Maria Balshaw Artsnight

London, Edinburgh, Bristol and York all five for the price.

Who goes to the museums of today? How do they stay relevant as sources

of inspiration with so much human culture available online? And how do

we make sure they remain accessible for all corners of society and not

just the preserve of a narrow elite. These are some of the questions that

the Art fund Museum of the Year panel have grappled with this summer

as they scrutinise some of the UK's finest museums and galleries. Every

year five are selected of incredibly different scale and type and put

through their paces to see which is worthy of being the UK's Museum of

the Year. The short list showcases the incredible breadth of museums in

Britain today. Up and down the country our institutions are proving

how dynamic this sector is. From vast Victorian temples for Art and

design to sprawling Scottish woodlands where we find the most

surprising sculpture Park. Tonight we profile each of the nominees and

find out what they have done to stand out from the crowd. Welcome to

my arts night. I'm Maria Balshaw, director of

Manchester's Whitworth Gallery and winner of last year's Museum of the

Year award. I remember my nerves were sky-high on the light of the

announcement. I felt incredibly sick. I suddenly realised the Museum

of the Year award was about the recognition of ten years worth of

work and all the staff had done such a tremendous job to transform the

Whitworth from a much loved but quite quiet and rather hidden away

institution to a gallery that is absolutely part of its local

community. And also is an international draw. Winning last

year's award was testament to all the hard work from the team around

me here and at the University of Manchester. We had been shot for 18

months for a major expansion. When we opened at the beginning of last

year there was a fivefold increase in visitor numbers as hundreds of

thousands of people came to see the new building and rediscover our

collection. Museums should be places acceptable to all, young and old

alike. They should constantly inspire and challenge us, reminding

us of the greatest achievements of ages gone by as well as the infinite

possibilities of the future. At the twilight of the Victorian age, the

Whitworth was set up to be for the perpetual gratification of the

people of Manchester. I'm really proud to stand by that mission today

and see its ambition recognised by this vital award.

As we prepare to hand over the mantle of Museum of the Year to

another institution, this year's shorlist has been announced.

Ahead of the big launch, groups from each

museum and some champion artists gathered together at the

photographer Rankin's studio for a series of group portraits.

Of course the V will win the Museum of the Year Award.

It is the greatest museum in the world.

I think we should win because we spent...

It's been an amazing project to work on and the gallery

Great. That's great.

I've never been in a space like this before.

Really quite disarming and relaxed and enjoyable.

To be asked to be part of it is really exciting.

To be able to take pictures of all the competing

It is really interesting for me to find out about the museums I

There is one entrant on this year's short list that subverts the idea of

a traditional museum more than any other. Jupiter Artland, just outside

Edinburgh, feels like a universe away from the other museums I'm

visited this week. I've been here before, twice, and each time I have,

I have got lost all over again and have to find the artworks and

rediscover them in this strange and rather wonderful landscape. I have

the map. I know that's Andy Goldsworthy's Stonehouse, and I'm

pretty sure through the trees that there is an banished Kapoor. To be

honest, I would be lying if I said I knew really where I'm standing right

now. -- Black Lives Matter. Jupiter Artland was set up in 2008.

Following a career as a sculptor, Nikki took it upon herself to

transform the grounds around their home into a shrine to contemporary

art. Each artwork at Jupiter is specially commissioned for the

grounds here. Over the years, Robert and Nicky have worked with big names

like Antony Gormley, and Cornelia Parker. Cornelia Parker use the

inspiration of Gainsborough's very famous landscape painting Mr and Mrs

Andrews, a typical English country landscape painting. In the forefront

it features a couple sitting beside a tree.

So, we have the gun depicting one of the founders

and the tree depicting the other, both leaning on each other very

It is delightful and amazing to discover it but there

That is what visitors see when they come.

They are shocked by seeing a gun in this very tranquil,

Whether it be shocking or not, it is intriguing

and exciting to see the scale imposed upon you.

I think everyone reacts with excitement.

More delights await deeper in the forest including The Light Pours Out

Of Me. This is just gorgeous, isn't it? An incredible piece. At the

moment it must be, I think, the only UK outdoor sculpture by her. It is.

We are surrounded by two forms of stone, amethyst and obsidian

volcanic glass, this severe and sharp edge that creates a boundary

level to the two pieces. Soft and gentle down here, but then sharp

harsh and severe glass at the top. It's a place of rest and peace when

you make it into the folly. What do people do when they come in? I think

people feel healed, they touch everything. Jupiter Artland is

unique in that you can get involved with the sculpture and touch it.

Amethyst has an historical function. Contemporarily it draws you in. You

want to touch it and stands next to it, and you want to feel healed by

the work. Jupiter has a life just beyond the works on-site here. One

of the most interesting projects they have launched recently is a

full-scale replication of the part in the video game Minecraft. As the

founder told me, it has brought a whole new audience to the world of

contemporary art. You let people see Jupiter before they get here. I've

been looking at your Minecraft. The digital piece for us is really

important. Our message is to try to get every child in Scotland to come

to Jupiter and we are trying to do that now with a digital outreach

programme. I think we are the first museum ever to be created virtually

on Minecraft. If you go on Minecraft you can see lots of the pieces here

and the kids adore it. They can go in wherever they are and explore and

have the Jupiter experience on their computers in their own bedrooms.

Were there any challenges, working outdoors and with this scale? Nature

is part of the curating process. It changes. You know Scotland well, we

can have four 's seasons in one day. One of the beauties of the impact of

nature is that it changes the dynamics of the park. Everything

about it, you can come back in spring or high summer and everything

will look different. Jupiter is unlike any other museum on this

year's list, but it's not the only one that challenges what we expect

from a museum. I have arrived at Bethlem Museum of the Mind. I have

never been here before because it is quite out of the way in Beckenham.

But they have had an extraordinary transformation over the last 12

months, moving to this beautiful new building and bringing collections

together in a really new way. I'm really looking forward to exploring.

The museum forms part of the Bethlem Memorial Hospital, an institution

that's been around for almost 800 years. Known as bedlam, it gained

infamy throughout the Middle Ages. But in 2016, the Mission provides

sound mental health care. I'm here to meet an artist whose work is on

show in the museum. Following a life changing cycling accident at the age

of 18, Xavier became a patient at Bethlem's sister hospital. I asked

him to show me around the gallery. You came to the hospital because of

a head injury? I had a head injury, yes, ten days in a coma. I didn't

know if I would live or die, or how I would be.

Is it a utopian city? Yeah, for me it's a utopian city, but it was

originally set out as a mind map for me to deepen my studies with various

different frameworks. So there is a very different kind of

word in here. An artist called Elyse Pack it? Yes, more dystopian, a

personal dystopia. This is a personalised table for her, with her

fear of food and eating. Everything seems impossible, you couldn't eat

from these bowls. The table might fall away. For a family, the dining

table is where you all meet. If that's impossible for her, you miss

out on a lot of interaction with your family. Incredibly powerful.

It's not just artistic works that are on show at Bethlem. Many of the

display cases have not to the institution's notorious history. But

given the sensitivities around the collection, they are displayed in a

curiouser way will stop we are in a section of the museum called Freedom

And Constraints. You do not shy away from some of the more difficult

parts of the treatment of mental illness down the centuries, but you

have made some quite careful curating choices. When we were

developing the displays, we had shackles and leg irons and all the

rest of it. They were in our collections. Thinking carefully

about how we wanted to display those, we had decisions to make. We

could have decided just to keep them in the store so nobody could see

them and be disturbed or frightened or whatever. But we felt we had a

duty to show them. Equally we did not want to display them in a Gothic

way, that would have been voyeuristic, lowest common did

nominate, bringing the crowds in to see the awful things. The things we

used to do. Yes, they are challenging objects, and we didn't

know quite how to display, but we feel, rightly or wrong way, we have

displayed them in a way that people can opt in to see them or opt out if

it's too much for them. Up until last year, the Museum of the mind

was little more than a broom closet next to the hospital. As it has

reached national status it has grappled with questions on how to

display the work in its collection. Caroline, you have undergone the

most extraordinary transformation. What has happened? It has been a

transformative experience. The museum has been on the site since

1970 that very different to this. This is a much more fitting home for

the collections, both the art collection and the archives. We have

a collection at the Whitworth which shares a similar artists. It used to

be called an outsider art collection. For us it is part of the

mainstream collection. Tell me about your feelings abound that sort of

terminology. Outsider art is not really a term we would use to

describe our collection. Some people do find it helpful. It is a bit like

the nature of a diagnosis perhaps that some people find receiving

psychiatric diagnosis helpful because it provides them with an

explanation that it perhaps provides access to services. Others feel it

is a label and unhelpful one. I think it can work both ways. This

year's Museum of the year award is a real David and Goliath story. Pitted

against a minnow like Bethlehem -- Bethlem is the Victoria and Albert

Museum. It dwarfs statistics in terms of visitor numbers. What keeps

people coming back year after year? What we have here are two

extraordinary Indian scars. This one at the front is from Kashmir. It is

hand-woven, and passion Meena. An elaborate design with the paler bit

at the top. This one is made 5000 miles away from Kashmir, in Paisley,

in Scotland. These scarves were beautiful and highly prized but they

were really expensive because they were handmade in India. The Paisley

textile industry, with its jacquard looms in the mid-19th century,

starts to copy them. A patina comes from India comes to take the name of

a small Scottish town outside of Glasgow. What we know as Paisley is

born. We have machine-made and handmade, both held together. It

demonstrates something at the heart of the fee and eight, which is that

Britain and British culture, and the objects that help define it, come

from all over the world. -- V Founded with the help of Prince

Albert, it has kept art and design at its core ever since. It has

always held a vibrant collection that specialises in the rest of the

globe comment showing treasures from all over the world. It has a modern

European gallery. I heard from museum director Martin Roth about

this huge undertaking. It has a fresh take. It is about how power

and taste came together. It is a great learning experience being

here. If you see these objects, they are incredible, unique, beautiful.

The past few years have also seen the museum embrace

These blockbuster shows, featuring the work of icons

like David Bowie and Alexander McQueen have sent visitor numbers

With 2015's McQueen Show forced to open through the night

I would love to say it was all planned, we knew it before.

To be honest, even though it is strange to say it in public,

we were quite often surprised, at least with David Bowie.

Alexander McQueen was slightly different.

For both of those exhibitions, people travel from all over

It is a great feeling of joy but at the same time

I think it is great, great progress for visitor

There was a certain sense of David and Goliath when one looks at this

year's Museum of the year list. Do think that makes life harder for you

on the short list? -- do you think? I have worked in small resilience

and huge institutions. We are extremely honoured that we art on

the short list. I think we are really proud and you talk to the

team. Everybody is smiling. No, it is the same conditions for everyone.

One of the real eye-opener is at the ranking photo shoot was just how

much the staff at each museum and boarded the values of their

institution. You see is not just bricks and mortar buildings, they

are made up of people. Nowhere was this more obvious than with the

call, young representatives of brittle's Arnolfini Gallery, who

personify the alternative lifestyle on offer in Bristol. It was opened

by a trio of under 25 's, keen to shake up the Bristol art scene. This

year marks its 40th on the harbour front. The Arnolfini has exhibited

some of brittle's biggest artists in the last 50 years. Unlike the other

museums on this year's list, it has no permanent collection. Much of the

work in the new theme is carried out by a team of volunteers. Part of the

Arnolfini commitment to young people as the recent collaboration with the

University of the West of England, whose degree show they currently

have on display. The works here showcased the best of the future of

creativity in this country. I heard more about this work when I met up

with Arnolfini director, Kate Brindley. What do you think the

judges were responding to when they short listed the Arnolfini? They

said they really liked the fact they are working at the heart with young

people, from the tiniest children that come here for story telling,

right through to the students we now have, located on our top floors. The

next creative leaders and artists of the future. You really feel the

institution works as a talent incubator. I think so. It always has

done. It has all been an important part of Arnolfini's journey and

history. It is championing young artists and working with people to

give them good opportunities to experience new ground-breaking

experimental work but also working with them in terms of opportunity.

Earlier in the day I walked around the Arnolfini art from elsewhere

exhibition, made up of works from exclusively outside the West. Are

there challenges in getting people engaged with artwork from parts of

the world they do not perhaps Nowell? I think our audiences do

expect us to be showing some challenging work. -- know well. That

is something they associate with Arnolfini. The topics in art from

elsewhere really do they'll -- deal with contemporary issues, we have

tried to explore through those routes. It is less about knowing an

artist name but more about the subjects they explore. That is

important to us. We did an exhibition with vertigo C, a major

film work which explored issues around migration, the environment,

and links to the Bristol slave trade. From speaking to our audience

were they responded so well to that. They want to explore the deep issues

in contemporary art. This gives you the opportunity to do that. In an

environment that is stimulating and not too heavy in terms of people

dipping in and out, they can explore ideas. I know people spend a lot of

time with the work. I think that is where we have been really looking at

how we can connect deeply to people with issues they are interested in.

So, now we have met most of the nominees on this year's list. How is

the winner of the prize selected? Every summer, five specially

selected judges go on a Tour of Britain, the selecting each of the

nominees. Today it is York Art Gallery's turn. The judges are a

cross-section of the art world. There are journalists and museum

experts. Part of the visitors are to receive presentations from York

stuff about why they deserve the accolade. This year, York Art

Gallery opened after an ?8 million refurbishment project. Much of the

figures of the redevelopment was in the centre of ceramic art. This

piece, Manifest 10,000 hours is the centrepiece of the display. Can you

tell me a bit about how this piece came into being? I knew of this

incredible ceramics collection which is full of my heroes from cradle is

-- play. The weight is curated, it shows generations who have passed on

knowledge. Manifest 10,000 hours is a way of looking at that skill, that

handing on of the pursuit of making. Here we have 10,000 bowls, not made

by me alone but made by sharing skill with different immunities

across the UK. Do people volunteer? They volunteered. In London, in

York, we sent out forms for people who would like to help to make this

artwork. What an extraordinary privilege which full -- privilege.

We have 10,000 hours start-up. This is what it takes to become a master.

One of the unique things about York is its collaborative relationship

with artists like Claire. In a neighbouring room, I met Mark

Herold, who is curated exhibition, the lumber room, is selected from

York's elections. You have a marvellous election of different

orders of objects like rocking horses, ceramic plates. I love that

mixing up. They are not rocking horses, they are from an 1840s

disbanded carousel. They ask Ultra all forms and have the patina of

age. -- have cultural forms. I have juxtapose that with family portraits

from the late 17th century and they have never been on display. They are

restored and brought out. It is putting surprising things together

that have a visual collection. Things that would be in a different

kind of museum, maybe in a natural History Museum. If you know anything

about my work, I love birds and animals. We have a good natural

history collection here. We have a lot of specimens were stored. I'd

put them together, almost as a sculptural Mass. York Art Gallery

has put on a great show to this year's judges today. After they left

I spoke to the chief Executive, Rhiannon King, about some of the

tougher questions they had posed to her. All of us in museums have been

facing really difficult times over the last five years. I know you have

made a decision to charge here. How did you come to that decision? We

did not want to make that decision. That is the most important thing to

say. I think there is a conversation that needs to be had nationally

about the value of civic museums. We cannot make that argument on our

own. In terms of our particular situation, we went from a budget

which included from the city council of 1.5 million. That went down to

1.2 and the next year to 600,000. That is losing more than half of our

income in two years. When we looked at the books, although actually the

city council funding is now not the major source of income, the only way

we could bridge that gap was to introduce charging for York

residents and the Art gallery. Now that we have met each of the

museums, all that remains is to see who has won this year's 's. --

prize. Good evening. I am absolutely

delighted to be here with you tonight for the Museum of the year

award in this spectacular building. It is the envelope. And the winner

is... Wrong side. The Victoria and Albert Museum.

So, that is it on this glorious sunny day. Huge congratulations to

the end a full winning Museum of the year. We will see a collection of

the wonderful objects they have. -- V Enjoy.