The Ownership of the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery and its Collections

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'Ownership' is amongst the most contested concepts in contemporary Western culture. On the face of it ownership, pure and simple, refers to the legal right to the possession of something. 

It is typically taken to mean that the article in question belongs to its owner alone and thus cannot be rightfully transferred to another person without the owner's consent. One can buy something, and thus claim exclusive ownership of that thing and one can also have a legal right to a particular substance  – be it written material or physical property.

When an individual, or corporate entity, 'owns something' they have the right to enjoy as well as discard it after its use given that ownership is taken to mean the state of being an owner; the right to own; exclusive right of possession; legal or just claim or title; proprietorship– 1913 Websters. All this serves the concept of 'private ownership' well enough but it is not so useful in regard to 'Public/State ownership' or 'Crown Property'. As a sole 'owner', the owner, has no obligations in regard to the property itself except to herself/himself or the corporate entity and/or its shareholders – she/he may do anything to/with it they all wish, use it, destroy it, venerate it, whatever, except in the case of live animals.

Crown property in the context of modern representative democracy, "public property" is synonymous to state property, which is understood to be owned by the people 'in common', thus by 'the government' – Local, State or Federal – on their behalf for their common benefit. In many Commonwealth realms, such property is said to be owned by the Crown – and typically supported by 'common law'.  

Examples of this include Crown land, Crown copyright, Crown Dependencies and indeed cultural property held in the collections of public museums and art galleries – albeit that 'cultural property' is better understood in the context  of lore rather than law. But it is not quite that simple. Somewhat like the debates that are raging locally, nationally and internationally in regard to the ownership of and access to water, the 'ownership' of public museum collections is layered and multifaceted  – more complex than private ownership. 

Interestingly, not all the layers of ownership held in a museum collection are held outright by the museum even when it is claimed that a museum owns something. For example, in the case of 'intellectual property'  and 'moral rights' these thing 'belong' to the author and are generally not transferable to anyone except the beneficiaries of her/his estate and endure for 70 years after the death of the author. After that, there is the collection's QVMAG's Community of Ownership and Interest (COI) where the ownerships involved are a mixture defined by lore and law.

Against this background Launceston City Council's claim to "own and operate the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery" is open to contest. Indeed, from a marketing perspective this  dose not and has not served the institution or the QVMAG's COI all that well – this will be discussed later. In relationship to 'governance' the concept of, and understandings of 'ownership' is at the very foundation of understanding all that is at risk and who is accountable and to whom. 

One way or another the QVMAG is indebted to the the Public Purse contributed to by taxpayers, ratepayers, sponsors and donors in inestimable measure. 

INDEX

The QVMAG and the Tasmanian Local Government Act 1993 – click here
The QVMAG‘s Community of Ownership and Interest – click here
Ownership and Marketing – click here