Friday, April 26, 2019

Visiting rights

Congratulations to St Fagans National Museum Of History on being shortlisted for the Museum Of The Year 2019 accolade. It's very much our default weekend/school holiday destination - a huge site, new buildings and attractions popping up all the time, 15 minutes' drive from our house here in Cardiff and a bargain at just £5 per car per visit (or £25 for an annual pass).

Also on the shortlist is the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. It's another personal favourite, but is not without its controversies. Dave Gilyeat (better known to me and many others as the presenter of BBC Radio Oxford's Introducing show) wrote earlier this year about the pressure the museum is under to return/repatriate human remains. What to do with cultural artefacts plundered during our colonial past is a problem facing other institutions, including the National Trust, but the Pitt Rivers has at least begun the process of repatriation and also made the issue the specific subject of a programme, Hope. Maybe that sensitivity has helped to secure its place on the shortlist.

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