The Open Museum is a

community museum A community museum is a museum serving as an exhibition and gathering space for specific identity groups or geographic areas. In contrast to traditional museums, community museums are commonly multidisciplinary, and may simultaneously exhibit the ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. The Open Museum is run out of the Glasgow Museums Resource Centre. It brings museum collections beyond the limits of the museum walls and out into the Glasgow community. The Open Museum is one of ten museums under the broader title the

Glasgow Museums Glasgow Museums is the group of museums and galleries owned by the City of Glasgow, Scotland. They hold about 1.6 million objects including over 60,000 art works, over 200,000 items in the human history collections, over 21,000 items relating to ...

and many consider the Open Museum to be the “outreach arm.” Founded in 1989, the Glasgow Open Museum's goal is to let the public explore their archive without necessarily having to come to the museum. The people of Glasgow are allowed to use the objects for their own research and exhibitions.

History

Since 1989, the museum has worked with schools, senior centres, businesses, and prisons in addition to encouraging the public to engage with staff on community projects that explore contemporary issues that impact Glasgow. The Glasgow Open Museum's goal is to create a more fluid relationship with the public and to bring the Museum to those that cannot make their way inside the museum. In America a trend of artist inspired exhibits helped museums bring their pieces from the archives onto display, but never have American museums let the local public interact with the objects in the archives the way the Open Museum does.

References

1989 establishments in Scotland Museums established in 1989 Museums in Glasgow Community museums {{UK-museum-stub