Art Fund Prize reveals bumper longlist

The longlist for this year's Art Fund Prize is dominated by national institutions and multi-million pound projects. The total cost of the projects is over £230m, ranging from the £78m Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum, to Conflicts of Interest at the National Army Museum, which cost a relatively meager £573,000.
 

Mairead O'Hara, the team leader for the Conflicts of Interest exhibition at the National Army Museum, said she was thrilled it had made the longlist.

"We are proud to have produced this important exhibition and happy that our efforts have been recognised." She said one of the factors that made it stand out was that it covers contemporary issues. "The exhibition covers conflicts over the past 40 years and it was important to build in flexibility so that we can update the content."

The £100,000 prize is awarded for a project completed in the last year that is judged to have demonstrated originality, imagination and excellence.

The other contenders for this year's prize are: the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (£61m); Blists Hill Victorian Town, Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust (£12m); the Great North Museum: Newcastle (£26m); Hampton Court Palace for Henry VIII: Heads and Hearts (£5.5m); the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry (£20m); the Leach Pottery, St Ives (£1.7m); the Royal Institution of Great Britain, for Science in the Making; Towner, Eastbourne (£8.58m); and the Ulster Museum, Belfast (£17.2m).

The judges will visit each of the 11 long-listed museums and galleries before selecting a short list of four to be announced at the end of May. The winner will be announced on 30 June.

The chairwoman of the judging panel is broadcaster Kirsty Young and other judges include A C Grayling, professor of philosophy at Birkbeck College, London, Lars Tharp, the director of the Foundling Museum and artist Jonathan Yeo.

Members of the public can vote for their favourite museum on the Art Fund Prize website www.artfundprize.org.uk