A vision for what the future could hold for an under-threat Moray attraction has been unveiled by students.
The Falconer Museum in Forres faces uncertain times following the council’s decision to pull its funding from the publicly-owned galleries.
Now students from the Glasgow School of Art campus near the town have examined how the building could operate beyond March next year.
That is when the doors will either shut for good or the attraction will be passed to a charitable trust.
An exhibition entitled Here to Stay opened at the museum last night to spark conversations about how to ensure locals and visitors can continue to enjoy the attraction, which first opened in 1871.
Lina Wilckens, who is from Germany and is studying design innovation, believes there is an opportunity to modernise the collections put on display for locals and tourists.
She said: “Most of the museums in the north are currently made up from collections assembled during the Victorian era – which predominantly wealthy people brought back to show people at home what the wider world looked like.
“It maybe doesn’t look like that anymore, so it’s time we start to think about whose stories we want to tell now and the items of our time that we want to preserve for the future.
“There is so much potential. Not just in the stories but also in the space and also in the founder Hugh Falconer, who worked with Charles Darwin.”
Posters at the museum displayed items from the modern day which could be preserved for future generations including an Apple computer, one of which is already in the stores, and a USB stick.
A potential modernised logo for the attraction with a stylised ‘F’ has also been designed.
Miss Wilckens worked on the exhibition for the museum with fellow students Jonas Gentle, Min Zhou and Zhicheng Xu.
Lecturer George Jaramillo said: “The Falconer Museum is not just a museum but it’s also an important building within Forres, so this is also a chance to rethink how the space could be used to host events for the community.”
The Future Falconer exhibition will continue at the museum until Tuesday, May 28.
