Located about 300 km west of Melbourne, the rural city of Hamilton is facing tough times. It’s agricultural legacy, for so long the lifeblood of the town, is struggling and the population is stagnating. The local council believes that diversification of industry is the answer to ensure the town’s future and has backed a proposed $50m redevelopment of the Hamilton Art Gallery.

Predictably, this new development has met with anger from some local residents who claim the council is out of touch with them. They argue that the money would be spent on roads, health and education rather than on elitist pursuits. The director of Hamilton Gallery, Joshua White wants to bring the gallery to the people and give them a sense of ownership of the redevelopment.

"This art gallery only exists because of the cultural and historical history of this place … we're not changing the identity, we're amplifying it and putting it on a national scale," he says.

This matter brings to mind a blog I posted some time ago about a massive new performing and visual arts development in North Adams, Massachusetts, USA called MassMoCa (Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art). North Adams was on its knees following the closure of the local electronics industry in 1985. At its height, the Sprague Electric Company employed over 4000 people in a community of 18000 but cheap imports from Asia killed it. The factories themselves date back to the late 19th century when they started out as a print works.

Plans to transform the factory complex date back to the year after Sprague closed, 1986, when staff from the nearby Williams College Museum of Art were inspecting the facility as a suitable venue to exhibit large scale contemporary art that couldn’t be displayed in a more traditional gallery setting. They realised the buildings had much more potential than as an offshoot gallery. Several years of fundraising followed, including grants from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and MassMoCa opened in 1999 with 19 galleries and 9,300 m2 of exhibition space which has since more than doubled with subsequent expansions. In addition to housing galleries and performance art spaces, it also rents spaces to commercial tenants. Music festivals are also held there.

Part of Joshua White’s strategy for the revamped Hamilton Art Gallery is to have spaces dedicated for children. It's part of his vision to bring the gallery to the people and make it a space Hamilton residents feel belongs to all of them.

It’s a sad fact that currently, there is only sufficient space for the gallery to exhibit 1% of its total collection which amounts to almost 10000 pieces. Some of these pieces tell the story of the region and this needs to be communicated to the residents in order to give them a sense of ownership over the new space. Works from the gallery are regularly loaned to major galleries across the country.

In making the case for the new gallery, Joshua White points to other towns that have gained significant social and economic benefits from investment in the arts, such as Newcastle, Shepparton and Byron Bay. But he is facing considerable push back from some in the community. However a recent major exhibition at the gallery “led to a record increase in tourism and boosted visitor spending by more than $1 million each month of its four-month run.”

To fund the new development, the Southern Grampians Shire Council is seeking $30m in grants from Federal and state governments and another $30m in philanthropic donations, with council spending capped at $10m.

References;

ABC News

Can The Arts Revive A Community?

Sad Case of the Lost “America”