The Grimsby Museum and Grimsby Public Art Gallery are looking for community input as part of the early stages of their five-year strategic plan.
As of July 5, a questionnaire is available through the Let's Talk Grimsby platform with questions for residents about their personal experiences with both facilities and what they would like to see in the future.
“There's no point in us putting on exhibits or exhibitions or gallery functions that nobody wants to see,” said museum curator and manager Janet Oakes.
Oakes said the overall reaction from the community had been “very positive.” She said the community so far has pitched great ideas on what kinds of exhibits they’d want to see in the future, as well as what kinds of decisions they’d like to have input on going forward and that she hopes to see more responses while the questionnaire is still up.
She said the pandemic emphasized the importance of having an online presence, and not only was it something the museum planned to do going forward, but it was something that the response from the public so far also expressed an interest in.
“The answer is yes, they would like us to continue to put out digital content so that people who still cannot come to the facilities can still participate in these programs,” Oakes said.
Rhona Wenger, curator and manager of the Grimsby Public Art Gallery said “we're a public organization And we want to know what people want and expect of us.” She said public input was a good way to measure whether gallery programming was relevant to public interest, and a good way to capture ideas that “we maybe haven't thought about.”
She echoed the value of an online presence. She said the gallery was not initially prepared for a move to online, but managed to do so successfully when the time came.
Wenger said it was important to have a “hybrid existence.”
“We are so looking forward to being able to to be in a position where we can welcome people in, to actually have an in-person experience with original art again,” Wegner said. “But we've learned our lesson, we know that we have to be prepared to flip that switch at very short notice.”
The Grimsby Museum and Grimsby Public Art Gallery are looking for community input as part of the early stages of their five-year strategic plan.
- Moosa Imran, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Grimsby Lincoln News
