Two winners share Activist Museum Award 2025

The University of Leicester’s Research Centre for Museums and Galleries (RCMG) has announced the two winners of its Activist Museum Award 2025.

The UK-based Black South West Network and the Museo Textil de Oaxaca (MTO) in Mexico have both been recognised for their work to foster positive change in the world.

The organisations have each been awarded £1,000 to support the development of their ideas and invited to showcase their work with students, researchers and practitioners across the cultural sector.

The Black South West Network, based in Bristol, is a Black-led racial justice organisation that aims to improve racial equity in the UK.

Museo Textil de Oaxaca works to preserve the history of textiles by showcasing the knowledge that comes from within local communities.

Sado Jirde, the director of the Black South West Network, said: “I am honoured to accept the 2025 Activist Museum Award, which comes at a crucial moment in the work of Black South West Network.

“Our mission is rooted in community-led change, racial justice, and cultural inclusion, and this award will help amplify and sustain our ongoing efforts in decolonial and antiracist practice within the cultural heritage sector.

“The Activist Museum Award is a vital recognition of the ways in which cultural institutions must actively participate in struggles for justice. I look forward to contributing to the growing movement of practitioners who are reshaping museums and cultural spaces as sites of resistance, healing, and transformation.”

Hector Manuel Meneses Lozano, director of the Museo Textil de Oaxaca, said: “MTO is a space that houses memories, success stories and challenges.

“The award that we receive today motivates us to continue fostering the documentation and preservation of woven memories within textile-making communities, in conversation with formal studies carried out by scholars.”

The awardees were nominated by the research centre’s honorary fellows and collaborators: Liz Ellis, policy project manager at the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and Américo Castilla, the director and founder of Fundación TyPA, Argentina.

The award, which launched in 2019, is the vision of author and museum practitioner Robert R Janes in recognition of the pioneering work of Richard Sandell, the co-director of RCMG.

Previous recipients of the award include Museum X, the Salt Museum and Queer Multiverse.