LONDON.- Art Fund, the national charity for art, announced today that it has awarded £1,144,655 in the latest two rounds of Reimagine grants for 2021. The support will go to 40 UK museums, galleries, historic houses, trusts and professional networks to help them reimagine their activities following the pandemic. Recipients are located across Britain - from the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, to Cardiff in Wales, Carlisle in Cumbria, and to Derry/Londonderry in Northern Ireland.

Among the projects to be supported are: a reinterpretation of Paradise Mill, the largest collection of Jacquard silk handlooms in their original C18th-setting at The Silk Museum in Macclesfield; a new mindful audio guide for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter, co-created with local people who have lived experience of mental health difficulty; and a series of new portrait commissions and gallery redevelopment for Judges’ Lodgings in Lancaster to re-interpret the collection.

Art Fund’s director Jenny Waldman said, “Art Fund’s latest Reimagine grants will allow even more cultural organisations to deepen their resilience for the future, turning some of the challenges, but also learnings, of the last two years into even greater resources for their communities. Museums vitally need enhanced resources - such as in digital, specialist support and staffing - to truly build for the future. We are proud to support these impressive projects, something we could not have done without the exceptional generosity of our members and donors.”

The Reimagine grants will support large and small projects and professional networks and will help these organisations build expertise, capacity, connections and access as they navigate their way to recovery from the pandemic.

The first round of grants were announced in October 2021, the second round of grants were awarded in November, and the final round of 2021 Reimagine grants have just been confirmed.

Organisations were able to apply for support of between £5,000 and £50,000. 185 applications were received for the second and third rounds with a total ask of £6.2 million demonstrating the continued level of need in the sector.




In addition, building on their successful partnership and collaborative response to the Coronavirus pandemic, in 2021 Art Fund awarded £175,000 for Recovery Grants and Programmes to Museum Development UK (MDUK) a partnership of Museum Development England (nine English regional MD programmes, funded by Arts Council England); Museums and Galleries Scotland; the Welsh Government; and Northern Ireland Museums Council - targeted at small and medium-sized museums across the UK to support their on-going recovery from the pandemic. Through the 2021 collaboration a further 139 grants were made including to a digital skills training programme in Scotland and recovery training programmes in Wales. Art Fund contributed £280,000 in 2020 and £175,000 in 2021 to MDUK to support Recovery Grants and Programmes. MDUK has match funded this with over £624,000 across the two years.

Art Fund’s Reimagine grants have supported the following, among others:

Digital resources and skills will be enhanced to provide increased and more dynamic access for audiences. Hampshire Cultural Trust has teamed up with Ubisoft, creators of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla video game to create an interactive experience of life in Anglo-Saxon Winchester combining contemporary objects and video game content. The Royal College of Physicians Museum in London will build on the success of recent digital events to trial new hybrid-format events in 2022 and embed these into future programming. Brighton Photo Fringe was one of the first blended festivals in England in 2020 and this year’s biennial programme will present an enhanced digital offer illuminating the role photography plays in all our lives. In the Outer Hebrides, Museum nan Eilean will create an online resource offering training to the local network of historical societies and online lessons for schools as well as a pilot of artificial intelligence (AI) interpretation of Lews Castle.

A number of projects will focus on families, schools and young people. Empowering young people to engage with the universal themes of Jane Austin’s writing is central to enhanced learning resources at Jane Austen’s House in Hampshire. At Wolverhampton Art Gallery, a gallery will be reimagined as a new community learning space – transformed through collaborations with schools, families and young creatives. And digitising objects from fifteen museums across the Highlands for Museums and Heritage Highland will create a portal enabling children, young people and teachers to explore collections from the region in new and exciting ways. In 2022 Art Fund aims to spend £1m on museum projects that reach and inspire young people and have been asking the public for help to reach this target through the campaign Energise Young Minds.*

Knowledge of community needs and the expertise to deliver those requirements will be deepened through several major projects: The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon will pilot a co-curation process with local community, focused on reimagining The Play’s The Thing, the RSC’s permanent exhibition in Stratford-upon-Avon, ahead of its relaunch in 2023. In Newcastle, Equal Arts will work with older people, including those living with dementia, to explore the life and work of artist, Thomas Bewick, as a creative way to support people who have been isolated and lost confidence during the pandemic. A new role of Heritage Officer will be supported at New Lanark World Heritage Site, providing additional resource to focus on community engagement and volunteering.

Reimagine grants aim to increase creativity and stability in the sector with funding provided for projects that enable experimentation, deepen engagement with diverse audiences, and result in greater expertise. Areas of priority for the programme are collections, digital, engagement and the workforce.

The funding is being made available in direct response to Art Fund’s survey of over 300 Museum Directors in the UK, published in May 2021 and reflects the demand there is for Art Fund support. In response to this and because we wanted to make an impact at a critical time, Art Fund’s Together for Museums campaign in 2020/21 raised over £1.1 million through the generosity of over 4,000 funders, including The Headley Trust. This, together with the ongoing support of members, Art Partners, donors and legacy gifts, make the Reimagine grants possible. Alongside this, Art Fund continues to provide grants for acquisitions and professional development.