What makes the Ulster Museum excellent, original and innovative?
The won the last night and with it a cheque for £100,000. That's a big win at the best of times, but right now with all this talk of 30% cuts in public subsidy for arts institutions it constitutes a major windfall.
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Excellence, originality and innovation were the judges' criteria. Having visited the Ulster Museum recently, I can vouch that all three were present. As they should be, frankly: the place has been under wraps for the last three years undergoing a £17m redevelopment, turning a dark and dingy turn-off into a bright and airy turn-on.
Or as Tim Cooke, the Museum's director put it: "the old building was designed to keep people out; this one welcomes them in". He's an ebullient, energetic man who is clearly driven by improving the cultural offer in Ulster. He talks a lot of sense, although I was a little disappointed when he told me how he intended to spend his winnings.
He plans to . Museum bosses are very keen on all this stuff, but in my experience audiences are not. If ever I want a quiet contemplative time away from the crowds in a busy museum, I always head for its "digital space", where I can guarantee the only thing that will disturb me is the gentle whir of 30 highly-specked computers resting in "sleep" mode.
The and stands comparison with the best. But the concept that seemed to capture the imagination of the visitors was not fancy or digital or expensive. OK, there were one or two computers in the "interactive spaces", but they were used to put bags on. What the visitors raved about was real-life interaction: being given permission to pick up and inspect the objects.
And the feature that had most "visitor engagement" was as low-tech as it gets. A picture window has been incorporated into the new design, which looks out over the botanic gardens. In a moment of real excellence, originality and innovation, somebody came up with the idea of putting a table at the foot of the window. On the table is a sheet of the types of birds you might spot from this vantage point and some binoculars with which to do so.
Genius. And cheap. And not a plug in sight.
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