Art Fund, the UK’s national charity for art, is giving a total of over £1.2m to 29 museums and galleries as part of its Reimagine programme aimed at boosting “innovative collections work in museums and galleries across the UK”, according to a statement.
Launched in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Reimagine was “developed to address the most urgent challenges facing UK museums” an Art Fund statement says. The third funding round, announced today, is backed by the London-based Kirby Laing Foundation, Art Fund members and supporters of Art Fund’s Expanding Horizons appeal.
Art Fund recipients include the Horniman Museum and Gardens in south London, which has been awarded £49,992 to pilot a community-led stewardship model focused on collecting and conserving ancestral remains. The initiative, Repair: Community Stewardship Model for Care and Treatment of Ancestral Remains, introduces culturally specific care and documentation protocols.
Gordon Seabright, the chief executive of the Horniman, says in a statement: “This funding enables the next phase of our work—putting our revised human remains policy into community-led practice, and creating a model of shared stewardship we hope will be adopted by other museums.” The museum says that its human remains policy, which came into force in April, “aspires to centre social and reparative justice, in response to historic and ongoing colonial injustice”.
Meanwhile, Newham Council in London has been awarded £39,165 for Inspired Art: Madge Gill, a three-year project which will deepen research into the late UK medium and healer who died in 1961. Gill, who was self-taught, drew female faces, checkerboard patterns and architectural spaces, mainly in ink. The project will “place Madge Gill’s work on permanent display, establish artist residencies, community programmes and new resources that support wellbeing and cultural engagement at Newham Heritage Centre”, the statement says.
A drawing by Madge Gill © Newham Heritage Service
The Museum of Chelmsford in Essex has been awarded £46,190 for Your Voice, Our Collection, a volunteer programme for people living with dementia culminating in an exhibition of Chelmsford’s top 50 artefacts.
Other recipients include the Chatsworth House Trust (£50,000), which will use the funding to explore a new model for provenance research; the Science Museum Group, which has been given £50,000 for a project aimed at preserving digital heritage; and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which has been awarded £47,500 for Reimagining Ceremony and Welcome which promises to “embed ceremony and ritual into museum practice”.
In addition, Art Fund will provide £100,000 funding as “micro-grants” to help smaller organisations awarded through the developmental bodies Northern Ireland Museums Council, Museums Galleries Scotland and Museum Development England.
Jenny Waldman, Art Fund’s director, says in a statement: “From acquisitions and commissions to vital collections work, we’re proud to support organisations of all sizes in every corner of the country.” Over the past five years, Reimagine has supported more than 245 museums and galleries.
