Visitors don't have long left to visit two of Liverpool's most prestigious museums. Both International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum will be closing their doors for a period of essential repair and maintenance works with both museums set to reopen in 2028.
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00:00Both the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum will be closing their doors
00:05for a period of essential repair and maintenance works from the 5th of January
00:10ahead of a major redevelopment project subject to funding.
00:14When the Maritime Museum opened in the 1980s it was a really visionary endeavour and I think it
00:19did sort of set up Liverpool as a tourist destination and the waterfront as a place
00:24to go for decades and this is an opportunity to really build on that.
00:29Since 1986 the Maritime Museum has told the story of one of the world's greatest ports
00:34and the people who lived in, worked on or passed through it.
00:37We're going to create new galleries in the Maritime Museum that will tell new stories,
00:41that will tell stories that should be in the museum but aren't,
00:44but we are kind of keeping with the Maritime Museum,
00:47some of the galleries, some of the stories will stay as well.
00:50In 2007 the International Slavery Museum opened on the third floor of the Maritime Museum.
00:54For almost 20 years the museum's explored the impact and legacies of transatlantic slavery.
00:59I've got a bit of a mantra that says listen, learn and act so you know there's been lots
01:05of that listening, there's been lots of that learning and it's the time for action from both
01:12to take it the next stage to where we get our own front door.
01:16While closed the museums will embrace new opportunities to share their collections
01:19and stories. Learning teams are already offering school sessions off-site and
01:23the museum's archive centre will reopen in a temporary space during the closure
01:27and special pop-up displays off-site are being developed.
01:31What we can do by having our own building, by having our own front door,
01:35is to be proud of the journey that we've taken both as a museum and a community and also
01:42the most important thing is for it not to just be a local story because it's global impact.
01:48The redevelopment of the International Slavery Museum and Maritime Museum
01:52is part of the wider Waterfront Transformation Project.
01:55Both museums are due to reopen in 2028.