Our commitment to collections-based work
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Collections are the beating heart of museums. They are the things that pull people through the doors, inspire the stories and create the moments that we remember when visiting a museum.
I remember going to museums as a child and wanting to learn more about the people whose objects I could see around me: who made them, who owned them, what was it like to use them, how did they feel about them? I still feel like this today. Objects give us a way of connecting with people - from the past and in the communities around us – and give us a way to experience different cultures.
Museums are at the heart of our communities and our strategy, Let’s Create, and, as the national development agency for museums, we have a vital responsibility to help museums tell the stories of the objects they hold.
We’ve been working together with our key partner National Lottery Heritage Fund, to publish our joint commitment about Collections and how we can make them more accessible for more people to visit and enjoy across the country.
Last November we launched our new collections-focused campaign Unlocking Collections. For a limited-time National Lottery Project Grants will consider more applications from museums to harness the potential of their collections, providing funding for projects which help museums to engage new visitors by building understanding of the objects they care for.
Unlocking Collections focuses on three strands of collections work:
- Re-interpretation
- Collections Review
- Digital Skills.
We hope that Unlocking Collections will allow us to support even more museums, reach more communities and truly unlock the potential of the objects they hold.
