manchester city take in the uk, manchester city take on manchester united in the fa cup at wembley stadium in london. it's the first time the two teams have ever met in the tournament's final. those are the headlines on bbc news. now on bbc news, it's the travel show. on the travel show: i'm in belgium, where past, present and future meet. we commissioned contemporary artists to present their alternative interpretation. we delve into a depot of treasures... my goodness, look at this place. what an incredible space! yeah, it's open storage. ..and the discussion around stolen artefacts continues. all of us are standing together and demanding that these bronzes stay where they are, so we can have access to them.

on the travel show: i'm in belgium, where past, present and future meet. now, it's widely believed that the first—ever museum was built more than 2,500 years ago in babylon, or modern day iraq. and now unesco reckons there are 100,000 of them throughout the world. but today, many museums are putting a lot of time and effort into thinking about how they can make their collections more engaging and more in tune with modern audiences. and that is what we're looking at in this week's show, starting here in belgium.

the african museum in tervuren, just outside of brussels, is marking its 125th anniversary. and along with a range of events associated with that, the museum's taken the opportunity to reflect on its colonial past. five years ago, the museum underwent a massive renovation, removing problematic statues, changing the labelling around objects, anything that created a negative stereotype about africa. though some things couldn't be changed, like the enduring presence of the monarch who established this place. so here, this hall represents really the two discourses that are taking place in the museum. and you can see, if you lift your head, the name of the late king leopold ii encrypted in everyone's hall. but also, here you actually have an inscription that says in french, "la belgique apportant la civilisation "au congo."

"belgium brought civilisation to congo?" exactly, exactly. it's a very problematic one. how come these are still here, that plaque and that statue? that's a question that every visitors ask us. it's because the building is protected, it's part of the flanders cultural heritage. so we cannot touch anything from the walls of the building. right. so what we did is that we commissioned contemporary artists to present their alternative interpretation. so when the museum building says, "belgium brings security", he has the image of the belgian soldiers that brings security with eyes in his back. and it's notjust the text. it's as obvious as the colour of the statues. so here we have another inscription that says, "the wrestle with the snake." you do notice that the statue is black and the others

are gold, because gold is seen as superior, as godly. and this is for someone who is inferior. the museum traces its origins back to when king leopold ii set up the international exposition of 1897. as part of that, 267 congolese men, women and children were taken by force to belgium and exhibited to the public in fenced fake villages right here on this site. when belgium gained independence from the netherlands in the 19th century, the western nations' scramble for africa was in full throttle. now, king leopold wanted a piece of the action, but without the support of his own government, he had to win over investors and the public. the exposition was a huge success, and so began belgium's long and violent history in the congo. when i arrived there in 2001 as director, i found a museum that basically hadn't changed since 1956. basically the year when i first

visited the museum... as a child? as a child, yeah. it was still a colonial museum doing colonial propaganda in all sense of the word. so full of stereotypes, that the congolese were basically violent with spears and with a very aggressive face. do you think your generation, i mean, not necessarily you, but didn't your generation carry some guilt in a way for letting this perpetuate, for letting this keep going? this this old imagery, this old view of africa? guilt, you know, it was all part of the system. when i was at school as a young kid, you know, at primary and secondary school, most of our teachers were former missionaries. and they told all about the good things that they did and that they were debting. so they basically told us the story, wherever we came, it was basically the story of the white people bringing civilisation to congo.

and it's not until i basically got to university and started working in africa that suddenly i saw a whole new reality. how much do you think museums like this are responsible for diffusing racism throughout, for example, belgium? i mean, we realised that most belgian children had their first encounter with africa through a visit of this museum, either when they came with the school or with their parents or with their grandparents. and so for 100 years, that impression was basically one of stereotypes and that africa was good for...to provide the nature, but we were superior in providing the culture. and from stereotypes, you have prejudgments, and from prejudgments, you have a certain amount of racism. but so now, last 20 years, our museum has been working, very hard to restoring, to reparation things. when guido started, 95% of belgians thought that colonisation was a good thing. in 2022, the survey was done again and the number dropped to 35%. that's in part due to these changes within the museum,

and also events such as these. tell me what this room is about. i mean, these are some quite provocative statements here? yeah, it is. this room is about talking about racism here in the museum as a colonial institution. in the wall, we have different phrases that you've already heard or said, which represents three sorts of racism — institutional racism, ordinary racism and internalised racism. you must be thinking, questioning the whole purpose of this museum? so, yeah, because i have african origins, the way i entered in this space was because the museum needed someone to make a link with the african diaspora. because here the collections are so enormous that you can also learn about your history here. but don't make the mistake of thinking that it's african history. it's the way europeans saw africans. no stone has been left unturned

as part of the reimaging. even the african museum quest game has been reworded, they say, to betterfit the museum's ethos moving forward. each of the symbols on the envelopes matches something that's an artefact in the museum. now, this is the first one you've got to start with. but for the life of me, i can't find it anywhere, which is a good start! i think i may have found this one. so i've got to the end now. i've got to assemble these pieces in the right way, which then matches one of these envelopes. open the envelope and i'll find out whether i've succeeded or failed. to be absolutely honest with you, it's been a great journey around the museum itself, but this is fiendishly difficult. i'm just going to guess. oh, dear, ifailed. still, do you know what? really good fun doing

this chore anyway! most days, the museum hosts visiting school groups. and part of that involves visiting the depot to see what's been removed from the permanent exhibition and to understand why. how much did you learn at school? how much did you learn before you came here? basically nothing, i think it's the first time we really learn about it. we learned some things about africa in history, but not very much, so it's very interesting to learn all about it. i wouldn't do it if i was queen of belgium, so... but there are also some lighter aspects to a trip here. i managed to get a little taster in the central and west african music workshop. rhythmic drumbeat the museum cannot change the past, but through workshops like this and open discussions, it seems committed to help build a better future.

very good. thank you. applause now, the museum here in belgium isn't the only one looking at ways to be more engaging and to challenge ideas of what a traditional museum should be like. so here are some more examples of museums around the world aiming to shake things up a bit. explore a world without plastic, all from the comfort of your own home. the museum of plastic 2121 is a virtual exhibition aiming to illustrate why we need to tackle waste and clean up our oceans. you can download it for free onto your phone, desktop or vr headset. over in amsterdam, there's the world's first—ever museum dedicated to microbes. you can even take a scan to learn about the microbes that live in your body and try the interactive kiss—ometer to find out how much bacteria is transferred

when you kiss someone. for a little adventure, head into the provence mountains in france, where set in an old quarry, you'll discover the carrieres des lumieres. currently, you can enjoy exhibitions on tintin and van gogh. this spanish museum in madrid throws the "do not touch" signs out of the window. the whole concept is that visitors explore everything using just their hands. also, there's a strong emphasis on art made by blind people. finally, in tokyo, you can walk through water and become one with the flowers. visitors are invited to immerse their entire bodies in the vast artworks which change under the presence of people, blurring the perception of boundaries between the self and the works. still to come on the travel show... ..taking transparency to a whole new level. and should they stay or should they go? the discussion around these continues. so don't go away.

right now, we're heading just next door to the netherlands, to the dutch city of rotterdam, which just happens to be europe's largest seaport, but it's also gaining reputation for adopting a radical new approach to looking at art in museums, as christa found out last year, when she went there for the travel show. the depot boijmans van beuningen. it's the world's first publicly accessible art storage facility. and from the outside, it looks a bit like a giant space age teacup. so i wonder what the inside's going to look like? after flooding forced the museum to move the collection out of its usual storage facility, the team rethought the entire concept of an archive. gone was the idea of a warehouse with a security guard and a dog.

replaced by a concept based on radical transparency. my goodness, look at this place. what an incredible space! yeah, you like it? it's open storage. museums, they have a collection that you show maybe just 3 to 6 to 7%. but that feels awkward because many things sink into oblivion, or do not get the care that is necessary. so we opened our vaults with all the art collections to the audience, and we show how we work with the collection to clean paintings, to restore things that are not in a good shape. it's the audience who is the owner, and we are the very proud caretakers. the access visitors have is remarkable. you can even request to see certain individual pieces of your choice. i found a group with their guide, and you have to have a guide when you come here, because i guess they can'tjust let people loose among these racks

of possibly priceless works. the only real limiting factor here is time. because the environments are so strictly controlled, visitors are only allowed in certain rooms for a limited period. even a small group can alter these delicately balanced conditions. this is very much a working building where you get to see the inside story of a museum. the depot isn't the only place reinventing its archives. the world's most visited museum, the louvre in paris, has just relocated its vaults to a huge high—tech campus in northern france. it's only open to academics, but claims to now be one of the biggest study and research centres in europe. meanwhile, london's v&a museum plans to open storehouse on the olympic park in 2024, putting hundreds of thousands of items on display for the first time in generations.

one of the biggestjoys of all this open access is the direct contact with the people whose job it is to look after the exhibits. it's made ruben here, a man very much in demand. sorry to interrupt, can i ask what you're doing? what you're looking for? a visitor asked us online if the frame is original or not? and is it? i don't think it is, i don't think it is. if you look closely, you see that it's white and not brown. if it would be an original, it would have been an oak frame. so the ornaments would be carved out of the wood. and not moulded? yeah, exactly. so anyone can just send you an email and ask a question about a piece? yes. exactly. the whole collection is visible online and there is a button, so you can just click on it and you can ask any question... wonderful. ..and it goes into my mailbox. well, i have a question i'll ask you directly. uh-huh. sure. so when you have members of the public coming through here, is it distracting? what do you do? in the beginning, it was

a little bit distracting, but i'm just supposed to continue myjob and just do whatever i'm doing. do you get more questions from people? yeah, and, yeah, yeah, yeah. and they're like very, like, prying eyes. it's a fun part of thejob, yeah. just while i've been here, i think i've probably seen a dozen artworks i've never seen before that utterly captivate me, they're incredible. what an amazing way to see art, so different. well, i think it would take me days to see everything, but what an intriguing concept. thank you, christa. well, another big trend that's happening with museums, particularly here in the west, is asking whether certain exhibits should even be in their collections, or whether they should be returned back home. just last summer, king felipe of belgium returned a rare mask to the democratic republic of congo, which had actually been on display in this museum

for the last 70 years. you may have seen these items in a museum or heard about the benin bronzes in the media. in the past year, dozens of museums across the west have either agreed to, or are in the process of, returning them back to nigeria. it's estimated around 10,000 pieces were taken by the british during a punitive expedition to benin in 1897. the bronzes were then sold to institutions around the world. now there's no law in the uk which forces museums or other places to return stolen artefacts. but some institutions are doing it independently, like jesus college, cambridge. they were the first institution in the world to return a benin bronze in 2021. and soon cambridge university's

museum of archaeology and anthropology will follow suit. we've identified 116 objects that were taken during the punitive expedition of 1897. and those are the objects that we will be transferring ownership of. i think it's impossible to overstate just how severe an act of vandalism and cultural violence this was. the heads that we see before us here, were several of the objects that graced ancestral altars throughout the palace, and the purpose of those altars was very much to maintain the lineage, to maintain the kingdom. the plaques that had been removed from the walls throughout the city were visualisations of the benin kingdom's history and heritage. and those were all taken away in a wholesale export of this material, leaving very, very little behind. tell me, why are you now, and only now, returning some

of the pieces? i think it's the right time for these collections to go back. one might say it's long overdue. i think the main reason, the most recent reason, is that there has been a request from the nigerian government and we want the future retelling and care of these collections to be something that's really, really collaborative. however, history can be complicated. and there is one group led by the descendants of those who were enslaved, calling for the bronzes to remain where they are. well, the kingdom actually engaged in selling enslaved people. the 16th and 19th—century bronzes were made with a manila. this was a currency for the transatlantic slave trade. they actually melted these manilas down, and cast them into the bronzes, 0k. so these bronzes are actually legacy wealth or cultural

property, not only of the people of the kingdom of benin, but of all of the people that they played a role in enslaving in the transatlantic slave trade. and i am one of those dna descendants, and all of us are standing together and demanding that these bronzes stay where they are, so we can have access to them. deandre, can you tell me, what proof do you have that there is this connection? we prefer to refer directly to the literature prepared by the kingdom of benin. so we have this amazing book, the benin monarchy, produced by the current 0ba of the kingdom of benin. and it actually spells out specifically that they use these manilas and why they needed to get the manilas at a certain point. 50 manilas bought a female, 57 bought a male. currently, they have 57 active appeals in place, with a further 50 in the works to institutions around the world to keep hold of their bronzes.

although they don't have to be concerned about this place. the british museum currently holds the largest collection of bronzes in the world, with no plans to return any. in a statement, sent to the travel show, they say that the collections offer an important opportunity for audiences to understand the history of the british conquest of benin city. and to reflect on the impact of that period of colonialism. undoubtedly, these points of view don't sit too well back in nigeria. the whole world knows they are stolen properties. there is no place like home. by the time this object comes home, it's going to do a lot of things. it will heal the wounds. it will create more jobs for our people. it will create more tourists

to visit our museums. and as for the diaspora's claims, mark thinks they should come back to nigeria too, with the bronzes. meanwhile, plans are under way to build the edo museum of west african art. it's scheduled to open in 2026, and that, they hope, will be filled with all the returned bronzes. right, well, that's it from us on the travel show for this week, butjoin us next time, when... ..lucy is in northern sweden at a revolutionary electric flying school that's hoping to kick start fossil—free aviation. rotate. there we go, that's fine. was i pulling too fast? yeah, we're in the air. eager! 0h! and don't forget, you can find us on social media in all the usual places,

along with some other great travel content from around the bbc. but for now, from me and the rest of the travel show team here in belgium, it's goodbye. hello, there. some parts of the country have not had any rain since the 8th of may. is there any rain on the horizon? well, i will answer that question a little bit later on. but on friday, we saw the sunshine developing across many parts of the uk, with the highest temperatures out towards the west, but even in areas that have been cloudy for the past few days, the cloud was much thinner and the sunshine came through. now, we still have high pressure in charge, as we head

into the weekend. that's filling with cloud, and eventually, that will push its way down through the north sea, but at the moment, we've got drier air across the uk, so there isn't much cloud around at all. what cloud there is overnight will tend to burn off and sunshine will develop in many areas. we'll see a bit of fairweather cloud just developing over the high ground in scotland and perhaps across some southern parts of england. still a bit breezy through the english channel, still a north—easterly breeze, so right on the coast, temperatures will be pegged at 16 or 17, but further west, those highs reaching 22 or 23 degrees. a lot of sunshine around on saturday, and for many of us, we'll have sunshine on sunday, as well. that high pressure is still there, got a brisk wind across the far south of england, but this time, we'll see more cloud through in the north sea and that'll be pushing its way into some eastern areas of england in particular, and may burn back towards the coast, but other parts of the uk seeing a good deal of sunshine. and it's getting just a little bit warmer, day on day, so 23, possibly even 2a degrees, across western parts of scotland.

a decent weekend, then, for much of the country. as we head into monday, we've got that cloud in the north sea. it may make more inroads overnight across the midlands and eastern england, but again, retreats back to those coastal areas. it's always going to be a little bit cooler right on the coast but warmer inland and particularly towards the west, so those temperatures not changing much as we move into monday. and the story isn't really changing much for the first half of next week, either. still that area of high pressure, so it's still dry. around it, there are some areas of cloud coming into northern parts of scotland, and maybe more towards the south—east of england, maybe seeing a bit more sunshine across parts of yorkshire and lincolnshire. again, the west is seeing the lovely weather continuing. no sign of rain — blue skies, warm in the sunshine, temperatures 22 or 23 degrees. it's not hot, and the air is not particularly hot, and that means it's quite chilly at night, where you have the clearer skies. but the high pressure is still there into wednesday. more cloud still again there, out into the north sea,

feeding back into east anglia, maybe parts of lincolnshire and the south—east of england. some areas will stay cloudy, a bit of patchy cloud developing further north, but the lion's share of the uk will see the sunshine continuing, and again, temperatures typically into the low 20s, at best. now, what about the outlook? is there any rain on the way? well, the rain is still all really across southern parts europe — some thundery downpours. this low pressure here, not going to reach us. we keep the high in charge. stays quite breezy towards the south of the uk. the centre of the high could migrate a little bit towards the east. that will allow more of a south—easterly breeze to come in, and it could lift the temperatures, particularly in southern and western areas, by the end of next week, and perhaps into the weekend, as well, but there's no rain. it's still dry. for the most part, it's clear skies. cool at night, warm in the sunshine by day. temperatures could reach 25 or 26 degrees by the end of next week.

headlines today taken verity at epsom derby disruptions for sports fans and concert—goers with 60% of train services cancelled as drivers strike for the second time this week. it is city versus united in the first ever all at manchester fa cup final while

celtic are going to the