This is a time for renewal

We are opening to a new time.
Every now and again we must renew
Ourselves as a museum,
As a vision, as a people.
This is a time for renewal.
Time to dream higher.
Opening a new way into the future:
Culture needs dialogue;
Civilisation needs community.
What does it mean to be human?
Art renews what it is to be human.
It celebrates the spirit of surprise
We celebrate art as healing,
Reconciling us to ourselves
We celebrate our rich variousness,
We celebrate the beauty of differences, We celebrate the resilience of
the human.
We work with the stuff of wonder.
Art is a dream of truth.
To renew the heart is our dream
To touch the place of tears and joy
To catch a vision of hope with a gaze
To re-imagine our journey
from birth to the stars
To lift our spirits in play and beauty

To collaborate with what is
extraordinary in you.
What does it mean to be human?
It means to love, to dream,
To make, to laugh, to grow,
To quest, to find meaning,
To inspire and be inspired,
To transform the ordinary,
To heal our restless hearts
In the fountains of art and culture;
To lift ourselves up
with the magic of unity.
The human story sings here,
dreams here, In magnificence.

Words by Ben Okri