Laura Vodanovich: Visual literacy essential today

Laura Vodanovich, new director of MTG in Napier.

ON THE back of a wonderful Easter and school-holiday period I thought it might be timely to talk about who comes to MTG and what role we play in the community arts and leisure offering.

To quote Jenny Harper, director of Christchurch Art Gallery: "Art galleries are not 'nice-to-have' institutions in any city. Like libraries, they are needed to extend the visual literacy of their communities; like museums, they are needed to extend understandings of our identity and sense of place. Art is tangible and real. Art galleries provide cultural, social, educational and economic benefits to a city."

MTG offers a place where visitors can learn about local history, where children can discover their connection to place, where forgotten or hidden stories can be discovered and where social engagement can occur.

We provide educational programmes for schools, public talks and events and interactive activities for children.

Among our many roles we also provide inspiration for artists and can challenge and uplift visitors through demanding artwork, re-seeing the familiar, or simply by providing some beauty to be admired and enjoyed.

Looking at objects and art on television or in books in no way compares to standing in front of the real thing. I don't know about you, but I personally find the pekapeka (neck ornaments) in the pounamu exhibition simply stunning, and every time I stop to look at them my soul gets a lift.

Institutions such as ours provide a place to take visitors to show them some of the history, culture and art of Hawke's Bay. We provide a break from the more physical attractions that Hawke's Bay has to offer and provide something for mind, spirit and soul.

We, hopefully, also provide a place of pride for Hawke's Bay residents - something to be proud of and something which they wish to show off to their visitors. After all, this is your collection on display and it is a collection to be proud of - our exhibitions are primarily collections based or sourced from within the local community. People sometimes forget, or just don't realise, that our institutions provide a social space where visitors can meet, engage, laugh, cry and feel.

Since reopening, MTG's visitor split has been broadly 20 per cent local and 80 per cent non-local. While, on one hand, this sounds great - a large number of non-locals visiting the institution, this is not the demographic split I would want to see over time.

Non-local visitation is entirely dependent on tourism, economic factors and variables beyond the control of MTG. So if tourism to Hawke's Bay should drop for some unforeseeable reason, MTG's visitation is directly linked to that. But, of primary consideration, MTG needs to be relevant and important to and embraced by our local community.

What I am hoping will happen naturally over time is that the percentage share will change to show a greater percentage of locals visiting MTG while, at the same time, our visitor numbers increase. So, for example, if we currently have 100 visitors per day, then 20 of them will be local and 80 will be non-local. If we make the two shifts I am hoping we will make, then our visitor numbers will increase, say to 200 visitors per day, 80 of them would be local (40 per cent) and 120 would be non-local (60 per cent). This does a number of things - provides a more stable base for our visitation and means we are relevant, engaging and inspiring our local communities. Who wouldn't want that?

Laura Vodanovich is the director of the Museum Theatre Gallery (MTG) Hawke's Bay.