Nolan, Tucker or a flat-pack?
Jul, 2011
L-R: Professor Ian Williamson; Jan Cochrane Harry, Margaret Lawrence Bequest; MBS Dean Jennifer George; Liz Gillies, APSILC; Dr Jody Evans
What keeps the people who run public art galleries awake at night?
Far, far more than what thread count Tracey Emin prefers in her bedlinen, or what proportion vinegar to sugar Damien Hirst uses for his pickling, it's this question:
What do you do on a Saturday morning?
In Australia, says Melbourne Business School senior lecturer in Marketing, Jody Evans, gallery administrators have to contend with "the Bunnings factor".
"You typically go to Bunnings on a Saturday morning and spend $150 - that's the average spend, regardless of how much you intended to spend," Dr Evans says. "And you've just allocated all your leisure time for the weekend."
So DIY is bad news for the cultural sector. "It's a sector that needs people's time. They want you to come and be challenged. In order to achieve their mission, they need you to physically come."
Galleries and museums have been slow to respond to this threat. But that's changing, as Dr Evans embarks on a landmark research project, via the Public Galleries Association of Victoria (PGAV), on gallery branding for community engagement.
The project is the result of a research partnership between the PGAV, the Asia Pacific Social Impact Leadership Centre (APSILC) and faculty at Melbourne Business School (MBS). It has been made possible through $75,000 in funding from the Margaret Lawrence Bequest - a grant usually awarded to arts organisations.
As Evans has confirmed in previous research, "Branding is truly a dirty word in the sector". There are tensions between advocates of a curatorial approach, who seek to protect art from commercialisation and trivialisation; and those with an eye to prising future art lovers away from their Xboxes (and flat packs).
"Brand is a bridge," says Evans. "It's a bridge between the curatorial/scholarship side and the public."
With research partner Kerrie Bridson, of Deakin University, Evans will benchmark international best practice and work with Victorian galleries to improve their branding practices.
They will also lead workshops to help gallery administrators craft a positioning strategy as a tool for community engagement. In other words, says Evans, "How to get the message out to people who don't think galleries are for them".
