The longlist for the £100,000 Art Fund Prize has been announced. The prize is the UK’s annual ‘museum
of the year’ award, and the biggest prize for arts and cultural organisations in the country. Ten museums
in total across the country are in with the chance to win £100,000 and the award, which will
be announced on 19 June 2012.
Lord Smith of Finsbury, Chair of the Judges, said: “Whittling the achievements of Britain’s museums over
the past year down to a list of ten was a challenging task. The outstanding quality of the
projects that we finally settled on, however, perfectly encapsulates the vitality and dynamism of a part
of our nation’s cultural life that continues to innovate, push boundaries and engage the public, even in
these straitened times.”
The ten longlisted museums are Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, Bucks.The Life and Works of Alan Turing; M Shed, Bristol: A New Museum for Bristol; National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh: National Museum of Scotland Development; Riverside Museum, Scotland’s Museum of Transport and Travel, Glasgow: Riverside Museum
Project; Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter, Devon: RAMM Development Project; The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, West Yorkshire: The Hepworth Wakefield; The Holburne Museum, Bath, Somerset: The Holburne Museum Development Project; The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh: Portrait of the Nation
2; Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent: Turner Contemporary; Watts Gallery, Guildford, Surrey: The Watts Gallery Hope Project.
The Art Fund Prize 2012 rewards excellence and innovation in museums and galleries in the UK for a project completed or undertaken in 2011. Following a shortlist of four museums to be announced on May 14, the £100,000 cash prize will be awarded to the ‘Museum of the Year’ at a ceremony at the British Museum on June 19.
Penelope, Viscountess Cobham, Chairman of The Museum Prize Trust said: “We are delighted to see
such a strong and varied longlist in this tenth year of awarding the Museum Prize.’
Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Art Fund, said: ‘This year’s Art Fund Prize longlist truly reveals the creativity and ambition of museums and galleries beyond London. The vitality of our cultural treasures nationwide is a hugely important resource, and the Art Fund is extremely proud to celebrate these museums’ achievements through its sponsorship of the ‘museum of the year’ prize.
this month's
Ink Pellet contains
A Final Haunt
After 33 extraordinary years, Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black will haunt the stage of the Fortune Theatre for the final time, as the production ends in the West End on Saturday 4th March 2023. PW Productions announce that after 33 extraordinary years in London’s West End, the theatrical sensation that is Susan Hill’s THE […]
Reaching for the Moon
Susan Elkin paid a visit to Half Moon theatre in London’s East End to chat with CEO Chris Elwell about their extensive education outreach and innovative theatre programmes. Half Moon Theatre sits in the heart of Limehouse in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, spitting distance from the DLR and mainline station. Formerly a pretty […]
National Youth Theatre Rep Company
The National Youth Theatre’s Rep Company is celebrating its first ten years and Susan Elkin paid a visit to learn more. Each year a group of fifteen or so talented NYT members, aged 18 to 25, are selected by audition to join this company. In just a few months they rehearse three shows, many of […]
Apprenticeships
An important and often overlooked route into the industry, especially for many non-performing roles. Susan Elkin has some suggestions. Theatre is like an iceberg. For every role on stage there are probably at least half a dozen technicians you can’t see. And the industry has been telling us for decades that there are skills shortages […]
School Shows
Never underestimate the power of a school production – for every single person involved. When you meet former students, sometimes from decades back in my case, it’s usually taking part in Oliver! or A Midsummer Night’s Dream that they reminisce about with shining eyes. Most importantly it’s a terrific bonding exercise. We hear a lot […]
New Perspectives
With three separate Lucian Freud exhibitions currently on, Graham Hooper took time to visit and here is his review of these contrasting shows. LLucian Freud would have been 100 this year, and that’s a good excuse to look back over his life and work, but especially his work, as the two have a rather nasty […]
Grandad Anansi – Half Moon Theatre
Predicated partly on Black History Month, Elayne Ogbeta’s muliti-layered play presents Grandad (Marcus Hercules) and his primary school age granddaughter, Abi (Jazmine Wilkinson) in his garden. Like everything else in this show, the garden designed by Sorcha Corcoran, is beautiful with lots of colour, light and plants that Grandad knows by name and talks to. […]
Theatre Review – The King of Nothing – Little Angel Theatre
Ben Glasstone’s charming, witty account of The Emperor Who Has No Clothes works well for two main reasons. First it is one of the most perceptive stories ever written, dealing as it does with vanity, self delusion, conformity and truth. It’s both topical and timeless. Second, we have a cost of living crisis and the […]
Book Review – Activist
by Louisa Reid Published by Guppy Books Cassandra, narrator of this powerful verse novel, is a reluctant sixth former in a prestigious mixed school, formerly all boys, where toxic culture simmers. Driven by her own experience, and by nature a feisty “shouter” she campaigns forcibly for acknowledgement that some of the boys at school treat […]
Book Review – A Poetry Pedagogy for Teachers: Reorienting Classroom Literacy Practice
by Maya Pindyck and Ruth Vinz, with Diana Liu and Ashlynn Wittchow The thrust of this detailed, well-researched, quite academic book about the poetry in classrooms is that we shouldn’t teach students to search for meaning so that “the poem becomes a specimen for examination under the microscope of interpretative practices”. Instead we should experience […]