Museums and heritage

The Box museum and art gallery in Plymouth is celebrating a "highly impressive" rise in visitor numbers.

The Plymouth City Council venue, which opened in 2020, welcomed 272,000 people for the 12 months from April 2023 to April 2024, an increase of 10% on the previous year. 

Since opening, 817,000 people have visited the venue. Of these, more than a third were first-time visitors and a quarter had never visited a similar attraction before. 

Deputy Leader of the Council, Jemima Laing, said: "These latest figures from The Box are highly impressive and give us so much to celebrate."

She added: "Every time I visit, it seems to get better and better, with everything from free creative activities for families and young children to world-class art exhibitions that are touring the globe." 

The Box was voted Devon’s Best Family Attraction in the 2024 Muddy Stilettos Awards in May. It has also just received a Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice award.

Powys County Council has announced that Llandrindod library will be housed in the Radnorshire Museum so that the two organisations can share space, resources and staffing.

The council, which approved the disposal of the library's current building earlier this year, said combining the organisations was a positive example of how services can be remodelled to improve outcomes and make longer-term savings.

The move is part of its Sustainable Powys strategy to reevaluate how services are delivered to meet budget pressures and follows a model already adopted in Brecon, Llanidloes and Welshpool.

Councillor Richard Church said: “Our libraries and museums are trusted spaces, free to enter and open to all. Delivering a joint service from one building means we can provide a sustainable and long-term future for both while continuing to deliver and extend the health and wellbeing benefits that libraries and museums can offer.”

“Radnorshire Museum is recognised as one of the country’s most significant tourism assets and brings substantial economic benefits to the town," added Councillor Jake Berriman, "Co-locating Llandrindod library with the museum means opening hours can be increased, encouraging more visitors to the area.

“It is a great opportunity to create a new cultural space in the town whereby people can explore the rich history of Radnorshire, borrow a book, or look at some of our fascinating objects all under one roof.”

The Science Museum has confirmed its sponsorship deal with Norwegian oil and gas producer Equinor has ended.

Equinor had sponsored the museum’s Wonderlab gallery for children since 2016.

In a blog, the museum’s Chair, Sir Tim Laurence, said that “those we partner with must demonstrate that they are moving with sufficient urgency along the transition pathway to meet our aspirations”. 

Emails disclosed to campaign organisation Culture Unstained following a Freedom of Information request show Equinor had been contacted several times after it was concluded that Equinor’s business was not aligned with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, a threshold set by the museum for its corporate sponsors.

In July 2022, the museum’s sponsors were notified of the criteria set by the museum expecting partners to achieve alignment with the Paris 1.5˚ pathway by the end of March 2024.

Culture Unstained Co-Director Chris Garrard called the end of the sponsorship a “seismic shift”. “After years of mounting pressure, the Science Museum has now adopted red lines on climate change which have led to Equinor being dropped,” he said.

The announcement has brought about refreshed calls for the Science Museum to also end its sponsorship ties with oil giant BP and Indian coal mining conglomerate Adani.

“With BP also failing to align its business with Paris Agreement goals and Adani the world’s biggest private producer of coal, the museum must now hold these companies to the same standard and stop promoting their toxic brands,” Garrard added.

The History of Science Museum in Oxford has unveiled proposals to refurbish its building.

The Grade I listed structure was completed in 1682 and opened to the public the following year, making it one of the oldest public museum buildings in the world.

The museum opened in its current form in 1924, meaning the proposals coincide with its centenary year.

Oxford University has launched a public consultation into the refurbishment. A spokesperson for the university told the BBC the key aim of the work will be to make the building fully accessible and inclusive.

The plans will be on display until 21 July, with visitors invited to share ideas and suggestions.

Art Fund and the Jerwood Foundation have announced a new partnership to increase the support available for museums and galleries to commission early to mid-career artists working across all visual art forms and disciplines.

Jerwood Art Fund Commissions will support museums and galleries in commissioning artists to make works of exceptional innovation and quality with the joint aims of supporting artists’ development and enriching public collections through new contemporary art.

The organisations said that in addition to providing support to commission artists in a challenging economic environment, the work would develop the skills and confidence of UK museums in undertaking commissioning projects.

The fund will support two museums to offer commissions of £70,000 - £100,000 per year over the coming three years, covering the total costs of delivering and presenting the work. The application process for interested museums has opened, with a deadline of 1 November.

Jenny Waldman, Director of Art Fund, said: “The current economic landscape is piling increasing pressures on museums, galleries and on artists. Yet, if we want our public collections to be enriched with a diverse range of exciting contemporary art, support needs to be available for museums and galleries to work with living artists for the benefit of artists, collections and audiences.

Lara Wardle, Executive Director and trustee of the Jerwood Foundation said: "This unique Art Fund programme will benefit our national collections and their visitors, as well as early to mid-career artists, enabling them to develop their practice at a pivotal moment in their careers.”
 

The Welsh government has accepted the majority of recommendations from a report into the role of its conservation service Cadw but has repeatedly warned that some have “financial implications” that would be “challenging to deliver in the current financial climate”.

In the government’s official response, Cabinet Secretary Lesley Griffiths welcomed the recommendations as “helpful and supportive” in intention and pledged to begin work to implement those that could be taken forward short term, “taking account of the difficult budgetary environment, which is unlikely to improve in the near future”.

Commissioned in December 2022, the review was set up to examine the success of a 2017 decision for Cadw to remain as an internal agency in the Welsh government, while benefiting from increased operational and commercial freedoms.

Led by Roger Lewis and published last year, the report made 29 recommendations grouped into six themes, including clarifying the role of the Cadw board and modifying how Welsh government processes and procedures apply to Cadw, particularly regarding HR.

The report called for changes in senior roles, including the reinstatement of an Additional Accounting Officer - suspended early in the pandemic - to be held by the Head of Cadw, whose title would change to Chief Executive Officer.

Griffiths supported the recommendation and the report's call for a specific budget to be set up in addition to Cadw’s existing funding to advance the proposals, including the hiring of more staff, but added that the plan needed to be “fully costed and affordable” given the “challenging financial context we are currently operating in”.

The recommendations also call for a closer relationship between the board and government, including holding twice yearly meetings with the Deputy Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism and redefining the board’s role as “more strategic” and “advisory”, which Grithiss accepted in “in principle”.

Issues surrounding the recruitment, promotion and retention of Cadw staff and the ability to appoint emergency cover were also highlighted, with the report noting that many employees are “hands-on, technical craftspeople who have very little in common with the wider civil-service ways of working”.

Griffiths recognised that civil service processes and procedures “can be seen as a barrier” to working in “an efficient and timely manner” and may “appear to restrict the flexible and agile way in which Cadw needs to operate”.

However, she added that senior government officials would need to consider these recommendations further as Cadw must “act responsibly” and “be able to demonstrate value for public money”. 

“It is important the civil service principles around equality, fair and open processes are retained, underpinned by Welsh government values of creativity, fairness, partnership and professionalism,” she said.

Responding to the suggestion to establish a Welsh school of heritage and conservation skills, Griffiths said she could “see the merit” but that, “given current financial constraints,” it was “unlikely to be achievable in the short term without significant external partnership funding.” 

Elsewhere, the Culture Minister said she was “not convinced” that a separate cultural tourism strategy is currently necessary beyond the Culture Strategy for Wales that the government is currently consulting on or that Cadw should be allowed greater freedoms and flexibility in “all aspects of the press, PR, marketing and website activities of Cadw”.

Speaking about a recommendation that Cadw should embrace the Welsh government’s Economic Action Plan, in part by selling Welsh products in its shops and promoting Welsh companies to run the cafes at sites, Griffiths cautioned she was “mindful this has to be undertaken in the context of procurement rules and obtaining best value for public money”.

She added there could be merit in investigating the creation of a standalone, arm's-length charity that could benefit Cadw by applying for grants and receiving bequests and confirmed that an audit and review of access to Cadw sites for disabled people would be conducted.

The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford has rubbished reports that an African mask in its collection has not been put on display in the interest of “cultural safety” because it was made by a culture that forbids women to see it.

Countering claims first reported in The Telegraph that the Igbo mask was not on view because of a "new policy" at the museum following a “decolonisation process”, Prof Laura van Broekhoven, Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, released a statement saying: "This is a non-story.

"The Igbo mask has not been removed from display, as it was never on display and no one has ever been denied access to it.

"The museum’s online collections now carry a cultural context message, which allows users, especially those from different cultures around the world, to actively choose which items they wish to see and which to remain blurred from view.

"Only around 3,000 of our object records carry such a warning, so less than 1% of the overall collection. No digital assets are withheld from view from women."

The museum added: "Contrary to an article that appeared in this morning’s Daily Telegraph, the Pitt Rivers Museum is not withholding an Igbo mask from display because it should not be shown to women.

"The mask in question is in storage in the museum, and there is no record of it ever having been put on public display.

"The museum displays around 50,000 items from its overall collection of around 350,000 objects.

"Some collections and imagery of them are not appropriate for general public access online, and in this case, direct contact with the museum staff is encouraged to discuss the research need to consult them.

"Overwhelmingly this is for human remains, graphic or personal content, but also for copyright or other legal reasons.

"Only about 2,200 digital assets out of over 250,000 objects (less than one per cent) are withheld from public view in this way."

The Telegraph has also reported claims that The Great North Museum: Hancock in Newcastle has launched new guidelines restricting public access to artefacts because of cultural "restrictions" relating to "age, knowledge or gender".

More than 200 people gathered in Buxton in Derbyshire on Saturday (8 June) to mark a year since a museum closed in the town.

Buxton Museum was closed at short notice in June last year when dry rot was found in the building, with no timeframe given for how long remedial work would take.

The BBC reports that Derbyshire County Council has said it is looking for a new permanent venue for the museum and somewhere in the short-term for exhibits to be displayed.

A council spokesperson said: “We fully appreciate that the museum and art gallery in Buxton is held in very high regard by residents, businesses and visitors to the area.

"That passion was clearly displayed at the gathering outside the museum this weekend.

"As a council, we share that passion and are continuing to explore every avenue to secure a long-term solution."