Shop with a purpose at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and Thinktank on Museum Shop Sunday

• Museum Shop Sunday is on 1 December
• Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum are offering a discount of 15 per cent on all products in their shops
  
• Shopping with a purpose in museums contributes to their work and helps to maintain their collections.

Visitors to Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum are being encouraged to support Museum Shop Sunday on 1 December with a special discount in their shops just in time for Christmas.

For one day only, shoppers will benefit from a discount of 15 per cent on all products (in store only), as well as some festive treats available on the counter for all to enjoy.

Every year on Museum Shop Sunday over 2,100 arts, heritage and cultural attractions worldwide come together to showcase their fantastic shops and unique products with special events and promotions in store and online.

If you are searching for the perfect gift, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery’s recently refreshed and reopened shop has a wide range of unique products on offer, many of which are locally made and reflect the city’s past and present.

Birmingham-inspired items include the Birmingham Brick Vase, celebrating the city’s history in brick manufacturing. Each product is individually handmade in Stoke-on-Trent using the traditional production technique slip-casting and finished in a variety of on-trend gloss colours. The ceramic vases are watertight for flowers and plants or ideal for kitchen utensils or office stationery.

Specially signed copies of Birmingham collage artist and satirist Cold War Steve’s 2025 Christmas annual are also available while stocks last, featuring all of the modern-day Hogarth’s largest – and most sardonic – artworks, as well as contributions from Ian Dunt, Jeremy Deller, Jools Holland, Nihal Arthanayake, Dr Rebecca Anne Barr, Salena Godden and Roy.

The shelves are brimming with other gifts for book lovers, such as The Go-Between: A Portrait of Growing Up Between Two Different Worlds by Osman Yousefzada and Black Artists Shaping the World by award-winning Black British children’s author Sharma Jackson, as well as signed copies of Joe Lycett’s Art Hole.

The shop also sells stationery, homewares, children’s activity gifts and fashion, including items made from recycled sari material by Namaste and bright hand-painted patterns by Mahin Hussain. Every purchase helps preserve the museum’s collection for generations to come.

Meanwhile, Thinktank’s shop has a range of gifts for budding scientists big and small, whether you have a dinosaur-mad kid or one who is asking difficult questions about space. The products reflect the museum’s collection and fun, family-friendly atmosphere, including a large range of LEGO products.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG) and Thinktank are open on Sunday 1 December from 10.00am to 5.00pm. General admission to BMAG is free and, since its recent first phase reopening in October, open spaces include the Round Room, Industrial Gallery, Bridge Gallery, Tearoom and Museum shop, plus a new family gallery, Wild City.

Admission charges apply at Thinktank, although you don’t have to buy a ticket for the museum to visit the shop, which is located on the second floor at Millennium Point.

Tickets are also still available for the Victorian Radicals: From the Pre-Raphaelites to the Arts and Crafts Movement exhibition on display in the Museum’s Gas Hall until 5 January 2025. The exhibition features over 160 works by Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement.

Kingston Myles, Director of Enterprise and Innovation at Birmingham Museums Trust, said:

"We are really pleased to be taking part in Museum Shop Sunday on 1 December and are particularly looking forward to welcoming visitors to our recently re-opened and re-imagined shop at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.

“Museum Shop Sunday is all about shopping with purpose. When you choose to shop in a museum, you are not just buying a gift – you are actively contributing to our work and maintaining our collections for future generations to enjoy.

“You’re also directly supporting the amazing local suppliers and independent makers that create many of the unique gifts available to purchase in our shop.”