Museum of Chelmsford awarded £50k from Art Fund for intergenerational collections project

The Museum of Chelmsford has received a grant of £46,190 from Art Fund, the national charity for museums and galleries, to fund an intergenerational project to catalogue the museum’s collections.

The funding is part of a total of £1.3m awarded through the latest round of Art Fund’s Reimagine programme, supporting innovative collections projects in museums and galleries across the UK.

Grant to support work to interpret and widen access to museum collections

Your Voice, Our Collection will see the museum collaborate with people living with dementia and young people from across Chelmsford. The participants will work alongside a curator to research, rationalise and catalogue the museum’s industrial and social history collections.

The project supports the museum’s long-term ambition to share more of the collection in a relevant and engaging manner. Work to research objects will provide a deeper understanding of the museum’s collections, while digitisation of records will improve access to the collection online. 

As they research the collections, project participants will spotlight objects they consider to be of local importance, which will culminate in a 2027 exhibition exploring the museum’s top 50 artefacts, directly chosen by local communities.

Should the 18-month pilot be successful, the museum hopes to continue a long-term project, working alongside local communities to rationalise and catalogue its entire collections.

Empowering local communities to shape museum stories

With more than 35,000 artefacts, the museum’s collections are extensive. Your Voice, Our Collection, will build on ongoing work to review and update these collections.

The Museum of Chelmsford's collections store contains thousands of diverse artefacts.

Work already underway on this includes the museum’s collaborative project with Chelmsford’s youth forum, Spark!, to develop a new acquisitions policy. Supported by independent charity, Culture Chelmsford, Collecting Our Future aims to create a collections policy that better represents Chelmsford’s modern-day communities.

Your Voice, Our Collection expands this work by collaborating with older participants as well as young people, to achieve a group of participants that represents multiple generations of Chelmsfordians. The project aims to benefit the participants as much as the museum by fostering community connections and engaging local people with their city’s heritage.

Cabinet Deputy for Cultural Services, Councillor Jennie Lardge, says the Art Fund grant provides an opportunity for local communities to spotlight objects and stories of local importance hidden within the museum:

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“This grant from Art Fund enables the Museum of Chelmsford to pilot a brand-new initiative to connect local people with the museum’s collections as well as with one another. Your Voice, Our Collection has the potential to flip the traditional role of a museum and its curators from being the holders of knowledge, to instead becoming facilitators – celebrating local stories and empowering communities to take ownership of their city’s heritage. As they embark on this project, I look forward to seeing what items in the museum’s collection are important to local communities and revealing the stories that may be tied to these objects.”

Councillor Jennie Lardge, Cabinet Deputy for Cultural Services, Chelmsford City Council

Reimagine programme supports work to protect museum collections

This new funding for the Museum of Chelmsford is part of Art Fund’s Reimagine programme, which aims to address the most urgent challenges faced by the museum sector following the pandemic.

This latest round of Reimagine focuses on collections – a cornerstone of Art Fund’s mission and one of the areas of museum practice with the greatest demand for funding. Art Fund’s 2024 Museum Directors survey found that 56% of museums cite a lack of funding for collections as a major barrier to essential work such as digitisation, collections reviews and acquisitions.

Jenny Waldman, Director of Art Fund, said:

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“At the core of Art Fund’s purpose is supporting museums to develop, care for and share the collections that enrich people’s lives. I'm delighted we've been able to support the Museum of Chelmsford through our final round of Reimagine funding, enabling museums to explore their collections, connect with communities and ensure that works of art, objects and their stories are shared and preserved for future generations.”

Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund

The funding has been made possible thanks to support from The Kirby Laing Foundation, Art Fund members and supporters of Art Fund's Expanding Horizons appeal.

To keep up to date with the Your Voice, Our Collection project, subscribe to the Museum of Chelmsford’s enewsletter and follow them on Facebook and Instagram.