Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council’s Art Centres and Museums will remain closed until January 2021.
The decision was taken at a Council meeting on Tuesday 4th August 2020.
The affected facilities are Flowerfield Arts Centre in Portstewart, Roe Valley Arts and Cultural Centre in Limavady (incorporating Limavady Museum), Ballymoney Museum (in Ballymoney Town Hall), Coleraine Museum (temporary exhibition space in Coleraine Town Hall) along with Ballycastle Museum and Green Lane Museum in Roe Valley Country Park which normally open seasonally.
They were initially closed back in March in response to the coronavirus pandemic, and since then staff have focussed their efforts on providing arts and museum services online.
This successful switch, which saw them deliver a broad range of activities and resources including virtual exhibitions, distance based learning, live streamed music events, access to collections and heritage trails, will now continue for the remainder of the year.
You can still connect with the Art’s Centres online programmes including exhibitions, their Northern Lights virtual music, readings and spoken word programme along with limited workshops. The team is also planning a new range of outdoor creative events including plein air painting and drawing sessions for adults as well as parent and child photography workshops at some of our most scenic locations.
Staff are grateful to everyone who has supported their online activities over the past number of months, especially all participants and contributors, and they look forward to warmly welcoming everyone back when they re-open again.
The Arts Centres would also like to thank their many loyal venue hire clients and ask for their continued patience and understanding at this time.
For now, you can keep up to date with the latest news and announcements from the Arts team by going to www.flowerfield.org and www.roevalleyarts.com and following their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. You can also email info@flowerfield.org or information@rvacc.co.uk
Museum Services will continue with its online archive project, ‘Dear Diary Life in the Age of COVID-19’, and the team is thankful to those people who have already donated their photographs, videos, poems and drawings which will tell the story of this time in years to come.
For more information on the Museums Service’s digital programmes visit www.niarchive.org where you will discover an abundance of virtual trails, resources, exhibitions and significant collection objects and submissions to its ‘Dear Diary’ project so far.
For those who don’t have digital access, Museum Services are continuing to make their History Book Bags available, which are full of fascinating local heritage publications and activities. You can also catch the latest photos from our archives in the Coleraine Chronicle’s ‘Down Memory Lane’ section.
For more information or to make a contribution to ‘Dear Diary’ please email cms@causewaycoastandglens.gov.uk or follow the Museums Facebook pages.