The Box

About

The Box is Plymouth’s new £40+ million cultural destination – opening on Saturday 16 May. A place where heritage meets contemporary art; where archives meet interaction; and where the Mayflower meets a mammoth. A museum, gallery and archive. A cafe and bar. A place that you can make your own, and where there's always something new to discover.

The original City Museum and Art Gallery has been completely transformed and extended to combine the Edwardian building with the former City Library and St Luke’s church. The Box also features a striking elevated ‘archive in the sky’ with research and learning facilities, along with a major new public square for gigs, performance, theatre and events.

The Box brings six outstanding collections together, all of which are showcased in a series of exciting spaces.

On arrival you’ll be greeted by 14 phenomenal ship’s figureheads. Dating from the 1800s these giant wooden sculptures have been restored and reimagined in a unique suspended display that ‘sails’ across the main entrance.

You’ll find The Box Bar & Kitchen here too with its locally inspired menus, great breakfast selection, afternoon teas and Sunday roasts.

Discover the beauty and diversity of nature in the Mammoth gallery which features over 3,000 natural history specimens. Travel back in time and come face to face with animals that lived in Plymouth 35,000 years ago. Learn more about biodiversity, evolution, climate change, marine life and the South West’s rich mining history.

Explore some of the momentous and notorious voyages that began in Plymouth in the 100 Journeys gallery, the centrepiece of which is a striking animated globe and interactive touchscreens that help you explore even further. Then, immerse yourself in the city’s ongoing relationship with the sea from the Bronze Age to the present day in the Port of Plymouth gallery.

See some fascinating items the city’s archives and discover how these and other archival materials help shed light on Plymouth’s history in the Active Archives gallery. You’ll also encounter the figureheads again – this time at eye level.

When they’re not on display you can access the collections in support of your research via the Cottonian Research Room, as well as see selected highlights from the nationally important Cottonian Collection.

View thought-provoking photographic displays and see highlights from community engagement projects in the Photo Album gallery.

Celebrate the technologies, processes and people that have shaped the South West’s visual and audio-visual heritage in the Media Lab. More than 1,000 images and moving images, along with 300 objects from our social history, archive and moving image collections have been brought together for this fascinating space.

The Box will also have an ambitious exhibition programme running throughout the year. International artists including Portugal’s Leonor Antunes, Austria’s Eva Grubinger, Brazil’s Alexandre da Cunha, America’s Christopher Baker and Kehinde Wiley will all have work on show from May 2020.

A grand display of paintings of Plymouth, a showcase of three centuries of artistic production by the likes of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Robert Lenkiewicz, Stanhope Forbes and Barbara Hepworth plus a mass display of over 350 decorative art items can all be seen in The Salon.

‘Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy’ is an epic journey of survival, imagination and 400 years of America. This major exhibition will run into 2021 and has been created in partnership with the Wampanoag Advisory Committee to Plymouth 400 in Massachusetts, and with the help of over 100 museums, libraries and archives across the UK, US and The Netherlands.

Many objects are coming to Plymouth for the first time, or returning to the city for the first time in 400 years. The exhibition uses them alongside images and ideas to explore early English attempts to colonise America, acknowledge conflict with Native America and explore the impact of colonisation on the indigenous population.

‘Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy’ also discusses the context of the sailing of the Mayflower in 1620, details the lives of the passengers, and considers the cultural, demographic and personal legacies of the story.

These exciting permanent galleries and exhibitions combined with great food and drink, a shop, a public square and a vibrant events programme make The Box an incredible place to visit. Come along from May 2020 and experience it for yourselves.c