National charity for art, Art Fund, has today today that it has awarded a total of £1.1m 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 after rgw pandemic.

The first round of grants were announced in October 2021, the second round in November, and the final round of 2021 Reimagine grants are today announced and detailed below.

Organisations were able to apply for support of between £5,000 and £50,000. A total of 185 applications were received for the second and third rounds with a total ask of £6.2m.

Art Fund’s Together for Museums campaign in 2020/21 raised over £1.1m through 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.

Among the projects to be supported are a reinterpretation of a collection of Jacquard silk handlooms at The Silk Museum in Macclesfield, a new mindful audio guide for the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter, and a series of new portrait commissions and gallery redevelopment for Judges’ Lodgings in Lancaster.

Art Fund’s director Jenny Waldman said the 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.”

Further projects to be supported include Hampshire Cultural Trust, which 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.

At The Royal College of Physicians Museum in London are plans to build on recent digital events to trial new hybrid-format events in 2022 and embed these into future programming.

The funding news comes in the same week that Art Fund announced Queer Britain as the new tenants of its London museum venue.

Full details of round 2 and round 3 of allocations

Smaller grants (between £5K and £15K)

Round 2

  • The American Museum, Bath – ‘Audience Research and Development’ – £15,000.
  • Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham – ‘Female Voice Season: Adeela Suleman 2022’ – £10,000.
  • Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool – ‘Re-Framing Culture’ – £5,600.
  • Visual Arts South West, Bristol – ‘Sustainability and Capacity of Associate Programmes – £15,000.
  • Coldharbour Mill Trust, Devon – ‘Design Residency’ – £7,600.
  • Cumbria’s Museum of Military Life, Carlisle – ‘Audience Development’ £13,950.

Round 3

  • Royal College of Physicians Museum, London – ‘Hybrid events for a sustainable digital future’ £8,770.
  • Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-Upon-Avon – ‘Co-curating Collections’ £15,000.
  • Worcester City Art Gallery & Museum – ‘Canaletto: A Venetian’s View’ £15,000.
  • Meadow Arts, Pershore – ‘Avon Meadows – people, place, participation’ £14,800.
  • Brighton Photo Fringe – ‘Join Up! – making digital platforms accessible’ £9,000.
  • Equal Arts, Newcastle – ‘Out and about with Thomas Bewick’ £13,500.
  • Arnolfini, Bristol – ‘A Bridge to Arnolfini’ £12,000.
  • IWM North, Manchester – ‘Tell us What we Don’t Know’ £10,000.
  • Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter – ‘Mindful Museum Audio Guide’ £7,209.

Larger grants (between £15K and £50K)

Round 2

  • Matt’s Gallery, London – ‘MattFlix’ £39,766.
  • The Silk Museum, Macclesfield – ‘Paradise Mill Regained’ £30,000.
  • Art360 Foundation – ‘Artists’ Legacies in the Museum’ £33,750.
  • Tramway, Glasgow – ‘Tramway Beyond Walls’ £50,000.
  • Wolverhampton Art Gallery – ‘Making Space’ £40,000.
  • International Curators Forum (ICF) and Block 366, London – ‘Diaspora Pavilion 2: London’ £40,000.
  • Touchstones Rochdale – ‘Free-for-All’ £20,000.
  • Hampshire Cultural Trust, Winchester – ‘An Anglo-Saxon Experience’, £50,000.
  • Brighton CCA – ‘RESOLVE Commission’ £20,000.
  • New Lanark World Heritage Site – ‘Community Engagement and Volunteering’ £41,230.
  • Queercircle, London – ‘In Conversation Programme 2022’ £25,000.
  • Bluecoat, Liverpool – ‘Visitor Experience workforce development’ £40,000.
  • London Transport Museum – ‘Progressing Participatory Practice’ £30,000.

Round 3

  • Hastings Contemporary – ‘Adapting for the Future’ £49,425.
  • Castlefield Gallery, Manchester – ‘Hybrid Futures’ £34,000.
  • Old Royal Naval College, London – ‘Revisiting Greenwich: The Talking Project’ £44,040.
  • The Holburne Museum, Bath – ‘Reimagining our Collection’ £44,595.
  • Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry – ‘Online & Remote Programmes’ £35,000.
  • g39, Cardiff – ‘Reimagine: socio-economic equality in the arts in Wales’ £45,000.
  • Museums and Heritage Highland, Scotland – ‘Museum of the Highlands’ £48,900.
  • Museum nan Eilean, Outer Hebrides – ‘Digital Hebridean Stories’ £46,000.
  • Judges’ Lodgings, Lancaster – ‘Facing the Past: Enslaved Africans Art Commissions and Gillows Gallery’ £50,000.
  • Jane Austen’s House, Hampshire – ‘Creativity & Curriculum: Engaging Today’s Young People with Jane Austen’s Eternal Themes’ £35,740.
  • Turner Contemporary, Margate – ‘Connecting New and Existing Audiences with Art in the Wake of COVID-19’ £40,000.
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