Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Short and Snappy (No. 3)
Posted by Lisa at 10:29 PM
Monday, November 28, 2005
Form(ing) Opinions
On Friday night I attended an event, which had all the trimmings of an exhibition launch - champagne, food platters and a room full of elegantly dressed people. My partner and I had been ‘handpicked’ to attend this event by Form. As the invitation also said, we were to spend an evening with Dinosaur Designs, who were visiting Perth with some of their latest work.
The event would have been great, if Christmas shopping was what you had in mind, but I was a little disappointed. As Western Australia’s ‘peak professional association for designers, artists and craftspeople working in 3D media’ I expect more than a retail experience. I don’t want an opportunity to shop, I want an opportunity to exchange ideas, to build knowledge, and even some inspiration would be nice. How about something like the Powerhouse Museum’s wonderful D-Factory?
Don’t get me wrong, I like shopping, especially for design. I also like shopping in cultural institutions like museums and galleries. And, I think that Form is doing a great job in forging ties with business. But, a big part of me also thinks that organisations like Form have to be careful to ensure that their retail side is part of the bigger picture and not the overriding feature of their organisation.
Form now has a beautiful retail space in Perth’s botanical garden Kings Park, as well as a retail space in front of their curated gallery in Murray Street. What if Form moved their curated gallery space to the forefront of their Murray Street space, placing the shop behind it? Now that would be a launch worth attending! |
Posted by Lisa at 6:44 PM
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Short and Snappy (No. 2)
Posted by Lisa at 12:06 PM
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Mmmm...Chocolate:
Roald Dahl Museum & Story Centre
Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, Great Missenden
Roald Dahl didn’t like museums. In fact they were one of three things he said he couldn’t endure! Not surprising then that the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre is not your average museum. Full of quirky surprises – a crocodile bench, excerpts from his books narrated while you pee and best of all the museum is not so much a shrine to the great children’s author but an exploration of Dahl, and other authors, creative process. Visitors can attend writing workshops and find inspiration from Dahl’s working manuscripts; highlights include a list of vocabulary for the BFG. A small museum, but one definitely worth the forty minute train trip from London. |
Posted by Lisa at 9:00 PM
Friday, November 18, 2005
A Farm in the City, Tomatoes & Heritage
 City Farm is an interesting place to be on any day of the week, with a family of chooks foraging for their daily food, background music emanating from the nursery and the slight buzz in the air as coordinators Roseanne and Thom prepare for the upcoming Tomato Festival. But it also has an interesting history.
Occupying a former industrial site, there are now few such buildings left in East Perth since its redevelopment as a trendy residential area. Yet the heritage significance of City Farm stems in part from its social significance - the connections between the people - the founders, staff, volunteers, supporters, visitors and the local aboriginal community - and their connection to the site.
How to capture this significance in a project that explores City Farm’s history is the question I am attempting to answer as I start researching the site’s history. So far I have been given access to newspaper clippings and posters, but am keen to collect oral histories. An excellent guide that has given me some inspiration for the project is Talking History, published by the Department of Environment and Conservation (NSW). So, if anyone out there has any tips, particularly if you have experience with oral histories, suggest away! |
Posted by Lisa at 1:11 PM
Monday, November 14, 2005
Short and Snappy (No. 1)
Posted by Lisa at 9:28 AM
Sunday, November 13, 2005
The House of Enthusiasm
Hybrids are all the rage, with the boundaries between the cultural and commercial industries getting fuzzier by the day. The latest notable example is Sydney’s House of Enthusiasm (by Deus Ex Machina), featured in this year’s Design issue of The Australian Financial Review Magazine(AFR).
Selling Japanese motorbikes, the space is a hybrid between shop, gallery and cafe; As the AFR labels it, it is ‘A post-modern kind of blokes club’.
The concept for this hybrid space was conceived by Dare Jennings, founder of Mambo. He describes the space as ‘...the quintessential post-modern activity’ saying ‘You take the elements, you recombine them and make something that’s got more, that’s relevant to the times’.
Commercial it may be, but The House of Enthusiasm’s combination of elements offers food for thought for museums. |
Posted by Lisa at 9:18 AM
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Chat with a Curator at the V & A
| Much has been said about the opportunities that the internet presents for museums. Librarian, art-lover and fellow blogger Wrkshy, from Singapore, told me of a great example - the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met). The Met’s website is extensive and allows visitors to create their own ‘galleries’ by selecting their favourite objects, resulting in personal connections and interpretations, making objects more relevant to the individual. Another great feature of the web is the promise of interactivity that serves to bridge gaps between the museum and the visitor. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s feature Chat to a Curator does just this on its website for photographer Diane Arbus whose exhibition Diane Arbus: Revelations is currently showing. Visitors can chat to a curator next on Thursday 8 December from 17.00 GMT. Yet, as Museums and the Web notes, few museums are using newer formats, such as blogging, as means of reaching their audiences. This is despite blogging being both affordable and easy to use. The format of blogs also fosters a community based on similar interests, for example, I found out about the Diana Arbus exhibition website not through the V&A, but the blog Museums and the Web. Museums have discovered the web, but it is now time for them to experiment with some of its newer formats. |
Posted by Lisa at 8:41 AM
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Volunteering: Dirty little secret or life-line?
Is volunteering the dirty little secret of the museum industry? The vast network of unpaid workers fulfilling the duties that no–one can afford to pay for? Or are the volunteers the ones with the most to gain? Fattening our resumes and gaining experience that will be invaluable for our future – paid – roles.
From my recent experience, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Volunteering has the potential to be a win-win situation for both the organisation and the volunteers. Yet, for this to occur, two main things are required.
Firstly, having volunteers at your organisation requires good planning and management from those in charge. Providing the tea and bikkies is a great start, but there must also be a consideration of how best to employ the skills of the volunteer, giving them enough space to develop new skills, whilst at the same time harnessing their talents, or hard yakka, to achieve the goals the museum is trying to attain.
Secondly, the attitude of the volunteer is equally important. Although an unpaid job, it must be treated with the same degree of professionalism as a paid job. This point may easily be forgotten when duties may be liberally sprinkled with copious amounts of sweeping, providing the volunteer with ample time to wonder why they spent two years completing a Masters degree, instead of cycling through the Hindu Kush.
Get the balance right and you’ll have a happy crew of volunteers. Get it wrong and you may find all that ‘free’ labour wandering off somewhere else. |
Posted by Lisa at 1:23 PM
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