Artefacts - SPRING 2022

FEATURE

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

set to reopen in April 2022 Many of us have been missing being able to visit Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG), so you will be pleased to hear that the doors will be reopening once more when the building partially reopens in April 2022. New displays will bring a fresh new feel to the Museum ahead of the Commonwealth Games.

After being closed, firstly by the pandemic and then by essential electrical works, BMAG will reopen on Thursday 28 April 2022, welcoming visitors back to the Round Room and Industrial Gallery seven days a week, from 10am – 5pm.

To mark the reopening, BMAG is being handed over to some of Birmingham’s most exciting creatives. Animating the Round Room and Industrial Gallery, while the rest of BMAG remains closed for essential work, are Birmingham Music Archive, Fierce, Flatpack Projects, Kalaboration Arts and working in collaboration with Birmingham Museums - Don’t Settle in partnership with Beatfreeks.

Having been invited to respond to the theme of ‘This Is Birmingham’ visitors can expect a collision of new exhibitions and live events as well as space to join in and contribute themselves. The Edwardian Tearooms will also be an exciting hub of activity and back open as a welcome pitstop for a bite to eat and a cup of tea.

Bringing together a striking combination of stories that bridge popular culture and global struggles, the vibrant new displays will share different encounters and experiences, playfully turning the theme of ‘This Is Birmingham’ on its head by asking the question: ‘What’s your Birmingham?’ Visitors will play an important role and 14

ARTEFACTS

SPRING 2022 • Issue 68

be encouraged to explore and contribute to the many different stories that make Birmingham the fantastic city that it is.

Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah, Co-CEOs of Birmingham Museums Trust said: “The year ahead is really exciting. Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery has been closed – firstly by the pandemic and then for rewiring – and we’re going to partially reopen in 2022 in time for the Commonwealth Games, and it’s going to feel very different.

“We’ve invited some of the city’s leading creatives and arts organisations to animate the Round Room and Industrial Gallery with vibrant new displays that feel much more immediate. We’ll be touching on themes like popular culture, identity and community and there will be a very warm welcome inviting everyone to join in. We can’t wait!”

In an exciting shake up, BMAG’s reopening will be launched with a radical transformation of the stunning Round Room. We Are Birmingham will reflect the people of 21st Century Birmingham.

Co-curated by Birmingham Museums and a group of six young people from Don’t Settle in partnership with Beatfreeks, the new display will present a vivid celebration of the city that Birmingham is now as well as aspirations of what the city could become.