Jennifer Forest

Behind the Lines: The Greatest Hits Tour 2019

 

 

Behind the Lines is a cartoon exhibition with a reputation, a great reputation in fact. It’s adored by generations of Australians who love and cherish cartoons. It’s the one regular exhibition every year that is sure to both delight and challenge, the one that will make you laugh one minute and wipe a tear away the next.

Every year MoAD curates the year’s best cartoons to exhibit them onsite and at regional locations. First started by the National Museum of Australia in an earlier iteration in the early 1990s, it’s been around for a long time.

I’ve always loved cartoons and their power. One cartoon can say so much more than all the words we put out there. So, it was with a spring in my step and a very strong sense of responsibility that I was delighted be the curator of the 2019 exhibition.

 

There are so many possible angles to explore here in my small blog post about curating an exhibition like this. I could write at length about exhibition curation and design. It’s a fascinating topic but given that we all love cartoons (I’m yet to meet anyone who doesn’t appreciate a good cartoon) let me share a few insights from my cartooning journey:

• I have a renewed sense of admiration for cartoonists, especially daily cartoonists. They are producing a cartoon every single day. The lucky ones may create two to three cartoons a day for different media outlets. This means a lot of time watching, reading and listening to the news, deep in the quagmire of human failure and triumph... every single day.

 

• We really should pay more attention to what cartoonists are drawing. We had a spectacular failure of data in 2019. So many opinion polls were reporting that the ALP would win the federal election. Regardless of your political persuasion, the election result was remarkable for just how wrong those polls got it. And I have to ask: should we look at cartoons instead to find out what the voters are thinking? I’m not saying all cartoonists captured the vibe on every issue every single time. But looking at the cartoons for 2019, I was struck by how remarkably perceptive cartoonists are at capturing different views around the country. Next time, I’m keeping an eye on the cartoons.

 

• Cartoons are such an important part of our public conversation. Politics and current affairs are increasingly portrayed as a football match, with all and sundry wearing the colours of ‘their side’ shouting at each other. A good cartoon can break through that noise and polarisation with a few witty words and a strong visual image. A good cartoon doesn’t tell you what to think. A good cartoon starts conversations, challenges the assumptions when no-one else has, and will probably make you laugh and cry all at the same time!

 

WIN News 6 December 2019: Behind the Lines exhibition launch

On at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House until November 2020.

Creating exhibition magic

 

When people ask what I do, I know what will happen next. Without fail, everyone one – and I mean every single person – will say ‘oh that must be fantastic’ as they suddenly look delightfully happy.

We then go on to have joyful conversations about their favourite museum or the great exhibition they just visited. With our days lived behind computer screens, I get the distinct impression that people cherish these real-world experiences. They like immersing themselves in a good story, learning something new and sharing the magic with family and friends.

Creating this exhibition magic is very similar to film production, people coming together as a team to create something out of the ordinary, something special and memorable. In museums though, we aren’t constrained to a screen. Instead, we have the wonderful potential of 3D space. And what you put in that really is only limited by imagination and budget.

All good exhibitions like all good films share something else in common apart from the imagination and budgets needed to make magic. At the heart of a good exhibition sits a good story. Not just a few words thrown together but a story that matters, and a story told well, with both clarity and passion. There’s a real art in storytelling, working out what makes the cut. But there’s also a lot of strategic thinking and analysis that goes into the mix as well.

Exhibition magic is not hampered by a bit of analysis, if anything that’s when it finds its wings. And it doesn’t have to all be diagrams, spreadsheets and charts. A good starting place is with these two big picture questions. If you know the answers to these, that will help maintain the motivation as you chase the magic through project schedules and budget spreadsheets.

1. Why are you doing this?

If you know why you’re doing this, you can start building your narrative framework. Why does this story matter? Why does it matter now? Who cares about this story?

2. Who is going to do this?

If you know who will make the magic, you’re halfway there. Who’s on the team and what skills do they bring? Exhibition development is a specialist skill and if you get the right people who know how to do this then it will happen.

Bringing an exhibition to life is, in the end, about creating a meaningful, multidimensional and engaging story, quite unlike any other. It’s about giving the visitors a reason to leave their workday behind and delight in that exhibition magic again.

 

 Photo credit

The Nightwatch by Rembrandt at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Photo by Václav Pluhař on Unsplash.

 

The wild, beautiful beaches of New South Wales

 

I grew up in one of the most beautiful places in  the world, except we didn’t know it then. The South Coast of New South Wales I remember had big, open beaches with roaring waves and plenty of rock pools and lagoons for swimming or floating about on a board. We had the beaches to ourselves most of the year round. Sure there were other local families out in boats and fishing from the pier, but there was a lot of space to go around.

Christmas came but once a year thankfully, the locals would mutter. Cars from Sydney appeared on the streets after Boxing Day. Sometimes there would even be an intrepid explorer from Melbourne or Canberra. The one set of traffic lights in town got a little bit crowded and doing the weekly family shopping meant you had to wait behind someone else for a change. 

My family left this hidden secret of a place, as you do when jobs and study are elsewhere. I went back a few times with my family and then with friends in those early years. It never let me down. The coast was still wild and beautiful. But years passed and I lived in other places, walked on other people’s beaches, and didn’t get back to the South Coast. 

Plenty of other people did though and I would have these odd conversations with people in the most out of the way places. About how the South Coast had the best beaches in Australia or how they’d grown up on the coast too and one day they’d go back because beaches elsewhere, they just didn’t match up.

So with these seeds planted and once again living much closer, my little family spent a long weekend exploring just one part of the vast South Coast. We leave Canberra, the nation’s capital, with tents and food early one Friday eager to beat the crowds who we’re told will be heading off too. It’s lunchtime and Kings Highway out of the city is consistently busy but not overwhelming. 

 

19th century gold mining village

There’s a lot of land to go around in Australia and driving really brings this home to you. We take a break in Braidwood, just over an hour out of Canberra. I remember empty shops lining the streets of the village years ago, and a general air of expectation wrapping itself around the town, as if waiting for something to happen. Today, the main street is busy and the shops are open. As a former gold mining town, it has mid-19^th century charm, revealed on the main road and in the miners’ cottages and churches on the side streets. The people on the streets make me smile; it feels like seeing an old friend restored to good health. 

 

The Clyde Mountain

There’s an air of determination as we get back in the car for the trip down the Clyde, as it’s colloquially known. The Clyde Mountain has always been approached with some trepidation. Going up or down it was not for the faint hearted, or the novice driver. Serious accidents regularly continue to take place, particularly on the 40-kilometre stretch with sharp bends as we go up and over the Great Dividing Range. 

The road closes in as we move off the tablelands and start the climb down the mountain. The tall eucalyptus forest on either side shades the road. It's thick and beautiful in the way only Australian bush forest can be, with multiple shades of green layered upon layer.  

I am absolutely obedient to every road sign all the way, and am pleasantly surprised by how quickly the descent is over. Millions of dollars have been poured into enormous signs telling you to slow down and new overtaking lanes to smooth out some of the hairpin bends.

Down we come off the mountain and the road uncurls itself. Before long the first glimpse of the sea appears and then disappears through the trees, deep blue in the near distance. Then the glorious waterway that is the Clyde River opens out in front of you. The wide expanse of water, with the tiny settlement of Nelligen on its banks, was always the signal that we’re close now, not far to go to the beach.

There are many beaches up and down the South Coast of New South Wales, which stretches from just south of Sydney right down the eastern coast of Australia to the little town of Eden, close to the Victorian state border. For our rediscovery trip, we’ve selected Depot Beach, 24 kilometres north of Bateman’s Bay.

Not far over the Clyde River, just outside Bateman’s Bay you leave Kings Highway and head north.  We’re looking for a right hand turn off Princes Highway onto the oddly named Mount Agony Road. This takes you winding through a spotted blue gum forest to Depot Beach.

 

Watch for lyrebirds though, for some reason these rare shy birds like this road.  

 

It’s already getting dark as we pull into the National Parks campground opposite Depot Beach. It’s a well-equipped campground with showers, electricity, barbeques and a rainwater tank, nestled in the forest. Some campsites are powered and suitable for caravans and RVs. Unpowered sites are best for medium sized tents. The campsites are numbered and the National Parks staff are clearly used to managing large numbers of eager families. The whiteboard outside the office has clear, detailed instructions.

 

Camping with the wildlife 

We rush against the falling light to put up tents, cook food and get to the beach. But our efforts are hampered by the determination of the wildlife. With just a few daypacks on the ground, a kangaroo sniffs out our meagre leftovers and attempts to pry open a plastic lunch box. Despite his very nimble paws, the plastic box defeats him, so he moves on to hanging around my small dinner preparations. My camp stove sits on a tree log, just at the right height for the kangaroo. They are cute animals but also very strong. I don’t fancy my chances if he does make a lunge for the food. Dinner is only saved by an partly successful attempt to lure him away. In the end, he gets bored at not finding anything to eat and hops away to search elsewhere.

After dinner we head to the beach to sit close to the waves on the cooling sand. The beach is loud. I remember it being loud, even though the waves aren’t huge. Depot Beach is not a big wave surf beach. The waves crash rhythmically against the sand. The dark silhouette of trees against midnight blue skies behind us hide the small collection of houses next to the campground.

 

It's only us on the beach and it's so very easy to feel a long way from anywhere. 

 

It’s the stars though, which take centre stage. Without city lights to hide them, the stars shine bright and strong, revealing the intricate patterns and sheer density of them all up out there. Off in the distance, a lighthouse is framed by the soft glow of Sydney and Wollongong on the horizon. The beach feels familiar and welcoming in the night-light. 

Yet I know not everyone shared this same comfort on the Australian beach that I do. I’ve just finished reading Michael McKenna’s book From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories where he describes the 1797 journey of five British and twelve Bengali sailors up the South-East Coast of Australia. On route from Calcutta to Sydney, they were shipwrecked on Preservation Island off the tip of Tasmania and this small group was shipwrecked again off their long boat on 90 Mile Beach near Lake’s Entrance, Victoria. They knew if they stayed on the coast and headed north they would find Sydney. The only British settlement at the time, it was a 700 kilometre walk away up the South Coast of New South Wales.

It’s not the 700 kilometres of the South Coast which is the gripping part of this story. These are the very first white people local Indigenous nations met. McKenna tells the story of contact, how in some parts of the South Coast the sailors were befriended and helped by the Indigenous nations, assisted across rivers in Aboriginal canoes and fed on Australian bush foods. By the time they walked across Depot Beach, twelve sailors had been left behind, too weak to keep going.  At Bateman’s Bay they almost drowned several more men trying to cross the river. Some couldn’t swim and they weren’t very good at building rafts to cross the river.  Further up the coast, the sailors were surrounded and wounded by 100 Aboriginal men as ritual markings for not following cultural protocols on entering country.

 

On the beach

The next day is deliciously warm and families head down to the beach early. Here away from the city, it’s a clear water beach unencumbered by seaweed or pollution. You can see right through the water to the white sand below. The waves are perfect for body surfing or riding a board. Capable swimmers can go out into the gentle swell past the break line and find an easy place to swim laps. The calm waters are also popular with kayakers and paddle boarders, who we see over the weekend enjoying the gentle swell. In the waters around the rocks, all the men of a large extended family go snorkelling for sea urchin, a delicacy often eaten raw.

When the water gets too cold there’s the giant sandpit of the beach to warm up on. Building multi-tiered sandcastles complete with shell decorations and moats running down to the waves is an Australian tradition. Beaches up and down the South Coast are regularly dotted with families intent on creating sandcastle masterpieces. 

 

The area became Murrumarang National Park in 1975. 

 

As the mid-day sun hits strong, the beach heats up and we head to the shade of the forests surrounding the beach. The National Parks and Wildlife Service are thoughtful educators of the Australian environment, and there are well-posted information signs and walking trails. Close to Depot Beach there’s a short rainforest walk which takes you through damp gully vegetation, pointing out the animals and plants along the way. 

 

Coastal forest

From Depot Beach, it’s also easy to explore the coastal bushland, which is what we do on our last day. On trails around the headlands, we stumble across a stunning angophora forest. It is thick with waist-high green cycads and the tall straight trees with their pale pink bark. With views stretching far out into the Pacific, this headland is an undiscovered secret of the area. We have the trails to ourselves, just us, the ocean and the forest. The rustling of the cycads and the angophoras hide the roar of the waves, and provide a different soundtrack to our weekend at the beach. Just like our first night on the beach under the stars, I feel at home in the Australian bush. I imagine this is what the Aboriginal people felt living on this land for thousands of years. 

More permanent settlers soon followed our weary British sailors in 1797. White farmers and timber cutters started appearing on the South Coast from the late 1820s onwards. Pebbly Beach, around the headline from Depot Beach, had a timber sawmill, a school and homes for 200 people. 

Like other parts of Australia, two very different economic and social systems clashed here. Aboriginal nations resisted the theft of their land, and its resources. Farmers and workers shot Aboriginal people. In 1830, farmers in the area complained of their cattle being speared. Not long after musket balls fired by an overseer fatally killed two men and two women of the Yuin nation. This war of attrition continued through the 19^th century and permanently shattered the comfort of the land for its original inhabitants.

 

 Reciprocity is a key part of Aboriginal customs. Based on a culture of sharing resources and food, each nation had strict protocols to guide giving and receiving. White settlers saw the spearing of cattle and sheep as unprovoked.  Yet they had not asked local Aboriginal groups if they could use the land on which they grazed their animals.

 

The next day it’s time for us to leave the dense green comfort of the coastal forest, the soft, cool white sand and the sparkling clear waters of the South Coast. We have an early lunch in Bateman’s Bay, the seaside town where the Pacific Ocean meets the Clyde River. No trip to the coast was ever complete without a meal of freshly caught fish, straight off the trawler, with hot potato chips. 

As we make our way back up the twists and turns of the Clyde Mountain, I muse on the passing of time. At the fringes, the South Coast of New South Wales is different to when I lived there years ago. There are more shops and more people. The roads are better and the campsites are busy. But at its heart, it’s still wild, open and beautiful. The stars glitter just as brightly. The water is crystal clear and the sand white through the waves. The forest wraps multiple layers of green around you. The big open beaches we love so much in Australia are still there. 

 

Getting there: The South Coast of New South Wales is the 600 kilometres south of Sydney stretching down to Eden, on the Eastern Coast of Australia.The Princes Highway is the most direct route to Depot Beach from Sydney. Don’t be deceived by the short distance of 270 kilometres from Sydney to Depot Beach. This is a decent four hour drive from Sydney. The Princes Highway winds its way down the coast and is not a freeway.  On the King’s Highway from Canberra, it’s a good 2.5 hour drive.

Where to stay: Depot Beach Campground run by the National Parks and Wildlife Service has campsites starting from $25AUD for an unpowered site. Powered sites and simple cabins are also available. There is also an $8AUD park entry fee per vehicle per day. 

When to go: Average summer temperatures are around 25ºC with the hottest recorded at 43ºC  (77°F to 109°F). Average winter temperatures are 7ºC to 16ºC (47°F to 60°F). The campground will be busy on Australian school holidays and all public holidays. The water can be cold for swimming in winter and spring but still great for canoeing and kayaking.  It is much warmer in summer and autumn. The forests are ideal for bushwalking year round. Carry plenty of water in summer.

Look out for: Lyrebirds, eastern grey kangaroos, possums, sea eagles, satin bowerbirds, spotted blue gum forest and angophora forest.

Download Depot Beach Article_Jennifer Forest_2017

 

War and family festivals : do they mix?

 

The Centenary of Anzac Day is not an obvious theme for a family-friendly event celebrating local heritage and stories. The 37 million dead is not something that appeals to mum, dad and the kids. 

As the curator for Heritage Weekend 2015 that was my challenge: to balance family-friendly exhibitions and activities but retain the historical and ethical integrity of Australia’s involvement in war.

It was a tough theme, the reality of the horrors we have inflicted on each other over the last 100 years is a confronting story. 

As a parent, I know that you don’t suddenly want your children confronted with what a machine gun actually does to your body! It's not pretty.

But I wanted so very much to tell the story with integrity and meaning, to tell the reality of Australia’s involvement in overseas conflicts, and the impact war etches into families, towns and countries.

As I said in my introduction to the photographic exhibition:

War is not an isolated event. War doesn’t just suddenly happen. There is always a back-story, that doesn’t fit into a 15-second sound bite or a 140-character tweet. The back-story is so much more than that. It is the story of layers and layers of cultural, economic and political pressures erupting into violence.

The centenary of World War I is more than just calendar marking or voyeuristic hindsight at the idols of the past or the depths of the horror that we inflicted on each other. World War I, and the 100 years of service explored here, provided an opportunity to be honest about war, and the sacrifice it tears from every family and every town like ours across the globe.

I had a number of exhibition elements including a traditional photographic exhibition and historic object displays.

To present a balanced approach, I wrote with an honest pen the actual reality of war and counter weighted that with photographic elements which told the story, but not too graphically, always mindful of my family audience.

One of my large exhibition elements was a huge screen projection – pictured above – on which I curated images along two thematic lines. On the left are images which show the wars overseas, from the trenches at Gallipoli to the SAS on patrol in Iraq. I deliberately included photos of Australians overseas and the men, women and children in the countries we have fought in, and with.

Then on the right, that international story was grounded in the domestic with photographs of the impact of war on Australia. So you see, for example, the AWAS training, men and women in factories and Red Cross workers collecting for the war effort.

Each of the faces on this screen, the people of the past, looked directly at the camera, and at you.

We live more than ever in a world quickly connected to each other. Our island status means nothing now. War happens fast. The enemy is no longer faceless. We know their stories. Their fate is our fate. We are their story, and they are ours.

I achieved my objective.

I had no chairs out near the large projection for the first few hours.

Then I noticed people were stopping to watch, and watch intently. I put out rows of chairs. They came, they sat and they watched.

And that is the best answer a curator can hope to receive from visitors - you made the visitor stop and think. 

 

A good story questions, inspires and transforms

Have you ever read a sentence that makes your heart stop? The words fly off the page and make you pause with the simplicity and beauty of its power. 

What about a movie so engulfing, so glorious you don’t want it to end? You walk out of the cinema shocked that the world they created… doesn’t… actually… exist? 

 

A good story questions, inspires and transforms. 

 

But there’s a lot of content out there: everything from social media to radio, film, podcasts, books and magazines.

How can you make your story stand out? 

Creating good content, a good story, takes commitment, consistency and creativity...and at least these five things:

                                                          

1. It’s you. It’s not me. 

All good stories and messages focus on the reader or visitor. They will stop  and connect with your story, if it matters to them. Stories that connect, and connect quickly, answer their care factor right up front.

Not everyone will care, and that’s just the way it is. But some will care and they are the ones you are looking for.

 

2. Match your message to the channel                      

The way you tell your story changes depending on the medium you use. Match your messages to your channel. 

Humour and lighthearted commentary sit better with Facebook than LinkedIn. Quiet reflection about human trafficking is not going to happen on the underground, but will in an exhibition space.

 

3. Pick words that engage      

Match your words to the audience, and make it enjoyable and interesting for them to read. Don’t make reading, watching or listening a chore.

The words you use need to sing, not turn it into sludge. 

 

4. Good content flows                                                                  

Have you ever watched a movie and a whole new sub-plot pops up half way through and you’re left going? What? Why? Who are these people? And why are they in my story?

If you’re giving a speech, you don’t have to follow a time sequence of your life but suddenly dropping in a dramatic life event out of order only confuses the listener. Make it clear why you put it there.

Good content doesn’t confuse the audience. Good content flows logically. 

  

5. It’s okay to say ‘no’                   

The little know fact is that the inspiration actually comes from what you delete. 

Not all parts of the story matter to this audience right now. It’s okay to leave out details. What matters is that you pick your messages and stick with it.

Communicate the main messages and forget the rest. Clarity is more important.

Secure funding for your exhibition

Over the years, I’ve had colleagues approach my desk with anxiety in their voice and a worried expression gripping their eyes. In hand, they carry a grant application form to a government department or charitable foundation. They need to write a grant application to secure funding for our next exhibition. But...the form looks like a committee of thousands created it, and every single person got their pet question in there.

In another life, when I was the one assessing the funding applications, I like to think I wasn’t responsible for adding in extra questions. I did my best to design easy to follow application forms and assessment processes. Having worked on both sides of the grant-funding world, I understand why writing your submission for a grant or funding can cause anxiety, but also why despite all this, people still persevere.

People stick with it because they have to; many not-for-profit organisations rely on the money given to them through funding grants. Others may have their day-to-day operations covered but if they want to do anything new that money has to be raised from somewhere. Sometimes people persevere because it looks like there’s a huge pool of money just waiting for a home.

This is not really true. Think of it more like an old-fashioned lolly shop, the ones with every different type of chocolate, sweets, and candy in all their multi-coloured glory in glass jars on wooden shelves. You just know that some you’ll hate and some you’ll love, and then there’s a lot in between. Grants are a lot like that, some will be wrong for you, some almost there and others a direct match. The funding body also knows this too. They will have very clear ideas on what they want to achieve. And unless you are that right match in every way you just aren’t going to be picked.

How do you know if you are the right match? Before you start, you need to be very clear on what your organisation stands for and what it achieves. Then given most grant programs are project based – and very few provide ongoing or operational funding – you need to be very clear on what your project is going to deliver and what they get by giving you a grant. Once you’ve got this worked out, then you can go looking for the government department or charitable foundation offering grants to match your project.

Start searching on the Internet; in many countries, both government and private providers have online portals listing grant programs and funding organisations. But don’t rely on these, you should know your industry and know who the active players are in the funding scene. Go to their events and stay on their newsletters.

When you’ve found a grant program to match, work your way through this process:

1. Keep digging. Thoroughly read the guidelines. Go through them meticulously and when you think you’ve covered everything, read it again. Have someone else read the grant guidelines and compare notes. You want to know exactly what they are looking for. Make a list and start gathering the information.

2. Check out their back-story. How did they get started? Who have they funded in the past? Has something like your project already had funding by this organisation or someone else? If so, why is yours different – and why should yours be funded?

3. Call them. Give the funding organisation’s contact officer a call with very specific questions. Many have strict rules about what they can and can’t say. They have to be fair to all applicants, so they are unlikely to give you any special information. What you want to do is get a feel for their language and culture. You can pick this up from the grant guidelines, reading their website, going to their events, and watching any videos they put out. A call with a person adds another dimension to your understanding.

4. Mirror their language. Get a handle on the language they are using. What’s the difference between ‘output’ and ‘outcome’? If you don’t understand what they mean, check their glossary or call up the contact officer. Then make sure you mirror this back, use the right language in the right place. It’s also a matter of style. There’s no point putting in an application to a charitable foundation with a focus on the arts sounding like a science graduate – unless, of course, you can prove quickly and clearly to them why you are speaking like this and why it matters.

5. Answer the question. Many will have an application form for you to fill in. You need to very clearly and quickly answer each and every one of their questions on the form. Treat it just like doing a final year examination. Go through each question, underline key words, drill down into what they are looking for in that part of the application. Then give it to them.

6. Be clear and detailed. Make it easy for them to understand what you want to do with their money. Tell them clearly why your project matters, and what impact it will have. They also want to be reassured that the project will get delivered, that you have the ability and the capacity to do this work. This means you need to answer in detail: who, what, where, why, when and how.

Who is doing this?

What are you going to do?

Where are you doing this?

Why are you doing it?

When are you doing this?

How are you doing this?

7. Deep understanding. While you are busy being detailed, you also need to firmly place your project within the bigger picture and have a deep understanding of the relevant sector and the issue you are addressing. Make sure you do your research and develop a deep understanding of why your project is absolutely 100% necessary. Then you need to highlight clearly the contribution you want to make. What problem are you fixing and why does fixing this problem matter now? Why should you be the one to get the grant?

8. Your contribution. They want to see how far you are prepared to go to make this happen. Are you just applying for a grant because the money would be nice? Or are you a serious player committed to transforming something that actually matters? Are you serious and have you set aside budget and staff to make this happen?

9. Partner up. A big shift in the last ten years has been the move to greater collaboration and contribution. Funding providers want to see if anyone else thinks this is a good idea too and have put their money and / or staff in to make it happen. They will also want to see the evidence that they have, such as a letter from the partner detailing their contribution.

10. Legal requirements. Many funding providers will only give out funds to incorporated organisations or may have other legal and taxation requirements. Check what these are right up front. If you don’t have the appropriate legal structure you may want to partner with someone who does, or depending on the size of the grant become the right legal entity.

11. Risk Management. They will also need to see that you have the right type and amount of insurance for your line of work, and their own requirements. They will also want to see that you’ve thought about the possible risks to this project and have in place a plan to manage these risks upfront.

12. Get the budget right. You’ve absolutely got to get the budget right, nothing will sink your project faster with the selection panel than a budget which seems way too high or way too low. The budget needs to be as well-researched and articulated as everything else you submit. Get quotes, ask people who will know how much things actually cost. What is this whole project going to cost? What resources do you actually need to deliver this? How much is each going to cost?

You can do everything right and submit a great grant application...and still not get funded. These things are never certain, even if it looks like a perfect match. There’s a lot of competition; the volume of applications will be extremely high. It’s a hard gig.

But don’t despair.

Get feedback from the funding provider, go to the debriefing session for unsuccessful applicants, or call up for a one-on-one chat. You need to find out where the problem was: with the actual project or with the application?

Was the project not the right fit for that organisation? Was there something wrong with the project? Maybe they weren’t convinced of the need for the project or something was off with the budget?

Or maybe it was the application? Maybe you didn’t have the right information or communicate it clearly.

Find out, re-group…and start again. Except this time you’re most of the way there. You have words to work with now.

 

 

How not to kill your passion

 

 

Follow your dreams. Live your passion. Turn something you love into a business.

Is it as easy as that? What’s the reality of following your dreams? How can you protect your passion if you ask it to make money?

Follow your dreams. Live your passion. This sentence seemed to follow me around as a teenager, almost like every adult believed it to be the miracle cure to unhappiness. One hot summer’s day as final year exams crept closer, my mathematics teacher came to life and urged us all to “Do what you love and you’ll never have to work another day in your life again.” I remember little of the formulas or equations she taught. I recall only the urgency of her voice and shadow in her eyes, knowing that her every day was still a workday.

That urgency echoes today. Following your passion is big in the world of business and popular psychology. Follow your passion. Abandon the grey office cubicle and everything will be poolside and palm trees! So then we turn our passion, often our creativity, into a business and expect it to make money. Elizabeth Gilbert speaks poignantly on this in her book Big Magic. She loves writing but didn’t for many years expect it to pay her way. She didn’t want to put pressure on her creativity. She almost makes a case for leaving it alone, and cherishing it for the happiness a good hobby can bring you. Don’t expect your passion to put food on the table.

When it all goes wrong

I took something I loved and thought it would turn into meals eaten and bills paid. I wrote craft books and taught handmade classes, which did sell and make me income for a time. But I spent so much time on it that it didn’t take long for me to…well…really, really hate it with a passion. The pressure of expecting it to generate an income turned it into work. It felt like enforced creativity and that’s a terrible, terrible thing to do to creativity. It works because it is free, and not boxed in by desks and walls and cubicles. Perhaps Elizabeth Gilbert was right. So I left it and walked away. I abandoned it and didn’t come back to it – for fun or work – for several years. At the time, I felt that yes, it is possible to kill your passion.

Should work then have no passion?

There’s two ways to go from here, let it die and live like my grandparents who didn’t expect work to be fulfilling or inspirational. Work was something you did. It paid the bills and then you came home to do what you love. There’s a certain attraction to this and many in the past did live like this: postal clerk by day, jazz expert at night. Many still do. Is this realistic though for the rest of us? We believe that work should have meaning and passion. Without some connection to the work we spend our daylight hours on, how long would we really last?

The other way to go from here is to build a business, or to work, within your field of passion but recognise the perils that lay ahead. Passion needs to be protected from being overworked. Creativity doesn’t live in a box and we need to respect that. If you want to work in your field of passion, you must protect it fiercely.

 

Five ways to protect your passion

Here’s five strategies that let you live your passion but not kill it:

1. Mix it Up a Bit. Spending hours and hours every week working on your business or in your field of passion is not healthy. It’s easy to lose perspective and become narrowly focused. You can lose touch with what’s happening in the rest of the world. New innovations often come from cross-field collaborations. Your passion will benefit from a wide range of influences. Read books, watch films and connect with people outside your field of passion.

2. Take time out. There’s a reason our ancestors fought for eight-hour days. Everyone needs time out. New research is showing that creativity needs space. Taking time out gives you the perspective and the new ideas you need. A few years ago, I had to force myself to stay away from my work for one whole day each week. It was a constant struggle to make a new habit of screen free time on Sundays. Now it’s just what I do and I come back to work on Monday with new clarity.

3. The Artist’s Model. It can put a lot of pressure on something you love to pay the mortgage and feed the family, particularly if you turn it into a business with all the ups and downs of start-ups and cash flow. At least until you have proof of income, at the right level for you, cultivate multiple streams of income. Keep your day job and take the passion part-time. Work two jobs, the one that pays the bills, and the one that you love. Many artists and actors have a long history of doing this.

4. Always learning. Just because you love doing it doesn’t mean it will be a viable business. Step out from your love for the passion. Ask other people’s opinions, and people who will actually know. Sometimes hard work doesn’t pay off and a passion cannot be turned into a viable business. But the things you learn can be useful for other endeavours. What do you love about your passion? What skills has it given you? Where can you take those skills now?

5. It’s not your only thing. Having one passion, and working on it, places a lot of pressure on that to be your ‘everything’ – money earner, muse, creative outlet and more. There is a popular thought that argues that passion actually comes from doing something well. You develop a love for it as you grow your skills. Rather than just having one passion, cultivate and learn new skills. You never know, they may turn into a new passion in years to come.

Following your passion is not as simple as my mathematics teacher’s hope. Treating your passion, and your creativity, with respect recognises that following your dreams may just turn out to be a little bit more complex.

A thoughtful visitor said...

 

Free gifts – hallmarks of the Internet hustle and cosmetic counter. Rarely are free gifts given without a catch but author Bill Bryson has given the museums sector a wonderful free gift in his book The Road to Little Dribbling - More Notes from a Small Island. He visits a number of museums and historic sites in his meanderings through the United Kingdom. In his signature fashion pairing humour with knowledge and stories, Bryson honestly tells us what he thinks of each place he visits. This is very useful for museums, visitor research without having to ask anyone or employ anybody. Yes, he is just one visitor but he is such a thoughtful visitor who shares his views in depth.

We can learn from such a considered report, so I’ve pulled out five lessons from Bryson’s observations on a few of the museums he visits. Each lesson has wider application for our own endeavours where ever we are.

 

1. Interest + Price = Good Value

The visitor likes good value and it's even better when that good value comes with something worth seeing. One of the first places Bryson visits is Leighton House, London. He likes it ‘…immediately, not least because my ticket price was reduced…on account of my great age.’ Bryson describes the former home and studio of artist Frederic Leighton as ‘…interestingly eccentric…’ and ‘… a cross between a pasha’s den and a New Orleans bordello…’. (The Road to Little Dribbling, page 53)

 

2. Try not to stand in the way of the experience

Bryson visits Avebury, National Trust owned village and World Heritage listed Neolithic site, which he describes as ‘…both awesome and entrancing…’. But he only awards these words to the site after a detailed description of all the blocks that get in the way of the experience. There is very little signage or interpretative information. If you want information, you have to buy it as a map or guidebook. This is in addition to the entry fees to the different parts of the site. I suspect Bryson may not have been ‘…so slightly grumpy …’ if the ticket price was more inclusive and included some package of items, rather than having to pay separately for each bit. (The Road to Little Dribbling, pages 134-136)

 

3. Museums aren’t shopping malls

His visit to the Natural History Museum in London captures so many of the issues facing museums and galleries today. The need to be financially viable competes with the more traditional magic we have offered for centuries. Bryson is deeply, deeply unhappy with the changes at the Natural History Museum, including the replacement of the animal displays he loved with food for sale. Bryson says ‘Slowly it dawned on me what is going on here. The Natural History Museum can’t afford to be a museum anymore, so the directors are stealthily turning it into a food court.’ He does have words of praise for the exhibition he came to see which ‘…was everything an exhibition should be, thoughtful, informative, engaging, soothingly lit, blissfully quiet’ and full of objects which had never been brought together before in meaningful ways.

It’s always nice to have your own opinions validated by others but I do think Bryson is on to something here. Museums shouldn’t try to be a shopping centre, for a start we don’t have the budget or the staff to compete, and it’s also not what we are good at. Gift shops and cafes have their place, but that’s not why we exist. (The Road to Little Dribbling, pages 194-195)

 

4. Creating (useful) enchantment

Which leads me onto two other museums Bryson visits, this time the Natural History Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. Both achieve what we all, I suspect, hope to achieve: to be so interesting and enticing that the visitor can’t help but stay. Bryson says ‘I only intended to have a quick look around both museums, but stayed for nearly three hours and still hadn’t seen half of what I wanted to see. It wasn’t just that both are endlessly interesting, but that they are actually useful.’ If your visitors left a similar comment you would be absolutely delighted. ‘I have never learned so much so quickly and so painlessly…for a minute I knew and was enchanted.’ (The Road to Little Dribbling, page 235)

 

5. The power of good storytelling

Still in Oxford, Bryson moves onto the Ashmolean, for which he has nothing but praise describing ‘every room’ as a place of ‘…wonderful things exquisitely displayed…’. With its focus on art and archaeology, Bryson notes that he has no particular interest in statues but that he was pulled into the story, a story well told, of the statues, ‘…but the story of assembling and near loss of the collection, told in a series of panels, is so absorbing that I found myself reading each and then studying the statues in between. And the next thing I knew an hour was gone.’ (The Road to Little Dribbling, page 238)

I have, at different times and places, stood in museums and watched how long visitors stand and watch a film, read a label or engage with an object. And it is really not very long, so for Bill Bryson to be so attracted to a story, about a subject he didn’t have a particular interest in, is testament to why museums still exist today.

We tell stories of meaning.

We tell stories that help us understand our world.

We tell stories that matter.

Shopping malls don’t do that.

Published: Museum + Heritage Advisor UK

The Venice of the East

The busy port of Melaka, two-hours south of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was called the Venice of the East. Now a thriving cultural destination, the footprints of many cultures are mapped out on the streets of the city.

Melaka was called the Venice of the East, as it was the Asian destination to trade exotic spices and fabrics. Sheltered from typhoons, the city became a safe port for traders from China, India and the Middle East. By the early 15^th century, over 2000 ships were in port from November to March, as they bought, sold and waited for the winds to change homeward. This port was the Dubai of its day. Everyone had something to sell. The Chinese sold tea and porcelain, the Persians carpets and medicine, and the Indians cotton and ivory.

Traders didn't just buy, sell, and go home again. Many stayed and brought their culture with them. Melaka maps these cultures in the footprint and heritage of the city. Little India’s tiny shops, selling vegetables, spices, and sequins, squeeze side by side down narrow streets. Across the river, Chinatown’s crowded streets are lined with traditional trades: lantern making, paper cutting, tinsmiths and barrel making. There is even a shop producing shoes in the traditional style for bound feet, just collectors’ items today. At the end of Jonker Street, the main road, Kampung Kling Mosque sits next to the Indian Hindi Temple. Both places were built in the mid-1700s and continue to welcome worshippers today.

Over the centuries, Chinese men married local Malay Muslim women forming the Baba-Nonya. Boys born to Baba-Nonya parents were raised Chinese in dress, custom and religion while the girls were raised as Malay Muslims. The former home of a wealthy 19^th century trading family, the Baba-Nonya Heritage Museum, shows this distinctive blended way of life. In keeping with seclusion practices, the outer reception rooms of the house were for the men and guests with women holding the inner rooms. The outer rooms are conventional and closed. The inner open-air courtyard is large, cool and attractive. It was the heart of the home for cooking, relaxing, cleaning and bathing.

Back in the centre of town, Europeans left buildings of a different, often more formal kind. St Paul’s Church sits on the small hill, on the site of the original Portuguese fort, and welcomes the warm sea breeze blowing in from the Straits of Malacca. In 1511 the Portuguese waged war on the local Malaysian sultans to wrestle control of this lucrative trading port, but were soon replaced by the Dutch. They built the Stadhuys, a large red set of offices and meeting rooms, which now dominates the intersection between Chinatown and Little India. The Dutch seceded the port to the British in 1846. They promoted Melaka’s trading potential enthusiastically and efficiently reused existing buildings.

A perfect way to see the inheritance of this cultural blend is the boat cruise, which follows the river up through the old town. 18-storey hotels and apartment blocks contrast with the red tin roofs of the original and still inhabited Malay village, Kampung Morten. Portuguese churches and Dutch townhouses sit next to Chinese restaurants and Indian spice shops. Twelve ornate wooden painted bridges bring an Art Nouveau touch to the old town. The city’s built heritage is a witness to the different people transplanted here. But as dusk falls, the final call to prayer sounds out from the mosque’s turret across the city, a reminder that not all culture is transmitted by bricks and wood alone.