‘Eat the Archives’ – creation and participation are dominant themes for 2021 museum openings 11 Jan 2021

After several years in development, with significant community co-production, Derby Museum of Making will open in the spring, telling the story of 300 years of making in the region, while inspiring people to use their own creativity. Derby Museums Director Tony Butler said “we are really keen on putting forward the idea that every young person can be a maker. The challenges that we face in the 21st century, things like climate change and environmental loss, much of that will be mitigated by technology, engineering and ingenuity, and those are the kind of makers we need in the future.”

Meanwhile, the new Museum of Oxford also plans on a collaborative approach, exploring ‘the community’s place in the city’s history’. Manchester Jewish Museum reopens in the Spring having doubled in size with a new gallery, studio, kitchen, café and shop. Its programming for February includes an ‘Eat the Archives’ event, making use of the kitchen to bring history alive through taste. Bow Street Police Museum is a new attraction opening in a former police station and magistrate’s court in Covent Garden, telling the early story of policing and crime from the Bow Street Runners of the 1740s onwards. The Museum of the Home in East London and Thackray Medical Museum in Leeds will reopen after major redevelopment projects at dates to be confirmed once Covid-19 restrictions are lifted. In Bath, a new attraction, Mary Shelley’s House of Frankenstein, will look at the author and her famous character, and their influence through time, with dark tourism overtones. Later in 2021, the Courtauld will reopen in London with major new galleries covering its medieval and early Renaissance collection, 20th-century art, and the Bloomsbury Group. Museums Journal, Derby Museums, Manchester Jewish Museum (Eat the Archives), Museum of the Home, Thackray Museum, Courtauld Gallery, Bow Street Police Museum, Arts Industry (Bow Street Police Museum), Guardian