Museum of the Year Awards
Manchester Museum has been named as a runner-up in Art Fund Museum of the Year 2024.
The museum narrowly missed out on the largest museum prize in the world, which was instead picked up by Young V&A at a ceremony at the National Gallery.
The Museum will still pick up a prize of £15,000 as one of four runners-up, alongside Craven Museum, Dundee Contemporary Arts, National Portrait Gallery and Young V&A.
Despite missing out on the main prize, Manchester Museum has been praised for the work it has done to collaborate with communities and foster a unique sense of belonging.
When the Museum reopened in February last year following a major values-led redevelopment, it did so reinvented as a museum dedicated to putting empathy, belonging, collaboration and co-creation at the heart of everything it does.
The award-winning South Asia Gallery is emblematic of this spirit of collective endeavour, co-curated with 30 people from the South Asian diaspora, and the Museum’s Top Floor has become a social and environmental justice hub, opening up opportunities for educational and environmental charities to benefit from its collections, resources and research. This is further to sector-leading work around restitution and repatriation, which has been recognised by UNESCO, and vital conservation projects led by its Vivarium, in collaboration with researchers worldwide.