Launceston could soon see major changes at the country's biggest regional museum and art gallery, which calls the city home.
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The planned overhaul of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery comes as the museum and council aim to ensure the future of the entity.
QVMAG includes the museum at Inveresk, and art gallery at Royal Park. It offers programs, tours, exhibits, archives along with its collection of art and artefacts.
City of Launceston chief executive officer Michael Stretton, along with QVMAG general manager Shane Fitzgerald want to see the museum receive the funding that matches its output to not only Launceston but to Tasmania, Australia and the world.
A key challenge for QVMAG was the ongoing cost to the City of Launceston council, who were responsible for 80 per cent of the costs.
One of the stark differences for QVMAG was while similar institute, Tasmania Museum and Art Gallery, received more than $13 million years from the state government, QVMAG received just $1.5 million. Leaving the remaining cost of $6.1 million with City of Launceston ratepayers.
Another issue was that there were simply not enough visitors to the museum to balance out the investment by council, and innovation and development was required to bring in the visitors to match the ratepayers input.
City of Launceston mayor Albert van Zetten said while the plan was ambitious, it was innovative and would increase the output QVMAG had for Tasmania.
"Council is of the firm belief that this reimaging of QVMAG would increase cultural visitation to the region by around 110,000 people a year, with an additional contribution to the local economy of more than $140 million," he said.
The future of QVMAG relied on making significant changes to the museum, governance and costings.
Cr van Zetten highlighted the discrepancy between TMAG in Hobart and QVMAG.
"The state has invested $49.3 million into TMAG over the past five years - compare this with just $7.2 million for QVMAG over that same period."
Hobart City council, while benefiting from TMAG, do not pay for the asset like Launceston.
Cr van Zetten also noted the performance of QVMAG was lacking.
"At a local level, we know that the QVMAG was underperforming in relative terms compared with other similar institutions across Tasmania such as TMAG and MONA," he said.
"From the council's perspective, it's clear that the current programmatic offering needs to be of a higher quality, with more diverse and inclusive experiences to encourage and maintain its appeal to visitors and locals alike."
QVMAG Future Plan
Overall, the report found the current funding arrangement was not sustainable and was not a model which would enable the future success of QVMAG.
This funding model placed the burden for majority funding of a state-level asset on the ratepayers of just one municipal area despite the fact that QVMAG services the region and the state more broadly.
QVMAG was underfunded compared to similar-sized entities across Australia because of the budget constraints of the council, which caused the museum and gallery to fail in attracting sufficient visitation.
The plan itself, which would be tabled at the next council meeting, looked at several directions of change, all with alternative options.
The first direction looked at governance. A significant change would be adopting a skills-based board of governance.
QVMAG was unique in that it had a local council governance board. The steps towards a skills-based board would take between 18 months to two years.
Mr Fitzgerald said this was an element they could work on that did not rely on further funding from the government.
For operations costs, options in the plan include increasing municipality rates, sharing costs to other municipalities, or to cease operations. None of those options were recommended.
What was recommended and preferable was an increased state contribution. The report also stated it wanted to see a QVMAG Futures Fund.
Priority Projects
Another aim was to make the Albert Park Art Gallery more accessible and appealing to visitors with a $75 million upgrade.
This priority project would include making the gallery more accessible, and a carpark.
QVMAG would also look to become more culturally diverse, including the priority project for an Aboriginal Science and Education centre which would partner with the Aboriginal community.
The cost of this would be under the Art Gallery redevelopment.
Another priority project was a Collection Discovery Centre, with a costing of $85 million. This would allow people to explore offsite collections that go unseen.
QVMAG only had a small amount of their collection on display.
The goal for QVMAG would be to make the asset self-sufficient, which would mean funding to allow the museum and art gallery to expand their collections and set themselves up for the future.
A final major project in the draft Futures Plan was a $250 million redevelopment of the Inveresk Precinct which would see a centrally located cultural/ creative/education precinct within the heart of Launceston.
Mr Fitzgerald said over a 10-year period, a self sufficient model for QVMAG was possible, despite this model not having been used before in Australia.
Mr Fitzgerald said this method was used in North America and would allow the next generation to see the museum and art gallery continue without needing council or government handouts.
Arts Minister Elise Archer said she acknowledged that QVMAG was a major destination for art, history and science in Northern Tasmania, and an important part of cultural life for the Launceston community and for the state more broadly.
"Our government provides consistent and sustained financial support to the City of Launceston towards the operations of QVMAG (owned by that council), administered on an annual basis through a perpetual deed with the state government," she said.
"In the 2021-22 financial year, funds of over $1.5 million have been provided for the operations of the museum, with commensurate funding committed in the 2022-23 state budget.
"We are aware of the plans for redevelopment of the Royal Park Art Gallery Development, and we look forward to a concept design being finalised and then presented to Government, noting there has been no official request for funding at this stage."
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