Museums and heritage

The National Portrait Gallery will boast a new learning facility when it reopens in June.

The centre, which will be called Mildred and Simon Palley Learning Centre, has been named after the philanthropists who have donated millions of pounds to the Gallery and will compromise of three new studios, a gallery and an outdoor space, all of which will be available to all visitors.

The centre’s studios – The Law Photograph Studio, The Art Studio and The Clore Studio – will host the Gallery’s creative programmes, aimed at developing practical skills and increasing visitors’ access to experts.

“The creation of our new Mildred and Simon Palley Learning Centre has more than doubled the Gallery’s provision for learners, with welcoming and stimulating open studios now available for all to enjoy,” said National Portrait Gallery Director Dr Nicholas Cullinan.

“Visitors will be able to engage with portraiture in ways that just weren’t possible prior to our redevelopment, thanks to the capabilities of the new space.”

A new report published by National Museums Scotland (NMS) calls for diaspora community participants in museum projects to be valued as experts and offered fair remuneration.

The report is the first stage of the Exchange: Community-Led Collections Research initiative, funded by a £250,000 grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

It outlines nine recommendations that also include the creation of safer spaces and co-designing participation so people can tell stories on their terms.

Seven museum partners around the UK were supported to carry out the research, with NMS and Royal Museums Greenwich acting as a support hub.

The partners worked with African, Caribbean, and South Asian diaspora heritage community members. Participatory research methodologies were used to explore experiences of empire, migration, and life in Britain.

John Giblin, keeper of global arts, cultures and design at NMS, said: “The key question at the centre of the Exchange project was how participation can be more equitable for diaspora heritage community members. 

“This report highlights the benefits of community-led participatory practice as well as the challenges and barriers to participation, and the nine recommendations are a valuable first step in finding an answer to that question."

The AHRC has announced £150,000 of funding for Exchange 2.0, which will aim to build on the findings of the first stage with a focus on knowledge sharing, sustainable legacy and impact.

York's historic city centre and an iron-age settlement in Shetland are among seven sites to receive government backing to bid for UNESCO World Heritage Status.

The sites have been added to the UK Government's 'Tentative List', published every 10 years.

The list sets out the sites which it feels have the best chance of winning the status.

York city centre and the Zenith of Iron Age are both listed for their cultural importance.

Other sites to gain government support are: The People's Park, Birkenhead, a pioneering urban park that opened in 1847; and the Gracehill Moravian Church Settlements in Northern Ireland.

Also listed are three natural sites: East Atlantic Flyway, a migratory bird route over Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Kent; The Flow Country, a vast expanse of blanket bog in the North of Scotland; and the Little Cayman Marine Parks and Protected Areas, in the UK Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands.

Heritage Minister Lord Parkinson said: "All the locations being put forward would be worthy recipients of this accolade – and we will give them our full backing so they can benefit from the international recognition it can bring."

If successful, the seven sites would join the 33 other World Heritage Sites already based in the UK.

Nottingham Castle will reopen to the public after plans were formally approved by the city council.

The museum and heritage site closed last November due to the collapse of the charitable trust that ran it. It had been open for just 18 months following a £31m redevelopment.

Members of Nottingham City Council's executive board backed a strategy that will see the city centre site open to the public from May. However, the council is yet to decide whether the site will be run by its own museum and gallery service, by an external provider, or in partnership.

Pavlos Kotsonis, the council’s Portfolio Holder for Leisure, Culture and Planning, said: “This is a site which belongs to the whole of Nottingham and I’m hopeful that our approach, which draws on our successful experience of running Wollaton and Newstead, will first and foremost meet with local approval.

“I have no doubt that Nottingham Castle can also become a destination of national and international importance, just as we had envisaged when the £31m of improvements were completed.”

Council Leader David Mellen reportedly told the board: “We needed to get this open as quickly as we can, and we have done that now.” 

A training programme has been launched as part of efforts to make the heritage and culture sector a more welcoming place for teenagers.

The free I’m A Teenager… Get Me Into There! programme from Wigan-based cultural education charity Curious Minds is aimed at staff and volunteers, particularly those who deal directly with the public.

Created in response to research that suggests teenagers often feel unwelcome in venues such as museums and galleries, the programme has been designed to make staff more confident in their dealings with young people.

Kelly Allen, Executive Director of Social Justice at Curious Minds, said: "Experience has shown us that every single adult interaction really matters to young people, especially when they’re doing something that’s new to them. 

“It also affects their willingness to engage with that artform elsewhere, so the responsibility to get it right is huge.”

The course can be accessed in three ways: online by downloading a teaching pack to run activities with staff/volunteers; or as a tailored, in-person version for venues, facilitated by Curious Minds staff.

The I'm A Teenager... programme began life as a partnership with national youth charity UFA and the Lancashire Library and Museums Service.

The latest version was developed as part of Curious Minds’ Hope Streets initiative, working with five museum partners across the North West of England.

Campaigners in Swindon calling for a museum to reopen held a tea party earlier this week to mark three years since its closure.

Swindon’s Museum and Art Gallery has been closed since March 2020, when the first Covid-19 lockdown measures were announced.

Since then, Swindon Borough Council has agreed to sell the museum’s former venue, Apsley House, to a property developer.

The museum was supposed to be rehoused in a new building, but Councillor Matty Courtliff said that inflation had increased contractors’ estimates, leading to a funding shortfall.

Linda Casmaty, Chair of the Friends of Swindon Museum, told the BBC that she was “disappointed and frustrated” by the situation.

“It's not fair on the people of Swindon – it has been identified as an area of low cultural engagement,” she said. “It could be 10 to 15 years before a new museum is built.”

Instead of funding a new building for the museum, Courtliff said the council was looking into installing the museum and art exhibits on the first floor of the town’s Civic Offices, but no timeline has been provided to local residents. 

Campaigners said that the town, which has a population of more than 220,000 people, currently has no art gallery and nowhere to display its art collection.

“You need to be able to see art, it's no use looking at it in a book,” Casmaty said. “We could get so many visitors if they would open this.

“I'm very keen that Swindon could become a tourist destination and this is one of the things we need.”