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Four special-access visits to the collections of museums and galleries across the United Kingdom during the Covid-19 pandemic.

St Fagans National Museum of History

Monday 12 October, 19:00

Arts enthusiast Cerys Matthews is given an ‘access-all-areas’ pass to her favourite museum, St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff, winner of Museum of the Year 2019 and home to extensive collections and historic buildings.

In its early 20th century miners’ cottages, Cerys discovers how a previous generation coped with the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Did close-knit community life help, or were there drawbacks?

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• Watch a clip as Cerys visits the brick-by-brick reconstruction of the Vulcan Hotel

Ulster Museum

Tuesday 13 October, 19:00

Dublin-born social historian Emma Dabiri admits that travel is in her blood. Now, as leaving the country becomes increasingly fraught in the global pandemic, she finds a new way of seeing the world through selected artworks at Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland's capital, Belfast.

Emma examines how artists brought their vision of the world to the UK, and metaphorically transported art lovers across continents before the invention of the jet engine.

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• Watch a clip as Emma explores Susanna Drury's 18th century paintings of the Giant's Causeway
• Collecting the Troubles at the Ulster Museum, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sounds

Scottish National Gallery

Wednesday 14 October, 19:00

Artist Lachlan Goudie visits the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh to revisit a collection he describes as being part of his family.

Lachlan grew up with the artworks in the gallery and now considers how these paintings, which were created more than a hundred years ago, have such relevance to the challenges we are all living through today, because of Covid-19, in terms of family, friendship, community, wildlife, nature and hope.

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• Watch a clip as Lachlan admires nature close-up in Edwin Landseer's magnificent Monarch of the Glen
• Lachlan Goudie visits artworks by his father displayed on cross-Channel ferry

The Frieze-´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3 Debate: Museums in the 21st Century

Thursday 8 October, 22:00

Free Thinking, in collaboration with Frieze Art Fair, hosts a panel of cultural leaders for an international debate on how galleries and museums are responding to the significant challenges of 2020. Directors of the Hermitage, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the National Gallery, Singapore discuss the challenges of running a museum, and the debate is hosted by Anne McElvoy.

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• Listen in #MuseumPassion player
• Listen at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Sounds

Breakfast

Monday 12 - Friday 16 October, 06:30 - 09:00

On Breakfast, five curators of museums from across the nation each bring to life a favourite object from their collections, explaining the significance it held to the people of its time. Their spoken portrait is complemented by a related piece of classical music.

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Playing her part in the #MuseumPassion season, Mary Beard examines what the future holds for museums, and ventures out of her study to the British Museum. On her first visit since she was made a trustee, she gets to work taking miniature medieval masterpieces, the Lewis Chessmen, out of their lockdown storage. Mary also surprises the first visitors on opening day as she takes on the role of museum guide.

Novelist Ian Rankin shows off his favourite Edinburgh museum, the Writers' Museum, which celebrates the lives of three giants of Scottish Literature: Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.

And, to round off, Mary debates with V&A East’s Gus Casely-Hayford and sociologist Tiffany Jenkins on how best to respond to a world that has changed beyond recognition.

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The One Show, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two
Jo Whiley, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 2

Monday 12 October, from 19:00

Grayson Perry takes to The One Show sofa to reveal the winners of the prestigious , which celebrates exceptional museums and galleries and is the biggest museum prize in the world. Grayson then hot-foots over to Jo Whiley's studio to chat about the winners on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 2. There is plenty to discuss, as Jo is herself a former Museum of the Year judge.

• The One Show
• Jo Whiley

Front Row, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4

Monday 12 October, 19:15 & Tuesday - Friday, 19:15

Front Row will talk to the Art Fund Museum of the Year winners on Monday and will feature a museum each day that week, following the announcement.

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