A museum on a small island in Orkney that became the Royal Navy’s nerve centre during both world wars has been shortlisted for museum of the year.
The Scapa Flow Museum tells the story of how the island of Hoy became essential to Britain’s defence with the construction of a large naval base. It reopened last year after a £4.4m redevelopment.
The museum is one of five shortlisted for the UK award organised by the Art Fund. The others are the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, Leighton House in London, the MAC in Belfast and the Natural History Museum in London.
The finalists were “at the top of their game, offering inspirational collections and programmes for their communities, for visitors from across the UK and around the world”, said Jenny Waldman, the director of Art Fund.
“From transformational redevelopment to community involvement, to addressing the major issues of today, the shortlisted museums may operate at very different scales, but all show astonishing ambition and boundless creativity. Each is a blueprint for future innovation in museums.”
During the two world wars of the last century, thousands of people went to build and work on the naval base at Lyness on Hoy. The Scapa Flow Museum tells the stories of individuals as well as charting historic events, such as internment, and the scuttling and salvage of the German high seas fleet in 1919.
The redevelopment incorporated part of the base’s infrastructure, the former fuel oil pumping station. The museum is a significant tourist attraction on the island, which has a permanent population of 400.
The Burrell Collection houses 9,000 objects collected by Sir William and Constance Burrell, including one of the UK’s most significant holdings of Chinese art, some of the world’s finest medieval stained glass and tapestries, and paintings by artists including Rembrandt and Degas.
It reopened to the public in Glasgow last March after a six-year refurbishment that cost £68m and was funded by Glasgow city council, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Scottish and UK governments. The collection was originally donated to the City of Glasgow in 1944 on the proviso that it be housed in a rural setting.
Leighton House is the former studio and home of the leading Victorian artist Frederic Leighton, which has been a museum since 1900. Recently it has worked with contemporary artists to create works of art that resonate with the influences of the house, including furniture made by displaced Syrian artisans.
The MAC is Northern Ireland’s leading arts centre, bringing major international artists to a local audience, while displaying the work of Northern Irish artists in an international context. Its MACtivate programme works with marginalised people, allowing the museum to reach beyond traditional arts audiences.
The Natural History Museum is a world-leading science research centre as well as the most-visited indoor attraction in the UK. Its scientific collections comprise more than 80m specimens, and its 350 scientists work on issues such as biodiversity loss and the sustainable extraction of natural resources.
It was famously the home of Dippy, which became the first diplodocus to go on display in the world in 1905, until 2017.
The museum was criticised recently for agreeing to a gagging clause preventing it from criticising the oil company that sponsored its wildlife photography competition, as well as for hosting an event for the Saudi embassy in London in 2018 – amid the global outrage over the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the country’s consulate in Istanbul.
The 2022 winner of the award was the Horniman Museum and Gardens in south London. This year’s winner will be announced on 12 July and will receive £120,000, with £15,000 going to each of the other finalists.
Alongside Waldman, the panel also includes the artist Larry Achiampong, the historian and broadcaster Dame Mary Beard, as well as the author Abadesi Osunsade, and Laura Pye, the director of National Museums Liverpool.
The judges will visit each of the finalists to inform their decision-making, while each museum will make the most of being shortlisted over the summer through events and activities for new and current visitors.
