Happy New Year! Currently, I am in the middle of writing a separate, much longer treatise about “stuff” which will publish at a later date in some other location. That will explain my absence. That said, I want to begin the new year right (or wrong?!) with some right/wrong predictions. The rationales will be brief like a case but, hopefully, I can get around to providing my details through individual articles in the future.
Full disclosure: I have a vested interest in many of these hot takes. Because I believe so much in some of these predictions, I have literally put my name on a business to realize some of these predictions. However, I do not write this in order to influence the world and make my business successful (I have so little influence, after all), but start the business because I see the world and profession moving this way. I think that we can better control the quality of the new way of working through a legitimate organization with professional standards instead of ad hoc improvisations reacting on the fly to a shifting global context.
Predictions 2022
Broad adoption of remote work
We will begin outsourcing jobs to cheaper countries in similar time zones.
Museum studies degrees will begin to lose their gloss as work specializes to accommodate remote workers (for example, someone to just work remotely on the database).
Once you embrace remote you will look to hire the best anywhere and foster more specialization. Curator of Asian Art for a US museum but based in Asia? Or, outsourcing more exhibitions to traveling exhibition companies. Companies that just manage museum databases in India?
Create new hubs for institutional professionals in less expensive cities. Think about the reclaimed wood and bottomless beer on tap of co-working spaces in Mexico City, Marrakesh, and Bangkok instead of NY, London, and Hong Kong.
Remote work will empower IDEA initiatives by reducing barriers for entry into jobs.
Those who can work remotely will [continue to] leave big cities for less expensive towns.
Losers: permanent employees. Many jobs lost during the pandemic will not return or will be moved to less-expensive places or less-expensive people (contractors/temporary employees). Those still employed continue to do more work to maintain the pre-pandemic work levels.
Winners: Contract workers. Art services companies. Both will get a lot more business.
Winners (honorable mention): Collections stewards who still have their jobs. Those still working on-site to care for collections are now more important since fewer people will do this work.
A realization that NFTs and blockchains are not a gimmick
Blockchain mining will dramatically reduce its energy consumption. Some folks use this fact as a hate trigger, but solutions already exist and will mainstream like NFT art in 2020.
Creating digital scarcity is priceless. Creating an immutable record of the history of an object is priceless. Accurate and unchanging records is literally everything we want in the maintenance of collection data – our fountain of youth.
Scarcity is literally the definition of creating value – i.e. the reason that we all have jobs. Professionals stewarding high-value collections…
The Gucci prices for generic-quality NFT artworks may or may not be a trend, but who cares. A) Artists using NFTs existed for years before 2020 “discovered” them. B) Artists will innovate with NFTs like an unofficial team of scientists at Los Alamos using them as their tools, mediums, documentation of authenticity, income (resale royalties).
In antiquities, blockchain can certify authenticity and the legal acquisition of objects (assuming proper research).
Institutions will monetize their biggest asset: their collections
Anti-money laundering will hamper “art-washing” attempts by donors
A continued culling of Sackler-style investments and board members in museums like pigs rooting truffles
Lack of donors means need for new revenue streams - not just new donors
Institutions looking to cut back will continue to cite sustainability as the reason
Boijmans Depot open storage is an example of providing more access and income for museums (a major up-front investment though)
NFTs of exhibitions will continue to evolve and proliferate.
People will finally figure out what to do with the NFTs they buy :)
Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives
New Tech can and should empower IDEA
DAOs will create funds to endow Conservator or Collections Manager position (i.e. positions typically NOT-funded by donors) that take diversification into account.
Remote work can encourage inclusivity by removing geographical or commuting obstacles
Unfortunately, the steps forward will resemble a Nissan Leaf instead of Tesla Roadster.
Repatriation & Restitution
Along with anti-money laundering legislation, the United States will take a more active role in the repatriation of objects as a natural tributary of the process
More scrutiny on museum collections due to the continuing cascade of restitution cases will begin to change the face of museum collecting (long-term project) and move object provenance from brick wall to foggy glass levels of transparency. I doubt we will ever see (pun intended) full transparency.
Winners
Contractors (I have bet on this!)
Vendors taking on some of the work overflowing from institutions.
Collections stewards now deemed essential workers
Those professionals who left the field or threaten to do so. Why continue to work as an art handler risking your health in a global pandemic for little money when you can earn more doing remote work [selling NFTs – haha]? Move back to your hometown from the big city and live cheaply and spend more time making art.
People working for our vendors. They need so much help that they will have to provide attractive employment situations to fill demand.
Unionizing. The pandemic has nurtured the perfect environment for those employees looking to unionize by leveraging the lack of staff and highlighting their subsequent lack of pay against their employers desperate to fill positions.
Employee scarcity (that word again) begets better pay.
Losers (or, at least not-as-much-winners)
Permanent staff: doing several jobs making up for those who who got laid off or who left for greener pastures. Their positions may not come back.
Collections care. Until institutions properly adopt instead of simply fostering the contractor, the quality of care for their collections will suffer.
Programming schedules. Fewer flights, fewer trucks, fewer materials, and plenty of pandemic left to hold back potential employees. Vendors need people, and their underemployment coupled with the supply chain disruptions mean unexpected schedule changes, fewer materials, and reduced capacities. I would not expect real improvements here for a while.
Diversity and inclusion initiatives. I ride the fence about this one but feel that “just getting through the pandemic” attitudes will too-easily allow administrators to ghost this push. But, then again, remote workers… It is a coin toss.
Budgets. Everything will cost more. Services and employees alike. This is why we will have to operate more efficiently (Hence contractors! I will keep saying it!)
You probably want to throw a grenade into my prediction boat by now and, by all means, feel free to do so.
