Museums Australia National Conference 2014

The Conference is filled with papers that are fresh, proven, experiential, practical and filled with a smattering of new thinking and ideas from the edge, which push the edge, gain and maintain the edge, and draw the edges together. It is an opportunity to examine creative links, collaborations and communities.

Creative Links: New Cultural Paradigms

Do museums simply collect and reflect, or can they set in place new cultural paradigms, new ways of thinking about the world and its future? The relationships between humans, objects and ideas are being renegotiated at an ever-increasing pace, facilitated by new technologies and communicated by social media. How collections are assembled, researched and documented can set the pace for the museum experiences of the future, predicting and developing the new museum experience. How can museums push the edge into active and relevant futures?

Collaborations: Museums, Technology, Tourism

What potential is unleashed when internal demarcations within museums work together? How are museums participating as economic drivers linking with tourism and technology in the delivery and marketing of their programs, sites and exhibitions? How can the tension between satisfying those who treat the museum as a constant friend be reconciled with creating a point of difference between every other museum on the tourist trail? With increasing competition for resources, time and energy how can museums gain or maintain the edge?

Live Museums: Linking with Community

How are museums attracting and engaging the communities in which they are found? How are museums juggling the relationship between their actual and virtual communities? What responsibilities does the local/regional museum have in a national or global context? What powers/limitations will be generated through digital technologies? In a complex world how are those out on the edge included? What does it take to draw the edges of community and museum together?