BM&AG reopening

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery will be opening its doors for the first time since October 2020 on 28 April, but if you're expecting to find it as you left it, think again...

The museum will be partially reopening with a series of exhibitions and events taking over spaces throughout the museum as part of the Birmingham 2022 Festival - including our very own Wonderland exhibition, exploring Birmingham's cinema stories.

And we're in fantastic company. Other projects include:

Don’t Settle: We Are Birmingham
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s partial reopening will be launched with a radical transformation of the stunning Round Room. We Are Birmingham will reflect the people of 21st Century Birmingham. Co-curated by Birmingham Museums and a group of six young People of Colour from Don't Settle, a project of Beatfreeks, 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.

Birmingham Music Archive: In The Que
A sensory exhibition will celebrate one of Birmingham’s greatest music venues – the Que Club. Curated by Birmingham Music Archive and Pretty Hate Production, In The Que, will feature previously unseen photographs by critically acclaimed photographer Terence Donovan, personal artefacts, archive film footage, flyers and posters and a 35 minute documentary film. Reflecting the experiences of the Que Club – from the ravers to the DJs, musicians to staff – the exhibition will encourage visitors and former clubbers to share memories and join in a lively programme of events.

Fierce: SaVĀge K’Lub: Vā TAMATEA
New Zealand/Aotearoa artists Rosanna Raymond and Jaimie Waititi present a SaVĀge K’Lubroom in a secretive corner of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. The installation reclaims the gentlemen’s clubs of the same name first established in London in the 19th century. SaVĀge K’Lub poses the question: what might it mean to be a savage today?

Vā TAMATEA is the calm surface above the churning currents that unearth tāonga (treasured possessions) from Birmingham’s collection. SaVĀge K’Lub is interested in the rupture of the Vā (a Samoan term for ‘space’) that was brought about by the exchange of tāonga during 'first contact' between European explorers and Polynesian peoples. Part of Fierce’s Healing Gardens of Bab.

Kalaboration Arts: Blacklash: Racism and the Struggle for Self-Defence
From the mid-1980s and over a period of two decades, artist, cultural activist and filmmaker Mukhtar Dar, documented the struggles of Asian and African Caribbean communities against racism. Blacklash: Racism and the Struggle for Self-Defence, by Kalaboration Arts, draws on Mukhtar’s extensive archive of photos, videos and other political ephemera providing a historical context for contemporary anti-racism movements such as Black Lives Matter, as well as encouraging reflection, discussion and debate.

And of course...

Flatpack Projects: Wonderland
We'll be exploring how cinema has shaped the streets, social lives and dreams of Brummies over the past 125 years. We're also mapping all 150 plus cinemas in the city – from fairgrounds to multiplexes and from South Asian extravaganzas to pop-ups. The display will showcase photographs and cinema memorabilia, alongside Birmingham’s collection of magic lanterns and optical toys. Visitors can join in by sharing their own cinema-going memories, watch film screenings or take part in drop-in activities.