Steven Miles: Culture, consumption and the post-industrial city

Successful experiences are about allowing an individual to script their own story

New Visions -seminaari Logomossa 11.10.2018

  • New Visions oli Historian museo Turkuun -hankkeen järjestämä kansainvälinen seminaari, jossa käsiteltiin tulevaisuuden museoita kaupunkisuunnittelun, arkkitehtuurin ja sisältöjen esittämisen näkökulmista. Julkaisemme videotallenteet puheenvuoroista YouTubessa ja blogissamme. Videotallenteet eivät ole tekstitettyjä, mutta blogin yhteydestä löytyy puheenvuorot litteroituina.

First of all, thanks for inviting me here today. It's a pleasure to be here. My session might have a slightly different approach, which we'll hopefully add to proceedings. What I want to talk about today is the role of culture and specifically museums in the re-invention of the so-called post-industrial city. So, I approach this subject as a sociologist, and as somebody who has undertaken various research projects on culture interventions including millions of pounds of investment on Newcastle Gateshead quayside. And also, the design of, the evaluation of European capital of culture in Liverpool in 2008. Another good reason to be here in Turku today. But I'm less of an evaluator of culture impacts, and more a sociologist of consumption. In other words, what I'm interested in is, how and why we consume and how the consumption of culture, for example, forges particular human relationships with the urban fabric. And that's what I'm going to explore today. 

My first point is that buildings for the consumption of culture are effectively become sights of contestation. First of all, they're clearly important for their symbolic value, as well as for their everyday practical use. A building has a value as a form of marketing for a city for example. And there is always a danger that that overshadows the everyday use of that building. So, a building becomes associated with a particular rhetoric. All buildings become more important, arguably, as signifiers than as physical structures that fit in the urban structure. And this is an idea that sort of underpins what I want to say today. The other point to make is that culture-led re-generation can never clearly be a solution. It's not a solution for economic problems. As an isolated activity, it can never alone be enough. Nor is its role in stimulating broader economic activity, or, its impact on stimulating broader economic activity, nor has that been fully established. It's still a big question mark after that, all these years after we've been operating in this way. The trickle-down-effects of culture-led re-generation may in fact be relatively minor. The danger of that end-result I detect in minor, is probably the product of culture re-generation often not being part of the bigger plan. Culture works when it’s part of a coherent bigger picture that a city is seeking to put into place. The danger here then is that instead of culture-led re-generation leading to a net-transfer of wealth to society as a whole; that transfer is simply into private hands. And this is my concern as a critical sociologist. How you insure the building of a museum, the building of a cultural centre or whatever it might be, has maximum impact for the maximum amount of people. Neo-liberal culture-lead re-generation has arguably become a primary motivator in itself. Rather than something that sits in the broader context. And this process is exaggerated by the public legitimacy, the public organizations bring to such projects. Often such projects are built upon an assumption, that what they are doing is in the public interest. Where what I'm arguing today is that that public interest is something that is hard earned, is won over a long period of time, and hopefully this event today is evidence of that happening in Turku. To put this another way. The building of a museum isn't simply about designing a new building, it's about designing a building that re-enforces, that adds or potentially detracts from how we imagine ourselves to be. In this context, Barcelona is a good example. Some critics have argued, such as Delgado, that Barcelona is the liar city. They argue that its apparently widely successful culturally driven marketing campaign has effectively become diminished by its own brand. In fact focusing on its Mediterranean identity, focusing on Gaudi, these things focus on particular cultural elements at the expense of a more significant industrial economy and political rebelliousness. To clarify what I'm saying about that, to focus on the obvious, by focusing on cultural signifiers that sort of capture the imagination immediately, the argument is that Barcelona has sort of spoiled itself. And what it's done is undermine what makes Barcelona Barcelona, in particular this question of political rebelliousness that underpins the city. In other words, Barcelona has arguably become all about the consumption of culture rather than about the production of culture. There's been a lack of cultural investment in production, and the rising cost of living in the area has resulted in a process of gentrification. The old red-light-district of Barcelona's Barrio Cino was transformed as part of this process, into a new cultural quarter. New planning, regulations, required residence to be often alternative accommodation nearby. And this created a particular social process. Not all the people who lived in that area were able to stay. And arguably what came out of this process was a very homogenized and sanitized feel to the space in this area.  There is always a concern then, with culture-led re-generation, that there's a process of aestheticization going on. Shops catering for local needs being surpassed by art galleries, designer bars, boutiques, hair-dressers, etc. and leadings to an erosion of what makes a place what it really is. As a quotation there, shamelessly I've quoted myself twice, but my excuse is, that it's the other Miles, it's not my brother or my relation, just coincidence that wrote these bits so it's not actually me. But the difficulty for visitors is that El Raval seems to become a finished space. And I think it's really important that a notion that you couldn't construct a place that is finished, and you present to the world, this new museum, it's done. Well, it's only done when it becomes a lived reality. And a danger that such places become stages rather than lived spaces, stages for the new cultural and professional elite’s performance of their public lives. That is the cardinal sin I would say, of culture-led re-generation, that cultural buildings become a product of the imaginations of the elite middle-class. And this is a danger to be avoided I would suggest. The reason it's a danger to be avoided is that what this process ends up achieving is undermining what makes a place special in the first place. This is an experience I had directly when I worked with Liverpool city council, designing the evaluation of European capital of culture. We had our first meeting with the council three years before European Capital of Culture happened. And in that meeting the first thing they said to us, we want you to prove that this is the best Capital of Culture ever. And it's three years before anybody would even know what the whole thing was. But the point here is that such messages were part of a broader process that Liverpool city council was engaged in. A process that I would describe as effectively white-washing. White-washing what was perceived to be the less palatable elements of Liverpool's cultural history. Liverpool, to me, having lived there, is a city of tensions. Tensions around geographical exclusion from the South. Around slavery. Around football-hooliganism. Various aspects of Liverpool life, that the city council, and also, its' also in Britain a sort of focus of humorous attention. Like the phrase that Liverpool is full of car-thieves. And comedic scousers with their sort of blond wigs. These are stereotypes that British people have in the past had of Liverpool.

Now, to me, these are the things that make Liverpool magical, these tensions. But for the city council, they prefer to pretend that, none of this was going on. The danger of this approach, though understandable, is that the end result is a city that becomes just like any other. So, this notion that you can create a world-class city. Well, what does it mean to be world-class? What it means to be world-class, is something from within. Not something as is the danger, that you import from outside. The threat is that the city becomes just another city with global pretentions. And the one that betrays its history in the process. So, that what makes it special is lost. When the past needs to be remembered and embraced. And the number one part of that process is a recognition that cities are arenas of struggle. They're not these false places of ideal existence that we tend to present. What these developments allegedly demonstrate, is an emptying out of memory and of history. The potential for meaningful activity in social space are being redefined by architecture. In a way that culture then becomes instrumental and stifled. It's great, the idea of having a cultural centre, or whatever description, but only if it's imaginative and creative, of the place, rather than being this sort of stifled instrument of economic and cultural activity. The concern here is that culture and in particular heritage can only be packaged within this context, within this model, in a user-friendly way that is ultimately, inevitably artificial. This is the challenge, to prevent that artificiality. The danger is that our urban fabric is so over-powered by space, that it effectively becomes themed by culture. The real city disappears from view, in favour of a themed view or a themed version of its self. This is what city museums in particular should surely avoid. A sense that they become a sort of clichéd version of themselves. And I'll sort of describe what I mean by that now. An obvious example of this, was the museum of Liverpool that opened in 2011.

As I've already pointed out, there are concerns about how Liverpool in the past has been portrayed, a city of humour, of scouse wit, of the Beatles, etc., etc. And I once attended an architect's talk, the original architect of the museum, and asked him about his plans what was going to go inside the museum. And what he said was, basically, yes, one floor is for football and another is for the Beatles. To me, what he wanted to present to the world was not Liverpool but the clichés upon which Liverpool had been built. The clichés through which people understood Liverpool. And now, that's exactly how that museum feels. It feels like a museum of clichés. It's not a museum of excitement and adventure but one of “oh, that's what I knew Liverpool was about”. And it's not challenged what I thought originally. Place brand then are vulnerable to such clichés, and can only be really successful if they are implemented in the multidimensional integrated fashion that takes account of a place's complexities. I think that is a real challenge for a museum to go for, not for the obvious, for the easily consumable, but go for the complicated, go for the challenge. Go for something that makes people think in ways they never imagined they would before they entered the place. The danger to be averted here, is of an image being impoverished by standardization. For example, I'd say this myself, there's nothing more dangerous than parachuting in experts whose legitimacy is more determined by their expertise than their relationship to the locality. We talked earlier about the need for a participatory approach to constructing this brand or constructing a notion of a cultural space. Something that I will return to shortly. But of course, in order for a museum to be successful the success needs to be more than symbolic. The building and what it stands for, represents a city but it plays is key role in how the people of that city perceive themselves, both symbolically and in real everyday life at the same time. Perhaps one way of understanding this process then is to see the people who engage with the museum as consumers that bring to that space particular views or ways of thinking.

We live in a society in which marketing techniques are becoming increasingly sophisticated and in which consumers are increasingly appealed to through these ways. Symbolically, and through themed environments. But what's interesting about this process is that the environment as itself as well as the products, rides or the attractions that we use or visited are actively presented to us as themed environments. Themed environments designed to actualize peoples' consumer self. So that the experience that people have isn't just any old random experience, it's an individualized experience. So, I guess the success of a new museum depends on its ability to tap into this consumer self but to do so in a way that isn't alienating. For example, Sharon Zukin talks about pacification by cappuccino. A sort of process where you construct a cultural space and around that provide the inevitable gift shop, the inevitable cafe but then it becomes bland and unintelligible. There's a danger of over-presenting the museum as a space for consumption which doesn't allow consumers to bring their own resources, their own interpretations, and their own, for want of a better phrase, their own cultural capital of whatever form to the place that they're visiting. What it becomes then, for example, a lot of river-front developments around the world, what that museum becomes then is a place for a particular kind, usually middle-class, consumption. What I'm describing here is a process of cultural sustainability. And the notion that museums aren't neutral entities, they're are part of a cultural system which selectively renders certain aspects of cultural visible, while rendering other elements invisible. The history the history museum presents, is not THE history, it's A history. It's really important, you know, obviously the decision-making, what that history is. Because there is no one history that can be identified.

Just to refer to some of the practical challenges here. A museum is one stakeholder amongst many. And operates within complex power-structures. Each stakeholder has a version of what they think might be important in such decision-making processes. Each decides what they think is important and what should be preserved for future generations, and what represents the material, immaterial proof of a country's heritage. In this sense culture is inevitably political. Notably, the way that people see themselves in the past is a political process, because it constructs how they see themselves in the present. For this reason, I think it's very important in particular to work very closely with pre-existing cultural venues and museums. To help to encourage some kind of an integrated version of what Turku or any other city might be all about. That that version of history is sustainable and it's clear as to what should be preserved and why. I guess what I'm saying here is that museums ideally should look beyond their own four walls. I guess that's an obvious statement to make. But to understand the bigger picture of how it is that the economic and the cultural as well as other policy-domained intersect into the business of the museum. What needs to be avoided in that sense is an imposition of one version of history, that then needs to be assimilated into other versions of history that belong to the local population. Perhaps the key challenge of any decision-making process, and certainly is one that is no doubt concerning developments in Turku today, is the location of a museum. In 2014 Augusti looked at museum locations in Barcelona, Paris and Turin, and argued that location of a new museum in an area that was already consolidated, already build up, already a success, would likely have absolutely no impact on the re-generation of that territory. The argument of that point of view is that a museum should always go in a place that needs to a push-up, needs a change. Not a place that is already succeeding. Noting that museums cannot be a single-handed solution to the woes of social and economic decline, from this point of view, cultural investment cannot succeed in isolation. In other words, it needs to be part of this bigger strategic plan that the area around the museum can also benefit from. The need there then is clearly to achieve consensus around a museum project. With an eye-catching but not necessarily eye-soaring design with a relatively neutral thematic content. I mentioned the guy who, the original architect of the Liverpool museum. Terrible faux pas to an architect, I said:  “I congratulate you on your building, it's not overly iconic”. And that was actually meant as a compliment. That it looked amazing, it fitted into a landscape and it wasn't like a soar, like, you know, to me the Bau-whatever is like somewhere that's placed there and looks hideous and then they pretend it’s great art. He was deeply defensive, and I was surprised I wasn't escorted from the room. But anyway. It's a need to avoid the over showy architecture. But also, we've talked already about engaging local citizens in the process, and that that shouldn’t be a defensive process. You know, it shouldn't be a process of silencing criticism actively, but rather about active participation. Not only establishing the museum, but then managing it afterwards. Local people should ideally be involved in that process post the opening. And this is a laudable ambition but very, very rarely happens. Like you've done your job, now you've designed it, now leave it to the professionals. But I think it's much more likely to be a success, if those local people are kept on-board and not only part of the vision but also the reality. More often than not, participatory elements of such planning tend to just pay lip-service to the public [? 00:22:49] stages where lots of key decisions haven’t been made. What happens, is that the interest of the city, effectively become identified with non-representative members of the business elite and a privileged social groups. Museums become not the product of actual people in the participation, they're like a mirage for what's going on behind the scene. Which is obviously quite dangerous. It's also important to remember the political context in which such developments come about. The locally specific, you might describe as the art of government, often these days tied to processes of Neo-liberal urbanization. So, for example, [? 00:23:37] look at forms of governmentality that lie behind the development of Hamburg's Albert Philharmonic Hall. And they argue that what emerged around the Philharmonic Hall was a form of urban governance that was built on entrepreneurial consensus. But the end-product of that was a neglectful the specifics of space. So, this was a process, and again it was arguably legitimating a particular version of re-generation, that was intended, consciously or unconsciously, to vindicate this notion of mega project. To convince citizens of the virtues of completive approach to create this Neo-liberal vision of success in Hamburg. And in the process created an illusion of harmony, an illusion of harmonious community. And effectively used culture as a form of propaganda. I realize now I'm standing like some kind of extreme market Marxist. But hopefully, you'll get my point and realize I'm not.

But certainly, the role of starchitects, for example, are an example of this process. These starry-eyed architects, who bring in the mix excessive symbolic value to notions of what Neo-liberal re-generation might look like. It’s in this context authors such as [? 00:25:19 have noted that this new ubiquitous place-marketing-strategy, constituted through iconic architecture has created what he calls an architecture of the diminishing. Basically the more we produce such buildings, the more we homogenize our cities. One iconic museum could sit in one city just as easily sit in another. In another way, another label that has been given is autistic architecture. Architecture that pretends to have strong relationship to the city but in reality, has no relationship at all. And this is part of a broader process in how we manage cities from a logic of democracy and managerialism towards one of the market place, and towards seeing the city as a place or a space for entrepreneurial activity. Of course, one of the key debates that we've already touched upon today around the success of contemporary museum space centres around experience. So, you may well be familiar or heard of the work of Pine and Gilmore, who have suggested that experiences represent a crucial genre of economic output in a post-industrial society. In this context, the successful staging of experiences is an essential element of any organization, wishing to develop a cultural stroke themed space. And quotation there: “In the emergent experiencing economy companies must realize they make memories, not goods, and create the stage for generating greater economic value, not deliver services. It is time to get your act together, for goods and services are no longer enough. Customer now want experiences and they're willing to pay admission for them.” In effect, culture is not enough. It needs to be a part of a broader experience that compel and captivate the consumer. Another way of putting that is that successful theming, successful experiences are about allowing an individual to script their own story and to be part of a story that wouldn't be complete without that guest's participation.

In this context culture for culture's sake has no longer any use. It has to be active, it has to be experiential. Now, [? 00:28:03 looked at how the experience economy developed in Scandinavia, and specifically in Denmark, and argues, the concept of the experience economy has been adopted in Denmark in a particular kind of interesting way. They've adopted Pine and Gilmore's approach to the experience economy, in terms of the presentation of culture, and they have done so according to also a model, rightly or wrongly around the so-called success, of Britain's creative industries. Which has also been an influence on their model. And also, most ashamedly as far as I'm concerned, they've used the work of Richard Florida, of the rise of the creative class. And I'm not going to go on about Richard Florida. But basically, they've used these three different approaches to construct an understanding of culture and its role in a slightly different way. And what [? 00:29:05] argues is distinctive about Denmark's approach to culture policy in this regard, is that it genuinely has a more, a broader vision of the role that creative industries can play in the construction of the economy. And it does so through the filter of the experience economy. So, it does so, and it sees culture not just as being a sort of single entity, but one that includes tourism, sports and other related industry. But obviously there is a dilemma here as [? 00:29:39]: points out, that the experience economy is inevitably given a market value by those wishing to maximize it. The dilemma as far as experiences are concerned, is that, are around the role of semi-public goods with public funding behind them. Now, [? 00:30:03 then presents what is considered to be a list of what experiences need to be in order to be meaningful and effective. A high degree of concentration or focus, the involvement of the individual's senses, all his or her senses, perception of time changing, arguably and possibly forgotten. An emotional investment, a unique experience that has intrinsic value for the individual. Contact with what is perceived to be the real thing. An authentic experience. One does and undergoes something. It's an active process when you feel that change. This element of play and expectation that the visitor feels in control of that situation. And that there is a balance between a challenge, confronted the individual and their ability to meet it. A while ago I was taken to one of these tree places where you got like climes. It was a surprise. Unfortunately when I got there, the challenge was a little bit too much and I was like, and you got half the experience and felt quite bad as a result. But that says more about my masculinity than it does about anything else. So, and also that there is a clear goal, that anybody entering that space, knows why they're there and what, not knowing what the end-experience is going to be but knows what this broad outline might be. 

My next point is around research. Any significant well-planned cultural development always needs careful research. Before, during and after its development. Preferably to avoid Klunzman’s suggestion and I quote "Each story of re-generation begins with poetry and ends with real-estate." Of course, the impact of culture is notoriously difficult to measure. Because, it's just not possible to identify clearly, to take out culture and say, look, this is its cause or effect. Because there's so much going on simultaneously around the city at the same time; you can't just say, this is all down to the museum. But all too often major culture-lead re-generation projects are not grounded upon any kind of rational evidence-based decision. And instead, are the product of pork barrel politics. A vision of the urban change that doesn't look beyond short-term physical impacts and landscapes. Research around culture is all too often about advocacy. It's about proving a case, rather than understanding its complex affects. And ironically, even the UK's Office for the Deputy Prime Minister, have acknowledged this - whether they've acted upon it is another question - re-generation is not simply about bricks and water, it's about the physical, social and economic well-being of an area. It's about the quality of life in our neighbourhoods. In relation to the physical, it's as much about the quality of the public realm as it is about the buildings themselves. But I'm not actually sure that these lessons have been learned. In-depth longitude research remains the exception rather than the rule. And assumptions are still being made about sustained, social, economic and the distributive effects of a significant cultural investment.

This isn't about the re-generation of place, but rather about changing peoples' lives and understanding the role that culture can play in that process. Now, what we might also be talking about here, is this notion of a word, my least-liked word in the English language, a notion of authenticity. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I did some work on Newcastle Gateshead quayside. It was interesting, I worked with various different stake-holders, all of which were making different crazy demands. City councils, cultural organizations of various description, all of whom funded this in a different way. But overall, looking back, obviously there's a bit of cynical sociologist in me, in case you haven't noticed... But looking back, what Newcastle Gateshead did with their quayside - many people been there? I'm sure some of you have, yeah? - what they did was actually a genuine success, I think. And my research looked in particular on the Baltic art gallery, you know, a good example of using an old industrial building in a successful way and the Sage Gateshead Museum on the right-hand side. But the success I think is to do with the ability of these buildings and particularly the Baltic, to tap into how it is the people of Newcastle and Gateshead imagine themselves. In UK terms, Newcastle Gateshead is, and I use that term because that was the marketing term, not so much used now, but they brought Newcastle and Gateshead together as they were one entity. In UK terms, Newcastle Gateshead is often portrait as an exemplar of how to revitalize and through cultural re-generation. And I think its success has to do with its focus on a sense of belonging, and a notion that there was a balance to be achieved there. This is the second quote by my colleague and not by me. “Flagship cultural institutions are frequently financed as public-sector investments, to attract private sector renovation of the surrounding area, tend to be engines not of culture but of re-generation. This is not all bad. In that run-down areas can be transformed but it may displace a residue population unless it's adequately protected and establishes a connection. A connection between cultural space and wealth accumulation.” The perennial danger of investing in culture in this way is that it excludes more than it includes. It excludes potentially economically but also culturally, and I'll come back to that point at the end of the talk.

Maybe this is all then a question of authenticity. [? 00:36:50] talks about authenticity in the context of tourism. He quotes various authors, such as MacCannell, who argue that the tourist's experience is all about the quest for the authentic. That the tourist is effectively a pilgrim, the contemporary pilgrim, seeking authenticity from other times and other cultures. To take him or her away from the banality of their everyday life. Because the gaze of the tourist involves and intrusion and an effect, usually, into other people's lives. That would generally be seen to be unaccepted within society otherwise. What emerges from that is a whole range of back stages that can construct this arena from which tourists can pick and choose. So, from MacCannell then, tourist spaces are inevitably staged. They are staged authenticity. And that's the challenge of a cultural space, to avoid that staging somehow. And it's a big challenge. If you consider sort of typical tourist experience, going to, as I did recently to Stratford-upon-Avon, in England, the home of Shakespeare, walking around Stratford-upon-Avon you might soon realize that the authenticity that you are engaging with is determined for you. You are trained, you are obliged to gaze at these spaces and the buildings that you're looking at and the plays, etc., in a particular predetermined way. That's a construction and the challenge there is how you make that something from within the visitor, rather than something that is imposed upon them. So, its' about constructing something for the tourist to gaze upon. Most notably then the example of the iconic post-modern museum, that's forced to compete as a cultural venue, a spectacular form of consumption first, and arguably as a museum second. What are the sort of sociological dangers of investment in museums, is that they can potentially create a core and fringe effect. Where some spaces of the city are promoted, and brought to life as places of consumption, at the expense of others. This process overrides community needs and it overrides environmental needs. It detracts from the city as a place as a whole. So, I guess the main challenge I'm trying to draw attention to here, is the danger of constructing the city through culture, as a form, as effectively a visual tableau to be touristically consumed, so that culture becomes nothing more than a symbolic solution to the problems of urban decline.

A solution into a far, only proposed to introduce a revitalized landscape that may have no genuine effect on the problems of the run-down nature of certain elements of all our cities. In this context Williams talks about how re-generation has become divided along class-lines and that the urban revolution is effectively a revolution of bourgeois taste. And that's what cultural buildings are: they're symbols of bourgeois taste. For example, using the Liverpool example, this is Albert Dock in Liverpool. And what Albert Dock presents, they've got the Tate Gallery there, but also, Tate Gallery is surrounded by a world of café culture, Neo-classical architecture. But what that actually, adds up to in the end is really nothing more than the suburban mall. You know, it's effectively a shopping mall in a nice bit of architecture. And somehow, something's been lost from that original vision. Williams describes this in his book, as The Anxious City, is the name of the book, as a process of the picturesque. This really is the sort of point of my talk in a sense. That re-generation, the creation of cultural buildings can be overly picturesque. They can be a response to an urban problem through the aesthetization of that problem. And this is where I would argue that investment in culture so often falls down. So, the key questions for Williams are centred on, whether the re-generated city simply does what it says on the surface or is it simply a space to be gazed upon by a privileged audience. And he argues then, that perhaps such spaces are effectively, they effectively represent a withdrawal from the urban. That rather than confronting the problems that re-generation and capitalist decline head-on, we are withdrawn from the urban, and creating post-industrial landscapes that don't directly engage with that issue. In other words, from his point of view, places like the Albert Dock, represent an effort to re-generate the city, but they do so rhetorically. It's all about the words around it rather than what's actually going on within. It symbolically pulls Liverpool up by its boots straps, but its effect on the reality and the everyday life of the city of Liverpool is arguably marginal. 

To bring things to a conclusion. The success or failure of I think cultural-architectural intervention into a city needs to strike a very, very careful balance. A meaningful cultural development depends on the particular meaning of history that's being adopted and the ability of a population, both local and visiting, to buy into that meaning. There cannot be an optimistic and a believable post-industrial past without that past being routed in some kind of a meaningful existence. Experience then cannot provide all the solutions itself. A successful development, such as Newcastle Gateshead quayside, emerge of shared cultures. A sense that a culture cannot be portrayed or consumed sort of single-handedly but only must be part of a bigger picture. And part of the industrial change and industrial decline that belongs to the population, a sense of loss, is as important then as a sense of success and achievements. Relating to a museum is about the mistakes of the past as well as the successes. So, it’s very important then, that a building of this kind, isn't purely an architectural monument or a cultural imposition, but must successfully negotiate its relationship between cultural history and space. A museum of this magnitude should be a window into a city's soul. Not into the soul of its policy-makers and its consultants. I leave you with two final images. This image here is a sculpture that sat on the front of Baltic Art Gallery during an expedition. Does anybody recognize who this sculptor is? Antony Gormley our famous British sculptor. Basically, this is a part of Gormley’s body. I'll leave it to your own imaginations to work out which part of his body it is. But basically, what's happened here is they've put this unspeakable part of Gormley’s body right at the entrance of the museum. And to me, what they're saying here is “Keep out. If you don't understand cultural spaces, then you do not belong here, please do not enter.” And this is the absolute reality of what all cultural spaces should avoid doing. They're basically saying, you know, if you don't understand this, then you never will, and you're not invited. Without even realizing.

Finally, my last point, something that came up constantly in my research. Looking at the impact of Baltic Art Gallery. Everybody generally found it was a great success. But the phrase that kept coming up all the way along was this, oh, I love that building, it's amazing, but it isn't for the likes of us. So, if Turku's history museum can avoid that damning verdict, then it will no doubt have gone some considerable way to being a genuine success. And at that point I'll conclude. Thank you very much!