Musingplace? What do you mean? Where do you mean? What are they? Why call them that? What are they for?
English is, thankfully, a living language and the
places where we go to muse upon something, to contemplate an idea, to recollect
and collect stories, to ponder something, to meditate, to mull over an idea, to
consider something, to discover something new, hold particular places in our cultural
imaginations. Musingplaces figure large in our cultural realities and they have done so for a very long time.
These places are commonly understood as 'museums and/or galleries' but in reality they are more diverse than that would suggest. It also seems that such places are more than important to communities and their ability to sustain the fundamentals of humanity. Quite often, as communities, we have institutionalised such places.
These places are commonly understood as 'museums and/or galleries' but in reality they are more diverse than that would suggest. It also seems that such places are more than important to communities and their ability to sustain the fundamentals of humanity. Quite often, as communities, we have institutionalised such places.
In the context of industrialised societies these 'places' have come into being as a consequence of an individual’s, or a
group’s, sometimes an organisations'/corporations'/business’s initiative and in particular its interest in ‘something’.
When it’s like this, their ‘ownerships’ are very clear.
Likewise, their functionality and purpose as an entity is typically quite clear and usually very well
understood.
In 17th Century Europe musingplaces were understood
as kunstkammers and wunderkammers and typically linked to communities of scholars. More modern manifestations of these places have
evolved into what the developed cum Westernised world has come to know them as, museums and art galleries, places that exist more and more in a kind of isolation.
In contemporary Australia perhaps the most famous of
such private musingplaces is Tasmania’s MONA – Museum of Old and New Art – a 21st C Kunstkammer of a kind. However, most of us collect
something or other, for some purpose or other, and maintain private and personal ‘musingplaces’
in our lives, our homes or somewhere important to us. The 'collecting purpose' is multifarious and it is often ambiguous and multidimensional – private contemplation, research, public display, whatever.
Collectively, these collections and musingplaces when they find a ‘keeping place’ in our ‘homes’, in whatever form that takes, collectively constitute
an enormous resource variously available to the wider community. These 'collections' are much more important than is generally acknowledged. Collectively they are a much more significant cultural resource than is either acknowledged or understood.
Other times, some would argue most often, musingplaces
come into being as a consequence of communities seeking support for the establishment
and maintenance of such places in some form of 'community ownership'. Usually, they are tasked with preserving assemblages of communities''cultural property'. Likewise, these public collections have enormous and identifiable 'Communities Of Ownership & Interest' (COI) – variously understood as members, stakeholders, sponsors, donors, researchers, staff, management, etc. Most often these musingplaces are imagined as ‘keeping places’ for a collection, sometimes a collection of collections – public museums, public art galleries, monuments, public gardens and parks (botanical, zoological, environmental, industrial etc.), publicly owned buildings (heritage sites, industrial sites, civic buildings, etc.)
Musingplaces are unambiguously the keeping places of collections and the narratives linked to them. At their best they are a part of a kind of rhizomatic and interrelating network of networked collections.
Interestingly, given the diversity of the interests,
sometimes quite divergent and disparate interests, that bring these musingplaces into being,
their ‘purpose’ can become somewhat ambiguous or even obscured. A musingplace and its collection/s without a clearly articulated purpose is fundamentally diminished in the values that may be attributed to it. It is particularly so in regard to public collections cum musingplaces.
As perceptions of ‘ownership’ shift – socially and culturally – musingplaces can become contested spaces, and are invariably places where ideas are contested – intellectual property, cultural realities, fiscal understandings, political perceptions, social license and more still.
As perceptions of ‘ownership’ shift – socially and culturally – musingplaces can become contested spaces, and are invariably places where ideas are contested – intellectual property, cultural realities, fiscal understandings, political perceptions, social license and more still.
In the so-called ‘developed world’, arguably, every
aspect of human cultural realities has a place set aside somewhere for ‘musing’
upon some aspect of a prevailing cultural imperative –
a social phenomena or some other imagining. These musingplaces are simply places to enable those with an interest in some aspect of a community’s social cum cultural life (its lore?) to contemplate it, to investigate it, to better understand and navigate it, to protect it, to interrogate it even.
In many ways musingplaces are a kind of secular temple albeit that quite often there is a sense of spirituality, an element of the sacrosanct and quite often with some form of otherworldliness about them.
Nonetheless, for the most part, they are rather
pragmatic places that feed upon, and draw upon, our primordial curiosities and inquisitiveness
– or put another way, our urges to better
understand the world and ourselves in it.
In a 21st Century context musingplaces
might well have geographic addresses, a set of geographic coordinates, and also a location/s in cyberspace – a set of URLs – Uniform Resource Locators.
Such
an institution might well take a ‘pride
of place’, indeed earn it, in a world with shifting global alignments, changing
social aspiration, not to mention more actively interfacing cultural dynamics.
Arguably 21st Century musingplaces
need to evolve and adapt to fit within the current circumstances. Arguably,
contemporary musingplaces are in dire need of reimagination, reconfiguration and possibly reinvention. Arguably, musingplaces need to evolve and
adapt in order to do more than survive and to be allowed to succeed as meaningful culture institutions in a contemporary
context.
Moreover, there is now a good case for the development of some kind of enabling regulatory arrangement cum formalised scheme that empowers and encourages 'collections' – private and public – to become more relevant – socially and culturally.
Indeed, in a 21st Century context there are significant opportunities to reinforce the networking – ideally rhizomic networks invested in collections.
Digital knowledge and information systems are able to facilitate more complex rhizomic interfaces than a human brain can sustain. This in its turn allows for more productive outcomes. Importantly, these emerging knowledge systems are able to privilege 'lore' over 'law' when and where required. They are also able to facilitate a continuity that allows ‘data’ to be transformed into ‘information’ and in turn convert it into ‘wisdom’. All this holds the promise of enabling collections and their narratives to:
• Appreciate in value socially and culturally – and possibly fiscally;
• Generate new knowledge and understandings;
• Democratise and expand knowledge systems.
Moreover, there is now a good case for the development of some kind of enabling regulatory arrangement cum formalised scheme that empowers and encourages 'collections' – private and public – to become more relevant – socially and culturally.
Indeed, in a 21st Century context there are significant opportunities to reinforce the networking – ideally rhizomic networks invested in collections.
Digital knowledge and information systems are able to facilitate more complex rhizomic interfaces than a human brain can sustain. This in its turn allows for more productive outcomes. Importantly, these emerging knowledge systems are able to privilege 'lore' over 'law' when and where required. They are also able to facilitate a continuity that allows ‘data’ to be transformed into ‘information’ and in turn convert it into ‘wisdom’. All this holds the promise of enabling collections and their narratives to:
• Appreciate in value socially and culturally – and possibly fiscally;
• Generate new knowledge and understandings;
• Democratise and expand knowledge systems.
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Ray Norman – Artist, Metalsmith, Networker, Independent Researcher, Currently a Launcestonian, Cultural Theorist, Cultural Geographer and a hunter of Deep Histories ... Ray is Co-Director of zingHOUSEunlimited, a lifestyle design enterprise and network offering a range of services linked to contemporary cultural production and cultural research. Ray is also engaged with the nudgelbah institute as a cultural geographer. That institute's purpose is to be network of research networks and to be a diverse vehicle through which place oriented scholarship and cultural endeavours can be acknowledged, honoured and promoted.... LINK
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