A visualisation of the new Migration Museum
M+H Awards

M+H Awards Hall of Fame: A touring exhibition celebrating the NHS

Image: A visualisation of the newly designed Migration Museum

Anna Lewis, the Migration Museum’s Development Consultant, speaks to Advisor with an update on its plans, as well as a look back at the Museums + Heritage Awards win.

The Migration Museum’s exhibition ‘Heart of the Nation: Migration and the Making of the NHS’ won the Temporary or Touring Exhibition of the Year award (over £80k) at the 2024 Museums + Heritage Awards. The exhibition celebrates the contributions of migrants to Britain’s National Health Service since its founding in 1948.

Originally conceived as a digital exhibition during the pandemic lockdown, the exhibition made its physical debut at Leicester Museum & Art Gallery in June 2023, coinciding with the NHS’s 75th anniversary. During its four-month run, it was complemented by various public engagement activities, ranging from talks and music workshops to craft sessions and yoga classes.

Anna Lewis, the museum’s Development Consultant spoke to Advisor in 2025 with an update on the museum’s work, as well as a look back at the museum’s win.

The award was decided on by a panel of sector judges who said: “With an impressively wide reach, this exhibition tells an important story from a new angle, in a way that is warm, impactful, universal and all on a relatively low budget.”

Artists Emmanuel Sugo and Kaia Laurielle with the Migration Museum’s Matthew Plowright and Harriet Costello at the Museums + Heritage Awards 2024

How has your work evolved since receiving the Museums + Heritage Award?

Lewis: We celebrated the end of our touring exhibition in July, and then went straight into transforming our space in Lewisham shopping centre, ready for our new exhibition All Our Stories.

This is particularly meaningful to us and the artists, historians and storytellers that we work with as it brings together the Migration Museum’s most impactful exhibits of the past decade, alongside ambitious new commissions.

We also launched a new community-curated space and exhibition series which takes our co-creative approach (developed in our award winning exhibition) a step further. Both exhibitions will be on at the Migration Museum in Lewisham until the end of March 2025.

What did winning mean to you and your team?

Receiving industry recognition of our unique approach to storytelling and participatory practice has been particularly valuable to the team as we’re at a pivotal part of our journey as an organisation.

Over the last year we have been planning and working on a capital campaign for a national presence and a permanent home. This will consist of regional pop-ups, an enhanced digital presence and a new site in the City of London. As we speak to potential donors and new supporters who share our vision, this award has helped to validate the calibre of our team and the quality of the work we can and will deliver. It will help enable us to create Britain’s missing museum after a decade long journey.

We’ve also been approached by lots of others in the industry, interested in swapping ideas with us, which has been hugely beneficial.

What would you say to others considering entering the Museums + Heritage Awards?

Don’t be intimidated – the award is not just for the big national museums. If you’ve done an innovative project, apply.

A great outcome for your exhibition is important of course, but sometimes the real magic is in the process, so don’t discount telling the story of that in your application. Our Heart of the Nation exhibition featured a unique musical project that was co-created by people who work in the NHS. The 6-month process of bringing the project to life was in itself something really special.

As we speak to potential donors and new supporters who share our vision, this award has helped to validate the calibre of our team and the quality of the work we can and will deliver."

Where do you display your Museums + Heritage Award?

We proudly display our award at our reception desk at the museum! It’s also highlighted in a timeline of the Migration Museum’s history in our current exhibition, All Our Stories.

Tell us about your next ambitious project or plans for pushing boundaries further?

In the run up to opening our permanent site, we are hoping to commission a national, mass-participation dance project that will bring together professional and amateur dancers to tell a moving narrative of migration.

Our education programme will also be a big focus as we work with a group of schools to embed migration learning across year groups and throughout the curriculum.

Enter the Museums + Heritage Awards 2025

The Museums + Heritage Awards 2025 are now open for entries ahead of the ceremony next May.

To be among the winners in May, and to find out more about entering, visit the Museums + Heritage Awards website.