We’re pleased to announce the grantees of the second round of the reimagined Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund. The fund supports projects using museum collections to improve inclusion and equitable working with community partners.
Here are December 2025’s awardees:
Discover Bucks Museum and Ikon Gallery, £99,500 over 18 months for “The Freedom of Expression,” an art-based project with prisoners and their families at HMP Aylesbury, using the museum’s ceramics collection.
Dylan Thomas Centre and Your Voice Advocacy, £100,000 over 24 months for “Trysori’r Geiriau – Treasure the Words”, to work collaboratively to develop Easy Read documentation and interpretation of the Dylan Thomas Collection.
Heritage Doncaster, Doncaster Armed Forces Covenant Board and The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, Light Infantry and Rifles Regimental Association, £98,883 over 18 months to work with armed forces families to develop a military family oral history collection, enabling previously untold stories to be explored and secured.
Fashion Museum Bath, £74,370 over 12 months to support critical research into the collection to uncover, highlight and reposition narratives around Global Majority makers, designers and wearers.
Newry & Mourne Museum, £95,000 over 30 months for “Collecting Together: Communities as Curators”, an initiative to empower communities to shape the collection through inclusive acquisition and commissioning.
Vestry House Museum, £99,000 over 36 months for “Vestry House Museum – History in the Making”, to bring new perspectives to the collections that foreground the voices of under-represented communities within new permanent displays.
Image: Images on display at a drop-in session at Vestry House Museum