Develop the reputation and accessibility of Swindon’s art and heritage assets.

Project Overview

Swindon has two powerful assets that are currently under exploited: the art and museum collections looked after by Swindon Museum and Art Gallery (including the Swindon Collection of Twentieth Century British Art), and the Public Art established through successive Council policies towards creating a better environment. Furthermore, there is an urgent need to find a solution to the storage and display of ALL the collections in the Swindon Museum and Art collection, including not only the art, but the many museum artefacts that the borough owns. In response to this need, SBC has commissioned work through consultants Barker Langham. Forward Swindon is taking a crucial role in developing and delivering solutions that build on the outcomes of this work and in increasing awareness of the borough’s arts and heritage in general.

This project has three main elements:

a.    Museum and Art Gallery

Over the last couple of months of 2011, Forward Swindon spent a lot of time researching museum and gallery provision, both across Swindon and in other similar places. Using the fruits of the research, Forward Swindon drew up a plan to refresh Swinodn Museum and Art Gallery and set the scene for developing options for thge future. The work culminated in a Heritage Lottery Fund application being submitted by Forward Swindon just before Christmas. The outcomes of teh bid are currently being waited for, but, if successful, work should start in the museum later in the year.

b.    Online Access

An important element of this project is about raising awareness of the museum and art collections, internally and externally, and beginning to build ‘ownership’ amongst the people of Swindon. Consequently, Forward Swindon has developed a test website with the Visual Arts Data Service that would allow online access to the collections. This area of the project is currently exploring the tricky issues of copyright but in terms of the Swindon Collection of Twentieth Century British Art, SBC is in positive negotiations with the Public Art Foundation to make the material available via the BBC. In addition, a separate strand of the project is to  develop an online guide to the borough’s public art. Forward Swindon has also enabled a small photographic studio to be set up at the museum to digitally capture the collections.

c.    Public Display

Another way that we can raise awareness of the wonderful things that Swindon owns, is through making some of them (or information about them) available in public spaces. This part of the project is looking for ways to display art or artefacts in public as soon as possible (following good role models from places such as Exeter, Brussels and Athens).