Powell-Cotton Museum Win Guardian Cultural Pros Pick ‘Most Inspiring Museum’ Award

Staff of the Powell-Cotton Museum attend the awards night in London © Simon Callaghan Photography 

On Wednesday May 14^th a group of Powell-CottonMuseum staff and trustees attended the Museum and Heritage Awards in London. The Museum had been nominated for the Guardian sponsored cultural pros pick award, for the nation’s most inspiring museum. Already amazed to have reached the final five of the competition (out of nearly 400 entries!) we were revelling in being part of such a prestigious event, without any expectation of actually winning the award! Winning was just the icing on the cake (as the award was presented by Sue Perkins, a cake related turn of phrase seems appropriate!). Whilst those of us there to hear our name called were shocked and amazed, we were obviously delighted to have won.

The cultural pros pick award is voted for by the public. It is a testament to our supporters, visitors, friends and fellow museum professionals, all of whom tirelessly promoted us during the voting period that we not only won, but won with 33% of the vote! This award isn’t just about a single exhibit or event, but recognises the immense hard work of our entire team, both those the public see and those they don’t, who make the museum the place that it is, and provide the experience that visitors felt was so inspiring.

Winning this award is brilliant for our museum team and a well-deserved moment of recognition for our hard work and passion for the Powell-Cotton, but it is only the start. The challenge now is to build on this success. With the opening of a new Arts Council funded gallery in October this year, several new temporary exhibitions and a number of innovative projects to improve our collections behind the scenes, continuing to inspire museum visitors remains central to what we do. Inspiration is about innovation, and moving forward we hope that the Powell-Cotton Museum continues to do both these things, and prove itself a worthy winner of this great accolade. 

Inbal Livine

Collections Manager

Powell-Cotton Museum