Creativity and play -the social role of museums

One Two Three Swing! SUPERFLEX, 2018, Tate Modern

 Tate Modern is one of four museums that form part of the Tate Galleries (Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate St Ives and Tate Liverpool.)  Located on the banks of the Thames and housed in a former power station, the conversion to gallery retained many of the features and qualities of the original site. Tate Modern opened in 2000. The  Turbine Hall is a much loved public and exhibition space, and the former Boiler House  now forms the main gallery spaces. In 2009, further development included the building of the Blavatnik Tower, with the former power station's oil tanks at the base  of the tower converted into exhibition spaces for live art, performance art and film and video work. Other education spaces and visitor ammenities are included in this building.

The Turbine Hall is the vast entrance space to Tate Modern, and site of many large scale installations. The video above is filmed from a mezzanine walkway, and shows the work of Danish art collective SUPERFLEX, who make large-scale collaborative installations. This vast and iconic industrial-scale exhibition space has been used by contemporary artists to make large scale site -specific sculpture. The Turbine Hall's first installation was creted  by Lousie Bourgeois. 'I do, I undo, I redo'  included three towers  and an enormous sculpture of a spider created from steel and  is described here. It became a site to meet and gather, and like all the installations in this space it was not permanent, however many regular visitors were saddened and surprised when it eventually came down. 

Since Beourgeois' iconic work from 2000, other artists have used the scale of the Turbine Hall to create participatory  spaces for people to gather, reflect and perhaps form connections with strangers. Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project filled the Turbine Hall with the experience of sunshine and mist.  Marcella Beccaria describes this iconic project, and how it engaged with the profound social role that a museum can play. 

Many artists since these have strived to use this (and other) spaces, to create artworks that give reason and purpose for members of the public to meet, gather, reflect, collaborate, connect and exchange. Spaces that give permission for the public to lie down, reflect,  play, spend time and contemplate hold considerable magnetic power for the public. Whilst the monumental  and industrial scale of spaces such as the Turbine Hall seem to assist in breaking down the reservations that might otherwise arise, in future posts I will also report on spaces where this is working on small scales, perhaps more aligned to the places where we might work and study. 

Meanwhile, a  little more on 'One Two Three Swing!'

"Each swing has been designed for three people by Danish art collective SUPERFLEX. Swinging with two other people has greater potential than swinging alone and One Two Three Swing!  invites us to realise this potential together. Swinging as three, our collective energy resists gravity and challenges the laws of nature. Count, hold, let go of the floor and soar. SUPERFLEX asks, if we all swing at the same time, can we change the way the Earth spins?

Suspended above a carpet made inthe colours of British banknotes, a pendulum swings hypnotically with the movement of the Earth. SUPERFLEX think of this as a space to contemplate the forces at work in our everyday lives. They imagine people might want to gather here  to think about whether it is the weight of gravity or the economy that pulls us down."

If you still not convinced as to what  a playground might be doing in a gallery, and need more clues on the connections between creativity and play, CEO of design firm  IDEO Tim Brown's TED talk remains an excellent primer.

-from the accompanying wall text for One Two Three Swing!

Snippets

We are always picking up snippets when we travel. I will use this space to record some curious or other fragments I pick up as I go , that might otherwise be in danger of being lost in a longer post. I loved this letter to the editor published in The Times on January 19- what a great idea :) 
In Australia, Artbank fulfills this role as fee for service in the corporate and commercial sectors. Do you think any gallery these days would offer it as a public service?

Letters to the editior, The Times, January 19, 2018.

Collecting the World

I have visited two Museums this week whose existance is owed to quintessential Enlightenment collectors. Sir Hans Sloane was a physician, naturalist and collector, who bequeathed some 71000 objects to the nation upon his death in 1753. Just five years later, and enshrined in an Act of Parliament, this collection was opened as the British Museum, the worlds first free public museum. Five thousand people visited the Museum during its first year. It has operated continuously since it first opened in 1759, and now receives close to seven million visitors a year. (A fair few of them were there the day I visited.)

The monolithic exterior symbolises everything traditionally entailled in the idea of a museum - temple, palace,  ownership, power, authority, place of learning.

In the late 1990s, construction commenced on the the Great Court of the British Museum. A competition was held for the design of the space, the brief being 'revealing hidden spaces, revising old spaces, creating new spaces.' This extraordinary covered courtyard encapsulates the space previously occupied by the now-relocated British library. It encapsulates the extraordinary challenge of positioning and defending a Museum founded in the 18th century, in today's world. 

It is some thirty years since I last visited the British Museum- (did I just say that aloud?) 

On my first 21st century visit, many displays and descriptive texts appear to be entirely unchanged since my last visit. Words such as 'found' and 'discovered' are used to describe  the artifacts  and treasures  of a myriad of nations with uncomplicated and  seemingly unreconstructed freedom. The Museum positions itself as a free resource for the world to share, allowing an uparallelled opportunity for comparative research and education. The extraordinarily  complex questions of power, ownership and permission that are at the core of any contemporary museum are not applied retrospectively. This would indeed threaten the majority of the collection.These are the questions that any museum founded in another era wrestles with. I found the experience of visiting to be intense. The sheer scale of the place, and the weight of the histories held within. The beauty, and wonder of the objects the Museum contains are undeniable. Their place there, incredibly complex. Once more, drawing proved a tool to stop and look, and contemplate (or perhaps further complicate?)  some of the layers of history. 

 Cath Barcan, ipad drawing of Anahitha in a Museum case, 2018

Head from a bronze cult statue of Anahitha, a local goddess shown here  as Aphrodite 200100 BC Found at Satala in NE  Asia Minor  (Armenia Minor)- text label accompanying the work.

Within walking distance from my digs, I will be a regular visitor to this Museum. 

Room 2A in the British Museum is famously called " Collecting the World". A future post will relate my experience of the Sir John Soane Museum, and a little of its eponymous founder.

The Migration Museum

The site visit for my course this week was to the Migration Museum. This emerging organisation started life as a museum without premises, working on a project basis in collaboration with other museums and public spaces. It is currently tucked away upstairs in a former factory, in temporary premises in Lambeth High Street, whilst it continues to work towards a permanent premises. The Museum's  discreet location is however just a stone's throw away from major galleries such as Tate Britain.

Museum educator Liberty Melly spoke in depth to our group about the motivations of the museum, in creating a more meaningful dialogue about migration, and to actively counter negative perceptions of migration peddled in parts of the British print media. The Museum hopes to create a richer dialogue and understanding of the positive impact of migration in the UK, and dispel some of the many myths surrounding this contentious issue. The UK has experienced migrations over thousands of years, but this perspective is rarely reflected in the media.

During this study tour I am visiting and reflecting on both emerging museums and galleries, and those that have been established for hundreds of years. One of the extraordinary benefits of visiting a small and emerging space such as this one, is the visibility of the processes and issues that impact on all areas of the sector today. This includes the  mechanisms of arguing a case for a museum, strategies for measuring reach and impact, and audience engagement and consultations. 

Have a close look at their website (linked above) for some great examples of how this small museum is doing  these things and more.

This Museum has been established by a small group of people who are passionate about expanding the dialogue surrounding migration in the UK. It is a shining example of how a small group of determined, resilient and passionate people can use and develop  the Museum and Gallery space to encourage debate and discussion on issues that matter. 

The potential for our creative industry students within TAFE regions, and forging collaborations  across regions to think and act in this way is enormous. We have an opportunity to develop engagement and thinking around key issues of our location and of our times,  to broaden debate around key issues, and work to build inclusivity and connectedness, and innovation. In turn, this will develop audience engagement and also patronage of the creative industries. It is essential that we evaluate (measure) the impact or meaning in some way. A place to start is asking our TAFE communities: 'what are the issues that matter to you? What do we need to talk more about?'

installation detail: 'Humanae' (work in progres since 2012), Angelica Dass

From the current exhibition at the Migration Museum ' No turning back'.

"Cataloguing every conceivable human skin tone, I aim to illustrate that skin and race are more complex than they might appear at first glance. This project invites people to rethink their identity, to bring people together isnstead of separating them." - Angelica Dass, catalogue statement. 

Post script:

Check out the valuable work already being done in Australia in this field at South Australia's Migration Museum, and Melbourne's Immigration Museum.

The Foundling Museum

Staying, as I am, in the middle of London’s so called Museum Mile, I aim to write a post on each of the 13 large and small museums on this map. I plan to walk to each of them, (hopefully mitigating my traditional English breakfast along the way) and, more importantly, reflecting on the ideas raised in my course at Goldsmiths. As I immerse myself further into study, no doubt academic readings will increasingly influence the posts. In the meantime, it’s an extraordinary opportunity to think about both the shared and the unique circumstances of each Museum, and what stands out as notable or transferable ideas.

The Foundling Museum is a great place to start, as the home of Britain’s first public art museum. The Museum is built on the site of the Foundling Hospital, a charity for abandoned children founded by Thomas Coram in 1739. The hospital is now known as Coram, and continues to provide for vulnerable children as it has for over 275 years.

The Museum tells the story of the Hospital, and today continues the long history of the organisation in bringing artists to the aid of children. The artist William Hogarth, known for the acerbic social commentary of his works, was an early supporter of the hospital. In 1740, Hogarth donated a portrait of the hospital founder, and encouraged fellow artists to also donate work. The room in the Foundling Museum pictured below, (rebuilt) is called the Picture Gallery, and was the first permanent exhibition space in the UK. 

The Picture Room, at the Foundling Museum.

Other high profile early supporters of the Hospital included  George Frideric Handel and who gave performances of his Messiah in the hospital Chapel, to attract support for the charity, and Charles Dickens, who was a nearby resident. These artists:

 “  ..combined support of the charity with creative self promotion.........Art, music and vulnerable children drew the wealthy to the Hospital, eager to parade their refinement and charity. They in turn enabled the artists to compete for commissions, and the Hospital to secure charitable donations” - (Foundling Museum wall texts.)

The Museum draws on this long history of philanthropy, and collaboration with artists in its current practice."Through a dynamic programme of exhibitions and events, we celebrate the ways in which artists and children have inspired each other for over 275 years." (Museum wall text). 

High profile artists such as Cornelia Parker, Yinka Shonibare, Grayson Perry, and David Shirley have undertaken projects with the Museum.

Many visitors and artists of the Museum are moved by the display of tokens- humble and heartbreaking identifiers left by parents of abandoned children, to enable them to be identified if the child was reclaimed by its parents. Swatches of babies clothes were cut in half, one half left with the token, and one kept by the mother. Tokens were often personalised with messages of love, hope, loss or desperation. Follow the link above to read more about, and see some images of these poignant objects.

This deceptively simple work by David Shrigley is in the Museum collection, and responds to these objects.

David Shrigley, Untitled (This is a token) 2012

This Museum helps me wonder if we at TAFE have an  opportunity to contribute to a culture of philanthropy in the arts, by creating collaborations between charities and creatives that seek to benefit all parties? Does this strike a chord with anyone? 

Lastly, please indulge me if I post an iPad drawing of a textile and paper token; a textile heart with arms outstretched, with fragments of the identifying billet attached. An impossibly sad and strange object.

I am enjoying  the chance to find out about iPad drawing (despite the diabolical image compression of social media sites such as this blog.) Whilst I won't be giving up my native practice of photography just yet, there is a lot to be said for the combination of focussed and immersive thinking that drawing allows. Susan Sontag's observations of visitors photographing sites without looking at them are no less relevant in today's Museum than they were when she wrote On Photography. I couldn't help but be struck by this at the British Museum- but more on that later.

Cath Barcan, 'Token from the Foundling Museum' iPad drawing, 2018.

Welcome- and some background on my study tour

TATE Britain, where I managed to see the Rachel Whiteread show on its very last day.

The Art Gallery as temple- staunchly upholding the idea of art as free for all.

Hello, and welcome to this blog, which is a record of the study tour  I am curently undertaking as the 2017 recipent of the Premier's University of NSW Creative Arts Scholarship. To start with, a little background on the project, the scholarship, and myself...

Actually, you can read a little bit about me under my profile. I am an art educator, and an artist, and I am Head Teacher of Visual Arts at Nepean Arts and Design Centre, TAFE, Western Sydney. If you would like to know more, you can find out about our vibrant centre, including links to our socal media, at the NADC webpage, and you can have a look at my art practice on my website.

My study tour is largely based in London, and centred around a unit of study in Museums and Galleries entrepreneurship at Goldsmiths. For those not familiar with Goldsmiths, it is a College of the University of London, with a vibrant multi-cultural student body, and offering studies in a broad range of creative and cultural industries. Alumni include Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, John Cale, Malcolm McClaren, Bridget Riley, Mary Quant and Vivienne Westwood to name a few.

My study is in Museums and Galleries as Cultural Entrepreneurs, and to accommodate this, I have been able to extend the period of the study tour to ten weeks, which is the length of the course. This period of formal study is an opportunity to look closely at the way museums and galleries have worked in the past, and how the have altered and continue to expand their practices to cater to and include diverse audiences, create new ideas and debates, and solve the financial challenges that any organisation faces in the 21st century. The course is lead by Dr Sylvia Lahav, a Goldsmiths academic who brings with her  decades of experience in the Museums and Galleries sector.

The course involves numerous site visits, where we get to hear directly from a range of experts in the field. Of course, I will be taking every opportunity to visit museums and galleries large and small across London and beyond, to look closely at how current thinking is applied. I aim to record many of my visits here to share with you, and welcome your thoughts and reflections. I am sure that many of my posts will be stimulated by the teaching and learning of the course.

It is a great privilege to have the chance to think deeply about the forces that impact on the world of museums and galleries, and to engage in such an immersive study program. I hope this looking and thinking will contribute to teaching and learning in TAFE art schools, and inform courses aimed at  both artists (as content providers) or (future) art administrators. I see lots of potential to enact entrepreneurial models in the TAFE environment for the benefit of students, and hope that this will be one of the longer-term outcomes of the study tour. It seems inevitable that my art practice will be enriched by osmosis form all the looking and thinking. The committment to vocational currency is something that defines teaching and learning in the TAFE environment. The course is half of a post-grad certificate, and  there is a major written assessment to complete. I am excited, and only a little bit daunted, to be in the role of student again.

I would like to sincerely thank the University of New South Wales for their generous sponsorship of the  2017 Premier's University of NSW Creative Arts Scholarship.