Editorial: October 2009

Last month the Museums Association's (MA) ethics committee ruled on Southampton City Council's plans to sell works of art from its collection to fund a new museum development (see link below).

The committee said that although the council had met some of the MA's requirements for sale it had not met them all, in particular the criteria that such a sale should be a last resort. Part of the reason for this is that the committee didn't think all avenues for funding had been thoroughly exhausted.

Obviously it's a cold funding climate at the moment but that shouldn't stop the money being sought. Only last month Nick Serota at the Tate was bullishly confident that it could raise the £215m needed for Tate 2, even though only a third of the money is in the bag so far.

And Southampton should consider that some funders, the Heritage Lottery Fund included, might get cold feet if they think the council is ready and willing to sell parts of the collection in order to get the new cultural quarter off the ground.

There is concern that even if the motivation for this sale is genuine, what it will signal to other local authorities is that it is permissible to sell bits of the collection as long as there is a swanky new museum or gallery on offer.

Whatever the outcome in this case it is healthy that there can be an open debate about sale and disposal in the sector. For most museums and galleries though it is not a question of what to sell but how to manage what they already have.

Attitudes to disposal and collections management have moved on but it would be interesting to know how many collection reviews have been conducted, what the results have been, and how much stuff, if anything, has actually been got rid of.

Museums and galleries can not carry on collecting and expanding indefinitely. The big question, that all museums should be considering, is whether new developments are economically and environmentally sustainable in the long run.

sharon@museumsassociation.org