A city centre museum is to reopen its gallery following an 18-month closure.
In August 2024, the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, in the Pavilion Gardens, closed its central gallery due to repairs needed to its roof.
The roof restoration was funded by a grant of £1.4 million from Arts Council England and £500k from Brighton and Hove City Council.
Due to the repair works, curators were given the opportunity to rethink the space as the previous 20th century exhibition had been put into storage.
With works now complete, the museum is reopening the gallery today (October 25), hosting a new exhibition, ‘Passion, Power, and Protest’.
The exhibition looks to explore themes of love, identity, connection, prejudice, resistance, challenge and change.
Highlights include a sofa designed by Salvador Dali to celebrate the lips of Hollywood actress Mae West, protest banners from the 2020 Black Lives Matter campaign, and historic items from Brighton Pride.
On Thursday (October 23), the museum hosted a preview of the collection to celebrate its opening.
Read more
CEO of Brighton and Hove Museums, Hedley Swain, helped cut the ribbon alongside Councillor Birgit Miller and Hazel Edwards, South East Director at Arts Council England.
Hedley Swain said: “This is a major moment in the history of Brighton Museum. We are thrilled to be unveiling a wonderful new exhibition space, as well as our newly renovated roof.
“Passion, Power & Protest explores some of the most pressing questions in society today, who holds power, what we care about, and who gets to tell our stories. This is a fantastic opportunity for us to display some of the amazing objects we have in our collections.
“We want to thank Arts Council England and Brighton & Hove City Council for their generous support for the roof repair work.”
Members of the public who had their items displayed in the exhibition were able to attend the preview, ahead of this weekend’s opening to the public.
Alf (left) and Paul (right) (Image: NQ)
Alf Le Flohic and Paul Clift were among those whose items are displayed.
The LGBTQ+ activists had been part of the campaign in the 80s against the Section 28 legislation – a law passed in 1988 by the Conservative government that stopped councils and schools “promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”.
Alf said: “The legislation did exactly what it was not supposed to do.
“It was supposed to make us feel ashamed and invisible and not talked about and actually it brought the community together in a way that it hadn’t before.
“There was much more of a gender divide beforehand and this brought everybody together. I’ve still got friends that I met back then.
“It created a real solid community base in Brighton, which hadn’t existed before and it’s great to see that history kept in here which people can come and see.
“It’s nice to be able to show stuff from the past that people probably would not have seen in a museum before.”
The new exhibition also features some rare and never-seen-before objects from the museum’s collections, as well as items which are on loan.
Read more
Councillor Birgit Miller, cabinet member for culture, heritage, and tourism at Brighton and Hove City Council, celebrated the exhibition and its representation of the city’s values.
She said: “it is really lovely to have that sense that this [the gallery] is a living, vibrant space again and a space which not only educates but is also visually enjoyable.
“It is fantastic and it’s a beautiful exhibition and I think really captures the identity of the city. I think it’s important that museums evolve. You don’t want a museum to be a historical artifact.
“You need to keep bringing the collection out, but you need to think about how it fits in with the current context, people’s lives now and what they want to learn about.”
She described the museum as one of the city’s “four jewels in the crown”, referring to the museum alongside the Royal Pavilion, Brighton Dome, and Corn Exchange.
Cllr Miller added: “There’s so many school children who will be able to learn more about the spirit of the city with this new exhibition. It’s a lovely exhibition that is bringing together parts of our identity as a city of protest.”
