LETTER: A Museum & Philanthropy

Philanthropy when applied to a good cause is laudable and beneficial to the giver and the receiver. In the arts it’s an idea that’s probably older than the Renaissance, the Medicis and Machiavelli.

Launceston is somewhat unique in regard to philanthropy in that each and every ratepayer, resident and tenant is automatically conscripted into the ranks of the philanthropists when it comes to the QVMAG.

In the past three or so years Launcestonians have stumped up something in the order of $12 million towards the QVMAG’s recurrent costs and then some. That is the kind of conscripted philanthropy that you do not get elsewhere.

Business and other private discretionary philanthropists, generally, fund projects and acquisitions with the latter often serving as some kind of memorial or cultural marker.

Sadly institutions like the QVMAG are going to need to look for different ways to meet their recurrent costs. As likely as not any solution is going to be the outcome of ‘outside-the-box’

entrepreneurial thinking.

Philanthropists are fickle and sometimes frivolous. However depending on philanthropy to keep the doors open would be more than frivolous in these ‘difficult times’.

Ray Norman

Trevallyn

Community Cultural Trusts

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The terminology, Community Cultural Trust (CCT), might be new to readers but the concept is quite old and well established in Australia. Interestingly, it fits the Community Cultural Enterprise (CCE) model quite well in that a model for such trusts would be the Elizabethan Theatre Trust (ETT) now with 50 plus years of history behind it.  Importantly, for many years ETT offered a means of getting tax deductability for cultural groups, and events, not directly involved in ETT initiatives.

Typically theatres are CCE as they are audience supported albeit many require substantial government funding and corporate sponsorships in order to present risky and experimental programming.

The ETT was established in 1954 to fill a perceived cultural vacuum and has flourished over time even if there have been national drama, opera and ballet companies that have overtaken ETT initiatives. When and where this has happened the trust has filled other gaps in the cultural landscape in various ways and not always exclusively to do with drama, opera and ballet.

click here to go to source

There are also many philanthropic 'cultural trusts' set up to foster the interests of philanthropic individuals and corporations. The individual agendas of these trusts are many and varied. The taxation system in the USA in particular encourages the establishment of such trusts. Speculatively, it should be possible to establish a place focused cultural trust that amalgamates government, corporate and private arts and culturally focused funding'.

Social media and online communities are increasingly enabling innovative project to get the funding they need directly from the people who have an interest in the project/enterprise/event via crowdsourcing. In some ways the need for CCTs are being replaced by these intermediate agencies. Indeed, alternative operations have emerged that are dedicated to facilitating such funding strategies and enabling project proponents to avoid the sometimes dead hand and the long lead times of some government and corporate funding agencies – one being pozible.com. Nonetheless a CCT should be able to work with crowdsourcing operations to realise a specific project.

Against this background there are good prospects for the establishment of a CCT that;

1. Consolidates the available Local, State & Federal government funding for the recurrent funding for place focused cultural initiatives, events and programs;
2. Acts as unifying entity for the purpose of facilitating cultural enterprise in the region to which it belongs to operate collaboratively and/or cooperatively;
3. Auspices and manages funding for individuals and unincorporated groups cultural projects when needed and required in a region to ensure sound project acquittal;
4. Supports community institutions such as community/regional museums,art galleries, publishers, and cultural research & action groups;
5. Provide an umbrella for layers of regional and community cultural interest groups, institutions and organisations; and
6. Acts as a kind of cultural investment bank  for the community/region;
7. Functions as a kind of overarching 'holding company' for regional community cultural enterprises and initiatives.

Click here to go to source

"Create the circumstances within which 
miracles can happen and stand back"

Winifred Mary West circa 1970

Imagining Musingplaces as Community Cultural Enterprises

SPECULATIVE CASE STUDY
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DEFINITION:

• Community of Ownership and Interest: (compound noun/proposition) an all-inclusive collective/community of people, individuals and groups, who in any way have layers of relationships with a place, a cultural landscape and/or the operation of an institution, organisation or establishment – typically a network.

• Usage and context: cultural geography; civic and environmental planning; and community administration
• REFERENCE: Dr Bill Boyd, SCU et al
• CONTEXT NOTE: Typically used in opposition to “stakeholder”:  one who has a legitimate interest, stake and/or pecuniary interest in an enterprise, endeavour or entity, to demonstrate inclusivity as opposed to the exclusive implications attached to ’stakeholder’. 

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CLICK HERE FOR NOTES ON THE CONCEPT OF 

COMMUNITY CULTURAL ENTERPRISE – NOT-FOR-PROFIT

CLICK HERE FOR NOTES ON PEOPLING MUSINGPLACES

Phase Three Update

The site has been peculating away for a little while now and we think we're starting to get down to the guts of things. Maybe you do not agree. We think we are now entering the third phase where we start to find other contributors to the discourse and get on with tidying up in order to move on to where we are not quite sure yet.

Vitriolic commentaries are welcomed as are  the thoughtful and benevolent. It's just seems that musingplaces are on the cusp of a paradigm shift as to how they fit the new circumstance surrounding making sense of the world.

All contributions and suggestions welcomed. In the meantime check out the notes above. EMAIL: nudgelbah@7250.net

Watch this space

If we were to list items that had a Community of Ownership and Interest – a COI – we would include items and locations that were in, and perceived to be in public ownership – public places and spaces – places such as parks; or rivers; monuments and memorials; musingplaces et al and clearly the list is as endless as the kinds of attachments people have for places, things and events. 

Musingplaces within this mix share networks of people with intense interests in them as institutions and the objects and ideas they house and collect on behalf of the COI.

And then there is the issue of 'cultural property' and 'cultural knowledge' where there are subliminal layers of 'cognitive ownerships' that increasingly come into play. For instance, with the changing ways Indigenous cultural material – Australian & other – is currently being understood in a postcolonial context cultural property is now openly contested.

The contributions to this site in one way or another will deal with the issues surrounding musingplaces and the increasingly contested ground upon which they stand.