What's the point in Museums? | RNZ

What’s the point in museums?

Museums are often thought of as large buildings in central city locations. In New Zealand, however, the reality is quite different. The majority of our museums are either micro (volunteer-led) or small (1–5 FTE staff), and we have an extraordinary number of them across the country.

This reflects something important: museums are not just buildings. In New Zealand, most of our museums are communities coming together to share and celebrate their arts, culture, and heritage. It is people contributing significant time, money, and commitment to preserving and projecting their own stories. A museum is a purpose, not a building — and that purpose must respond to its place and community.

While our national dialogue often centres on large, centralised museums, it is in the smaller museums embedded in their communities that the true richness of our museum landscape is revealed. All museums have the opportunity to deepen their relevance by ensuring stories are told with communities rather than about them. By creating spaces where people share their own histories and perspectives, museums foster inclusion, connection, and pride.

It is also important to resist reducing museums to a measure of visitor numbers through the front door of the building. So many of our institutions exist because communities themselves created and sustain them. That work is demanding, and it shows remarkable determination: the drive of people across the country to connect, to remember, and to shape identity through story.

The uniqueness of our museum landscape deserves to be recognised, celebrated and shared. It is a landscape built not only on collections, but on incredible commitment and perseverance. It thrives not because of imposing buildings, but because communities — large and small, rural and urban — insist on the importance of telling their own stories in their own ways. That is the point in museums.

The word ‘curated’ is everywhere—applied to playlists, menus, even wardrobes. Far from a cliché, this signals aspiration: people are searching for meaning, coherence, and connection. For those developing curatorial skills, it’s an opportunity to shape experiences that go beyond selection, by cultivating literacy in space and place.

At art school, curatorial practice wasn’t explicitly taught. We explored concepts through theory but were encouraged to follow our own research. For me, that meant interrogating space and place through practice.

Many associate curatorial work with galleries and museums—white-walled, neatly organised spaces reimagined for audiences. This is an important mode of practice; one I also engage with. But it wasn’t where I began. Those spaces were largely inaccessible to emerging professionals, so I started working across unconventional sites—cafés, offices, public spaces, empty retail venues, and community billboards.

What I learned was pivotal: curatorial practice isn’t about portable objects slotted into blank spaces. It’s about using space and place as a medium, transforming environments into context-specific experiences for the people who move through them.

This applies beyond cultural work. The spaces we traverse daily are curated to some extent, shaping how we navigate and engage with the world. Curatorial skills sharpen our ability to read these environments and reshape them for meaning, accessibility, and connection.

Curatorial skills are often undervalued outside of museum environments, yet they translate across industries:

🔹 Spatial literacy: Reading and interpreting environments to shape them for accessibility, equity, and representation, so more people see themselves reflected.

🔹 Contextual storytelling: Weaving narratives and ideas inseparably with space and place, anchored in histories and communities.

🔹 Audience-centred engagement: Recognising that spaces are lived and felt, adapting experiences for resonance and connection.

🔹 Cross-disciplinary collaboration: Engaging architectural, historical, social, and cultural knowledge to enrich place-based work.

🔹 Ethical responsibility: Considering whose stories are privileged, whose are absent, and how authority is exercised in space, place, and experience.

For emerging professionals across creative and cultural industries, practice-based curatorial experience is invaluable—shaping context specific physical or digital experiences. It builds adaptability, co-creation skills, and the ability to frame meaningful encounters through space and place wherever people engage with ideas or stories.

In a world saturated with content but hungry for connection, curatorial literacy offers a way forward. For me, it began with transforming overlooked sites. Today, the opportunity is wider: to use curatorial skills to connect people, place, and meaning wherever they meet.

Artwork: Rainy McMaster (in Dunedin bottle store).

Museums have always been producers of content and education. But there’s never been a better time to capitalise on the shift away from centralisation toward more dynamic, diverse ways of connecting with audiences. Whether your museum is volunteer-run or equipped with a professional production team, the opportunity is now. With limited and low-cost tools, even the smallest museum can reach a global audience—no matter how niche its collections or stories.

And if your organisation lacks expertise, there is an incredible diversity of free online resources to help you get started. You can also engage digital natives through internships or placements—essential pathways for young professionals to hone their craft and build new skills. Your museum has value, and it’s time to recognise it.

The Tank Museum shows what’s possible when a museum fully embraces video. With a professional production team, it has built one of the world’s most successful museum YouTube channels—transforming a highly specialised subject into global entertainment and education. I never imagined I’d find the history of tanks so compelling until I engaged with their content. That’s the power of storytelling: it makes people care about subjects they never thought were for them.

This shift speaks directly to education. Learners today expect to design their own journeys—choosing what, when, and how they engage. Centralised classroom-based education has significant limitations, creating a gap that museums can fill. Want to understand the gaps your museum could address? Engage with your communities, listen to their needs, and build learning solutions that matter.

The possibilities are rich: educate and entertain through video, create immersive experiences with animation, gamify learning to make it interactive, collaborate with education providers, offer modular online courses, hybrid models, flexible pathways, or short stackable modules. When developing your content strategy, remember media and entertainment have a lot to teach us about audiences and storytelling. Watch, learn, and adapt. Museums—keepers of deep knowledge—can deliver compelling, relevant, and globally accessible content that meets audiences where they are.

The opportunity is here, and the movement is already happening. Will your museum choose to be part of it?

#MuseumInnovation #DigitalStorytelling #OnlineEducation #GamifiedLearning #CulturalInfluence #FutureOfMuseums

As funding models tighten, the strength of arts, culture, and heritage increasingly depends on community-driven, decentralised approaches. By embracing diversity and collaboration, regions can turn cultural assets into stories that resonate locally and globally.

In Catalonia, the Barcelona Provincial Council Local Museum Network brings together 65 museums across 51 municipalities. The network fosters a dynamic, multidisciplinary museum model, turning museums into accessible public service centres. By collaborating across municipalities, they pool resources and expertise, creating richer exhibitions, broader audiences, and a stronger regional identity.

In Massachusetts, the Berkshire Arts and Culture Alliance (BACA) unites ten major institutions, including MASS MoCA and the Norman Rockwell Museum. With a combined budget of $212 million annually, mostly from philanthropy and earned income, BACA attracts 1.7 million visitors yearly, generating around $1.5 billion in economic impact. Collaboration strengthens cultural infrastructure and tourism while boosting the local economy.

In Andhra Pradesh, India, the Kondapalli Bommala Experience Centre celebrates the village’s artisan-made wooden toys. Through tours, demonstrations, and educational programs, local artisans, authorities, and educators collaborate to preserve and share traditional knowledge, positioning Kondapalli as a national example of rural creativity and self-reliance.

These cases show how decentralised, collaborative cultural ecosystems enhance regional identity, drive tourism, and engage communities. Sharing resources and expertise allows institutions to achieve more collectively, while elevating cultural presence globally.

Investing in these networks is essential. By empowering local institutions and fostering partnerships, regions can build resilient cultural identities that thrive locally and internationally. Collaboration isn’t just a strategy—it’s the foundation of sustainable, vibrant cultural ecosystems.

#CulturalCollaboration #Decentralisation #RegionalIdentity #CulturalTourism #CommunityEngagement #GlobalVisibility

My passion is helping bring those stories to life — not just as displays, but as experiences that connect people and create pride in who they are and what they do.

At the heart of this work is the process of creating something with the community. That process is what matters most, and it’s the story that deserves to be shared. The exhibition or final outcome is simply the artifact of that journey.

Whether it’s an exhibition, concert, performance, or workshop, the most powerful projects happen when communities are involved from start to finish. This makes the creative journey part of the story itself — one worth telling and celebrating.

For me, an exhibition isn’t just something to look at; it’s a place where ideas meet, conversations spark, and shared experiences leave a lasting impact.

Earlier this year, I visited Invercargill to connect with people and explore how I could support art, design, and storytelling in diverse communities. I’ve just returned from a second trip, so it feels like the right moment to reflect on my deep connections to Southland.

I spent ten years at the Southern Institute of Technology, managing creative industries programmes in an environment that truly supported research and growth.

While there, I completed my PhD on DIY museums — small, mostly volunteer-run museums where communities tell their own stories in their own unique ways.

The projects I created as part of my PhD — including exhibitions, workshops, concerts, and talks in a variety of venues — were practical applications of the approaches I observed and engaged with in Southland’s community-led cultural spaces.

These projects focused on bringing spaces to life and creating shared experiences, turning ideas into meaningful, real-world moments.

I carry forward a key lesson: when communities take the lead, the results can be powerful and transformative.

Times have changed and so have the expectations of museum audiences. Like many sectors, museums have been fundamentally reshaped by the pandemic. Have we truly responded?

Historically, many institutions followed a 'build it and they will come' model: design an impressive architectural spectacle in a central location, add technology bells and whistles, promote in-house programmes—and then wait for the crowds to pour in.

But what happens when people don’t come—or when they can’t?

If a museum is defined by its purpose—to share culture and knowledge—then the expectation that people must always come to us begins to unravel.

Our purpose does not need to be gatekept; it can be shared. Museums are facilitators of purpose, not sole directors. It is not our role to dictate what communities need, or to sit in offices brainstorming projects we think the public should want to see.

People want more than observing from the sidelines. They have their own stories to tell—and they are already using the tools available to them to tell these stories. So how are we responding?

Purpose can be fulfilled anywhere:
In schools, businesses, libraries, rest homes, hospitals and parks
Through pop-up exhibitions in community spaces
On digital platforms and immersive online experiences
By embedding stories and collections into daily life

This doesn’t mean the museum as a place loses value. People still seek the aura of objects, the atmosphere of a gallery, the joy of visiting a cultural space together. But it does mean our responsibility shifts—from assuming audiences will arrive at our doors, to meeting people where they are and working alongside them to tell their stories in their own ways.

And this raises some challenging questions:

Should success still be measured by visitor numbers to our buildings, or by the depth of connection across multiple spaces and platforms?

How do we maintain trust and identity if the museum becomes more distributed, flexible, and decentralised?

Are we willing to step back from being 'the experts,' when that very mindset can get in the way of truly understanding the people we serve?

What does it mean for staff, resources, and ways of working if museums exist as networks rather than a single site?

The future museum is not one destination but many—defined less by walls, and more by relationships.

👉 What if the measure of a museum’s success was not numbers through the door, but how far its purpose travels?

Many of our council-controlled museums began life as DIY micro-museums—born of hard work, perseverance, and the passion of local volunteers. This grassroots model is not the exception but the dominant pattern in Aotearoa New Zealand. We make our own museums to tell our own stories, in our own ways.

DIY museums often proliferate in the face of marginalisation and centralisation. They are communities reclaiming their art, history, and culture as their own. They want to tell stories in ways that resonate with them. In doing so, they tell us something important about what it means to be a museum in New Zealand.

Yet as museums grow and professionalise, something is often lost. The community ethos that drove their existence can become marginalised—sometimes even intentionally—through the performance of ‘professionalism.’ Too often, this professionalism is modelled on large overseas institutions whose practices reflect the contexts of their own places, not ours.

But what if we measured professionalism differently?

• What if our definitions of a ‘museum’ came from the needs and aspirations of our own communities, not centralised or imported standards?

• What if professionalism wasn’t about having climate controls, but about how well you connect, collaborate, and sustain the stories of place?

• What if, instead of competing and undermining each other for funding, we celebrated the community energy that underpins museums across our country?

Frictions exist. Competition for funding is real. Yet DIY museums did not emerge to professionalise, centralise, or dominate. They grew from community desire to protect, share, and celebrate local stories. I have seen them achieve incredible things through their own support mechanisms—often with a broader people-base than large museums could mobilise.

Many remain unaware of how dominant the DIY museum model is in New Zealand. This lack of awareness is a missed opportunity. Large museums rarely collaborate meaningfully with their small and micro counterparts. As a result, extraordinary stories across our communities remain fragmented or invisible.

But what if large, centralised museums became conduits and catalysts—championing their DIY foundations and celebrating how they were made and remade over time through the sheer will and drive of their communities? Rather than dominating, they could be key drivers of promoting the diversity of our museum landscape, amplifying local stories and connecting them to wider audiences.

Imagine a sector that recognised the value of all its players—where the community ethos that created museums wasn’t a quaint origin story, but a core measure of professional strength. A sector stronger together, rooted in the energy, ingenuity, and care of its people.

Across Aotearoa New Zealand, I see incredible destinations—museums, galleries, historic sites, cultural spaces—that are often overlooked when together they could be powerful, unified, and unforgettable.

Now imagine this:

Visitors start engaging with your arts, culture, and heritage brand before they even arrive, discovering and planning experiences through a cohesive online platform.

They’re welcomed at the airport with your region’s identity on display.

Over breakfast in a hotel or café, stories connect them to your place.

And it flows through their journey—alive in streets, public spaces, businesses, and cultural and heritage venues your community proudly shares.

Arts, culture, and heritage shouldn’t be stumbled upon by chance. They should be embedded in daily life, part of your region’s identity, and told as a cohesive and compelling story.

Imagine your museums, galleries, archives, heritage sites, trails, creative spaces, and businesses working together, creating a living brand experience your community can celebrate—and visitors can’t ignore.

When arts, culture, and heritage are central to a region’s brand, they don’t just enrich community life—they attract people, investment, and pride of place. The secret is already there. The question is: will you keep it hidden, or will you unify it into the story your region tells the world?

Let’s work together to make your region’s arts, culture, and heritage impossible to miss—contact me to start the conversation.

This question has haunted me for years. The benefits of collaboration for communities are so clear—yet, too often, we see competitiveness, turf wars, or even sabotage. I’ve witnessed the desire to be the ‘top dog’ overshadow the real purpose of museum work.

Private museums are dismissed as not ‘real’ museums. Community-led museums are branded ‘unprofessional.’ Meanwhile, larger institutions sometimes posture as rescuers—armed with HVAC systems, neat labels, and cavernous storage facilities that consume vast budgets. But how much of those collections will communities ever actually see? Too often, less than 10%.

By contrast, many volunteer-led museums proudly display the majority of their collections—an approach some call ‘amateur.’ But what if this visibility is, in fact, a strength? What if museums stopped competing and started collaborating—recognising that communities thrive when their heritage is represented through many voices, many perspectives, and many approaches?

We must also question what ‘professionalism’ really means. Large storage facilities are not, on their own, a sign of success. Preservation matters, yes—but preservation should not mean hiding every artifact in perpetuity. True preservation is about keeping our stories alive. Objects and archives are catalysts for connection, not trophies to be locked away.

When the sector equates professionalism with hoarding unseen treasures, we risk losing sight of our purpose. Museums are not just guardians of things; they are platforms for people. They are funded by communities to project our voices, to bring us together, to help us see ourselves in new ways, and to challenge and excite us.

Imagine if, instead of competing for status, museums of every scale worked collectively to serve their communities. Imagine if resources were shared, expertise exchanged, and stories co-created. The result would be richer, more diverse, and more relevant than any single institution could achieve alone.

The question, then, is not why aren’t museums working together—but isn’t it time we reimagined museums as collaborators, not competitors?

It’s not a new question, but it continues to inspire us to imagine what museums could be. Too often, we see them as buildings first and experiences second. In Aotearoa New Zealand, a museum is defined by purpose, not walls or storage.

Museums connect people, communities, and stories. In many ways, we are all curators, holding collections in our homes, memories, and hearts. Objects alone are quiet; it’s the stories they carry that bring them to life.

Imagine museums as flexible as the communities they serve—able to move, grow, evolve, and appear in unexpected places, shaped by local voices.

Preserving an object is never just about the object itself, but about the connections it sustains. Buildings matter too—they can carry stories of architecture, resilience, generosity, and vision—but the true magic lies in the spaces they enable, alive with people, community, and storytelling.

A museum could be a historic house, a warehouse, a park, a digital space, or even a single treasured story passed from one person to another. Purpose is not defined by form, but by the connections it creates, the stories it preserves and projects, and the meaning it brings to its community.

Perhaps the question isn’t what if museums have no walls, but rather: what if museums connect, preserve, and project the stories of their communities in partnership with the people who live them?

Imagine a museum shaped by your community—how could it bring local stories to life?

Museums are more than buildings. They are art galleries, cultural centres, marae, historic sites, science centres, open-air museums, botanical gardens, aquaria, and countless other spaces where communities share culture, stories, and local identity.

Centralised, private, and volunteer-driven museums in New Zealand often operate in silos. The future lies in working together to create a connected network that benefits everyone.

Collaboration unlocks new possibilities:

• Coordinated programming that links exhibitions, workshops, and events across multiple sites.

• Shared communications and promotion under a cohesive brand that positions the network as a unified, engaging destination.

• Connector roles — communications, content, and engagement specialists — who are not attached to a single museum but ensure knowledge, resources, and audiences move freely across the network.

• Bookable ‘museum journeys’ that enable visitors to move seamlessly between sites, experiencing the full diversity of local culture, stories, and creativity.

This approach is already proven to work. The Discovery Trail in Ithaca, New York, brings local cultural institutions together to deliver coordinated programming, shared promotion, and a bookable, connected visitor experience. Visitors move seamlessly between sites, discovering local stories as a unified journey — demonstrating how collaboration can unlock a network’s full potential.

To achieve this locally, networks could:

• Develop a shared brand identity that clearly signals the connected experience.

• Consider connector roles to manage programming, promotion, and engagement across museums.

• Encourage co-created exhibitions and events, where local communities, micro/small museums, and centralised institutions collaborate on content.

• Promote bookable museum trails that give residents and visitors a curated journey across the network.

When different forms of expertise and passion intersect, museums become living networks, reflecting the people, places, and stories of the community.

Culture, creativity, and local identity thrive when they are shared, co-created, and celebrated by everyone. Collaboration is not optional, it is the key to a vibrant, sustainable, and networked museum experience.

In New Zealand, the answer is as diverse as the people themselves.

An art gallery, a cultural centre, a marae.

Historic places and heritage sites.

Science centres and open-air museums.

Botanical gardens, aquariums, zoos.

All of them keepers of memory,

all of them guardians of stories.

But a museum is never only a building.

It is alive.

It moves between us, with us, through us.

A museum is a city,

and a city is a museum.

A museum is a community,

and a community is a museum.

These are not static things—

they shift, they change, they breathe.

They are dynamic, contested,

always becoming something new.

A museum might surface in a shop assistant’s story,

in a conversation at a local bar or cafe,

in a letter to the editor,

or in the quiet work of committees and boards.

Every exchange, every decision, every word spoken

adds to the fabric of what a museum is.

On the city’s stage,

there are no lines drawn between audience and actor.

We are all performers here.

Museum workers, visitors, neighbours, friends—

together shaping the content,

the direction,

the representation of our shared stories.

So, what is a museum?

It is not a place we enter and leave behind.

It is a living performance,

a constant exchange,

a chorus of voices,

a community in motion.