Museum’s iconic Round Room transformed
BIRMINGHAM Museum & Art Gallery’s famous Round Room has been radically transformed as part of the tourist attraction’s partial reopening for the Commonwealth Games and Birmingham 2022 Festival.
The reopening of five of the museum’s 40 galleries has gone ahead despite a major electrical works programme in other areas.
The museum’s Industrial Gallery has also reopened seven days a week with a series of displays created in partnership with some of the city’s most creative organisations. The areas that have reopened will close again in December 2022 to allow maintenance to continue before the building reopens fully in 2024.
On display in the Round Room, ‘We Are Birmingham’ reflects the people of the 21st century city.
The exhibition is presented by the Birmingham 2022 Festival and co-curated by Birmingham Museums and a group of six young people of colour. A spokesman said: “The new display will present a vivid celebration of the city that Birmingham is now as well as aspirations of what the city could become.”
The famous Sir Jacob Epstein sculpture, Lucifer, has been unboxed and is back on display in the room.
Elsewhere, the Bridge Gallery is showcasing a selection of gems from the civic collection and Gallery 10 will show historic artworks and new acquisitions.
The Edwardian Tearooms and gallery shop have also reopened.
The partial reopening is the first chance to see the Birmingham Museums Trust’s bid to create an attraction “which is more representative of the people of Birmingham, all co-curated with the people of the city”.
Sara Wajid and Zak Mensah, co-CEOs of Birmingham Museums Trust, said: “Reopening this spring feels like a symbolic marker of the end of lockdown and the start of a new phase of cultural confidence for
Birmingham. This is a chance to welcome old friends and new visitors from all over the world. The new displays honour the contribution of activists, reformers and creative pioneers.”
Visitors will also be able to enjoy the city’s first major art exhibition since the pandemic when the Gas Hall reopens on May 14, with an Arts Council Collection exhibition curated by Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid. Found Cities, Lost Objects: Women in the City, opens in Birmingham with a selection of local works before touring galleries and museums across the UK.