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And I found some of the meetings

that we have,

particularly the sort of, you know,

very large meetings,

where perhaps a curator's standing up

and talking about a subject, is fantastic,

but there needs to be the other dialogue

that goes on that then carries it on

so we're not just seeing it

from "What's our perspective?"

but "What's the perspective of the people

"that are actually gonna see

what we're trying to show them

"through our exhibitions

and marketing and stuff?"

So my hope - and this is, you know,

if there's this opportunity

to talk about one's vision going forward

with the trustees in June -

my hope is that we can make that dialogue

more central to what we're doing

at exec, and in some

of our exhibition meetings.

And on my side, I'm trying to imbue,

you know, the marketing and PR side

with more of that stepping back

and actually looking at things

from the audience point of view.

So it's a question of balance. I'm trying

to get, perhaps, a more balanced view,

where our processes enable us to look

at the end user's needs, sort of thing...

- Yes.

- ...alongside the curatorial needs.

I understand all this. I would like to have

some examples of where you've felt...

we've failed, or because we hadn't...

done this...

A lot of what we do is absolutely beautiful

in terms of exhibitions,

lovely when it comes to the marketing,

beautiful imagery,

absolutely gorgeous, high quality...

But I think, because we're sometimes

not going through that process

of thinking of it

from the audience perspective,

we sometimes don't do that,

what's - ugh - crudely called in marketing

a sort of call to action.

We don't say, "This is the reason

why you must come and see it."

Now, with something like Leonardo,

it does it itself.

- Everybody wants to see it.

- Yeah.

You could argue we should

have done less.

No, no. So Leo isn't a good example.

You've just got to put up that beautiful

picture and everybody wants to see it.

But other things, we need to actually make

them come alive in a different way,

because people don't get it immediately.

They don't understand,

you know, what we offer.

And it's part of that conversation

we had a few days ago about,

"What's the National Gallery represent?"

When you look at the research

we've done recently,

people love the National Gallery when

they get here and they understand it,

but to the average, sort of,

person on the street, as it were,

they don't quite understand

what we are and what we've got.

The fact we've got these amazing paintings,

they don't get it,

cos we're quite discreet

in how we tell them that.

You know, I do have

some prejudices to overcome.

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