100,000th visitor to City Space
The morning of Friday 18th February saw the 100,000th visitor through the doors of City Space with the group visit of South Hampshire Home Educators.The young man concerned was welcomed by Museums staff and received a round of applause from the other visitors in the gallery.
City Space is Winchester City Council’s venue for temporary exhibitions which opened in the Winchester Discovery Centre just over three years ago. Since then it has hosted 31 separate exhibitions that have displayed work primarily by local artists, both amateur and professional covering a wide range of media from paintings and drawings to sculpture, ceramics, textiles and photography.
It has also hosted family friendly hands-on exhibitions based on aspects of Winchester Museum’s collections such as the current exhibition ‘Archaeology’, which gives visitors the opportunity to go behind the scenes and uncover the detailed work of the archaeologist.
Geoff Denford, Head of Winchester City Council’s Museums Service said “I’m really pleased that we’ve proved to be such an attraction for those interested in the arts and heritage. To draw that number of visitors in a little over three short years has exceeded our expectations.”
The versatility of City Space has allowed artists such as Andrew Carnie to exhibit his visual exploration of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and its creative effects using slide projection and Anna Cady, in partnership with Louisa Makolski, to investigate the nature of communication through photography and video projection.
The great variety of the City Space programme together with regular shows such as Mayor’s Choice and the annual Winchester Photographic Society and Winchester Art Club exhibitions has proved a popular mix bringing visitors back time and again as well as attracting a new and appreciative audience.
Cllr Dominic Hiscock, Portfolio Holder for Economic Prosperity at Winchester City Council said “City space has proved a great success particularly amongst local visitors to the Discovery Centre allowing them to appreciate the work of artists from across the district as well as seeing material from Winchester Museums collections not normally accessible to the public.”
The Archaeology exhibition runs at City Space in the Discovery Centre, Jewry Street, Winchester until the 6th March. Admission is free. There will also be a number of special event days to accompany this exhibition, see the Discovery Centre website for more details.