Establishing a new contemporary art museum in Moncton or Dieppe could cost $38 million, according to a feasibility study presented to a meeting of representatives from both cities Wednesday afternoon.
The study by Lord Cultural Resources outlined potential costs, staffing and other aspects of how such a museum could work.
The museum would include works of art from the 1960s to the present featuring Acadian and other Atlantic Canadian artists. The study says there aren’t any major museums focused on contemporary art in Atlantic Canada and it would not compete with other existing museums and art galleries.
No final decisions on whether to go ahead with the concept have been made, and it’s not clear when further decisions will be made.
“It’s still preliminary at this point,” Mayor Dawn Arnold said in an interview. “There’s still many, many more stages to go.”
She said there are lots of unknowns.
“But projects like this, it’s often a decade or more to get something like this going.”
Let’s cross our fingers that there’s a future for this project.– Moncton Coun. Blair Lawrence
“We wouldn’t be here at this point in time if we weren’t interested in the project,” Dieppe Mayor Yvon Lapierre said during the meeting.
Daniel Chiasson, board chair of Atlantic(que) Image Art Inc., called it a “grand, crazy idea” that the group has been pursuing with both cities.
Chiasson said the concept could still be possible if one city opts not to go ahead, but suggested the communities work together on the idea.
Several city councillors who attended the meeting expressed support.
Moncton Coun. Blair Lawrence crossed his fingers during the meeting, saying he hopes that there’s a future for the concept. (Shane Magee/CBC)
“Let’s cross our fingers that there’s a future for this project,” Moncton Coun. Blair Lawrence said. The study did not consider any specific sites in either city or include conceptual plans.
“We don’t know yet where it’s going to be located because we have come to that part of the project yet,” Chiasson said.
The study’s cost estimate is based on a newly constructed building on purchased land, but it could be included in a mix-used structure or in an existing building that’s repurposed. It could include multi-use rooms and a café space.
Moncton Coun. Paulette Thériault suggested using existing buildings, even pointing to the former Moncton High School now owned by Heritage Development Ltd.
Chiasson said the cost estimate would likely remain the same if an existing building is used because of renovation work.
The study calls for construction costs to be covered by the federal, provincial levels of government in addition to private sources.
Paulette Thériault, a Moncton councillor, suggested repurposing an existing building if the museum goes ahead. (CBC)
It suggests a structure of about 50,000 square feet somewhere near the Petitcodiac River that would employ around 18 full-time staff. Moncton’s Resurgo Place museum is about 30,000 square feet.
The study pegs the estimated annual operating cost of the art museum at about $1.9 million, with up to $1.3 million of that coming from municipalities in the region and private sources.
The study suggests making construction funding from other levels of government contingent on municipalities agreeing to contribute to operating costs.
The collections would be donated or offered on loan from private sources.
“We don’t see any problem getting a hold of a very prestigious collection,” Chiasson said.
While Moncton staff earlier this year said the museum would focus on Acadian and Indigenous works, Chiasson said it would likely take a broader Atlantic Canadian view.
The study estimates the museum could draw about 48,000 visitors per year during its first two years, dropping to about 40,000 annually.
It says the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in Fredericton reported about 26,800 visitors in 2017 and 33,000 in 2018.
The study recommends free admission to those under 25 years of age.
“One of the objectives is to make this museum as accessible as possible to all people,” Chiasson said.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
