Beamish, The Living Museum of the North has been announced as one of five finalists for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2025, the world’s largest museum prize.
Art Fund, the national charity for museums and galleries, annually shortlists five outstanding museums for Museum of the Year. The 2025 prize recognises inspiring projects and activity from autumn 2023 through to winter 2024. In addition to looking at the overall achievements of the organisation, the judges are tasked with identifying impactful projects that spotlight the wide range of remarkable people, including museum staff and volunteers, who bring museums to life by engaging with communities, families and younger visitors, artists and creatives.
Rhiannon Hiles, Chief Executive of Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, said:
It’s an absolute honour to be a finalist for this prestigious award. We are overjoyed to be shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2025 – this reflects the amazing people who make Beamish, our fantastic staff and volunteers, our communities, partners and supporters, including The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
At Beamish, we have been described as a ‘beating heart of the region’ — we’re proud to bring the North East’s history to life, while also being an active part of today’s communities, including through health and wellbeing, inclusion and learning.
It’s absolutely brilliant that the museum has been recognised in this way, as a finalist alongside other wonderful organisations from around the UK. It feels particularly special as the museum celebrates its 55th anniversary year and the completion of the Remaking Beamish project, the biggest development in our history.
Beamish is a renowned open-air museum that brings to life the North East of England’s Georgian, Edwardian, 1940s and 1950s history, through immersive exhibits where visitors engage with costumed staff and volunteers, and experience regional stories of everyday life.
In the past year, the museum completed its Remaking Beamish project, the biggest development in its 55-year history, which included the recreation of a 1950s Town developed with community input from people with firsthand knowledge of the original spaces. The project involved over 32,000 community members, 14,338 schoolchildren, and 35,000 volunteer hours to create 31 new exhibits within the museum. The opening of aged miners’ homes, which tell the story of the pioneering welfare provision for retired miners in County Durham, also provide a dedicated space for the museum’s award-winning health and wellbeing work.
The museum has been commended for its exceptional visitor experience, receiving the national Visitor Welcome Award at the 2024 Museums + Heritage Awards. The museum provides innovative educational programming for 40,000 schoolchildren annually, using its collections and spaces to inspire learning across disciplines, from local history to science and engineering. In 2024, the museum welcomed over 838,630 visitors and remains the region’s most visited attraction and museum.
The other museums shortlisted are Chapter (Cardiff); Compton Verney (Warwickshire); Golden Thread Gallery (Belfast); Perth Museum (Perth).
The winning museum, recipient of £120,000, will be announced on 26th June at a ceremony at the Museum of Liverpool, the first time the event will be held outside London. £15,000 will be given to each of the four other finalists – bringing the total prize money to £180,000.
Chris Loughran, Chair of Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, said:
Beamish is proud to be at the heart of its communities, a museum that is welcoming and inclusive.
Being shortlisted for the world’s largest museum prize, Art Fund Museum of the Year, following the completion of our ground-breaking Remaking Beamish project, is testament to our incredible people and the exceptional work of everyone involved, underlining the deep and enduring connections forged with our communities and partners.
As an anchor cultural institution in the region we are committed to continuing this innovative work, alongside our partners, contributing to culture, wellbeing and the economy, as we develop the museum’s exciting future plans.
The 2025 judging panel, chaired by Art Fund director Jenny Waldman, includes: Rana Begum (Artist), Dr David Dibosa (Director of Research and Interpretation, Tate), Jane Richardson (Chief Executive, Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales) and Phil Wang (Comedian, Writer, Actor). The judges will visit each of the finalists to inform their decision-making, while each museum will make the most of being shortlisted over the summer through events and activities for new and current visitors.
Speaking on behalf of the judges, Jenny Waldman, Director, Art Fund said:
Congratulations to Beamish, The Living Museum of the North on being shortlisted for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2025. This year’s finalists are inspiring examples of museums at their best – deeply connected to their local communities, responsive to the world around them, and alive with energy and ideas. Each one offers a distinctive experience, showing the endless creativity and care that goes into making museums inspiring and exciting spaces for everyone. Art Fund is proud to celebrate their work and support their ambition through Art Fund Museum of the Year. We hope people across the UK will be inspired to visit these remarkable places and museums in their local area to discover the powerful role they can play in our lives.
The prize is funded thanks to the generosity of Art Fund’s members who buy a National Art Pass. Art Pass holders can enjoy 50 per cent off entry (individual Beamish Unlimited Passes) when visiting Beamish, The Living Museum of the North.
THE 2025 JUDGING PANEL
Dr David Dibosa
David Dibosa is currently Director of Research and Interpretation of Tate and is co-author of Post-Critical Museology: Theory and Practice in the Art Museum (Routledge, 2013). His other published work includes: ‘Gavin Jantjes’s Korabra Series (1986): Reworking Museum Interpretation’ in Art History (2021); and ‘Exhibiting Embarrassment’ (2021), an essay published by the Journal of Visual Culture and the Harun Farocki Institut.
David trained as a curator, after receiving his first degree from Girton College, Cambridge. He was awarded his PhD in Art History from Goldsmiths College, University of London. After leaving Goldsmiths, he taught at universities and colleges across England, including fourteen years at Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts London. David has lectured widely across the world, at places as diverse as Mumbai, Toronto and Singapore.
David’s television appearances include BBC 1’s Big Painting Challenge, in which he was a judge. He has also presented Art on the BBC, showing on BBC Radio 4.
David is also Chair of Trustees at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and is a Trustee for Art Fund.
Jane Richardson
Jane Richardson was appointed Chief Executive for Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales in late 2023, where she provides inspiration, ambition, creativity, and strategic direction while focusing on delivering Strategy 2030 across the organisation’s seven National Museums and Collection Centre. With over 20 years of leadership experience across Wales’ public and private sectors, Jane previously served as Chair of Cadw, Director of Economy and Place at Conwy County Borough Council, a Director at Visit Wales overseeing investments in attractions like Zip World and the Royal Mint, and spent a decade with the National Trust managing historic properties.
Phil Wang
Phil Wang is a British-Malaysian stand-up comedian, writer and actor. He recently launched his second Netflix special Wang in There, Baby! and in recent years has performed stand-up on Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC), been interviewed by chat show royalty on That’s My Time with David Letterman (Netflix), sang and danced alongside Timothée Chalamet in Wonka (2023) and his first book Sidesplitter: How to be from Two Worlds at Once was named a Times and Sunday Times Book of the Year.
Phil regularly performs stand-up to sell-out crowds around the world, and previously wrote and starred in his own BBC Radio 4 special, Wangsplaining which won Best Scripted Comedy (Longform) at the 2020 BBC Audio Awards.
Rana Begum
The work of London-based artist Rana Begum distils spatial and visual experience into ordered form. Through her refined language of Minimalist abstraction, Begum blurs the boundaries between sculpture, painting and architecture. Her visual language draws from the urban landscape as well as geometric patterns from traditional Islamic art and architecture. Light is fundamental to her process. Begum’s works absorb and reflect varied densities of light to produce an experience for the viewer that is both temporal and sensorial.
Born in Bangladesh in 1977, Rana lives and works in London. In 1999, Begum graduated with a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design and, in 2002, gained an MFA in Painting from Slade School of Fine Art.
Jenny Waldman
Jenny Waldman joined Art Fund as Director in 2020, leading the organisation in increasing its support for the sector through its charitable funding programme, growing audiences through the National Art Pass, and championing museums and galleries with major events such as Art Fund Museum of the Year, the world’s largest museum prize.
Jenny was previously Director of 14-18 NOW, the UK’s art commissions programme for the First World War Centenary, Creative Producer of the London 2012 Festival, and Public programme consultant to Somerset House Trust, where she created the ice rink, film and concert seasons.
She was awarded a CBE in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to the arts.
About Art Fund Museum of the Year
The first ‘Art Fund Museum of the Year’ was awarded in 2013 to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. Its forerunner was the Prize for Museums and Galleries, administered by the Museum Prize Trust. Art Fund supported this prize between 2008 – 2012, when it was known as the ‘Art Fund Prize’. It was sponsored by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation from 2003-2007, when it was known as the ‘Gulbenkian Museum Prize’.
There is a rich history of prizes for museums, the first running from 1973-2003, called ‘The National Heritage Museum of the Year’.
Art Fund Museum of the Year champions what museums do, encourages more people to visit and gets to the heart of what makes a truly outstanding museum. The judges present the prize to the museum or gallery that has shown how their achievements of the preceding year stand out, demonstrated what makes their work innovative, and the impact it has had on audiences.
Winners of Art Fund Museum of the Year 2013 – 2024:
2024 – Young V&A, London
2023 – The Burrell Collection, Glasgow
2022 – Horniman Museum and Gardens, London
2021 – Firstsite, Colchester
2020 – Aberdeen Art Gallery; Gairloch Museum; Science Museum; South London Gallery; and Towner Eastbourne.
2019 – St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff
2018 – Tate St Ives
2017 – The Hepworth, Wakefield
2016 – Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London
2015 – Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
2014 – Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield
2013 – William Morris Gallery, London
Winners of The Art Fund Prize 2008 – 2012:
2012 – Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter
2011 – British Museum
2010 – Ulster Museum, Belfast
2009 – Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent,
2008 – The Lightbox, Woking
About Art Fund
Art Fund is the national charity for museums and galleries. For over 120 years, it has helped institutions across the UK to develop and share their collections, invest in people and expertise, grow their audiences and inspire the next generation.
Art Fund connects museums and people with great art and culture through funding, advocacy and initiatives, because access to art is vital for a healthy society. It champions the sector through the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year Award – the world’s largest museum prize – and supports museum professionals through dedicated training and grant programmes.
Independent and people-powered, Art Fund is supported by 142,000 members who buy a National Art Pass, as well as generous contributions from individuals, trusts and foundations. The National Art Pass offers free or discounted entry to hundreds of museums, galleries and historic places in the UK, 50% off major exhibitions, a subscription to Art Quarterly magazine and Art In Your Inbox newsletter.