The Box, Plymouth’s new museum, art gallery and cultural centre is to open again in May.
Plans are in place for the doors to be opened to the public again on Tuesday May 18.
The Box first opened on September 29 and in the ensuing nine weeks it attracted 30,000 visitors. There than followed a five-month closure due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Exciting plans are in place for a host of special events during the summer and autumn.
When it re-opens on May 18, The Box’s programme will include a brand new exhibition called ‘Wampum: Stories from the Shells of Native America’. The exhibition centres on a wampum belt created by 100 members of the Wampanoag of Massachusetts. It will be displayed alongside seven historic wampum belts on loan from the British Museum and Saffron Walden Museum.
The Box’s Mayflower 400 commemorations also continue with its flagship exhibition ‘Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy’. The exhibition has been extended until January 2022 and returns with new objects on display including the Second Peirce Patent, on loan from Pilgrim Hall Museum.
This significant item is the oldest existing state document of New England. Signed in 1621, it gave the Mayflower passengers English permission to settle in America. 2021 marks the first time in 400 years that it will travel to England.
Later in the summer, The Box will display a selection of paintings from its rarely seen Port Eliot collection. The collection includes works by leading 18th century portrait painters such as Plympton-born Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney and Thomas Lawrence, and represents an unusually good group of family portraits, commissioned by the Eliot family of the Port Eliot Estate in St Germans between 1740 and 1780.
Contemporary art is at the heart of The Box’s offer and a major international art exhibition which will open on September 25. Details will be revealed in June, four months ahead of its opening date. There will be nothing like it happening anywhere in the UK in 2021 and visitors are expected to travel from across the country to catch this blockbuster show.
Tudor Evans, leader of Plymouth City Council, said:
“This is such an exciting moment for the city and it’s fantastic to finally be able to announce these dates .I hope everyone is as proud and excited as I am and can’t wait for the doors to reopen. In our post-lockdown world, The Box is a place where people can reconnect with each other, as well as Plymouth’s history and its bright future.”
For more information visit www.theboxplymouth.com
