Twenty-nine museums and galleries across the UK have been awarded £1.3m by Art Fund in the final round of its Reimagine funding programme.

MonLife Museums in Wales, Belfast Exposed art gallery in Northern Ireland and the Museum of Chelmsford in Essex are among those to receive grants for collections-focused projects.

The Horniman Museum and Gardens in London has been awarded £49,992 for Repair: Community Stewardship Model for Care and Treatment of Ancestral Remains, a project that will pilot a community-led stewardship model for ancestral remains, embedding culturally specific care and documentation protocols. The museum hopes this new model will influence practice in this area across the sector.

Meanwhile, Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum will use its £47,500 grant to develop new protocols that “embed ceremony and symbolic welcome into everyday museum practice”.

An additional £100,000 worth of micro-grants will be distributed through Museum Development England, Northern Ireland Museums Council and Museums Galleries Scotland to smaller organisations, ensuring that museums of all sizes receive the support they need to continue their work. 

Reimagine was launched in 2020 in response to the challenges imposed by the pandemic on the museum sector. More than 245 museums and galleries have since received funding. 

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This final round of grant-giving focuses on collections, one of the areas of museum practice with the greatest demand for funding.

Art Fund’s Museum Directors Survey in 2024 found that 56% of museums saw a lack of funding for collections as a major barrier to fundamental work like digitising and reviewing collections, and acquiring new materials. 

Jenny Waldman, the director of Art Fund, said: “At the core of Art Fund’s purpose is supporting museums to develop, care for and share the collections that enrich people’s lives. From acquisitions and commissions to vital collections work, we’re proud to support organisations of all sizes in every corner of the country. 

"This final round of Reimagine funding continues that commitment – supporting museums to explore their collections, connect with communities and ensure that works of art, objects and their stories are shared and preserved for future generations.”

Art Fund is continuing to consult with experts from the sector to shape future programmes, including through the next Museum Director Survey in early 2026. It hopes to ensure that its next phase of support continues to meet the evolving needs of museums and their collections. 

Funded projects:
  • BACKLIT Gallery – Messing the Archive: Curatorial interventions by emerging practitioners from the margins
  • Bath Medical Museum – “Doses of History” podcast series
  • Beamish Museum – “Reclaim the Stores”
  • Belfast Exposed – Collection Showcase and Reframing the Past Archive exhibitions
  • Burgh House – Communities in Collection
  • Chatsworth House Trust – Exploring a new model for provenance research at Chatsworth through the Ancient and Classical works in their collections
  • Colchester Natural History Museum (Colchester + Ipswich Museums Service) – Wild About Essex: Community Curators at Colchester’s Natural History Museum
  • Compton Verney – Reimagining Folk Art
  • Cragside, National Trust – Sparking Curiosity: Recreating the Wonder of Electric Light!
  • Creswell Heritage Trust (Creswell Crags) – Re-imagining the collections at Creswell Crags – an audience centred approach
  • Dunollie Museum, Castle and Grounds – Returning Regency Fashion to Inveraray Castle
  • Holocaust Centre North – Memorial Gestures
  • Horniman Museum and Gardens – REPAIR: Community Stewardship Model for Care and Treatment of Ancestral Remains
  • MonLife Museums (Monmouthshire County Council) – Shire Hall Stories: Connecting Through Collections
  • Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology – What’s the point? Documenting and recontextualising Pacific arrows
  • Museum of Chelmsford – Your Voice, Our Collection
  • Museum of the Home – Historic Collections Rationalisation and Cataloguing
  • Museum of the Order of St John – Fabric of Community: St John Ambulance Uniform and Volunteer Identity
  • National Coal Mining Museum – Powerhouse of a Nation
  • Newham Heritage Centre – Inspired Art: Madge Gill
  • NN Contemporary Art – NBHA Archive Studio at NNCA
  • Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery – Flora Twort at the Creative Heart of Petersfield
  • Pitt Rivers Museum – Reimagining Ceremony and Welcome: Protocols for Delegation and Community Engagement
  • Science Museum Group – Disks and Data: Preserving Our Digital Heritage
  • Sleaford Museum – Common Ground: Sleaford’s Shared Stories in collaboration with the Hub
  • Spalding Gentlemen’s Society – The SGS Museum Reimagined
  • The Burton at Bideford – Burton 2101: Collections for the Future
  • The Wordsworth Trust – ‘A Tale in Every Thing’
  • William Morris Gallery – Morris Today