Museums Victoria Annual Conference

SESSION:

SUSTAINABILITY

REINVENTING

MUSEUMS

WELCOME:

SUSTAINABILITY

THE TRIO:

MEET THE PANEL

Eric Holowacz, Session Chair I’m originally from South Carolina, and got my start at the state arts agency there almost 25 years ago. Until recently, I served as Arts & Culture Manager for Mildura Rural City Council, overseeing programming and operations for heritage properties, the regional art gallery, and Australia's newest proscenium theatre. I have been chief executive of a small town arts council, operations manager of Spoleto Festival USA, and arts manager for New

Zealand's capital city. I spent three years as as founding director of an artists' colony in Key West, Florida, and then moved to Far North Qld to direct the Cairns Festival. I am currently working with Arts Mildura, to advance its portfolio of five major arts and culture festivals in the Northwest corner of Victoria.

Tim Rolfe, Museum Victoria Tim Rolfe is Head, Exhibitions for Museum Victoria. He oversees all inbound temporary exhibitions, outbound touring exhibitions and redevelopments in the permanent galleries at Melbourne Museum, Immigration Museum and Scienceworks. He has a passion for environmental design and has developed a knack for securing government, corporate and philanthropic funding.

Prior to commencing with Museum Victoria, Tim was an

accomplished writer and producer in the multimedia production, events, television and higher education sectors.

Graeme Hairsine, Public Record Office Victoria Graeme Hairsine joined Public Record Office Victoria in 2004

as a member of the project team building the State's first

Digital Archive—a major effort to permanently preserve the electronic records of the Victorian government. He progressed to overseeing the development of recordkeeping policy advice and standards to the whole of Victorian government and more recently became responsible for the agency’s enterprise digitising and online engagement programs—as part of the Victorian government’s web 2.0 innovation agenda. He now oversees the Corporate Services function which includes responsibility for the development and implementation of the organisation's

environment strategy.

Eric Holowacz: How Do We Define Sustainability? !

Consume fewer materials and burn less energy in what we do, end the year without a budget deficit, bring people together and help shape their understanding of a subject, a place, an artist, a community? That's loose but a pretty good start...

Yet the word "sustainability" remains is a fickle mistress:

a kind of chimerical synonym for "doing good." It has

become a buzzword for virtue in the 21st century—yet it lacks any firm universal definition or measurements.

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Maybe it's a bit like jazz. Thelonious Monk once said...

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I don’t have a definition of jazz...you’re just supposed to know it when you hear it.

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And the great Louis Armstrong famously remarked...

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.

KNOW IT

WHEN YOU HEAR IT

The essence of sustainability, on a practical level, includes all of the actions and results I just mentioned: use less, operate more eďŹƒciently, involve people, ensure what you program now can be presented or achieved in the future.Â

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Every museum will have its own unique recipe or approach. For the bureaucrat, or the public policy master, framing sustainability now comes under a management approach known as the triple bottom line.

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This three-part beast wants, in essence, to control and evaluate our Economic, Social, and Environmental impact from year to year. And that is a good thing...

WHAT’S THE

BOTTOM LINE?

These are the three pillars, and most of us in this room have

attempted to define them and measure them in our own settings. We’ve done so in the name of Sustainability—which for many arts and culture workers, is an automatic

administrative act and a strategic necessity.

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Two people who know that very well, are here with me to

discuss the search for sustainability, and what it means for museums and cultural institutions in Victoria. I can’t promise any Jazz, but we’re keeping it loose, improvised at times, and open to questions and riffs the whole way through.

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TIM ROLFE

MUSEUM VICTORIA

Tim Rolfe: Making Sustainability Sustainable !

The most diďŹƒcult aspect of sustainability is making it sustainable. That is, in the face of economic downturns, budget pressures, reduced sta numbers and the myriad of distractions faced by museums and galleries every day, how on earth is it possible to remain green of heart,

mind and action? Furthermore, the most genuinely sustainable thing an organisation that develops

exhibitions could do is—nothing. Museum Victoria has faced these kinds of challenges and has implemented a highly eective method of incorporating life-cycle thinking into the design and fabrication of new

exhibitions to ensure that they are as environmentally sustainable as they are practical.

A DIALOGUE WITH TIM ROLFE !

We continue to hear about government’s reducing funding to the sector. How has Museum Victoria coped with that?

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As we face a future of economic undertainty, budget cuts, and other hardships for museums and galleries, how can we expect an optimistic investment towards sustainability?

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Wouldn’t it be more environmentally prudent to not stage so many exhibitions and just operate at the bare bones?

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Your biography mentions a knack for finding and securing funding for sustainable efforts. Tell us more about what you’ve done and what’s out there?

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What is the boldest eco-friendly idea, a going-green transformation by a museum or gallery, that you’ve ever heard of?

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What is social sustainability: How does Museum Victoria leverage people, community, and an engagement

approach to build new audiences and programming?

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GRAEME HAIRSINE

PUBLIC RECORD

Graeme Hairsine: Sustainability as a Way of Life !

In order for sustainability to be truly embraced in an

organisation it has to make sense at both a strategic and a grassroots level. Public Record OďŹƒce Victoria has built its sustainability framework on principles that can

encompass both the ‘big, ugly building plant’

improvements and the ‘small, beautiful drought

resistant plant’ initiatives, ensuring that we focus not only on major investments to reduce energy emissions, but also have staff thinking about their daily impact on the environment. While it may seem daunting, even the smallest arts organisation can make a big difference by taking positive

actions towards a sustainable future.

A DIALOGUE WITH GRAEME HAIRSINE !

If somebody from a museum collection stopped you after this session, and asked how to make their operations more eco-friendly, what would you tell them?

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Why is sustainability a particular challenge for the cultural

collections sector?

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How is the digital world making collections, archives,

records, and public experience better? How are you exploiting new technologies?

How can we better design, build, and improve buildings—our actual physical plants—so they add to our sustainability?

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I carry a device in my pocket that gives me access to the sum of human knowledge. I use it to look at pictures of cats and argue with strangers. Will the iPhone and the Android tablet save us from ourselves? How are museums using 21st century communications and digital devices?

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What do you do personally, daily, as an employee in a large agency, to lower your own impact?

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How can you harness citizen power to drive sustainability?

Can we make sustainability a cultural norm rather than an imperial edict?

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Economic sustainability is a never ending game, with keywords like development, patrons, sponsors, grants, gift-shop, and public-private partnership. Are there any secrets?

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THREE MODES OF

SUSTAINABILITY

Environmental Sustainability !

Satisfying the needs of the present without diminishing the ability of the future community to meet its own needs.Â

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The primary activities are concerned with reducing carbon footprint and impact on the earth, controlling energy consumption, understanding our place in the biosphere, ensuring new resources are created or encouraged as

Museum collections are driven by sustainable intentions: they preserve the past and the present for the sake of the future.

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Threats to sustainability include too many objects to conserve properly, poor management or handling, negative budget trends, inadequate storage facilities, and diminished conservation resources

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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR... !

- How are Australian museums planning and reporting their sustainability data and results?Â

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- What are the easiest ways to adjust the museum for

environmental friendliness and sustainable operations?

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- What are the biggest hurdles?

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- Are most cultural institutions already “green�?

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- Is it too easy to dismiss eco-friendly initiatives in favour of cheaper options?

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Economic Sustainability !

Ensuring that resources are identified, obtained, available, and replenished in order to satisfy the immediate and future needs of the organisation.

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The primary activities are concerned with diversifying funding sources, retaining and expanding audience, using public policy to advance resourcing goals, investments, workforce training, donor relations, and sales exchange mechanisms.

Some of the trends and developments towards economic advancement—and innovative ways to increase and

sustain support—include crowd sourcing and microfunding, endowment models, blockbuster programming, cultural tourism marketing, mergers and innovative nontraditional partnerships, membership schemes, unique giving innovations and public-private partnerships

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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR... !

- How diversified are your museum’s income sources, and where are the growth areas?Â

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- Major donors can make major demands, or require a lot of internal resources. Any war stories or unusual cases from your development files?

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- A cafe and gift shop: yes, no, maybe so?

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- Has anybody built an endowment, and is it large enough to generate operating support from the interest?

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- Remote sites, Pop-up galleries, Brand extensions?

Social Sustainability !

The Museum as a societal institution exists to create goodwill, interpret culture and educate about identity.

It should add long-term value to a place and population. !

The social pillar is really just another word for community: being local, expanding shared knowledge, inviting human interaction, and valuing volunteerism. In the 21st century, social sustainability is about the relationships between an institution and the population it intends to serve.Â

Evidence of healthy social sustainability efforts include the rise of relational aesthetics and “new genre” public art—and projects depending on heavy community collaborations; the popularity of museums and libraries as physical plant for the knowledge-based society—as gathering places of human experience and enlightenment, as destinations for sensory input and inspiration, and as nodes for intellectual discourse.

Socially important by-products, such as catalogues, articles, publishing, documentary film, and digital content also play a part in this area of sustainability.

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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR...

- How are your facilities used for social purposes, and what is required to support that (and the growth of community use)?Â

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- Does your museum/collection brand extend to collateral, such as book publishing, merchandise, limited edition?

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- How are you using technology to engage the visitor? The O

Device at MONA: cool, fun, insightful, cumbersome, worrying, delightful, confusing, hard to hear...what’s the O?

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- Website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mailchimp,

Survey Monkey, iPhone App, who is controlling yours?

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- Is it too easy to dismiss eco-friendly initiatives in favour of

cheaper options?

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- Should we invite the Mash-up: Free online high-res

collections and public domain use: Google Art Project, Painting Portal for iPad, LACMA and Rijksmuseum’s open source online works.

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- How to enter Augmented Reality: Google Glass, Heads-Up Displays, Image Capture and Recognition, Layar, Junaio.

CASE STUDY:

LIFE CYCLE

Sustainability Victorian Museums and Galleries Conference 18 April 2013

Tim Rolfe Head, Exhibitions Museum Victoria

“museums use more than twice as much energy as conventional office buildings�

Dr Usha Iyer-Raniga Centre for Design, RMIT

life cycle thinking manufacturing use end of life/disposal

re-use what exists

select low impact materials

undertake fabrication practices that minimise waste

engage like-minded contractors

work to reduce other environmental impacts

communicate this approach

CASE STUDY:

AGENCY WIDE

CASE STUDY:

CROWD SOURCE

www.layar.com

Crowd Sourced Funding / Pozible !

-Takes 10-20 minutes to set up; runs for up to 90 days

-Can raise entire budget for small-scale new projects

-Utilises cheap/free communications and end-user driven donation process; only realised if goal amount is reached

-Is most successful when coupled with social media and viral

marketing, and reiterated in all communications eorts

-New donors are often enticed with a quid pro quo: project funding

is structured with tiered level of giving and benefit

-Pozible.com is now working with arts organisations to create

Campaign Collections as on-line umbrellas for multi-project entities (Fringe Festivals, film production, local government areas)

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www.pozible.com/vamp

CASE STUDY:

HD CINEMACAST

HD Cinemacasts and New Audiences !

The New York Times opened, in reviewing this fusion of cinema and the Manet: Portraying Life exhibition, “ I Went to a Movie

and an Art Exhibition Broke Out.” The earlier HD Cinemacast, Leonardo Live, a guided video tour of the show at the National

Gallery in London, clearly extended the blockbuster to a new

medium. Gallery-to-Cinema telepresence magnifies the masterpieces, elaborates on their art history for new audiences, and involves commentators who augment the experience. It can only approximate being there—seeing the actual works in person—but the queues have been lining up around the corner, around the globe, and breathing new life into far-away museum shows.

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www.seventh-art.com

GREEN

MUSEUMS ACCORD

California’s Green Museums Initiative !

Established in 2006, by the California Association of Museums, the first step was to "green" their own daily operations and events to serve as a model for museums and other associations. The early

efforts developed important catering guidelines, hosted influential panels on sustainability, and took other steps to reduce waste and CAM's impact on the environment. It also set the groundwork for the Green Museums Accord, a voluntary membership of organisations who seek a neutral carbon footprint and pledge to adopt sustainable practices at all levels of operations. The Accord also fosters public promotion and awareness of green efforts, using the museum

members as role models.

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www.calmuseums.org/gmi

CASE STUDY:

DIGITAL PRESSES

www.issuu.com

au.blurb.com

E-publishing and I-publishing !

-Free online e-books and flash-magazines: issuu.com

-Simple to embed as web content, and easy to distribute by email, e-news, Facebook or for iPads and e-book readers

-Bespoke hard-bound book publishing: blurb.com & iPhoto

-Can be published on-demand, as ordered and purchased

-Editions can be edited and updated easily, re-published, and content is controlled by you (the publisher/owner)

-Hard-bound versions can be provided to local libraries, lobbies, schools, and donors as enhancements to local identity

-Artists, collection objects, historical archives: all can be designed and published as a series of e-books / i-books

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http://bit.ly/mavsustain

GALLERY

IMAGE RECOGNITION

Junaio / Metaio / Kooaba !

Junaio is the easiest entry point to developing and publishing augmented reality and location-based experiences. A free app for Android and iOS devices, junaio has several million users and a thriving international and professional developer community.

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A museum might chose an image or object to scan, drag-and-drop Augmented Reality content on top of it (artist statement, audio or video, web links) and deploy the project for public use (on the junaio Augmented Reality browser).

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www.junaio.com

Arart Augmented Reality !

ARART is an augmented reality application developed by Japanese artists kei shiratori, takeshi mukai and younghyo bak. It takes

well-known paintings or drawings and translates them into real-time virtual animations. In viewing works art, the app will re-create a scene using AR, bringing the characters, landscapes, or abstract images to life. Point your iPhone at the Mona Lisa, and her face slowly melts o; view the illustrations in Alice in Wonderland, and the Cheshire Cat begins to dance o the page; a landscape begins to change seasons.

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arart.info

CONCLUSION:

SUSTAINABILITY

Maybe, stealing another line form the jazz musician, we shouldn't think too hard about how many pillars we've got, triple or quadruple bottom lines, or institutionalising sustainability. Maybe we'll fall into a trap, forget our

focus, and lose the essence that gives meaning

and value to a community. That ain't jazz. Â

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Perhaps it's more ideal if museums simply strive to get better, to do good, to use less. If the will to conserve and sustain is automatic, we won’t need comprehensive plans and long lists of bullet points for every sta member.

If we experiment, engage with audiences, and improvise wildly, our communities will become better places. The mysterious fourth pillar of culture will be stronger and more dynamic. The three main pillars begin to play themselves.

Now that's sounding more like Jazz.

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As Ornette Coleman said: "It's the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time."

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Or as Miles Davis said of Jazz: "I’ll play it first and tell you what it is later."

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Perhaps sustainability will forever remain an elusive

concept for us all, like a fickle partner who is virtuous but never quite satisfied. We know it's a good thing, a worthwhile friendship, and suitable for an interesting long-term relationship.

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But to paraphrase again what Satchmo said: "If you have to ask what sustainability is, you'll never know."

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To close, I leave you with a final quote from horn player, Bix Beiderbecke: "One of the things I like about jazz...

is I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?"

DOES HE?

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QUESTIONS FROM

THE FLOOR...