Museums and heritage

The second round of the government’s Community Ownership Fund opened on Saturday (11 June).

The £150m fund is designed to help community groups bid for ownership of cultural buildings, namely historic buildings, sports clubs and music venues, to protect their long-term future.

The first round supported 39 projects to purchase assets that were at risk of closure, sale, neglect, damage, or were found to not be operating in a sustainable way.

Eligibility criteria has been widened to attract more applications. A requirement that the cultural asset must have had a community use in the last five years has been removed, and the minimum leasehold on the premises has been reduced from 25 years to 15 years.

Minister for Levelling Up, the Union and Constitution Neil O’Brien MP said the fund will help to “spread opportunity, boost local pride and level up every corner of the UK”.

Groups interested in applying are being invited to submit an expression of interest on the government website.

The UK’s Cultural Protection Fund is yet to designate funding to Ukraine to support widespread damage to heritage sites caused by Russia’s invasion. 

The fund, administered by the British Council and backed by the Foreign Office, has delivered £30m since its inception in 2016 to protect cultural heritage at risk, namely across the Middle East and North and East Africa.

A British Council spokesperson told The Art Newspaper Ukraine was not automatically eligible for the fund, but an exception was made to allow allocation of £60,000 in March, which did not materialise.

In the last financial year, the £2.4m earmarked for grants had been largely spent before Russia’s invasion began in late February. This year’s fund is now open for expressions of interest, but the Ukraine is not listed as one of the fund’s targeted countries on the British Council’s website.

The Cultural Protection Fund did channel £80,000 through a Dutch non-governmental organisation in March, which is coordinating assistance for Ukraine.

The Prince Claus Fund shipped protection materials for works of art and buildings to Ukraine via Poland in March. A second consignment is now being organised.

The support package also received funding from foundations in the USA and Germany.

The Wallace Collection in London is Europe’s best free gallery, according to a study by the Knowledge Academy.

Researchers used data from TripAdvisor, comparing scores from the website’s star rating system for galleries with more than 500 reviews. 

A Bayesian average was calculated to give each gallery a score out of 100, based on a weighted average obtained from the number of reviews relating to each star rating.

The Wallace Collection scored of 94.5/100 - 0.1 more than second place, Panayia Evanyelistria Cathedral and Museums in Tinos, Greece - with Dublin’s Chester Beatty in third place.

Eight of the top ten galleries were in the UK, including three other venues in London. The National Gallery was placed fifth, V&A seventh and the British Museum ninth.

Imperial War Museums (IWM) has released details of its IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund.

The £2.5m programme will see 22 artists create commissions, each inspired by the heritage of conflict, with internationally renowned artists Michael Rakowitz and Heather Phillipson among the first to be confirmed.

Five cultural organisations have each been appointed as major co-commissioning partners. 

Glasgow's the Hunterian, Swansea's Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, Ulster University in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, and Leicester Museums each receive £250,000 to commission an artist for the programme.

15 member organisations from IWM’s War and Conflict Subject Specialist Network will receive smaller grants of £20,000, to each commission a piece.

Commissions will go on public display across the UK between 2022 and 2024.

IWM says the reinvestment in the arts sector builds on over 100 years of art commissioning by IWM, which since the First World War has worked with artists to record the experiences of conflict for its collections. 

“After a challenging couple of years for the arts sector, we hope that the unprecedented opportunities enabled by the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund will kick-start cultural dialogue as we recover from the wide-reaching impacts of Covid-19,” said Director-General Diane Lees.

Plymouth museum The Box was one of 12 museums to be recognised in this year’s European Museum of the Year Awards (EMYA).

The awards, which were held in Tartu, Estonia, are Europe’s longest running celebration of museums across the continent.

A total of 60 museums were nominated, with The Box one of 12 awarded entries, receiving a special commendation alongside six other museums.

The award’s overarching theme this year was how museums can address local and global issues that impact their communities. 

The EMYA Jury described The Box as “a remarkable regional museum with strong ambitions for its cultural, educational and social effects”.

“With outstanding exhibitions and easy access for all, it has created a new cultural asset for its city and region and is an active advocate for the social change it can bring to its communities.”

The Netherlands’ Museum of the Mind won European Museum of the Year, after being unanimously voted for by the EMYA jury.

Applications are now open for the latest round of DCMS/Wolfson Fund for galleries and museums in England.

With £4m available in total, museums, galleries and museum services can submit bids of up to £300,000 for projects improving display and interpretation, visitor experience, access and environmental controls and conservation.

Institutions must be, or have previously been, members of an Arts Council England development scheme or sponsored by DCMS to be eligible.

DCMS and the Wolfson Fund have worked together for 20 years, delivering £48m across 400 projects at museums and galleries since the fund’s inception.

Full application details are available via the DCMS website. Applications will close 1 August, with the fund set to be shared out across two years.

Tate Modern is cutting back on the number of works included in high-profile shows to reduce costs and carbon emissions.

Director Frances Morris says the gallery will continue to stage large exhibitions, but “in a very selective way”, and only in partnership with another large institution in a bid to save money.

“Concerns about cost - financial cost and cost to the planet - are absolutely reshaping our approach to borrowing works for exhibitions and the way we use our collection,” she said.

The gallery plans to put on more shows drawing on its own collection, much of which is conserved in storage.

“The number of loans from distant locations is [being] pared back to an absolute minimum,” Morris added.

A curator from the Southern Ukrainian city of Melitopol is missing after being abducted from her home at gunpoint by Russian forces.

Director of the Melitopol Museum of Local History, Leila Ibrahimova, told the New York Times Galina Andriivna Kucher was kidnapped on 30 April.

Kucher’s disappearance follows the loss of 198 priceless artefacts reportedly looted from the museum.

Russian forces removed the artefacts, consisting of gold pieces, old weapons, silver coins and medals, which are more than 2,300-years-old, after museum workers attempted to hide the items.

Kucher reportedly refused to disclose the location of the artefacts. She was released from the raid but subsequently kidnapped the following night.

Melitopol has been occupied by Russian forces since early March.

A design team led by architects Allies and Morrison and Asif Khan Studio will deliver a multi-million pound revamp of the Barbican Centre.

Chosen from a short list of five, the winning team includes engineering and sustainability consultants, artistic advisors and heritage experts.

Their vision for the Grade-II listed building will now be developed against a budget of £50m to £150m, subject to approval from City Corporation members.

Plans to refurbish the Barbican were first floated last year after the City Corporation axed proposals for a £288m Centre for Music.

Simon Fraser, Partner at Allies and Morrison, said the Barbican's re-design will look to untap potential around the centre and reduce the carbon footprint of the building.

“[It will] respect the Centre’s significant heritage value, [and] open a myriad of opportunities for creative, inclusive reinvention.”