This morning’s plenary session at the Canadian Museum’s Association annual conference was cryptically titled “The Future of Museums” and featured lively presentations touching on the key challenges of funding, and being relevant to visitors in a dramatically changing audience landscape. (Not much different than running an historical society.)
Dean Brinton, CEO of The Rooms, Newfoundland and Labrador’s premiere cultural space, challenged museums to revisit how they approach programming advocating a return to the concept of the original Athenian Agora where Socrates presided over objective discussions about contemporary issues of the day.
The Afghanistan: A Glimpse of War exhibit created by the Canadian War Museum was an example of the fact-based approach to encouraging more public thinking about complex issues that museums should be working toward. The audience it engages, and not the collection it holds, should be driving the programming decisions of our institutions.
American-based audience researcher James Chung then presented findings on a study for US museums about three paradigm shifts that will transform the museum community over the next 25 years:
Ageing Population- In Canada, the total population over 65 years of age will rise from 1:8 to 1:4. Although these are traditionally the peak years of museum engagement, baby boomers as consumers have behaved dramatically different at every other stage in their life and this one is expected to be no different. Moreover, public funding priorities will likely shift toward presently underfunded obligations for retirement and health care creating pressures to reduce funding in other areas, like Museums and Art Galleries.
Reverse Gender Gap-Among Canadians in their 20’s and 30’s women are 50% more likely to have a university degree. Women currently earn on average 79% of what men earn, but among those single and in their 20’s women are earning 100-120% compared to men, largely because of this growing education gap. Other likely implications are that women will delay marriage and having children, more Dads may stay-at-home if Mom’s earning power is greater, and there is likely to be more grandparent involvement with the kids when they do have them.
Changing Ethnic Demography-Canada’s visible minority and Aboriginal populations account for 20% of the total population today, but that number is expected to rise to 33% within the next 25 years. The core visitorship of museums is 88% white which may not seem that bad today, but unless Museums can find ways of drawing those audiences to their spaces the gap will only grow wider.
Marc Mayer, the newly appointed CEO of the National art Gallery closed out the presentations with a fun, self-deprecating vision for the future beginning with the declaration that “the future is sculpture,” a reference to the controversial acquisition of the One Hundred Foot Line sculpture by American artist Roxy Paine planned for Nepean Point. But his message was very serious.
Museums have the tools they need to complete in a multi-dimensional world. Most of their collections are already three dimensional when television and the Internet are still operating in two dimensions. He’s more optimistic about future funding believing that privately-funded Museums and philanthropist-driven exhibits will emerge with greater regularity, due in some part to the large generational transfer of wealth about to take place.
In his view, that will provide greater flexibility for the network of museums to respond to the growing diversity of exhibition demands and ultimately can only help to broaden our market, and in turn, fuel broader interest in other collections and museums.
All this rapid change is a bit unsettling if you consider that the bread and butter of museums is still driven by that 88% of white people over the age of 65. Responding to the changing needs and interests of your future audience is one thing, but as we know only too well ourselves around here, making sure that your existing audience supports you is going to be a critical component of any success story. What do you think? What should Canadian museums be doing to better serve the needs of their audience?
What do you see as the future for our museums?