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 .
Given that the 'unsustainability assertion' largely belongs to the City of Launceston Council (CoL) GM's office this is where the questions arise.
By what measure unsustainable - administratively, politically, socially, culturally? Blinkered and blind to such things as 'cultural imperatives', 'social dividends' and 'cultural landscaping' CoL constituents, indeed Tasmanians et al, are poorly served by an institution operating as a 'cost centre' and somewhat obscenely so by the blending and blanding governance and management – a self-serving determination.
'
Back in 2014 Saul Eslake told 'museum people' that cultural institutions such as museums and art galleries are going to find public funding “tight” and it is true still. He was talking about the tip of that ominous iceberg called ‘fiscal accountability’. What was true then is more so in 2022!
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'.
Saul Eslake’s “personal” intuition might well be much more informed than he dare give himself credit for. Musingplaces actually do offer real dividends and are not in competition with “schools, hospitals and the police”. Not by necessity anyway!
Catchwords like ‘interfacing technologies’, ‘social networking’, ‘efficiency and productivity dividends’, ‘crowdsourcing’, ‘crowdfunding’, ‘citizen curator’ etc. increasingly come together to deliver much more for much less in musingplaces.
All this is going on well below the tip of that fiscal iceberg. Nonetheless, it suggests that musingplaces need to get busy joining some dots – and smartish!
If musingplaces are to avoid the economically driven grim reaper, Saul Eslake is/was 'on the money'. That said, some will not, some cannot and some should not, be allowed to simply 'go on and on'. Given their cynical and lazy attachment to the public purse, this is also something to keep in mind as well.
 |
| CLICK HERE TO GO TO SOURCE |
Again, as he is prone to do, he misses the point. He was then, and still does harbour the belief that by holding out his hat in the pages of a newspaper the State Govt. would load up a helicopter with mega dollars and in cargo cult style, do a 'cash drop' in Civic Square – job done!
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.
CONTEXT … CLICK HERE
The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery is at the mercy of an outmoded financial modelling that has the City of Launceston Council seeking increased funding from the state's coffers – and it does not work and should not work but it goes on and on.
City of Launceston Council's GMs tend to believe that such moves are vindicated relative to the $millions the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery receives through state revenue – and absolute misreading of the facts.
It isn't hard at all to make a wish or pray even. The difficultly comes about in how to make what is wished for, or prayed for, a reality. Wisdom should tell us that the yawning gap between self perception and reality, the more aggression is unleashed on those who point out the discrepancy.
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' – managerially it has ever been thus!
Against the backgrounding discussed here there are a number steps that seem logical to apply as an alternative to continuing to fund the QVMAG, and like institutions elsewhere, as an 'expensive Cost Centre' – indeed as non-core operations – as the QVMAG has been for decades.
The one option being proactively canvassed is to transform the QVMAG AS 'institution' into a "company limited by guarantee". That is not a totally bad idea but if given a real opportunity 'the community' might well have something substantial to say about 'their' cultural assets, 'their' intellectual and cultural property – managerially, that is a non-core concern.
Indeed, the 'community' might wish to consider an deliberate upon an entity something like a COLLECTIONlutruwita!
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
No comments:
Post a Comment