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Gulbenkian Prize For Museums & Galleries - 2006 Contest Opens

By 24 Hour Museum Staff

11/08/2005

Image: Shows a photo of a sculpted silver bowl.

The Gulbenkian Prize bowl - a little added incentive. Courtesy Gulbenkian Prize.

The UK’s single largest arts prize is calling for entries from September 1 2005. The Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries, which weighs in at £100,000, is now in its fourth year.

The prize is awarded to the UK museum or gallery that can lay claim to the best new development of the previous calendar year. It is open to all shapes and sizes, aiming to recognise originality, imagination and excellence. From the all-singing, all-dancing state-of-the-art city museum, to the down-to-earth, innovative focus of the local community, all will be considered (if entered).

Image: Shows a photo of a water and grass landscape.

Landform by Charles Jencks, winner of the Gulbenkian 2004. Courtesy Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

The judges will be looking in particular for imaginative building or display design, creative use of new technology, unusual approaches to curation or work with new audiences.

The 2005 shortlist included an exhibition curated by locals on a Scottish Isle and a huge eco-building housing fun-packed interactives to encourage children to learn about railway heritage in the North East.

The winner was Big Pit: National Mining Museum of Wales at Blaenafon. Big Pit allows visitors to descend 300 feet underground, led by ex-miners, to experience the working conditions that generations endured daily.

Image: Shows a photo of a miner and a child wearing hard hats and looking at a lamp.

Big Pit: National Mining Museum of Wales. © Big Pit

“Winning the prize has boosted both our museum and our town of Blaenafon,” said Peter Walker, Big Pit Keeper and Mine Manager, “generating many more visitors and raising our profile locally, nationally and internationally.”

The 2004 winner was rather different – a landscape sculpture by Charles Jencks. Landform is a sweeping, grassy piece of art in the grounds of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. The National Centre for Citizenship and the Law at Nottingham’s Galleries of Justice won the inaugural Gulbenkian Prize.

The winning venue will also be able to display the enamelled silver Gulbenkian Prize bowl, by artist Vladimir Böhm, for the duration of its year of glory.

See www.thegulbenkianprize.org.uk for more details.

Big Pit: National Coal Museum
Big Pit: National Coal Museum, Blaenafon, NP4 9XP, Torfaen, Wales

Open: February-November Daily 10.00-15.30 Please telephone for details of winter opening
Closed: Please telephone for details

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (National Galleries of Scotland)
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art , Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3DR, Lothian, Scotland

Open: Mon-Sat 1000-1700 Sun 1400-1700

NCCL Galleries of Justice
High Pavement, Lace Market, Nottingham, NG1 1HN, Nottinghamshire, England

Open: Please check the website for current and updated opening times September-April Tues-Sun 1000-1700 Last admission 16.00 October-March Tues-Sun 10.00-16.00 Last admisson 15.00
Closed: Mondays (except Bank Holiday Mondays and Nottinghamshire holidays) Christmas & New Year

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