As building work is set to begin on the National Media Museum’s new £1.8 million interactive gallery, a final series of free organised tours for the museum’s Experience TV gallery will begin on Monday 15 August 2016, running daily until the end of the Bank Holiday weekend (29 August 2016).
Experience TV has been telling the story of the past, present and future of television since 2006. It will be closed from 30 August to be transformed into the new gallery, titled Wonderlab, which will explore the science of light and sound through state-of-the-art interactive exhibits and experimentation, opening in spring 2017.
Jo Quinton-Tulloch, Director of the National Media Museum, said:
“Experience TV has been a fantastic gallery so I urge as many people as possible to come along to these tours before it closes. From September we will be focusing our energy on its imminent transformation into the new Wonderlab gallery, and beyond that, how our museum will continue to tell television’s amazing story as part of our mission to bring to life the science and culture of light and sound technologies.”
Ellie Groom, Curator of Television and Broadcast, said:
“Before we start work on the new £1.8m gallery we will be paying tribute to the wonderful job Experience TV has done over the past 10 years.
“The gallery will be open as usual until 30 August, and we’ve also organised a series of guided tours inviting families and adults to come along and find out more about the stories behind some of the amazing television technology we have, as well as giving the buttons, cameras and screens in our TV Production Zone one last workout. The tours are drop-in, so no need to book.”
The series of free guided tours will take place from 15 August 2016:
Curator-led collections tours focusing on historic TV technology take place at 12.00, Monday to Friday, from 15–26 August 2016 (inclusive), and are suitable for anyone aged 10+ .
TV Production Zone tours, focusing on the hands-on studio displays, take place every day, including weekends, at 15.00, 15–29 August 2016 (inclusive), and are suitable for anyone aged 7+.
All the historical objects currently on display in Experience TV will be retained in the museum’s collection, and plans for a selection to be displayed elsewhere in the building are underway. Key objects will then be permanently included in the £5m ‘Treasures Galleries’—the second stage of the museum’s masterplan for refurbishing its galleries (after Wonderlab). This will be a showcase for the world-firsts and other significant items and stories from the museum’s photography, cinematography and television collections.
Following the immediate closure of Experience TV, the vast majority of objects on display will be available to be visited in Insight, the museum’s collections and research centre (visits to Insight are free, but should be booked in advance on 0844 856 3797).
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Notes for editors
The museum’s collection includes objects such as John Logie Baird’s apparatus which successfully transmitted the first true television picture in 1925; cameras from the birth of the television studio at Alexandra Palace; objects that heralded ITV, BBC2 and colour broadcasting; television receivers that span the history of TV; and ground-breaking recording technologies like the Phonovision, the Ampex VR1000 and consumer appliances. The TV Production Zone includes a chroma key screen, newsreader desk, TV studio set and vision mixer.
