Person Career

(Note – I feel quite pleased that I’ve been blogging long enough that I can recycle my old material; almost like a proper journalist)

I’ve been banging on about local vanity project/white elephant the Museum of Bristol for years now. You may recall this was a simple spruce up of the Bristol Industrial Museum, but unfortunately it was overcome by ambition and is now a £10m £18m £22m £27m circa £30m “kulcha” project. Putting the problems of the continually escalating budget and the skimming of staff and money from other local museums to one side, let’s look again at the premise.

Back when the MoB was first announced in its current incarnation (there have been plans to build a museum on the dockside for at least 30 years) it was described as follows:

"The Museum of Bristol will be a flagship museum showing how the history of a major city can be told through the words, memories and objects of ordinary people, as well as the well-known and famous connected with Bristol."

Most cities have a large Museum and Art Gallery, and a number of [small] subsidiary institutions covering topics of local significance, or clearly-defined [large] institutions with national collections. There really is no precedent for a city the size of Bristol spending £30 million on an inwardly looking local social-cultural-historical-something-or-other venue.

The Museum of Bristol is not going to be servicing the national or international tourist market. If people are in the city for a short period of time, their most likely stopping points are the S.S. Great Britain (170,000 visitors a year) and perhaps Blaise Castle Estate. So the 250,000 visitors a year target for the new Museum of Bristol is unlikely to be met. After an initial visit in the first year by half of the local population, about 10-20% of Bristolians (mainly kids dragged along on school trips) will visit it in future years. Even with “free” entry, there’s just not enough footfall to generate big numbers in the Café or Gift Shop.

One could argue that the Museum of Bristol serves a higher purpose and shouldn’t be judged on its ability to draw in crowds, but if you’re taking that line then it’s probably not your £30 million being spent, and you won’t be paying the circa £1.2-£1.6 million annual running costs (including financing charges).

We can’t unbuild the building. We might as well finish it and do something with it. And I suppose we’ve got to open a museum otherwise the government will want their our money back.

So, we need a theme for a Museum that evokes the spirit of Bristol, that isn’t a replica on an existing offering in the cultural heritage market, that positions the institution to draw international visitors, and most importantly of all provides good merchandising and concession opportunities and doesn’t require too much of a start-up cost. Ideally the subject matter should also be flexible enough to draw on existing travelling collections and archives.

Now the theme is a bit tricky. Industrial museums have been done to death, as have most types of transport, militaria and naval & maritime history. Liverpool’s International Museum of Slavery also decisively trumps our “Breaking the Chains/Abolition 200 leftovers”. There’s already a National Museum of Flight. There are loads of Museums of Theatre. Bath have got the Romans sewn up, so there’s no chance of getting a piece of that action. There isn’t much left in the traditional cultural heritage sphere.

But there is something that springs to mind, and the links with Bristol are extremely strong:

Yes, really - a Museum of Graffiti

One of Bristol’s niche exports is Graffiti/Street Art. I can’t say it is my cup of tea, and the Graffiti afficionados don’t like me much either. But the important thing in developing a new offering in the market is to think about what potential customers will want, not your own preferences. Ticking off the reasons why this might work:

1. A Museum of Graffiti would be globally unique. There are some small ad-hoc institutes on the East Coast of the USA, but nothing significant
2. There is a recognisable local Graffiti culture with clear links to Bristol
3. The medium transcends language, thus could be very attractive for non-English speakers
4. There is global interest in Graffiti/Street Art. i.e. him that must not be named.
5. The profit margins on selling hardback books about Graffiti, artwork prints and other branded souvenirs would be considerable
6. There are already existing travelling Graffiti exhibitions, and the exhibition currently on offer at the Royal West of England Academy was well attended. It wouldn’t cost much to build a collection in the first years of operation, particularly if you emphasised contextual authenticity over artifacts. #
7. The current Banksy vs Bristol Museum show is ridiculously popular, and even if it’s no longer street-art per se, it still demonstrates the popular interest in the concept. (Over 200,000 visitors as of the end of July, with queuing times of approximately three hours).
8. Several Street Art works of international note are already within the city, either affixed to authority bricks or obtainable through a bit of negotiation.
9. The new Museum of Bristol is specified to have air conditioned galleries so at least we’ll actually be using them for something sensible.
10. Did I mention that the profit margins on selling hardback books about Graffiti, artwork prints and other branded souvenirs would be considerable?

One might argue that this is a concept for a Gallery rather than a Museum, but a bit of lateral thinking can finesse the difference. Add in a few interactive exhibits for kids using solvent-free aerosols, sponsor a research fellowship or two, a social action programme to increase the self esteem of deprived NEETs, live art demonstrations, history of paint, a diorama about CFCs and the environment, something about links to ethnic art. Hell, chuck a couple of culture wonks with PhDs in Navel Gazing at the brief and I’m sure they can come up with something.

This is the least worst approach I can think of to stem the flow of cash from the MoB project, and actually achieve some sort of positive outcome.

[Much of the above is recycled from a previous post. I thought it was a bit speculative, but the Banksy vs Bristol Museum show has rather demonstrate my point for me. One can’t argue with success (photo via BBC)]

Local Visit Bristol [Tourist Board] spokesman Feisal Khalif, reckons the “legacy of Banksy” will keep people coming back to Bristol in future years. But I’m sceptical that “come for the pop-art, stay for the steam ship” is a plausible message.

As an avowed philistine, I shan’t bother extending the discussion on “what is art”. Banksy is filling the niche formerly occupied by Andy Warhol; he brokers and manages the creation of arresting images, sculpture and installations. Whether this makes him as much a publicist as an artist is irrelevant; the brand sells. So Bristol would be wise to do a deal with the man and trade his popularity for centre stage in the new “Museum” and finesse things with the Quango funds to keep them happy. We might even make some of that £30 million back.

Current Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform in the Department for Work and Pensions, and Minister for the South West Jim Knight MP is in town today. No doubt he’ll be telling his 900 Facebook friends about it.