Spring is in the air, and museums and galleries in the West Midlands are preparing for the world’s biggest celebration of arts, culture and entertainment. With events for all the family to enjoy taking place across the region throughout May there is every opportunity to go out and make the most of all your local galleries and museums have to offer. Exciting events in the West Midlands include the In the Festival of Giants Festival across the region and Phileas Fogg travelling around Warwickshire celebrating the history of as many forms of transport as possible.
The biggest celebration of its kind in the world, MGM2006 encourages visitors to meet, learn, connect and be inspired in museums and galleries in May. Hundreds of individual museums, galleries and heritage attractions will be running events on the month’s theme “Making Connections: Past, present and future”.
The month will get off to a great start when museum and gallery directors personally welcome visitors across the doorstep during the Welcome Weekend – 29 April to 1 May.
The People’s Museum, to be aired on BBC TWO during Museums and Galleries Month, will give people to chance to choose which objects they would have in their own museum. This fascinating programme, hosted by Flog It presenter Paul Martin, travels across Britain to unearth the hidden or little known treasures tucked away in local and regional museums, galleries and stately homes. The result is an eclectic and surprising collection which will be shown on BBC TWO in the Spring. Following each show, viewers will be able to vote for an overall winner – announced at the end of the series - and put their favourite museum pieces into the virtual online ‘People’s Museum’. Filming has been taking place at the Coventry Transport Museum, Ironbridge Gorge Museum, Thinktank in Birmingham and the Black Country Living Museum.
The Campaign for Museums and the 24 Hour Museum are creating regional Hidden Treasures Trails to link to the programme and the BBC History website ‘The People’s Museum’. These trails will go live on 8 March at www.24hourmuseum.org.uk and will give people details about how they can go and see the objects they have seen on television.
Later on in the month, Museums at Night (Nuit des Musees) is taking place on the evening of Saturday 20 May – this French initiative encourages museums and galleries across Europe to join together by staging evening events for visitors.
The weekend of 19th and 20th May also sees the first ever Focus on Art - art galleries and museums stage special events broadening the understanding of contemporary art, working with VAGA and engage.
On 25th May, the winner of the Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries will be announced.
Borders Bookstores will be supporting Museums and Galleries Month with a range of museum-related books on display in all their stores, and competitions in selected cities.
Other exciting events that are taking place in the West Midlands include:
· The In the Footsteps of Giants Festival – from 27 May – 4 June, celebrates the ‘Giants’ of the West Midlands from Abraham Derby and Stanley Matthews to the jet engine and ‘SherLock Holmes’. With a host of events at museums all across the region celebrating these ‘giant’ people, places, ideas and inventions that have helped shape the West Midlands we know today
· Phileas Fogg will be traveling around Warwickshire, celebrating the county’s status as a hub of roads, canals, cars, cycles and buses. The month opens at Coventry Transport Museum with a family balloon-making workshop visited by Phileas Fogg in his charabanc
· The Best of British Festival at the Heritage Motor Centre in Warwickshire, including a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Routemaster – also visited by Phileas Fogg
· Following in Buddha’s footsteps at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on 13th May – a day of celebration in the Buddhist calendar
· Create your own artwork on the theme of past, present and future at the New Art Gallery, Walsall
· Art and bookbinding workshops at RBSA in Birmingham
www.mgm.org.uk
For further information (press), please contact: Victoria Harris, Nicola Dodd or Truda Spruyt, Colman Getty PR: 020 7631 2666; email firstname@colmangettypr.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
1. Events: Information is now being entered on the MGM website, www.mgm.org.uk, and the growing list of events can be accessed by the public through this website or the related www.24hourmuseum.org.uk.
2. Museums and Galleries Month is organised by The Campaign for Museums, a registered charity, with support from Museums Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) through the Renaissance in the Regions programme and Arts Council England. MGM is also supported by Borders, the 24 Hour Museum and museums, galleries and arts organisations throughout the UK.
3. Loyd Grossman, Chairman, The Campaign for Museums, and Virginia Tandy, Director Manchester Art Galleries, are Co-Chairs of MGM2006.
4. Renaissance is MLA's £100 million programme to transform regional museums. For the first time ever, investment from central government is helping regional museums across the country to raise their standards and deliver real results in support of education, learning, community development and economic regeneration.
5. The 24 Hour Museum www.24hourmuseum.org.uk is the UK’s National Virtual Museum and is a comprehensive online guide to the UK’s museums, libraries, archives, galleries and heritage sites.
