UK’s wokest museum
With the Burrell Collection set to reopen, it’s had a VERY modern makeover to focus on slave trade links and LGBT heritage (and even the loos are gender neutral!)
IT is one of Scotland’s best-known museums, housing an acclaimed collection of priceless artefacts.
But the world-famous Burrell Collection has now undergone a ‘woke’ makeover.
The museum is due to reopen in March following a six-year £68 million refurbishment project.
And when the public are allowed back in, they will find that the collection of objects gathered by shipping tycoon Sir William Burrell in the 1900s has been re-evaluated with a very 21st Century perspective.
For the first time, slavery will be the subject of a detailed examination, with a display explaining how many of the items are linked to wealth generated by the abhorrent trade in humans.
In addition, virtually all the Burrell’s 9,000 artworks have been ‘combed through’ to check if they could be linked to ‘LGBT histories’, with 300 identified as having such connections. The A-listed building, opened in 1983, is also being brought up to date, with ‘genderinclusive’ language across its displays, gender-neutral toilets and eco-friendly heating and lighting said to have been upgraded to use ‘sustainable technologies’.
Burrell and his wife Lady Constance collected thousands of works of art before donating them all to the City of Glasgow in 1944. The Burrell was opened by the Queen in 1983 but was closed to the public in 2016 amid growing concern over its leaking roof and the threat of damage to the valuable artefacts.
Exhibits range from priceless Gothic tapestries to Chinese pottery from prehistoric times and hundreds of paintings stretching across at least five centuries.
Central to the new Burrell will be a dedicated display on the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade examining its links with art created to mark the profits and wealth of European plantation owners.
Curators also researched new wording for displays to try to ensure the collection is ‘transparent and representative of the true legacies of the slave trade’. Items linked to slavery, abolished in the UK in the 1830s, include glassware which belonged to Dutch
merchants who had it commissioned to celebrate the wealth they had accrued from their Caribbean plantations.
Stained-glass panels purchased in 1945 by Sir William himself have also had their links to wealth generated by slavery examined.
The Burrell will have play areas for toddlers and their parents, state-of-the-art gaming and touch-screen technology, one example of which will involve ‘virtual’ dressing-up.
Glasgow Life, the organisation responsible for the city’s museums, said the reopening comes after work by the local council on reappraising civic connections with the slave trade, and a council debate about the Black Lives Matter movement, adding: ‘All the Legacies of Empire and Slavery work by our museums service is in this policy context.’
Another facet of the reimagined Burrell is its examination of items for links to LGBT histories.
Curator Laura Bauld said around 300 were found which ‘could be used to tell our visitors about LGBT history’.
They include an ancient Greek sculpture thought to be the fertility god/goddess Cybele. The Burrell says the statue allows ‘us to explore intersex histories’.
Ms Bauld added: ‘We pride ourselves that the physical Burrell building will also be a safe space for LGBT individuals.
‘When the Burrell opens it will become a place where LGBT histories are celebrated and commemorated, and the community is welcomed, accepted and respected.’
A spokesman for Glasgow Life said: ‘Very soon these wonderful works of art, which Sir William Burrell gave to the people of Glasgow, will be enjoyed in a modern, greener museum, fit for purpose and for the future.
‘The refurbishment of the Burrell Collection demonstrates the city’s ambition for it to become more widely appreciated and well known around the world.’