Museums across the region given 'New Expressions'

New Expressions is a bold and ambitious project to open up conversation between audiences, contemporary artists and the great store of historical material held by the region’s museums.

Taking place in 10 major museums across the south west between autumn 2008 and summer 2009, the £150,000 scheme is the last major project to be run by Museums, Libraries and Archives (MLA) South West. The project, which received £47,132 of funding through Arts Council England’s, Grants for the arts is employing 12 nationally and internationally known artists to create new art inspired by the museum collections.

Projects in the programme have included artists Helga Gamboa, Motorboy and Graeme Evelyn working with three different groups of young people at the Museum of Bristol. They explored and re-interpreted social history, paper collections and Bristol's recent tradition of 'sub-vertising'. An installation at Plymouth City Museum inspired by the museum’s natural history collection focused on its labels and records, taxonomy and extinction with artist Dail Behennah, and a trail of new pieces at Cheltenham Art Gallery by renowned international ceramic artist, Edmund de Waal responded to the museum's Arts and Crafts furniture galleries.

Project Manager Clare Gulliver says ‘every museum found new ways of looking at their collections through working with contemporary artists. The partnerships have unlocked fresh, exciting ideas for people who would not normally visit museums. Everyone is inspired.’

In 2009 Porthcurno Telegraph Museum will see the installation of a new work by sculptor Suzanne Redstone which reveals the science of light behind the museum’s mirror galvanometer. An installation by the textile artist Gabriella Falk will be on show at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracy between July 4 and August 31 and then transferred to the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter when it is re-opened in 2010.

For more information on the programme.