In a new blog series, we hear from the teams behind our current National Partners Programme to find out more about their unique museum and gallery venues. First up, Posy Jowett, Public Engagement and Learning Officer at Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens shares her experiences and insights working on the programme, as well as her personal highlights and route into the museum sector.
Sunderland Culture is one of three current Arts Council Collection National Partners and operates a number of venues across the city, including National Glass Centre and Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art as well as Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, with a combined audience of over 700,000. Over the next three years, Sunderland Culture will produce an ambitious programme of exhibitions and projects aimed at connecting the Arts Council Collection to diverse audiences who otherwise would have limited opportunities to experience it.
ACC: Can you tell us a little bit about your venue and what makes it special?
PJ: I work from Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens which is a beautiful old building right by Sunderland’s main shopping streets, home to the spectacular Winter Gardens, which houses heat and humidity loving plants and a pond full of Koi Fish! Every so often the gardener will ask me if I want a banana leaf or a huge piece of bamboo – I always say yes.
In the museum, we hold extensive collections which tell the story of Sunderland, which used to be a busy port town with lots of local industry. We have gorgeous art collections – including an extensive Lowry collection – and an exhibitions gallery where the Arts Council Collection Exhibitions and other temporary exhibitions are shown. In Sunderland, residents have a soft spot for the Museum. In living memory it’s always been free to enter and so lots of families bring their children along, teenagers use it to escape from the rain, and older people use it as a meeting place.