The Bowes Museum’s Unheard Voices Project Highly Commended at Museum + Heritage Awards 2026

The Conversation Wall at The Bowes Museum displays objects selected and reinterpreted by learners from HMP Deerbolt, exploring themes of identity, childhood and collecting. Photographer Claire Collinson

The Bowes Museum’s Unheard Voices project with Novus and HMP Deerbolt has been Highly Commended at the Museum + Heritage Awards 2026 in the Community Engagement Programme of the Year category.

The awards celebrate the very best in museums, galleries and cultural and heritage visitor attractions. The Community Engagement Programme of the Year category recognises projects that make a meaningful impact through creativity and collaboration. This year, it attracted a strong field of entries,

with The Bowes Museum receiving Highly Commended for Unheard Voices.

Unheard Voices is a collaboration between The Bowes Museum, Novus and HMP

Deerbolt , facilitated by artist Jonah York using the museum’s exhibitions and collections

to engage young male learners in a custodial setting. With both institutions located less

than two miles apart , the project creates meaningful connections between place, people

and collection .

More than 80 objects from the museum’s collection were taken into the prison and were

handled, debated and reinterpreted through shared conversation. Working collaboratively, learners selected objects from the museum’s collection for display, decided how they should be shown and identified links between them. Themes emerged around identity, childhood, illusion, travel and the human urge to collect and make meaning. Now installed in the entrance to The Bowes Museum, the Conversation Wall displays this co -creation for visitors to reflect on these themes and the process that

shaped them.

Unheard Voicesis an ongoing project and will continue until 2027, made possible through

the generous support of The John Horseman Trust.

For more information about the project please visit: http://www.thebowesmuseum.org.uk/learn/unheard-voices

The Bowes Museum warmly congratulates all the shortlisted, highly commended and

winners from the Museum + Heritage Awards 2026.

Full details of the Museum + Heritage Awards can be found here:

www.awards.museumsandheritage.com/2026-winners/