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Social value and sustainability for regional museums
The ongoing sustainability of cultural institutions like museums in regional and rural parts of Australia is often a hot topic of discussion at industry gatherings. Many of our regional collecting institutions have responded proactively to the opportunities presented by new communications technology. They're opening up a dialogue with a global audience through interactive websites and other online meeting places.
But there are some collecting institutions and museums in regional and remote parts of Australia that are finding success by getting back to basics. They are embracing their local communities and building relationships with their local councils.
The recent Museums Australia annual conference in Melbourne explored this issue with an audience of more than 200 people from across Australia, New Zealand and Christmas Island who attended this year's regional and remote stream.
The opening session included the story of how a Torres Strait community developed its own way of preserving its diverse cultural heritage, much of which is neither tangible nor object-based. Story telling and crafts were described as significant ways of presenting and preserving the history of places and people as well as sharing it with others.
One session that many from the regional and remote stream found particularly useful was a presentation that highlighted government-funded regional support programs like the Australian Government's Regional Arts Fund and the benefits of community outreach programs.
Jim Geddes, Head of the Arts and Heritage Department of Gore District Council in New Zealand founded and developed the Hokonui Heritage Centre in Gore (population 9000), featuring the Hokonui Moonshine Museum.
Housing one of New Zealand's most unusual collections, the museum is dedicated to the local illicit whisky industry, born out of 51 years of localised prohibition, and incorporates the Eastern Southland Gallery. Jim told delegates how he gets local artists involved in all activities at the museum and gallery and how that helps to engage the whole community. As one delegate commented, it's an 'inspiration with or without the sly grog'.
Another session highlighted the importance of building relationships with local government. Jocelyn Grant described the ways in which three very different museums in the small community of Queenscliff, Victoria cooperated to develop an education-based experience for visiting schools. This was inspiring stuff from museums, including Queenscliff Historical Centre, Queenscliff Maritime Museum and the Marine Discovery Centre-all run by volunteers.
Bill Storer, of the Community Museums Special Interest Group of Museums Australia, said 'the conference highlighted issues that we all have to address and raised many questions'.
'The one solution that's common to all museums and galleries, small and large, is that they must involve their communities, as the members are the best advocates.'
Over 400 people attended this year's six-day conference in Melbourne. Many regional and remote museum representatives were able to attend with support in the way of bursaries from Museums Australia, provided by the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and the National Museum of Australia.
For more information on bursaries available for the next conference, go to the website www.museumsaustralia.org.au and click on 2005 conference, or phone 02 6273 2437.
Inset at top: Display in the Ballarat Gold Museum.Courtesy: Ballarat Gold Museum.