Events at Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery

Delve into Tony Foster's Exploring Time: A Painter's Perspective and dive into the concept of "time". Artist Tony Foster will be joined by four experts exploring different perspectives of geological time, biological time, human time and fleeting moments explored in Foster's watercolour landscapes.

Ready for a rad exhibition? Like Marty McFly in his DeLorean or Bill and Ted in their phone booth, this exhibition takes you on a time-travelling adventure. Blow the kids' minds with a visit to the pre-internet age!

In a galaxy far, far away, in a time of excellent adventures, things were rad – or at least radically different. Pre-internet, the 1980s was the age of the cassette tape, the shell suit, and Dirty Dancing, a time when driverless cars, artificial intelligence and virtual reality were the stuff of Hollywood blockbusters rather than a fact of life.

In this immersive exhibition, Cornwall Museum and Art Gallery will transport you back to 1980s Britain with more than 200 nostalgic objects. Get ready to hear “I remember that!” and “I had one of those!” reverberating off the Artex walls as, like Marty McFly in his DeLorean or Bill and Ted in their phone booth, this exhibition takes you on a time-travelling adventure to revisit ten remarkable years.

Those who grew up in the 80s and early 90s will be filled with childlike glee – plunged back into the bright cultural landscape that shaped a generation. It’s the museum equivalent of a Saturday morning in front of Going Live! or a trip to Woolworths to pick up the latest Now That’s What I Call Music.

For the kids of today, this is history but not as they know it. The 80s feels like a parallel universe – one that’s now the backdrop to hit shows like Stranger Things, Snowfall, and Glow.

More than just one long mix tape of reminiscence, I Grew Up 80s also poses challenging questions, such as how kids got their kicks before social media, Minecraft, and Netflix? Celebrate play as it was back then, investigating the objects, hobbies, treasures and trends that were part of an 80s childhood, exploring toys, music, sport, fashion, food, books and TV – all with a generous spritz of high-volume hairspray thrown in.

Under 18s enter the museum free of charge, and Annual Passes for adults are just £10. Look out for the summer activity programme, with free weekly family activities based around the exhibition.

Delve into the murkier side of Cornwall's past with podcast host, Keith Wallis. Journey through tales of smugglers, secret tunnels, hauntings, daring exploits and battles.

Tony Foster is a Cornwall-based artist and environmentalist. For 45 years he has painted ‘en plein air’ in the wild places of the world, undertaking expeditions to rainforests, icebergs, deserts and mountains. In 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Foster’s watercolours reflect on the forces of nature and change in these wild places, his powers of observation resulting in work which is both scientifically valuable and sublimely beautiful.

In his major new exhibition, Exploring Time: A Painter’s Perspective, Foster focuses on continuity and transformation in ourselves and the world around us. From the earliest convulsions which formed our planet to fleeting shifts in weather, he poses the question of how our own lifespans relate to both the timeless and the transient.

This touring exhibition, sponsored by The Foster Museum in Palo Alto, California, begins here before heading to the Royal Watercolour Society in London, the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio, and other venues across the United States.

Framed is an open art exhibition coming to the museum this autumn, featuring work by 150 local artists. Each piece was selected by a panel of independent experts from a record number of submissions.

This unmissable and uplifting show shines a light on contemporary creativity in its many forms, including drawing, painting, photography, textiles, sculpture, ceramics and digital work. As part of the exhibition, all artists exhibiting in the museum will be entered into The People’s Choice Award.

There's a 1920s party on at the museum, but something isn't quite right... We need you to solve the crime before the night is out!

Don your 20s razzle dazzle and put your brain to the test with a mystery set amongst the museum's collection. Was it the curator with a neolithic axe, the researcher with a Medieval manuscript, or someone else entirely?

NB The ‘dossier’ of clues to solve the mystery will be available to museum visitors for several weeks after the crime has been committed if you fancy exercising those ‘little grey cells’!