Small Art Galleries Best

In Victorian times, Woking was known as a place for the "mad, the bad and the dead" because of its large cemetery, Zoroastrian burial ground, crematorium and asylums. The title was relevant until 1993, when a group of determined locals shook off the shadows of the past by helping to open its first art gallery and museum. Yesterday, that museum featured on the nation's largest art prize shortlist, which was dominated by small regional art galleries or exhibitions that have opened over the past year. The Lightbox Gallery and Museum in Woking, the Shetland Museum and Archive in Lerwick, and an anti-slavery exhibition at the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol were all selected for the Art Fund prize, which recognises Britain's best new or renovated art galleries and shows in the past 12 months with an award, for the winner, of £100,000. All except the fourth shortlisted venue, the Wellcome Collection, which opened its doors in central London last year with the help of £30m from the Wellcome Trust, are small-scale venues or exhibitions that were up against some of the goliaths of the art world on the long list. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art