Battle of the Museums for £120,000 prize

The Natural History Museum successful London and Orkney's erstwhile Royal Navy basal astatine Scapa Flow are successful the moving to beryllium named the UK's Museum of the Year.

They are joined connected the shortlist for the £120,000 grant by Glasgow's Burrell Collection and the MAC successful Belfast.

Leighton House, located successful London's Holland Park, completes the five-strong shortlist.

The victor volition beryllium announced astatine the British Museum connected 12 July, with the 4 runners-up receiving £15,000 each.

The 2023 prize marks the 10th twelvemonth of Art Fund's Museum of the Year, which aims to champion the UK's 2,500 museums, galleries and practice sites.

Find retired much astir the nominees:

The Burrell Collection successful Glasgow's Pollok Country Park houses the 9,000-object postulation of Sir William and Constance Burrell.

Managed by the foundation Glasgow Life, it was officially reopened by King Charles past year, pursuing a large refurbishment.

The postulation includes 1 of the UK's astir important holdings of Chinese creation and immoderate of the world's finest medieval stained solid and tapestries, arsenic good arsenic paintings by artists including Rembrandt and Degas.

It besides contains 100 pieces of integer interpretation, from immersive experiences to interactive games.

London's Leighton House is the erstwhile studio-home of starring Victorian creator Frederic, Lord Leighton.

A nationalist depository since 1900, it reopened successful 2022 pursuing its redevelopment.

As portion of the restoration project, the depository undertook probe to proceed to bring Leighton's postulation backmost together.

It besides worked intimately with modern artists, connected works including furnishings made by displaced Syrian artisans, and a striking mural entitled Oneness.

The MAC is Northern Ireland's starring arts instauration and a cardinal operator successful Belfast's social, carnal and economical regeneration, organisers of the prize said.

For the past decennary it has enabled radical to enactment successful and bask art.

Its galleries bring large planetary artists to Ireland, whilst besides positioning section artists wrong an planetary context.

The centre places an adjacent accent connected its civic and taste responsibility, arsenic demonstrated done its MACtivate programme which helps immoderate of the astir marginalised radical successful society.

Raising consciousness of the lodging situation successful Northern Ireland, the MAC commissioned artists to make works that run for the well-being of LGBT radical and advocated connected behalf of reproductive rights organisations successful the country.

The Natural History Museum successful London is simply a starring subject probe centre and the most-visited indoor attraction successful the UK.

It is considered to beryllium 1 of world's astir important technological collections, comprising implicit 80 cardinal specimens.

A caller exhibition, titled Our Broken Planet: How We Got Here and Ways to Fix It, welcomed much than 1.2 cardinal visitors - with 77% of those asked saying their sojourn had made them much apt to instrumentality enactment to support the earthy world.

The depository took portion successful COP27 and hosts manufacture experts, policymakers and young activists, including Greta Thunberg who worked with it to nutrient an lawsuit for schools astir biodiversity loss.

The Scapa Flow Museum tells the communicative of Orkney and its radical during World War One and World War Two, including the operation of a immense Royal Navy basal astatine Lyness connected the land of Hoy, wherever it stands today.

The depository reopened its £4.4m redevelopment to the nationalist past year, with funders including the National Lottery Heritage Fund and NatureScot.

Incorporating portion of the historical infrastructure, it tells idiosyncratic tales of those who came to Orkney successful wartime, arsenic good arsenic cardinal narratives astir the basal and important wartime tragedies.

Primary schoolhouse pupils helped plan the layout of the spaces done a inferior curators programme.

Speaking connected behalf of the judges, Art Fund manager Jenny Waldman said that each of the finalists were "at the apical of their game, offering inspirational collections and programmes for their communities, for visitors from crossed the UK and astir the world".

She added: "From transformational redevelopment to assemblage engagement to addressing the large issues of today, the shortlisted museums whitethorn run astatine precise antithetic scales, but each amusement astonishing ambition and boundless creativity."

She went connected to picture them each arsenic "a blueprint for aboriginal innovation successful museums".