The English Obsession with the New

Learning at the core of museums

Bridget McKenzieFlow Associates

Who am I?• My past is in cultural and heritage education:o Education at Tate o Head of Learning at the British Library

• Now, I run Flow Associateso helping museums, arts and heritage bodieso digital strategies, development plans, learning

I want to ask...Why are we building so many new museums and galleries in the UK?

Do they increase cultural learning?

Do they regenerate environments and economies?

What are the alternatives?

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

The future context for UK• Economic downturn is bad for us• Climate disruption (1 or 2 m sea level rise?)• Population growth • Biodiversity losses • Mass migration from coastal & desert

zones• As developing world develops, they will ask

for their assets back

• Priority: Preserving heritage and knowledge• Priority: Digital access to culture and heritage• Priority: Post-oil innovation and creativity

• So, what is the future of cultural tourism?• How does this affect cultural planning?

The future priorities for UK

Credit: Wilkinson Eyre/NMSI

The utopian appeal of the newMuseums are utopian

A way to see and control the mess of reality

A new museum = can start fresh and tell a new story

This chance is appealing to those in power

English have a ‘cult of virginity’ – want a new one

Design for the Hirschorn Museum, Washington

National pride, national protection

Do nations need museums to define their identity?

Do we believe a digital museum can do same as a building?

Sarkozy proposed a grand new museum of France

Now, plans to spend £650 m on digitising French culture

Striking workers at the Louvre, Paris

New museums can be radical A real project:

Alpine Ice Research Station & museum

Design firm, R&Sie(n)

Context: trend for new museums• Global trend for grand new museums• Why so many across the UK?• Cultural tourism is vital to UK: o 34 million foreign visitors a yearo Visitor economy = £114b or 8.2% GDPo Culture is most often given as main reason to

visit UKo London hosts Olympics in 2012

What are we spending? • Heritage Lottery Fund has spent £4.4 billion in

15 years• More than half on new building work• How many in UK? Perhaps 80 new builds or

extensions in 12 years, for £2.7 billion?• “I'm convinced it will come off. It's a means of

developing and growing out of the recession."Prof Peter Downes, chair of new V&A project in Dundee

Features of our new museumsLarge, spectacular, contemporary

Many by coasts or rivers

Use of new technology in the visitor experience

National Lottery, local government and private funding

BUT: many redevelopments of heritage museums too

Imperial War Museum of the North

Birthing a new museum = a lifetime responsibility

Expensive to run

Installation challenges

Fast turnaround of exhibits

Bigger spaces, inefficient in energy

High expectations of visitor experienceMany free of charge

Ron Mueck’s ‘Girl’ arriving at Brooklyn Museum of Art

Tate Modern’s new buildingArchitect: Herzog & de Meuron

Hoped to complete 2012?

Cost £215 million

Rear of former power station by the Thames, over oil tanks

Spaces for installation, live art & photography

Learning central to the design

Learning facilities in the extension• “Spaces for learning, study and reflection unmatched

anywhere in the world • Spaces designed specifically by young people for young

people • Dedicated family areas; more restaurants and cafés• Dedicated Mediatech suite for personal study • Further suites for group learning • Studios for making and learning • A Children’s Gallery presenting work and interpretative

material specifically for children”

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/transformingtm/

Museum experiences can be out in the world

High tech or low tech

What other ways?

Runs as a social enterprise

Unemployed people train, grow vegetables, make things, sell them, help run the museum

Many others involved too: 42,000 volunteer hours a year

Mission: “We aim to help people, be active, learn new things, look at the world differently, make friends and give something back.”

Museum of East Anglian Life

A new architecture of relationships

Trainees making a box for owls

Their plan to develop Abbott’s Hall£3 million project to improve facilities

Restore workers’ cottages and kitchen gardens

Tell stories of people who lived there

Unemployed people will do the work, learn skills.And learn history

Hierarchy of cultural programmingCulture

bought or commissioned

Culture cared for, displayed,

performed

Culture marketed to core audiences

Culture mediated to ‘hard to reach’ audiences

TOP RANK

...can it be turned on its head?

FIRST: Build relationships with communities

Interactions between experts/artists & people

People’s ideas seen alongside

heritage/art/experts

Peer marketing leads to mor

e fund

s, users, art

www.flowassociates.com

http://bridgetmckenzie.wordpress.com

bridget.mckenzie@flowassociates.com

•How can this change be achieved?•Could it happen here?