Hamish McNeilly, Campaign over dim future for museums and art galleries, Stuff, 12 March 2024
- The country’s museums and art galleries attract 17.5 million visitors annually.
- But many are struggling financially, and some may not even survive the decade.
- Nationwide the institutions will switch off their lights as part of the Keep the Lights On for Museums and Galleries’ campaign.
Some of the country’s most beloved institutions are facing an uncertain future as costs rise but funding dries up.
The long-term uncertainty for the galleries and museums from Northland to Southland, would be illustrated when they turn-off their external lighting as part of a new national campaign, Keep the Lights On for Museums and Galleries.
Museums and galleries were funded primarily through local council grants and their own revenue, but lack sustainable, long-term funding.
While the sector displays and cares for the country’s taonga its own self-portrait is bleak, with some beloved institutions unlikely to survive the decade, Museums Aotearoa chief executive Adele Fitzpatrick said.
That includes some faced with insurance costs tripling in as many years, a stretched workforce an over-reliance on volunteers, while those in rural communities were held together “by goodwill and sticky tape”.
But larger metropolitan institutions were also affected.
“The whole industry is nearing crisis,” Fitzpatrick said.
It was an industry which attracted more than 17.5 million visitors – both international and domestic – visitors, while generating $272 million toward GDP.
Dr Ian Griffin, Director of Tūhura Otago Museum, said the whole sector was struggling outside of Te Papa, the national museum, which received funding from central Government.
In Dunedin’s example, the city became wealthy due to the goldrush era and amassed a large collection which attracts interest not only in New Zealand but also from overseas.
But that museum’s collection was “way out of proportion with our ratepayers to support them”.
Griffin acknowledged the cost to ratepayers, but said museums had been entrusted to look after collections well into the future “in appropriate conditions”.
It cost about $9m to keep the museum operating, of which half came from ratepayers and the other half from commercial activities.
The museum operated nine galleries, but the last gallery to be renovated happened two decades ago.
One of the more pressing issues was that part of the museum’s collection was not covered by sprinklers.
Griffin advocated for a national contestable fund, where a panel could help decide funding for museum and art galleries.
“I think that would make a big difference to what we can do as a sector.”
Another facing an uncertain future was the Wellington-based New Zealand Portrait Gallery Te Pūkenga Whakaata.
Director Jaenine Parkinson, said: “It could be lights out for us, not necessarily today or tomorrow but in the foreseeable future”.
“We are relying heavily on reserves and goodwill. The future for galleries generally and our own institution is precarious.”
The $1.7m Switzer’s Museum at Waikaia became one of the newest museums in the country when it opened its doors in 2018, but it wasn’t immune to the challenges facing the sector.
