Bristol’s Museums, Galleries &

Archives

Sue GilesSenior Collections Officer

World CulturesBristol’s Museums, Galleries & Archives

Bristol’s, Museums, Galleries

& Archives

• Largest museums service in

South West – 2 million objects – National Designation

• 6 Museums and Records office– Sites across the city

• Budget – 3.5 million annually

• 190 staff

City Museum & Art Gallery

Bristol Records Office

Georgian House

Red Lodge

Blaise Castle

M Shed – our new museum

A brand new city history museum for Bristol

£26 million major capital development project for the city

an exciting,innovative concept and a non-traditional approach to

museums

We’re going to tell Bristol’s story and capture Bristol life – the

1,000 years of its history using many personal stories and

fantastic objects in a stunning location.

• The museum will examine Bristol’s past and present, and

encourage visitors to consider and discuss the city’s future.

The Role of the new museum

• a Bristol-centric approach: the new museum will champion

Bristol as a great European city in which to live and work,

creating pride in the city

• it will encourage a deeper understanding of Bristol and a sense

of the city

• the museum will encourage participation and engage people in

discussion about Bristol and its future

• it will highlight Bristol’s connections with the wider world

• and we will develop key partnerships with Bristol’s different

communities

New Museum

South West Hub Renaissance

The South West Hub Partners

• Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery

(lead partner)

• Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery

• Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter

• Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro

• Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth

Bristol Museum &Art Gallery

•Built as a gallery of art and antiquities in 1905

•£40,000 building costs were funded by Wills family

•Bristol City Council manages and funds the service

•Extended in the 1920s to double the size

•Museum collections are taken in during 1940s

•Phase 1 Renaissance Funding and HLF support in 2000s - the Museum of Bristol

• 376,543 Visits in 2008

…a beautiful and fascinating environment

full of extraordinary collections in which

creativity can be presented, seen,

touched, experienced and studied,

…..inspiring new thoughts and showing how other creative people understand and change the world.

…promoting a shared understandingand inspire visitors through the diversity and interconnectivity of the collections and the many voices involved in interpreting them.

Front Hall – welcome and orientation

Egypt – high quality immersive environment

Rear Hall – a social space

East Gallery – a new way of engaging with the

museum and its collections

Exploring the City Museum and Art Gallery – way

finding

High quality temporary exhibitions

Intervention by artists through the artfund and other

programmes

Egypt Gallery – redisplay

In-house

Mariele Neudecker

Chinese glass redisplay

Exhibitions

National Gallery Partnership

BM - China

La Bouche du Roi

Learning & Communities programme

Art Fund International

Collections at the heart of the museum and art gallery

•Designated collections of Eastern Art, Geology and the ‘Bristol collections’

•Fine, applied art and Eastern art

•Natural science collections

•World culture collections

•Social history and Archaeology collections

•Community history collections