Further information
Yorkshire Museum
The reopening of the Yorkshire Museum was very well received and we were delighted when it was long listed in the Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries 2011. The British Museum won the award for their very popular 'A History of the World in 100 Objects'. Our connection with the British Museum as one of their partnership museums was really important in raising the profile of the Yorkshire Museum. The main Roman Gallery was a partnership display project with the BM and the Vale of York Hoard, jointly purchased with the BM, was displayed for the first time in its entirety in the Medieval Gallery.
We also organised a very successful community project Precious Cargo which is ongoing, based around the museums collections. This project is part of a national programme called Stories of the World and is part of the Cultural Olympiad. It focussed on reaching secondary schools and young people in local colleges and engaging them with the Yorkshire Museum's Roman collections, and in particular, the story of Emperor Septimius Severus. Drama, fashion, slam poetry and film-making projects culminated in a week of celebrations in February 2011. The project has secured funding for the coming year and has already received national and local recognition, including the screening of two Precious Cargo films at City Screen as part of its Roman Festival in June 2011.
Volunteers from the Yorkshire Philosophical Society have continued their important work in cataloguing and doing conservation work on the very important library of some 42,000 volumes, and this enables us to open the library to visitors.
Museum Gardens
Visitors to the Museums Gardens have commented on the changes in the gardens and we have received many positive comments. Improvements include the new bulbs flowering in the spring, changes to the rockery, and the general feel that the gardens are in a better shape. Our aim is to improve their botanical and horticultural status. One new initiative has been regular tours of the garden given by the Garden Guides on Sunday mornings. The presence of the Garden Guides has generally raised the level of accepted behaviour of the visitors to the garden which are now in the region of 1.5 million visitors a year. To encourage visitors and enhance their visit we are beginning to programme activities and exhibitions within the gardens to complement and enhance projects at York Art Gallery. A collaboration between York Art Gallery, and the Department for Asian Studies at the University of Leeds, extended York Art Gallery's China exhibition. Eleven points of interest were identified in the garden and these were highlighted by information banners describing the relationship with Chinese gardening.
We have also established a story-telling area next to the Hospitium by planting evergreen shrubs and perennials with informal seating in wood and big stones.