Hastings Museum and Art Gallery gets funding for more digital exhibitions

Hastings Digital Museum started in March 2020 during the first lockdown. It aims to give people access to meaningful cultural activities using the museum’s collections and resources.

Throughout 2020 the museum produced online immersive games; community art projects; workshops; courses; children and family activities.

It also collected Covid-19 Journals and commissioned responses to the Black Lives Matters movement and supported groups like Arts on Prescription.

The Hastings Digital Museum activities has reached well over 2 million people. To keep this good working going the museum has received grants funded by Art Fund’s Respond and Reimagine programme and Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grants.

Cllr Colin Fitzgerald, deputy leader of Hastings Borough Council, is delighted the museum has received the grant. He said: “This funding means that over the rest of 2021 Hastings Museum & Art Gallery can work with creative freelancers to create more amazing online content for people of all ages to enjoy.

“The museum is currently looking for freelancers with good ideas to work with. It also means the museum can continue to work with Starlings Music Group and Arts on Prescription. The museum’s loans boxes will be updated, and new blended learning workshops introduced. Every box will include a 3D scans of objects along with an entire digital loans box about Native North American people.

“The loans boxes will be available for borrow by schools and home educators. The museum’s website will be updated and become the hub for all of the museum’s digital activities and resources. Making it a much more user-friendly experience.”

Art Fund’s Respond and Reimagine grants offer responsive funding to help museums adapt to the challenges of the Covid-19 crisis and reimagine future ways of working.

The UK’s museums provide inspiration, joy, and education, enriching lives and bringing communities closer together, but the impact of Covid-19 has been catastrophic for many.

Since the first lockdown began, Art Fund has awarded a total of £2.25m in emergency funding, enabling 67 institutions to respond with innovation to the pandemic.

Unfortunately, this amount isn’t nearly enough – only 15% of applicants have been successful, with Art Fund receiving a total of 451 applications totalling £16.9m. With six in ten (60 per cent) museums Art Fund surveyed worried about their survival, and the new national lockdown likely increasing this figure, the charity is urging the public to support their fundraising appeal Together for Museums, which aims to raise £1 million to help more museums.

Art Fund is appealing to the public to make donations of any size. From just £15, unique objects and artworks are available as rewards, donated by leading artists including Cornelia Parker, Jeremy Deller, Lubaina Himid, Anish Kapoor and David Shrigley.

For more information, visit www.artfund.org/together.

Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. For more on Hastings Museum and exhibitions running visit www.hmag.org.uk.

See also: New community campaign aims to kick Covid out of Hastings