New Expressions

Taking place in 10 major museums across the south west between autumn 2008 and summer 2009, New Expressions was an ambitious project that linked contemporary artists with the great store of historical material held by the region’s museums.

The project employed 12 nationally and internationally known artists to create new art inspired by the museum collections.

At the museum of Bristol, artists Helga Gamboa, Motorboy and Graeme Evelyn worked with three different groups of young people, exploring social history, paper collections and Bristol's recent tradition of 'subvertising'. Artist Dail Behennah worked on an installation at Plymouth City Museum inspired by the museum’s natural history collection. And ceramics artist Edmund de Waal created a trail of new pieces at Cheltenham Art Gallery in response to the museum's arts and crafts furniture galleries.

Project Manager Clare Gulliver said: ‘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.’

The £150,000 scheme is the last major project to be run by Museums, Libraries and Archives South West, and received £47,132 in Grants for the arts funding.

Read about New Expressions here.