UK Museum of the Year: Ty Pawb Wrexham 'unusual' entry

Ty Pawb

Ty Pawb is attracting creatives and people from many walks of life to Wrexham city centre

By Sarah Easedale
BBC Wales news

A venue aiming to be named museum of the year has been called "one of the most unusual" candidates the competition has seen.

Wrexham's Ty Pawb is on the shortlist for the UK Museum of the Year prize.

The centre has market stalls, gallery space, cultural events and workshops.

The chairwoman of the Art Fund, which awards the prize, Jenny Waldman, said it was a "fantastic combination" of "art, commerce and people" with a "dedication to diversity".

It is the first time Ty Pawb has been shortlisted for the UK Museum of the Year, which carries a prize of £100,000.

Wrexham was officially named a city in May and it is hoped a second new title can be added in 2022.

Ms Waldman, who recently visited with other judges, said there were some "brilliant" museums across the UK, but they were looking for something that "marks it out as special".

Jenny Waldman was impressed by what she saw on a visit to Wrexham

"We're looking for those ones who are just taking museum work in a different direction, or doing something either with their commitment to their collections, or with each other, that really kind of pushes museum practice on more," she said.

"After Covid, museums have a real mission to serve their community, to get involved and to be useful to the people all around them."

Creative Director Jo Marsh said Ty Pawb's "unique resilience" is the reason she thinks it has been shortlisted.

She said: "We're standing here in the market hall - I've got the food court to one side of me and the gallery over here to the right.

"So I think it's the way that particularly coming through the pandemic, the different aspects of Ty Pawb, have supported one another... the customers coming in to buy their wool, then visiting the galleries and then maybe seeing an activity that they have gone on to bring their children to."

Community notices serve an example of the central role Ty Pawb plays in the area

She added that the transformation of one of the two gallery spaces into the Useful Art Space, which welcomes different groups of people each week, had also attracted the judges' attention.

"For example today, there's a group called Bom Dia Cymru, a group of Portuguese elders that we began working with during lockdown by posting materials through their letterboxes.

"And now the Useful Art Space is very much a home for them," she added.

Ty Pawb has also worked with refugees and asylum seekers to develop creative and practical craft skills, making product lines which have then gone on sale there.

Liam Stokes-Massey is a commercial artist working out of a shepherd's hut in Ty Pawb, and said the space was a "brilliant" place to work because of the "wide spectrum" of things on offer.

"On busy days, a certain event on, I tend to get a lot of people sticking their head in. They'll coming to have a look at what I am working on, which is great, often that leads to work, or buying prints and things like that," he said.

Mr Stokes-Massey said he believed it was time for Wrexham to get some recognition, after recently missing out on being named City of Culture 2025.

Mared Jones is a regular visitor to the centre

"It shows it's on the up. Compare it to 10, 15 years ago, to even have things of that magnitude in such a short space of time," he added.

Mared Jones, from Wrexham, is a regular at Ty Pawb's food court and said there was always lots going on.

"It's very nice. They have a lot of events and it's a really welcoming place," she added.

Ty Pawb, which opened in 2018, is one of the hosts of the annual music festival Focus Wales, as well as holding regular art exhibitions in its gallery space.

Adam Jones tried to capture the essence of Wrexham in his quilt

Its flagship summer exhibition, The Tailor's Tale, formed a backdrop to the UK Museum of the Year judges' visit to Wrexham.

It brings together artistic responses to the famous Wrexham Tailor's Quilt, created by James Williams between 1842 and 1852, and now kept permanently at St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff, itself a Museum of the Year winner in 2019.

The exhibition features a Wrexham quilt for 2022 created by Wrexham-born, London-based fashion designer Adam Jones.

"Wrexham constantly creeps into my work. Things I would see on walks, the nature, using old Welsh lace... Wrexham bar towels from the brewery," he said.

"Wrexham's changed a lot since I lived here... things like Ty Pawb, it's very exciting to see something like this.

"You can be inspired by local artists, artists from further afield, you can get involved in things."

Jo Marsh believes winning would be great for the whole of Wrexham

He said the nomination for City of Culture, and the UK Museum of the Year made him proud of coming from Wrexham.

"It kind of feels very interesting and cool to say you are from Wrexham now," he added.

It is a sentiment echoed by Jo Marsh, who said even being nominated for City of Culture demonstrated the "richness" of the cultural landscape.

"If we won Museum of the Year, that would be another really great affirmation," she added.

"That would really be a prize for the whole of Wrexham."

The other four shortlisted museums are Museum of Making (Derby), Horniman Museum and Gardens (London), People's History Museum (Manchester) and The Story Museum (Oxford).

All shortlisted museums receive £15,000, with the winner to be announced on 14 July.

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