After months of preparation, Museum London is set to reopen its doors.
The downtown museum, which is celebrating its 80th anniversary, reopens to visitors Thursday with a handful of new attractions.
“It’s been a long time coming. We’re excited to be open,” the museum’s executive director Brian Meehan said.
With the reopening, the museum will also be launching new hours, noon until 5 p.m. Thursday to Sunday. An hour prior to opening, the museum will be available to those who are immunocompromised or 65 years and older.
“There’s still a lot of hesitation for some people, particularly people with medical conditions, to come out into the public,” Meehan said. “We wanted to give them a time where they can come and really not have many other people around. That gives them a certain comfort level, and we’re happy to do that,”
Meehan says two hours of free parking is available at the museum for the rest of 2021 as part of a partnership between the city and the downtown business association.
“It’s great that people can take advantage of that, not only to shop downtown, but also come by the Museum.”
They are showing off two new exhibits, as well as one that had only been available for online viewing.
The Drive runs until Sept. 12 and includes the work of Tom Thomson, the Group of Seven and their peers, highlighting “the complexity of the representation of landscape – particularly with respect to the history of resource development.”
No Small Terror will be offered until Oct. 10 and features work from Edward Burtynsky, one of Canada’s most internationally recognized artists. According to the museum, the photographer and filmmaker’s imagery is often compared to historical European landscape painting.
And finally, Anna Binta Diallo: Wanderings will continue until Aug. 29. It had launched in April but only online. The museum says her work includes photo-collages of people, animals and objects that often spring from Diallo’s own life, and mesh with collective knowledges such as history and folklore, and pop culture visuals.
Admission to the museum is by donation.
Meehan says on-site COVID-19 protocols are the same as when they were last open, details on those can be found on their website.