Museums in the north east team up with contemporary artists to boost visitor numbers

As part of the year-long Meeting Point project, led by contemporary art specialists Arts&Heritage, contemporary art installations are being created for four museums in the North East and five museums in Yorkshire during 2016.

Funded by ACE’s Museum Resilience Fund, Meeting Point presents artworks in unexpected places and supports small and medium scale museums to commission artists, who will create a piece of work in response to the venue.

“Meeting Point addresses the fundamental question of why museums and the contemporary arts should work together,” said Judith King, director at Arts&Heritage. “The potential benefits of placing new and exciting artworks in museum and heritage venues are huge, not only for the artists and the venues but for the museum visitors, who will encounter a new way of experiencing history and their collections.”

The project aims to bring new visitors to the nine participating museums and position them as exciting places to see contemporary art.

The museums and artists taking part in Meeting Point are:

Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum, Northumberland – Ziad Jabero and the Bagdhaddies
Dales Countryside Museum, Yorkshire – David Murphy
Durham Castle – Jo Coupe
Head Of Steam, Darlington – Cath Campbell
Kirkleatham Museum, Redcar – Grennan and Sperandio
Pannett Art Gallery, Whitby – Pippa Hale
The Workhouse Museum, Ripon – Catherine Bertola
Shandy Hall, Yorkshire – Anne Vibeke Mou
Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds – Irene Brown

The first of the installations, All in a Day’s Work by artist Catherine Bertola, is underway at the Workhouse Museum in Ripon, and is inspired by the architecture and history of the museum and shows what life was like for people forced to live in the Workhouse.

Visitors to the museum will witness the harsh conditions of a Victorian workhouse and experience three sculptural installations located inside three of the vagrant sleeping cells. The installations will use materials such as stone, wood and linen, which are associated with the various types of labour undertaken by the inmates in the 1800s.

James Etherington, Director of Ripon Museum Trust said: “We are very excited to be working on this project. It is the first time we have been involved with commissioning an artist to create a contemporary artwork based on our story. The process has been amazing and has opened our eyes to the new and different perspectives out there that can help us to tell the story of the Workhouse of the life and the poor who lived here.”

Arts&Heritage has supported the nine participating museums throughout the process, sharing knowledge of presenting contemporary art projects and commissions in non-traditional art spaces.

A networking event between the participating museums and 40 artists from across the UK took place earlier in the year at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and visits to artists’ studios were also arranged. Museum teams also met with peers at other properties to learn how they successfully delivered contemporary art projects at their museums and heritage sites.

Meeting Point continues until November 2016. For more information about Meeting Point visit www.artsandheritage.org.uk