Tony Butler from the Museum of East Anglian Life (MEAL) talks about the future of museums in re-imagining a society which values co-operation as much as economic well-being.
An alternative to growth?
A by-product of the unprecedented global economic growth of the last 20 years has been the creation of slew of new and inspiring museums. In the UK, the National Lottery has provided millions of pounds of leverage for capital development and virtually every major town or city has a new or refurbished museum. Furthermore the policy of free admission to national museums introduced in 2001 has meant that increasing numbers of people can enjoy cultural heritage.
Yet the limits of the economic growth model in the West have been tested by the financial crises of 2007-09. Many grand projects proved inherently unsustainable and within the UK it appears that the days of a landmark project in every town are over. There is no guarantee that western economic growth will return to pre-2007 levels for at least decade, if at all. Crucially it is questionable that growth witnessed in the previous twenty years is compatible with the environmental challenges which face the planet. It has been suggested that if global growth rates continue at the present level humans would need the resources of 3 more planets to sustain life to our current expectations.
There is an alternative to economic orthodoxy, one in which people and planet matter. In 1973 the radical economist E.F. Schumacher in Small is Beautiful advocated localised economies which accounted for their social and environmental as well as economic impacts. Schumacher’s approach influenced Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom who developed a political economic theory of Common Pool Resources which highlighted collective action, trust and co-operation.
In the early 1970s the landlocked, autocratic Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan developed a system of Gross Domestic Happiness as a counter to GDP as a measure of economic well-being. Alongside standard economic measures, the index accounted for such social issues as time spent with families, strength of communities and impact on biodiversity. In 2005 and 2009 the radical think-tank New Economics Foundation (NEF) published the Happy Planet Index, largely inspired by work at the University of Bhutan. This ranked countries not only in order of their economic outputs but in their ability to pursue good environmental stewardship, to foster strong communal relationships and promote mental well-ness.
Furthermore a growing and compelling body of research by social scientists shows that increased material wealth has led to a decline in productive social relationships and networks or ‘social capital’. Robert Putnam’s seminal Bowling Along (2000) described an atomised United States where a sense of neighbourliness was falling through the floor. Putnam carried out 500,000 interviews over 25 years and noted that
“we sign fewer petitions, belong to fewer organizations that meet, know our neighbours less, meet with friends less frequently, and even socialize with our families less often. We're even bowling alone. More Americans are bowling than ever before, but they are not bowling in leagues”.[2]
It appears that material goods play considerably less of a role in determining well-being than our spending patterns might suggest. For many people the pressure to “keep up” in consumption terms has been actively detrimental to real well-being and perhaps even a factor in increased risk of mental illness.[3] Or as psychologist Oliver James puts it, our society is suffering from Affluenza.
Economic Growth and the museum mind
For twenty years a belief in the regenerative power of economic growth, for all its positive benefits, I think has created a rigid, mechanistic mind set in museum practitioners. Much time was spent trying to prove to the Treasury or to local funders that culture contributed to objectives in a range of areas from reducing crime to improving educational attainment, to improving health and contributing to economic regeneration.
This was fine to a point and whilst this may have been true, for me this approach took much of the joy out of my work. Many museums have not altered their understanding of what it means to do public good beyond following policy agendas, regardless of how progressive they are. Instrumental, deficit funding policies backed up Byzantine evaluative metrics have made it more desirable that participants in museum activities are more able to enter the labour market than become a good neighbour.
We may be culturally richer than ever before but it is questionable that we are happier. There is a clear challenge to decouple people’s sense of prosperity and well-being from economic growth. For museums, I suggest that future efforts be less geared to producing more and more cultural stuff, but should concentrate on the stewardship of our surroundings and better understanding the role museums can play as connector in Civil Society.
Pablo Rossello
Tony Butler at the CLI 2011 leadership workshop in Istanbul.
Reimagining MEAL as a happy social enterprise
Aside from being a popular open air museum with historic buildings, working collections and a beautiful natural environment, the Museum of East Anglian Life (MEAL) in Stowmarket, Suffolk has a strong ethos as a ‘bridger’ of social capital. A true social enterprise, business minded, opportunistic but exuding progressive values and a sense of social justice offers a template for the social history museums of the future.
Our aim is to place MEAL within the Rhythm of local life whether its leading the Plough Sunday commemorations in the parish church in January to running a Beer Festival in June or hosting a Bonfire Party in November. The museum exists to encourage people to look at the world differently, we’ve worked with Dance companies, London Sinfonietta, and have run a successful Gypsy Arts Festival for three years. We are three quarters through £3m capital development to restore the Queen Anne Abbots Hall and its Cottages to explore ideas of home and belonging in East Anglia.
MEAL runs a range of learning programmes, using its historic buildings, landscape and collections to inspire vulnerable people. This includes training and skills development for learning disabled adults and long term unemployed, a resettlement programme for inmates from a local prison, therapeutic placements for mental health service users, reminiscence training for carers of people with early stage dementia and training schemes for young people with behavioral problems. Since 2008 the museum has helped over 60 people find jobs, provided accredited training for over 150 new learners and provided new experiences for people that had never before set foot in a museum. (We are partner in the largest regional Skills for the Future HLF award)
Through observations it was clear that being engaged in these activities at the museum made participants happy. They formed new friendships. They ran each other to the shops, supported each other in times of personal problems; people who had previously led isolated lives now had new found confidence to socialise. They began to trust others, they had new found status and they became more adaptable. Far from being a refuge the museum was a springboard for participants.
In 2010 the museum commissioned research using the Social Return on Investment model, which showed that for every £1 invested in its programmes, £4.10 of social value was created.[4] The museum showed that by working with individuals over the long term in a collaborative environment demonstrable progression was possible.
The programmes MEAL offered could have been carried out anywhere, on an industrial estate or a forest park, but what made them special was the use of cultural heritage within a museum which many had encountered for the first time. A Fordson tractor was restored by a group of young people who have previously left school with no qualifications, and a group of mental health service users are running a Victorian Walled Garden. The success of the museum’s work is not measured by the queues out of the door for blockbusters but the strength of new social networks created by a shared interest in identity and locality.
Authentic Happiness and museums
The American ‘Positive Psychologist’ Martin Seligman In his Authentic Happiness (2000) wrote that we would be a far more successful society if we enabled mental wellness rather than concentrated our efforts on treating mental illness. He talks of stages of happiness:
First the Pleasant Life which consists of having as many pleasures as possible and having the skills to amplify the pleasures in order to generate positive emotion. Second, the Good Life, which consists of identifying signature strengths, and then recrafting work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use those strengths to have more flow in life. Third, the Meaningful Life, which consists of using your signature strengths and the pleasure derived from Eudaemonic Flow, to do things in a cause which are greater than self.[5]
To simplify, one can derive positive emotion from seeing a beautiful work of art or gain eudemonic flow from engaging in an absorbing activity (the volunteers who come in every weekend to maintain MEAL’s steam traction engines atteast to this). However in order to create powerful or meaningful experiences museums should create a landscape which not only enables participants to engage in the issues of the day but helps them contribute to society through acts of kindness and altruism.
Museums and the conditions for happiness
Museums are in great position to create meaningful positive experiences based on co-operation and reciprocity. Museums are invariably at the centre of their community and many of their objects are familiar even comforting. Even when displays challenge assumptions or are contested they are done within an environment or institution which still engenders a high degree of trust.
The Happy Museum Project
Drawing on the experience of exploring the nature of social capital at MEAL, established work on health and well-being in other museums and a desire to face the impending environmental challenges, the Happy Museum Project was initiated. Its aim is to challenge museums to adapt their behaviours to promote high well-being, sustainable living. Its clarion call The Happy Museum written by the New Economics Foundation and museum practitioners noted that
Our proposition is that museums are well placed to play an active part, but that grasping the opportunity will require reimagining some key aspects of their role, both in terms of the kinds of experience they provide to their visitors and the way they relate to their collections, to their communities and to the pressing issues of the day[6]
The Happy Museum argues that museums have innate qualities which can inspire a re-imagining of a society which values co-operation and stewardship as much as it does economic well-being. Museums are both popular and trusted.
Materialism
Apart from the ubiquitous gift shop strategically positioned by the exit, museums have little to ‘sell’ to their visitors but understanding and enjoyment. In a world that seems saturated by advertising, a trip to a museum is an opportunity to find sanctuary from commercial messages.
Social Spaces
Museums’ function as social spaces is significant. With recent trends seeing city space being increasingly transferred to private ownership, museums are an important bulwark against the erosion of the public realm. For many people, a museum visit is not a solitary activity but an opportunity to spend time with family or to meet up with friends,
Being Psychologically Present
Museums encourage visitors to be psychologically ‘present’, with attention focused completely in the here and now and on the aesthetic qualities of things. Experiencing this kind of involvement is not only enjoyable in itself, but is associated with wider psychological benefits.
Giving Back
Reciprocity and ‘giving back’ to others promotes well-being for people of all ages. A shift in focus from being didactic educators to ‘co-creators of well-being’ will enable a more active and engaged role for the visitor. Opportunities for volunteering, can directly influence the well-being of individuals by leaving them with a sense of self-worth and status . Motivated and valued people inspired by a museum are more likely and better equipped to get involved with civic life within their own communities.
To fully exploit their advantages to play a part in a transition to a low carbon world of new economic and social values, museums must address behaviours which have rightly or wrong become ingrained. Rather than be just tellers, museums should accept they don’t have all the answers and should aspire to become truly participatory intuitions enables co-production twixt museum and community. A recent study by Bernadette Lynch on participation in UK museums, noted that despite examples of very good working practice, ‘real engagement that goes beyond ‘empowerment-lite’ faces hitherto unseen obstacles that inevitably result in the dissatisfaction of both staff members and community partners.'[7]
Some UK museums have made start in this process. The M Shed in Bristol is developing a permanent display about greening the city, working with Transition groups and green charities. The Happy Museum Project itself is commissioning 6 projects which will put the principles into practice with the aim of creating a community of practice akin to the Transition Network in local economies.
Of course many museums do appreciate their position at the heart of their community and many combine scholarship, stewardship, learning and a desire for greater participation. What the Happy Museum Project is trying to do is to show that the context is now different. Climate change, pressures on the planets finite resources and awareness that a good, happy society need not set economic growth as it most meaningful measure offers a chance to re-imagine the purpose of the museums.
Museums need to realise their role as connector, viewing people not as audiences but as collaborators, not as beneficiaries but citizens and stewards who nurture and pass on knowledge to their friends and neighbours.
Notes
[1] T. Jackson, N. Marks, J. Ralls & S. Strymne: "An index of sustainable economic welfare for the UK 1950-1996", Centre for Environmental Strategy, University of Surrey, Guildford, 1997
[2] R. Putnam, Bowling Alone New York 2001 frontispiece
[3] See, e.g. Jenkins R, Bhugra D, Bebbington P, Brugha T, Farrell M, Coid J, Fryers T, Weich S, Singleton N and Meltzer H (2008) ‘Debt, income and mental disorder in the general population’ Psychological Medicine 38, pp. 1485-1494.
[4] Mandy Barnett, Investing in Culture and Communities SROI at MEAL (Stowmarket 2010) p4
[5] For greater explaination see Seligman’s TED lecture from 2005 http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html
[6] The Happy Museum: A tale of how it could turn out all right Sam Thompson and Jody Aked, with Bridget McKenzie, Chris Wood, Maurice Davies and Tony Butler 2011 p3
[7] Bernadette Lynch Whose Cake is it Anyway London 2011 p15
Tony Butler is the Director of the Museum of East Anglian Life (MEAL), and heads the UK's Happy Museum Project, a community of practice in museums based on sustainability and well-being. This essay was part of his presentation at the 2011 Cultural Leadership International leadership workshop, which took place in Istanbul, 23-27 October, 2011. Read more about the event, the participants and the other speakers here.
