The British Museum Announces 2016/17 Annual Review And Future Plans

The British Museum today announces the publication of its 2016/17 Annual Review which sets out in detail the Museum's achievements in London, across the UK and the world over the past year.

Highlights 2016/17

International

This has been a year of continuing success across the world. The Museum remains the leading visitor attraction in the UK, with one in five tourists to London visiting the Museum. In 2016/17, the Museum welcomed 6.2 million visitors to visit the Permanent Collection.

Internationally, the Museum continued its role as the world's most generous lender of objects, by helping to show over 2,200 objects to 113 museums and galleries across the world, including a number of indigenous objects to Albany, Western Australia, and a large loan of over 50 objects to a major exhibition on Zoroastrianism in Delhi. Alongside this, the hugely successful touring exhibition, A History of the World in 100 objects has now been seen by over 1.4 million people worldwide and produced record-breaking visitor numbers in Canberra (178,220), and the National Museum of China in Beijing (340,645).

Digital platforms allow people from all over the world to access and interact with the collection. The Museum's following on social media channels has increased by 1.5million to over 3.5 million people, and there have been experiments with 360 video and more live broadcasts. The website has over 11.9 million visits, and millions of people across the world can now access the Museum's galleries virtually on Google StreetView.

The Museum has been at the forefront of efforts to preserve cultural heritage, our Iraq Heritage Rescue Scheme (funded through the Cultural Protection Fund) is now in its second year, exciting discoveries have been made at the two sites currently being excavated. One alumnus of the training has recently been appointed to lead the archaeological assessment of the Late Assyrian capital at Nimrud and another will be leading in the assessment of the site of Hatra.

London

Major exhibitions included Sicily: culture and conquest (sponsored by Julius Baer), the BP exhibition Sunken cities: Egypt's lost worlds, South Africa: the art of a nation (sponsored by Betsy and Jack Ryan, logistics partner IAG Cargo) and The American Dream: pop to the present (sponsored by Morgan Stanley and supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art), and together they drew over 525,000 visitors. Access for students to engage with and experience the unique collection through resources, sessions and gallery visits is of central importance to the Museum. The number of UK school visits reached a nine-year high (148,476), 270,000 pupils from the UK and overseas visited the Museum last year.

The UK

Across the UK, the Museum has continued to building its role as the leading provider of objects to the vibrant local museums sector. As a result of partnerships, 9 million people were able to see a British Museum object at their local institutions across the UK. From Aberdeen to Wrexham, the Museum loaned nearly 3,000 objects to 156 venues in the UK. A touring exhibition of old master drawings, Lines of thought, supported by the Bridget Riley Foundation, was part of the Hull City of Culture activities and achieved record-breaking figures in Poole, Dorset. The Museum participated in helping shape the new exhibition space at Lews Castle in Stornoway, where six Lewis Chessmen are now on long term loan.

Research

Research and scholarship has always been the bedrock of the Museum's activities. In 2016/17 £3.9million was raised in external funding for research projects. Major projects included an examination of the late work of Hokusai, supported by the AHRC and SOAS, which has fed into the current exhibition, digital reconstruction of the Jericho skull, the oldest portrait in the Museum, and a project to transcribe and digitise Sir Hans Sloane's original catalogues. The Museum is also a teaching institution, participating in the AHRC's Collaborative Doctoral Awards Scheme, with up to 50 students a year undertaking doctoral research.

Plans for 2017/18

In 2017/18, the Museum will open three major new or refurbished permanent galleries:

The Sir Joseph Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia will open in November 2017, and will tell a story of these regions that will bring their histories up to the present. For the first time, the gallery will display paintings and textiles alongside sculpture, ceramics, lacquer, jade and metalware. New research will help visitors to engage with these extraordinarily important parts of the world and, with its new lighting and design, the display will - take visitors through the fascinating histories of a large part of the globe. This refurbishment has been made possible by a generous donation from The Sir Joseph Hotung Charitable Settlement

The Albukhary Foundation Galleries of the Islamic world will open in autumn 2018, and will show the growth of the faith from the advent of Islam to the present. The galleries will display the full range of the Museum's outstanding collections in engaging new ways, drawn from the Middle East, Turkey, Central Asia, South Asia and South East Asia. The first of the two gallery spaces will look at the region from the beginning of Islam to about AD 1500, highlighting the arts of the great medieval dynasties. In the second gallery, visitors will encounter objects that represent the pinnacle of creativity under the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals. Their enlightened patronage saw the production of magnificent objects, including ceramics, jewellery and painting that are among the glories of the Museum's collection. A key theme will be interconnectivity, highlighting extensive trade networks but also representing all communities within the area covered, including objects reflecting Christian, Jewish and Hindu practices. Contemporary works will bring the narrative up to the present. The galleries are supported by the Albukhary Foundation, a Malaysia-based organisation with an international presence.

The Mitsubishi Corporation Japanese Galleries will also open in autumn 2018 (the galleries will close to the public in January 2018). The galleries will be refurbished with improvements to design and infrastructure to allow regular gallery rotations and showcase a vast range of rare and light-sensitive works from the collection. The success of our current exhibition on Hokusai (also supported by Mitsubishi Corporation) has shown the popularity of Japanese prints and these rotations will allow more of this material to be displayed. The existing sequence of Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun period displays will be reworked, offering fascinating new perspectives on the archaeological objects on display.

Exhibitions

In September the Museum will open The BP exhibition Scythians: warriors of ancient Siberia. Which reveal the history of these powerful nomadic tribes and an ancient culture who thrived in a vast landscape stretching from southern Russia to China and the northern
Black Sea. Living with gods: peoples, places and worlds beyond opens in November and will examine the practice and expression of religious beliefs in the lives of individuals and communities across the world. The exhibition is supported by the Genesis Foundation and accompanies a BBC Radio 4 series by Neil MacGregor.

The British Museum will partner with Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) Mumbai and the National Museum, Delhi on a landmark exhibition to showcase some of the most important objects and works of art from India. These objects will be displayed in dialogue with iconic objects on loan from the British Museum's world collection. India and the World: a history in nine stories will open in Mumbai on 10th November, supported by the Getty Foundation and Tata Trusts.

Quotes

Director Hartwig Fisher said:

'I am delighted that the British Museum continues to play a central role in the cultural life of London and the UK, and in projecting excellence and scholarship across the world. In a fast-changing and sometimes frightening world, the Museum has to continue to play its part in explaining the connectivity of cultures and our shared humanity. Never has this been more necessary.

'Last year, the Museum put on a stellar list of diverse exhibitions and public programmes which saw millions of visitors, both physical and digital, engage with the Museum's collection and learning. 2017/18 promises to be an exciting year as we open three galleries which help us to continue to tell the interconnected story of the world, looking at the Islamic world, China and South Asia, and Japan. All of this is bound together by our ambition that the British Museum will continue to hold its place at the centre of global culture, a place where all of us can be helped to understand the changes in the world'.

'These new galleries will herald the start of the Museum's transformation plans over the next ten years and beyond. Our vision will be to create a museum which tells more coherent and compelling stories of the cultures and artefacts we display to allow comparisons to be made across cultures and timeframes. We want a walk around our Permanent Collection to be voyage of discovery and learning for all. This will involve a new narrative for the collections, an emphasis on the interconnectedness of cultures, the renovation of the building and improvement of facilities for our millions of visitors, and, of course, digital. Our ambition will be to put the Reading Room at the heart of the Museum, to bring it to life as a central part of this new vision. We are at the very early stages of our thinking, but I am hugely excited by this opportunity and challenge'.

Sir Richard Lambert, Chair of the Trustees, said:

'We remain truly proud of the role that the British Museum plays in projecting the culture and values of the UK across the globe. We are also proud of the role we play in partnerships across the UK through our lending programme, to help enrich the cultural lives of communities across the country. Our plans for 2017/18 show the scope of our ambition. Over this year, we will also be developing a vision for the Museum that will not just cover the next ten years, but ensure its relevance for generations to come. We look forward to working with our Director Hartwig Fischer to ensure the commitment of our founder, Sir Hans Sloane, to Enlightenment, understanding, accessibility and human knowledge is upheld.'

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