Lisa Havilah on what is needed to lead MAAS into the
future
GINA FAIRLEY
After just five weeks in the
job as the new CEO of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Havilah has
faced the big questions of the Powerhouse’s future at an industry event.
Sydney's Museum of Applied
Arts and Sciences (MAAS) recently appointed its fourth leader in five and a
half years, with former Carriageworks CEO, Lisa Havilah taking up the position
in January.
Part of her role is to
navigate the institution through the current state government's planned $1.17
billion move of the Powerhouse Museum to Parramatta. And with NSW state
elections around the corner, and an Opposition that has alternative plans,
stakeholders across the sector are watching keenly.
In conversation with Edwina
Throsby (Head of Ideas at Sydney Opera House and former Head of Curation for
Ted X Sydney), Havilah was probed on how she would bring her Midas touch to an
institution plagued by political agendas, opinion, history, contested location
and ruptures to its reputation.
The Powerhouse Museum is
expected to close its Ultimo site in early 2020, as it prepares for the move
west.
Earlier this month, MAAS
opened its International competition for an architecture to design the proposed
Powerhouse Parramatta museum and cultural precinct.
Havilah’s record of growing
audiences will be more important than ever as the institution seeks to maintain
momentum while also reaching out to a new community, when all eyes will be on
its metrics for success.
As CEO of Carriageworks, she
oversaw an increase in attendances from 110,000 in 2011 to 1.32 million in
2017. Can she do it again, and how is Havilah planning for that future?
1. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE
STRATEGY
'I have always been committed
to good strategic thinking. I believe the choices you make – what artists you
approach and how you make decisions as an institution – must always reflect the
institution’s strategic framework. I really believe in the power of strategy.
'Choosing those strategic
frames are critical, and while there needs to be creative decision making
within that, if you have a strong strategic frame you can take more risks and
be more creative because everyone understands the context for the decision.'
2. GETTING GOVERNANCE
RIGHT
'Why I think Carriageworks
was so successful was that its board worked within the structure set up, and
everyone was really clear on what we were trying to achieve and where ambition
sat.
'The matrix of that board was
matched very closely to the strategy frame – so if this is our strategy then
this is what we need on a governance level to deliver that strategy. That
strategic frame not only has to filter down into the institution and what you
produce, but also has to move up to the governance of an institution.'
3. DEALING WITH
UNCERTAINTY AND GOVERNMENTS, WHILE BEING A ROCK FOR COMMUNITIES
'My position doesn’t change
whatever the politics or government of the day might be – we will deliver
a great outcome regardless. I am a servant of the public; I take that very
seriously.
'My practice as an arts
manager, and an arts producer and program maker, has always started from a very
local context. I learned a lot when I was director at Campbelltown Art Centre
and there was so much change happening on a very local level. The council
played a strong role in understanding how culture can contribute to social
cohesion but also how diverse communities can become more visible through
practicing and presenting their culture in a public institution.
'We set up curatorial
structures in the institution to take the decision-making power away from the
director or curator, and to put it in the hands of the community, working
with community curatoriums. That decision of active engagement really
helped in presenting quite difficult material and perspectives that connected
with that place.'
4. DON’T ASK AUDIENCES
WHAT THEY WANT
'There is a lot of language
around institutions and audiences and our responsibility is to provide what
they need, and to develop the best exhibitions for their benefit. That is not
about asking them what they want.
'You always need to consider
the program first and the curatorial cohesion, but within the frame of making,
to ensure what we are doing is culturally relevant to our communities. To just
go and ask what an audience wants is not effective.'
5. STAYING CULTURALLY
RELEVANT
'One of the things I have
really tried to do is grow the institutions. I have worked with them in ways
that are culturally relevant, but in a way that does not compromise artistic
excellence.
'What I am proud of, is that
we were completely uncompromising with the projects that we made [at
Carriageworks]; they were very ambitious projects and we tried to create this
unmediated experience for our communities. What I think many cultural
institutions do too much is try to explain and educate all the time. They don’t
leave enough space for those experiences to grow.
'The context of the museum
today is that people want direct experiences and you have to hand over space
for the community to grow towards the work.'
6. GOOD MUSEUMS ARE MORE
THAN JUST EXHIBITIONS
'When thinking about the
renewal of any institution and the need for more flexible spaces that can
provide a diversity of immersive experience – one thing we really want to think
about is how the new museum at Parramatta would work as a precinct. There
should be a move away from the museum as a box placed on a piece of land, and
rather a consideration for how it integrates and contributes into the fine
grain of the city – how it operates over 24 hours and how it can diversify
its contribution.
'There is also the nature of
arts and culture to create civic gathering places for communities, where they
might have gone to a community hall in the past. The exhibitions [we present]
must become part of that place. When you relate that to MONA, for example, that
experience is quite distinctive – it is a strong individual memory and quite
quickly has become a collective memory.
'Audiences don’t like to be
outside an exhibition looking in, but rather want to be inside the exhibition
experiencing it – that is something audiences expect now. They also now expect
the quality of a food experience, and a layered experience, which are graded to
the same level of the exhibition experience – today those things are all
related and need to be considered as a cohesive whole. That is what we tested a
lot at Carriageworks.'
7. DON’T SEPARATE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND CREATIVITY
Throsby probed Havilah about
an earlier comment she had made about embracing entrepreneurship. Havilah had
said, ‘It is not commercialsing the cultural; it is culturalising the
commercial.'
Havilah continued: 'At every
moment we tested that – we tested a lot at Carriageworks. I am proud of that
entrepreneurship which actually allowed us to grow through our commercial
partnerships and the way we collaborated.
'We took away the whole
notion of venue for hire and everything we did went through the same curatorial
lens. We integrated those major events into our artistic program, so whether
making money or whether we were investing in programming, we didn’t define
that. The benefit that our commercial partners got was that they were going
through the same curatorial funnel – it was a mutual benefit.
'What was important to us was
that the experiences across the institutions were cohesive
'I don’t feel I have
compromised by partnering with commercial stakeholders as we saw them as
investing into our institution and our ambitions'
In an earlier interview with
ArtsHub, Havilah made the point that at Carriageworks, ‘self-entrepreneurs were
about 75% of our turnover through commercial partnerships … That is reason
Carriagrworks has been able to grow over the past six years.’
Havilah believes that through
strong partnerships your funding can grow, and you don’t have to be reliant on
hyped box office sales.
8. DON’T OVERSTAY
When asked why Havilah
decided to leave Carriageworks, she responded: 'I have a very strong personal
philosophy that artistic leaders – directors of institutions –
should only be in a position for a period of time.
'I think institutions need
renewal and that includes leadership.'
9. COMPROMISE IS MISPLACED
Havilah’s curatorial practice
and management style have been described as meticulous, and as Throsby
suggested, she had a ‘tendency to control freak’.
Havilah admitted: 'Yeah, I
have to work on that! It is hard to step back when you are super invested. Good
practice is in the detail! It is an everyday practice and I take that very
seriously.
'I have always taken the
approach that you can only do your best on any given day. You need to focus on
what contribution I am making – am I using my time in the right place? I
believe that you can only ever do 10% of the job in a day, so it is clearing
the other 90% from view to focus and do that 10% well.
'How? You write a list and
you work through it.'
Throsby quoted Havilah’s own
words in order to dig deeper on her management style: 'I’d like my generation
to push forward harder; to be less polite. We are way too polite. People talk a
lot about what they believe in, but don’t spend as much time on how their
beliefs can be delivered on – we compromise too much.'
Havilah agreed with her
earlier comments, and added: 'I think sometimes compromise is misplaced. While
we need to give space to others, it needs to be done in the right way.'
10. MYTH-BUSTING THE
TYRANNY OF DISTANCE
Speaking to perceptions about
the city she calls home, Havilah said: 'I don’t think it should be discussed as
Sydney and Western Sydney; it should just be one Sydney. There is still that
perception that to go there [to Parramatta] you have to pack a bag and might
need to book a room.
'When I was working at
Campbelltown it was always, “how’s it out there?”, and when I was working at
Redfern it was still “out there”, so there are different definitions of centre.
I have always seen where I am as the centre.
'I think that “out there”
mindset is changing in the way the government is planning forward. We will see
incredible change across the [greater] city in the next five to 10 years which
will really shift those perceptions.'
To read more on Lisa Havilah’s
management philosophy and successes, take a look at the paper, The next
generation of the cultural institution, which she delivered to a group
of arts professionals as part of the Currency House Creativity and Business
Breakfast Series.
Lisa Havilah was in
conversation with Edwina Throsby on DATE as a guest of SAMAG, a network of art
professionals.
FIRST PUBLISHED
ON FRIDAY 22 FEBRUARY, 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's
National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and
curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing
Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News.
Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14
years.
She is based in Mittagong,
regional NSW, and you can follow her on Twitter @ginafairley and Instagram at
fairleygina.
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