Almost despite lutruwitaTASMANIA's somewhat dark and gothic histories it is a 'treasure house' of contested and contestable ideas. Situated as it is at the edge of the world 'the place' is replete with every kind of story and cultural imagining.
All around lutruwitaTASMANIA there are multiple 'musingplaces' and many underperform relative to their 21st C capacity so to do. This is quite simply because their collections have outgrown their custodians ability 'to do more'. And, there are treasures in these collections.
By-and-large all these 'collections' are imagined as being held in trust. However, Charles H. Green, 'The Trusted Advisor', tells us that "It takes two to do the trust tango –the one who risks (the trustor) and the one who is trustworthy (the trustee); each must play their role."
This submission explores ways to reimagine 'musingplaces' and our built heritage estate's governance and management in a 21st C context. It is clear that there are compelling reasons for fundamental change in regard to the governance and management of Tasmania's musingplaces and heritage properties.
THE WHAT IF FACTOR .... That 20th C American cum international 'cultural icon' Woody Allen posed the question ... "What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?" Somewhat likewise Nanette Avery asked “What if there was no tomorrow and everyone showed up anyway...”
In terms of 'public musingplaces in Tasmania' embracing the 21st C two decade in, there are some 'what ifs' to ponder.
• What if all of Tasmania's 'public musingplace collections' were to find themselves under a single 'governance' regime?
• What if state of the art 21st C technologies were to be engaged in cataloging these collection?
• What if state of the art 21st C technologies were to be engaged in cataloging these collection?
• What if an audit was undertaken taken to reveal Tasmania's 'cultural realities' in all their diversity?
• What if cultural production was to be reassessed and reimagined?
• What if the extinction of species were to be reimagined and reexamined?
• What if an alternative ways to examine histories were to be entertained?
• What if the Community of Ownership and Interest (COI) relative to 'public musingplace collections' were to be acknowledged and celebrated?
• What if everyone everywhere were have reliable access to the contents of 'public musingplace collections' ?
Nonetheless, not asking 'what if' is too risky by far because we must always assume that there are expansive understandings on offer and a boundless quantum knowledge yet to be acquired. Musingplaces are a kind of petri dish within which contestable cultural realities are tested and contested – grow even. If not they are theme parks, businesses or even follies masquerading as musingplaces – simply an accumulations of stuff, an entertainment, a commodity, a marketplace .
21st CENTURY MUSING IN TASMANIA .... Pondering the 'what ifs', the 'what if' asks if all of Tasmania's 'public musingplace collections' were to find themselves under a single 'governance' regime bumps up against the investments in the status quo front and centre. In regard to human resources, the stakeholder component of the Community of Ownership and Interest (COI) are ever likely to resist given that their incomes may well be challenged.
Apparently what is unconscionable is a merging without the faltering and floundering bureaucratic paradigm that 'blends and blands' governance and management with all the unsustainable fiscal consequences as 'a load of lead in the saddlebag'. All this was deliberated upon in camera well away from the collections' COI well away from the press, well away from Open Council, well away from the ratepayers' scrutiny.
Musingplaces are the places where new knowledge and enhanced understandings can be won along with the new data relevant to the world – the stuff that carries us forward. The extent to which this is the case for the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery (TMAG), it is also true for kindred musingplaces and heritage sites throughout Tasmania... LINKS [1] [2] [3] [4]
These places are important cultural resources. Arguably, a growing number people seem to have come to an understanding that if change can be embraced at the TMAG that could enhance ‘the cultural experience’ in Tasmania. This would be the case for all Tasmanians and by extension for visitors to the state – virtual and digital – that come to it with a broad range of knowledge sets as well as a wide range of expectations and aspirations. Yet, the TMAG is but a component of what might well be understood as Tasmania's 'cultural estate'.
A key imperative appears to be to do with 'ownership' and by extension 'implied trust' invested in an entity such as COLLECTIONlutruwita. Then comes the issues of 'intellectual property' and 'cultural property'. These can be contentious issues and their management needs to be strategic. Thus it is a governance matter. So, what if 'collection matters', can be separated from, perhaps insulated from, the variance of and the diversity of placedness relative to governance? By extension, what if a compounded and condensed 'cultural estate' can be achieved in ac21st C context, what might it look like?
It would appear that the time and place for that would be via a Citizen's Assembly or some like process and the lead dancer in the TRUSTtango most likely needs to be the State.
SO WHAT NOW? .... With the 'what if' having delivered some kind of comprehendible concept as always comes more and more 'what ifs' and the big question 'where to now'? There is one certainty and that is that it is highly unlikely that there will be universal agreement. This is especially so if the course chosen is deemed to be the way forward in a TOPdown scenario. The BOTTOMup scenario is likewise blighted.
In plotting a way forward we might look for metaphors to hang meanings on for a 'collection' that is an all embracing conglomerate of cultural treasures – objects, ideas, specimens, records, etc imagined as COLLECTIONlutruwita. For instance we might imagine such a conglomeration of riches and richness as being a 'fruit cake' jammed packed as the best of them are with all kinds of fruits, nuts, spices and more still. It is a celebration preservable for a long time and its 'richness' carries many stories.
Somehow it seems feasible to think about lutruwitaTASMANIA as a musingplace, the musingplace if you like, rather than imagine lutruwitaTASMANIA as an island/place endowed with musingplaces – albeit interfacing musingplaces working collaboratively and cooperatively – that had access to and engagements an entity such as COLLECTIONlutruwita
The possibility or transforming Tasmania's 'cultural estate' and allowing it to evolve into a 21st C 'cultural manifestation' – a COLLECTIONlutruwita – of the kind discussed here, no longer seems to be beyond reach. However, it seems that the 'political class' choose to locate themselves, for whatever reason, in a lifeboat just that little bit out of reach. It is a delusion but it seems that it is natural human condition. But why? Quite possibly the truth is too painful. Nevertheless, transformation and evolution must be a possibility no matter how audacious it might seem to be for some.
In Tasmania we already have a reference point for 'audacity' in an unprecedented 'musingplace' known as MONA.
BY WHAT MEASURE SUSTAINABILITY .... Currently Launceston's QVMAG teeters at the edge of a fiscal and managerial crisis amidst a series of plausible arguments that the institution is "unsustainable" in a 21st C context - these are arguments unanimously endorsed by City of Launceston Councillors albeit that they have not consulted or engaged with their constituency .
Otherworldly ‘Ivory Towers’ that once held out in splendid isolation to muse upon the world are beginning to crumble. Almost noiselessly, the winds of change are disturbing the dust and tumble weed in troublesome ways for the 'elitist muser'.
Mayor van Zetten concerned by the unsustainable economic pressure maintaining such a significant cultural icon places on the 108,000 ratepayers of greater Launceston, the council is seeking to shape a new governance model through more equitable funding.
In any event there seems to be an emerging accord that speaks of the status quo being unsustainable even if somewhere in the system it is not an idea that is willingly embraced.
Essentially, this 'accord' bears all the hallmarks of economic rationalism and 'budget repair' the driving forces behind the rationalisation of 'cost centres'. Indeed, the 'community' might wish to consider and deliberate upon an entity something like a COLLECTIONlutruwita.
A STRUCTURE .... In the corporate world 'the pyramid' is much lauded as a structure. The power hierarchy seems best described by the pyramid metaphor. Typically it comes with a subliminal narrative to do with strength, durability and endurance. It is said that the Pharaohs built the pyramids. Does anyone actually think that one Pharaoh developed one bead of sweat in their building? The underlings built the pyramids for the Pharaohs and they are building for them yet.
Rhizome comes from the Greek rhizoma . Rhizome is often taken as being synonymous with “root”; in botany, a rhizome is a plant structure that grows underground and has both roots (commonly, the part that grows down into the ground) and shoots (commonly, the part that grows up through the ground).
The word is associated with postmodern theorists Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, who use the rhizome to describe a process of existence and growth that does not come from a single central point of origin. Deleuze and Guattari argue, the grand narrative of arborescence falls apart. They offer instead the rhizome or fungus, which is an organism of interconnected living fibers that:
- Has no central point;
- no origin, and
- no particular form or unity or structure.
According to Deleuze and Guattari. An example of this might be the internet, the World Wide Web, which has a rhizomatic structure. It has no point of origin, no central locus, nothing that controls or shapes or organizes it: the web simply grows.
Rather than belonging to 'place', arguably, it might more appropriate to imagine a COLLECTIONlutruwita as being 'invested' in lutruwitaTASMANIA's cultural realities.
What might a COLLECTIONlutruwita include? Ideally everything of cultural cum scientific 'value'.
We might build boats of all kinds and they will all be absolutely 'safe' securely tied up next to the land. Nevertheless, that is not why boats are built! If we can imagine a COLLECTIONlutruwita as a kind of 'boat', a 'risky vessel', if it does something, goes somewhere, new things might well be discovered and put to use.
We might profitably think about 'the cargo' a COLLECTIONlutruwita vessel, raft, barge even, might carry, to where, to whom and for why.
Again, what might this cargo be? Well perhaps obviously that which earns the label 'art' along with all manner of 'cultural production', text, data however it is imagined, scientific specimens of all kinds, places even. Let us say that it needs to be eclectic and stored in diverse ways in various places. Indeed 'material' NOT HELD in 'public trust' might well be 'registered' in COLLECTIONlutruwita, thus becoming components of 'the cultural larder' – cultural property, palawa/pakana, colonial, peri-colonial, individual's intellectual property, Tasmaniana, Australiana, Pacifica, modern, contemporary, anthropological no matter what 'cultural label' it is understood by.
COLLECTIONlutruwita will, whatever metaphor we use for it, need need a 'command' and there would be no utility in placing it under the command of a NOBLEincompetent. Expertise and 'cultural literacy' is a prerequisite for any 'trusted' individual or cohort of 'trustees'. Such people do exist but they need to be appointed NOT elected.
There are no ifs, no buts, a 'cultural warehouse' like COLLECTIONlutruwita will need a cohort of appointed 'trustees' to oversight the contents and the things that they might do for whom – when and where.
How might such a 'collection' come to be? .... The bureaucratic means would inevitably lead to 'an enquiry' and a 'report' and if there is no bureaucratic or political appetite this process might go on until such time as the status quo isn't threatened. Like, "if it ain't broken do not fix it"!
Alternatively, the Tasmanian Government might well be proactive and break with the apparent imperative to maintain the status quo and resist change in fear of change. The cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead's work led her to the observation that we should never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. In fact she went so far as to say, "it is the only thing that ever has.”
CONTEXT … CLICK HERE
THE WHAT IF FACTOR … CLICK HERE
21st CENTURY MUSING IN lutruwitaTASMANIA … CLICK HERE
SO WHAT NOW? … CLICK HERE
BY WHAT MEASURE SUSTAINABILITY … CLICK HERE
A STRUCTURE FOR COLLECTIONlutruwita … CLICK HERE
HOW MIGHT A COLLECTIONlutruwita COME TO BE … CLICK HERE
