The Parramatta Powerhouse, and the cultural institutions that could've filled the space
Despite the circumstances surrounding its creation, I genuinely want the Parramatta Powerhouse Museum to succeed.
Western Sydney is desperately underserved when it comes to cultural institutions, and the Powerhouse will hopefully begin to close the gap.
And Parramatta can't genuinely the second CBD in NSW without a world-class cultural institution.
But at the same time... I have questions.
And they only grow deeper reading this feature article in the Sydney Morning Herald:
Construction giant Lendlease has begun the phased handover of the Moreau Kusunoki-designed building’s two main exhibition halls, as chief executive Lisa Havilah locks in a rotating schedule of massive, immersive, temporary blockbuster shows.
Under Havilah, the new Powerhouse is primed for the TikTok generation, for audiences who may have felt excluded from traditional institutions, and for multicultural communities largely absent from the museum’s collection.
In these respects, Havilah sits at the vanguard of a cohort of cultural leaders rejecting the “neutral temple of expertise” model in favour of self-aware museums that foreground multiple perspectives and points of view.
The Art Gallery of NSW, Australian Museum and National Gallery of Australia have all flirted with these postmodern ideas – from Mike Hewson’s Tank Gallery playground to Lego-built exhibitions – but none occupy a building designed expressly to “upend the hierarchy of the museum”, as Havilah puts it.
Critics argue that she has abandoned the museum’s core business and legislated core purpose in pursuit of “shallow entertainments”, dismissing the Powerhouse as “Carriageworks west”, the multi-arts centre she once led.
So what exactly is the Powerhouse supposed to be?
Is the Powerhouse supposed to be a relocation of the previous Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo?
If so, should it have a permanent collection of science and technology artefacts, like the old Ultimo Powerhouse had?
Is it a museum?
Well, given Parra's role in Australia's colonial history, it's a brilliant spot for it.
So, why not make the focus on the Burramattagal-Dharug people, including their pre-colonial culture, the story of colonisation from their perspective, and a celebration of their ongoing survival.
Or a museum talking about the history of colonisation from the convict's perspective, a short distance from many of the sites where that history happened, such as Old Government Farm, the Experiment Farm, Hambledon Cottage, and Elizabeth Farm. Make it an institution that ties those locations together.
Or perhaps a museum that celebrates the multiculturalism of Western Sydney, akin to the Immigration Museum in Melbourne.
Or even better, it could be a single museum with all three themes covered in permanent exhibitions.
Is it an art gallery?
If that's the case, why not provide the large exhibition space and state government funding to existing local institutions, such as the PARI artist-run gallery? You could give it a permanent collection space, as well as room for exhibitions.
Perhaps provide space in the building for a relocated and co-located Parramatta Artists Studios, Arts & Cultural Exchange, and the Parramatta Arts Society.
Since there's two buildings as part of this project, you could easily have room to do both.
So one building is an expanded PARI, and the other is the Parramatta History Museum.
Instead, we have one institution that kinda tries to do both, but ends up doing neither.
The risk is that it will have a large initial launch budget, fail to deliver on expectations, and then suffer a death from 1000 cuts.
I hope I'm wrong on that last point, and that it will all slide into place once it opens.
And perhaps there is room for some of those other cultural institutions to open down the track.
Arguably, it may become more likely to happen if Powerhouse proves a strong latent interest in the arts in Western Sydney.
So, despite the circumstances surrounding its creation, I genuinely want the Parramatta Powerhouse Museum to succeed.
#Parramatta #art #museum #powerhouse #NSWpol #auspol