High Life Highland is one of twenty organisations across the UK taking part in Going Places – a landmark £5.36m exhibition programme from Art Fund, the national charity for museums and galleries, that will see museums and galleries from all four nations share their collections in the largest collaborative touring project of its kind.
The largest investment of its kind in the UK, Going Places has been supported with £2.86 million from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and £1.5 million from the Julia Rausing Trust, with further fundraising ongoing. Six museum networks spanning the breadth of the country will co-create 12 major touring exhibitions over the next five years, taking the UK’s collections on an epic journey that will result in 40 unique exhibitions made with and for local communities.
High Life Highland is working in partnership with CofGâr – Carmarthenshire Museums & Arts Service in Wales and the Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum in Northern Ireland, as part of a network called ‘Communities of Making’.
‘Communities of Making’ will be exploring how local heritage and traditions of making have evolved in these regions through objects from their collections including textiles, costume, craft objects, heritage machinery, paintings and various other items. All three partners collections are rooted in local and regional craft traditions and the skills associated with them, including on the Red List of Endangered Heritage Skills, which for High Life Highland collections at the Highland Folk Museum and Inverness Museum & Art Gallery, this includes coiled straw basket making, thatching, spinning wheel making, sporran and kilt making, bee skep making and coracle making.
Working in collaboration with hard to reach 16–24-year-olds the partner museums will bring together objects and artworks from their collections to explore how these craft practices relate to young people and their communities today. There will also be opportunities for these young people to get ‘hands on’ and be part of a new Young Curators Panel that will meet quarterly to co-create some exhibition content.
The first exhibition as a result of the ‘Communities of Making’ collaboration is scheduled to take place at Inverness Museum & Art Gallery in the spring of 2027, then key items from the Highland Folk Museum and Inverness Museum & Art Gallery will tour to the other venues in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Kirsten Body, Visual Arts Programme Curator at Inverness Museum & Art Gallery said: “We are really delighted to be part of this national partnership project. Through Going Places we will work with museum colleagues in Northern Ireland and Wales to develop our understanding around the endangered heritage craft in each of our places. We are looking forward to sharing more about our youth engagement programme and future touring exhibitions as they develop.”
Judi Menabney, High Life Highland’s Head of Archives and Museums and Galleries commented: “We are very much looking forward to developing a touring exhibition that celebrates the skills and crafts that our regions are famous for. Many of these traditional skills and crafts are in danger of being lost if we don’t inspire and educate future generations so it is crucial that we have the input of young people into the development of these exhibitions and hopefully inspire them to keep these skills and crafts alive.”
Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund, said: “Going Places is a celebration of UK collections and the people who bring them to life. By pooling resources, sharing expertise and working together, museums are championing a sustainable and collaborative approach to touring exhibitions – while making their collections accessible and exciting for communities across the country. As we continue our fundraising towards this programme to make the biggest impact for museums, we are immensely grateful to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Julia Rausing Trust for their very generous support for this programme, which will pave the way for a more open and resourceful future for exhibition making.”
Going Places responds directly to museums’ needs for more sustainable and collaborative ways of exhibiting, supporting them to share their collections with one another. Art Fund’s 2024 Museum Directors survey found that 63% of museums are looking to work in partnership with other museums on exhibition making.
The programme builds on recommendations from the 2022 research report Going places: Touring and shared exhibitions in the UK, commissioned by Art Fund and Creative Scotland, which identified shared touring models as key to increasing access to high-quality, accessible exhibitions, and building the long-term sustainability of museums across the UK.
Eilish McGuinness, Chief Executive, The National Lottery Heritage Fund, said:
“At The National Lottery Heritage Fund, we believe in the power of museums to inspire, offer joy, build pride in places and, of course, to provide a great day out. Going Places is a brilliant programme bringing together small and medium sized museums and galleries, enabling them to share diverse and much-loved collections in a unique and dynamic way, involving people right across the UK. We are delighted to be working in partnership with the Art Fund on this innovative project.
“Since 1994 we have awarded £2.4bn to 5,900 museum, library, archive and collection-based projects across the UK. Thanks to National Lottery players our funding contribution supports innovative and sustainable approaches to making exhibitions accessible, enabling communities to care for their precious heritage and share it more widely.”
Simon Fourmy, Director of the Julia Rausing Trust, said: “We are delighted to support Art Fund in launching the Going Places programme. This represents an innovative collaborative approach in the creation of touring exhibitions, and one that puts local communities at its heart. It provides meaningful cultural engagement that will broaden audiences and increase access to collections. Supporting cultural institutions was an important part of Julia Rausing’s giving and this programme will allow our funds to reach museums and communities across the UK.”
Going Places, an Art Fund programme made possible with generous support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Julia Rausing Trust.
