Ilfracombe Museum has been awarded £28,000 from the Respond & Reimagine art fund to help them adapt to the challenges they face in dealing with Covid 19.
In the Art Funds letter to Selaine Saxby MP, Jenny Walden, their Director said:
“Respond & Reimagine is Art Fund’s dedicated Covid-19 support fund for museums and galleries, designed to support innovative projects, proposed by the museums, to help them adapt to the challenges of Covid-19. Respond & Reimagine was hugely competitive – we were only able to fund 17% of all applicants, and so a grant represents, in our judgment, some of the best and most imaginative museum and gallery practice in the UK.”
Art Fund’s Respond and Reimagine grants offer flexible and responsive funding to help museums adapt to the challenges of the Covid-19 crisis and reimagine future ways of working. The UK’s museums provide inspiration, joy and education, enriching lives and bringing communities closer together, but the impact of Covid-19 has been catastrophic for many. In the last six months, Art Fund received applications totalling over £16.9m from 451 organisations for its £2.25m Respond and Reimagine funding, which is now exhausted. But with six in ten (60%) of the museums Art Fund recently surveyed worried about their survival, and 92% of museums saying they need to ‘adapt and innovate’, the charity has launched an urgent new public fundraising appeal: Together for Museums. It aims to raise £1 million to help more museums adapt to today’s challenges and evolve. Art Fund is appealing to the public to make donations of any size. From just £25, unique objects and artworks are available as rewards, donated by leading artists including Lubaina Himid, Anish Kapoor, Michael Landy, Melanie Manchot and David Shrigley.
Commenting, Selaine Saxby, MP for North Devon said:
“Ilfracombe Museum is a fantastic local resource and popular tourist attraction. I am delighted that it has been recognised for the innovative work that it does and hope that this additional funding will help them through this difficult time. I know that the museum have ambitious plans for the future and I look forward to visiting them in the New Year to learn more.”
Sara Hodson Wilson, Museum manager said:
“We are thrilled to have received this ArtFund grant and see it not only as recognition of the potential of Ilfracombe museum but also as an acknowledgement that heritage and the arts has a vital role to play in the wellbeing and future of Ilfracombe's community. We are calling our project 'Stay Curious'; using our 'weird and wonderful' collections we will create exciting online content - hosted on our website - that will inspire and engage our community whilst we are closed, and bring them with us until we re-open.”