To Think the Museum
A job description for the museum thinker
My good friend David Vuillaume, NEMO Chairperson, recently posted a most interesting link to a recent study on museum professionals published by the German Museums Association. The study goes a long way to confirm, yet again, the ways and means how the international museum sector has expanded over the past decade. Ten years ago, ICOM had listed twenty museum professions then recognised as key to the museum landscape. This report mentions fifty six functions. Indeed, developments registered are truly impressive.
The museum landscape will certainly continue to evolve. The latest controversary surrounding the Tate’s Head of Coffee position certainly goes a long way to show that change and further growth is not going to be smooth and linear. Indeed, this may also give rise to a measure of tensions between the traditional museum professions and those which are yet to come, the need for which shall be mostly recognised by the forward looking and future conscious museum institutions. Tate were swift to defend their “head of coffee” position and pay. “It’s unfair to compare a head of department with a curatorial role of a different level. All Tate’s departments have a variety of roles with different responsibilities and salaries, including curatorial,” he said. “We value all our staff and strive to pay them appropriately for their work at Tate.”The statement goes a long way to confirm the shifting balance between traditional and new professions in the museum sector.
I would like to add one very important role which is a dire necessity for museums today. I would define this job as museum thinker and is, I feel, direly needed within the current museum landscape. In all honesty, museums do have thinkers within their ranks but, more often than not they end up getting bogged down with institutionals that are considered to be too pressing and much more necessary. Indeed, the museum oftentimes lacks the time to think about the now and the future and how these ought to come together. This oftentimes leads to copy-paste situations whereby ideas are generated more in response to what is seen to work across the museum landscape rather than the direct outcome of incubation and a bottom-up approach. Indeed, it is oftentimes the case that innovation is conceived on the fringes of the museum landscape rather than within the mainstream. I do discuss that elsewhere on this blog publication.
What if we had to think of a job description then?
I hate formalities but these may occasionally turn to be handy and useful… even when it comes to such an abstract and out of the box role as that of the museum thinker. I can think of at least three focus areas where museum thinkers can help can contribute positively to sustainable growth and development of the museum sector.
1. To get museum staff to think …
Let’s face it … most museum staff, particularly in the case of small to medium sized museum institutions, do not have the time to think beyond the needs and requirments of the day to day.
Getting someone to think through the basics, including being as radical as to consider whether the museum institution should exist in the first place, would help museums keep their bearings well in sight. The greater the challenge museum thinkers can come up with, the better the museum institution can position itself to embrace change, recognise and converse with emerging trends, keep on being relevant and, more than anything else, keep focused on the core values that shape and define it in the first place.
2. … to read the signs of the times …
This is one of the most pressing needs that the 21st century museum institution has. It is certainly not the case that relevance is frozen in time — an institution may be relevant and alive in the now but can become totally irrelevant in a month’s time.
Reading the signs of the times requires acumen, knowledge and sensitivity. It goes beyond strategic planning and public programming and concerns a measure of understanding as to the ways and means how museum futures can shape the future museum institution. Museum thinkers work best with forward-thinking and innovation driven museum institutions that are oftentimes not mainstream institutions or the international, universal museums.
3. … and to audit relevance.
Institutions oftentimes rely on internal audit mechanisms to sustain resilience and accountability in their management models. This is also the case with thinkers and museum institutions.
The thinking process has to be constant and sustained. It has to look deep into the bolts and nuts of the museum machine to ensure that the institution stays relevant by continuously shedding conservative practices in all levels of operations. Thanks to resilience audits, thinkers would be best place to identify the risks to change and the shortcomings to keeping it constant.
All three values are inextricably intertwined. Indeed, we can actually think of a triad overaching job description that has been, perhaps, overlooked or sidelined. Thinking should not, however, be read as procrastination to act …
