Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund project highly commended in M+H Awards

A project supported by the Museums Association’s Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund has been highly commended in this year’s Museums + Heritage (M+H) Awards, which were announced at a ceremony in London on 15 May.

Global Choices, Local Voices was a decolonisation programme led by National Museums NI, in partnership with the African and Caribbean Support Organisation Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland Museums Council.

The project engaged with marginalised communities across Northern Ireland, offering representatives the opportunity to make choices relating to National Museums NI’s World Cultures collections and how they are interpreted.

It was highly commended in the Partnership of the Year category of the M+H Awards.

The category was won by the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum for its groundbreaking Maasai Living Cultures project.

In total, 21 awards were handed out at this year’s M+H Awards ceremony. London’s Wellcome Collection was the first winner in the new Visitor Accessibility Award category for its project, Putting Accessibility at the Heart of Wellcome Collection.

“We are incredibly honoured to receive this award” said Melanie Keen, the museum's director. “This accolade, judged by our peers in the sector, is a powerful recognition of our work to place equity, access and inclusion at the heart of everything we do.

The winner of the Community Engagement Programme of the Year was Suffolk Archives (Suffolk County Council) for Arrivals: Celebrating Migration to Suffolk.

The Royal Armouries in Leeds won Marketing and Communications Campaign of the Year for its debut on TikTok, which saw its spoof Gen Z Takeover video go viral.

The winners were chosen by an independent panel of nine judges, all prominent figures in the museum sector.

Another Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund project, the Horniman Museum & Gardens’ Chá, Chai, Tea exhibition, was shortlisted in the Temporary or Touring Exhibition of the Year (with a budget below £80,000) category. The winner in that category was Hull's Ferens Art Gallery for its exhibition, Jason Wilsher Mills: Are We There Yet.

Sarah Briggs, grants manager at the Museums Association, said the recognition received by the projects “shows the power of valuing the expertise of community partners in interpreting their own heritage”.

“We’re proud to have supported them both through the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund,” she said.

The fund was relaunched last year as the Esmée Fairbairn Communities and Collections Fund and is currently open for expressions of interest until 16 July.

Full list of M+H Award winners

 

Visitor Accessibility Award

Winner: Wellcome Collection Putting accessibility at the heart of Wellcome Collection

 

Innovator of the Year

Winner: Anoxart Ltd Insect Eradication for Artworks and Heritage Collections

 

Sector Impact Award

Winner: Heritage Open Days 30 years of England’s largest festival of history and culture: a platform of consistent sector support cultivating nationwide community engagement

 

Visitor Welcome Award

Winner: Migration Museum Welcome to the Migration Museum

 

Sustainable Project of the Year

Joint Winners: Railworld Wildlife Haven Entertain and Educate about our Amazing Planet we all call ’Our Home’

and

Stourbridge Glass Museum Eco-friendly Upcycled Glass Exhibition in New Eco Museum

 

Best Use of Digital – International

Winner: Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center/East City Films The Journey Back – VR Experiences

 

Best Use of Digital – UK

Winner: London Museum London Museum’s new website – using AI to power content relationships between objects & stories

 

Team of the Year

Winner: National Galleries of Scotland People Team

 

Community Engagement Programme of the Year

Winner: Suffolk Archives (Suffolk County Council) Arrivals: Celebrating Migration to Suffolk

 

International Exhibition of the Year

Winner: Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) Te Puawānanga Science and Technology Centre

 

Learning Programme of the Year

Winner: Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester SENsory Atelier programme

 

Partnership of the Year

Winner: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford The Maasai Living Cultures project

 

Restoration or Conservation Project of the Year

Joint Winners: Crystal Palace Park Trust, London Borough of Bromley and Friends of Crystal Palace Subway Restoration of Crystal Palace Subway

and

The Landmark Trust Calverley Old Hall

 

Shop of the Year

Winner: Portsmouth City Council – The D-Day Story D-Day 80 Shop Refit

 

Volunteers of the Year

Winner: Derbyshire Scout Archaeology Team Morgause Lomas

 

Permanent Exhibition of the Year

Winner: Showtown Blackpool with Casson Mann Showtown Blackpool

 

Temporary or Touring Exhibition of the Year – budget more than £80k

Winner: British Library, University of Westminster and Freehaus Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music

 

Temporary or Touring Exhibition of the Year – budget less than £80k

Winner: Ferens Art Gallery Jason Wilsher Mills: Are We There Yet

 

Marketing + Communications Campaign of the Year

Winner: Royal Armouries TikTok Debut