier, Mike Rann, for not recognising the need for more ongoing funding, and Abbott in his role as a QC is currently representing Rann in a defamation action against Channel 7. That is always going to be a problem for a state/national gallery if the director and chair are not in alignment. The excellent recently published book on the history of the National Gallery, London by Charles Saumarez Smith is a fascinating read about this very issue of director/trustee tension, particularly pertinent as Saumarez Smith resigned as director in 2008 as a result of clashes with his Trustees.
An example of where it works well is the Edmund Capon (director) and David Gonski (Chair) relationship at AGNSW.

2) In regards to his successor, there seems to be a current trend to recruit museum directors in our region from the UK. Just before Christmas Te Papa announced that their new director (after the tragic death last year of Seddon Bennington whilst hiking) is to be Michael Houlihan, Director General , National Museum of Wales. Almost at the same time the WA Museum announced that their new director is to be Alec Coles, Director of Tyne and Wear Museums in the UK. And I understand that the replacement for Craddock Morton at the National Museum is unlikely to be appointed until mid year and is likely to be from overseas.

Let me hasten to add I see nothing wrong with this. Some of our great directors have been from the same source, notably Edmund Capon (AGNSW) and Patrick Greene (Museum Victoria), and it is unlikely the Powerhouse Museum would ever have been built with out the forcefulness and personality of Lindsay Sharp ( who went onto the Royal Ontario Museum and the UK Science Museum).

The future of museums according to the ABC

It’s good to see the subject of the future of museums getting some airtime on the ABC on 3rd September.

Frank Howarth, director of the Australian Museum, Louise Douglas from the National Museum of Australia and Angelina Russo from Swinburne University form a forum to discuss where museums are at and going to. It’s all good stuff, mainly talking about the close interaction between real and virtual audiences these days. It’s something that Frank has been an advocate for some time, and given he is a highly articulate speaker, he has become a bit of an international star on this front. Certainly the Australian Museum is looking good virtually (21 million visits of at least 4 minutes to their web site last year) compared to over 300,000 live visits. The ongoing question is how you link the virtual visitor to the real experience.

Louise started life at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney where I worked with her in the 1980s. It was a fabulous time to be there as the project was well funded, all sorts of new ways were being developed for planning exhibitions, there was an exciting new building going up, and we all felt the world was our oyster. In reality the Powerhouse project was truly a catalyst in the redevelopment of a number of major museums in the region – I think particularly of the Melbourne Museum and Te Papa in Wellington - and Powerhouse employees are to be found in almost every major museum in the land. However the building is now seen to suffer from some significant design faults, the most obvious being the lack of a major temporary exhibition space and an entrance that faces the wrong way, i.e. it needs a Darling Harbour front door.

Angelina is Associate Professor in the Design faculty at Swinburne specializing in museum communication. She pops up regularly in anything to do with social media and the web, and was a significant player at this year’s Museums and the Web 2009 conference in Indianapolis. I always find her contribution to be articulate and to the point. So whilst I don’t think much new comes up in the program, it is a useful summary of where a major aspect of museology thinking is at, and I suspect a bit of a revelation to wider audiences.

Museum and Gallery visitor profiles

Great to read in the Sydney Morning Herald that a survey of visitors to art galleries has shown that 33% are aged between 15 and 34 (and that excludes school groups) and only 16% over 65. The survey has been undertaken by Museums and Galleries NSW, an organization I have a high regard for (and the CEO Maisy Stapleton). It is focused on delivering services to the smaller and regional museums and galleries around NSW, but they also run excellent ‘current issue’ workshops in conjunction with the Museum of Sydney. I remember one particularly memorable one where they asked a selection of museum directors to sit on a panel together and discuss what made the job pleasurable and not pleasurable. Most of the responses were predictable, but I do remember Peter Watts, then head of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW saying the hardest part was giving eulogies at staff funerals, a process he unfortunately had a done a couple of times too many for his liking. Ironically on the panel was Seddon Bennington, the head of the Te Papa, the National Museum of New Zealand, who died whilst hiking north of Wellington last month, and whose loss to the Australasian museum scene is significant.

However back to those stats. Are our museums and galleries really getting a third of their visitation from the 16-33 age group? My guess is that galleries may be but that museums definitely are not. And that comes back to museums unfortunately being less cool than galleries. The Powerhouse in Sydney is trying hard to overcome this especially through its focus on design and fashion exhibitions and events, which do draw a good young crowd. And more broadly their work through the inexhaustible Seb Chan in the use of the net and social media is giving them a profile which galleries have less leverage to achieve. That is, although gallery web sites may have great images to look at, the way in which museum web sites like the Powerhouse can create links and tell stories about their collections generally means such sites have more depth to them. And that in turn is where our 15 to 34 years olds are living their lives. Seb’s latest blog indeed talks about their ability to reach people who would never cross the threshold of a museum but having become engaged with the Museum’s web site are drawn to physically visit.