University of Tasmania, Australia

ARC Linkage Project - Creating the Bilbao Effect: MONA and the Social and Cultural Coordinates of Urban Regeneration Through Arts Tourism

Two PhD Scholarship Opportunities

MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) has been described as the most important cultural event in recent Australian history only topped perhaps by the opening of the Sydney Opera House. It has achieved international recognition not only for its astonishing innovation in generating new ways in which art can be experienced but also in generating the kind of economic benefits that create a platform for significant and sustainable urban regeneration. This project is dedicated to discovering how these impacts and effects happened and how they can be capitalized on and grown.

We are seeking to recruit two PhD students to this high profile and exciting new project. They will be based in Faculty of Arts at the University of Tasmania with excellent access to MONA and top level training and supervision by leading experts. They will join a team of four PhDs attached to the project with the one based in each of Monash University and the University of Melbourne. Here is an opportunity to conduct research within a major Australian Research Council Linkage Project with enthusiastic industry partners. Working with this team of leading researchers and two other PhD students you will be conducting research in one of two components of the project:

Either:

1. Investigating the impact of the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) on visitors to MONA and the wider impacts it has had on tourism as well as the likely future potential benefits that MONA offers to tourism generally (in Hobart and Tasmania especially, and more broadly to regional Australia and beyond).

OR

2. Investigating MONA’s capacity to deliver the benefits of a major art gallery beyond its traditional middle class educated audience to a more democratized demographic as well as distribute more evenly the economic benefits of a world class museum and art gallery to all sectors of the city and all of its citizens.

You will therefore be working within an established investigative and methodological framework, with experienced supervision, a team working environment, and an active partnership with leading local arts and policy organisations.

The project is led by Prof. Adrian Franklin (University of Tasmania) with fellow Chief Investigators Prof. Justin O’Connor (Monash University) and Prof. Nikos Papastergiadis (University of Melbourne). Industry partners are MONA itself, Hobart City Council, Glenorchy City Council and the Tasmanian Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Arts.

The University of Tasmania is offering Elite Scholarships to two students (over $30,000 per annum tax free) and all students will have the benefit of instruction, training and supervision from this illustrious and experienced team of senior academics. The successful students might be from several academic backgrounds (cultural studies, museum studies, tourist studies, sociology, social anthropology, human geography, urban studies, regional studies and others) have an interest in and  knowledge of academic and policy debates around art galleries, cultural tourism, urban cultural policy, cultural and creative industries and/or arts-led urban regeneration. They would be expected to conduct research under Aims Two and Three below, but bring their own perspective, interests and experience to the project.

Project Description and Aims

Since opening in January 2011, MONA has attracted very high visitor numbers and praise from the international art community. This project will assist the cities of Hobart and Glenorchy and the state of Tasmania to address its falling visitor numbers and faltering economy by planning and developing supportive infrastructure for MONA that will maximise its potential to attract tourists and consolidate earnings from art tourism (a Bilbao Effect). The research will analyse why this innovative and unorthodox gallery is so successful, how this knowledge can be used to reorder and grow a peripheral ring of creative industries and tourism, and how a Bilbao Effect can be embedded as part of local governance.

1. To situate MONA within a wider museological and curatorial shift from pedagogy and chronology to experience and theatricality.
2. To determine what kind of publics are being attracted to MONA, and to critically analyse what kinds of experience the gallery provides, drawing on conceptual models from cultural tourism to address its twin themes of sex and death, its creation of liminal spaces and its ritualised choreography of visitor engagement.
3. To probe MONA’s wider economic, social and cultural impact and to assess its potential for growth.
4. Based on these findings, to develop a strategic framework within which to organise city and state marketing, visitor experience (cultural and other events and facilities), arts and creative industry development, and other major infrastructural projects. In sum, to determine how governance structures and communities might sustainably adapt the Bilbao effect to their specific requirements.

For more details contact Professor Adrian Franklin on (03) 6226 7241.