Durham's shuttered regimental museum reopens as The Light, a £17m art and culture centre
A building that sat empty for a decade after its regimental museum closed in a funding dispute has reopened as The Light, a new centre for contemporary art and culture in Durham, northeast England. The doors opened on 22 August with a free permanent display on the Durham Light Infantry and a ticketed inaugural show featuring Tracey Emin, Steve McQueen, Olafur Eliasson and Dan Flavin.
The £17 million redevelopment sits inside the repurposed shell of the former Durham Light Infantry Museum and Art Gallery, a 1960s building remodelled and extended by the architecture firm NORR. Durham County Council is the primary funder, with the urban regeneration partner MUSE and the Arts Council also backing the project. Entry to the museum and the DLI display is free; temporary exhibitions and events carry a ticket charge.
The closure of the old museum in 2016, after the council declared it too expensive to maintain, sparked local uproar. The building went dark. The DLI collection — artefacts tied to the infantry regiment whose name the county still carries — was relocated to a nearby heritage site called The Story, where most of it remains. A selection of items is now back on view in the permanent interactive gallery at The Light.
The name is not just a nod to the regiment. It reaches across centuries of light-related history tied to the county: the Venerable Bede's lunar calendar, created 1,300 years ago; Joseph Swan's 19th-century invention of the electric light bulb; and Durham University's involvement in the James Webb Space Telescope.
The inaugural exhibition, "Victory Over the Sun: Encounters with Light", gathers 25 artists who have worked with light from the 1960s to the present. Curated by Natasha Howes and running until 17 January 2027, the show spans Flavin's fluorescent-tube installations, Emin's luminous text pieces, McQueen's film work, Eliasson's immersive environments, and pieces by Liz West and Chila Burman. Two new commissions are part of the mix: an interactive work by Tine Bech and a piece by Katrin Hanusch that uses broken laptop screens to respond to the gallery's architecture.
Tony Guillan, The Light's director, will oversee a programme of exhibitions, immersive experiences and new commissions across three galleries for temporary and touring shows.
The path here was not smooth. Durham County Council's Cabinet noted in January 2024 that reopening the building required "a robust and achievable business plan supported by realistic figures." As recently as July 2026, a council scrutiny committee reported delays across new projects, including The Light's opening. The centre opened the following month, roughly on its revised schedule.
The redevelopment forms part of the wider "Durham Innovation District," a long-term strategy to reshape the city's cultural and economic footprint. For visitors, the immediate draw is simpler: a building that was locked up and written off is open again, with free entry and some of the most recognisable names in contemporary art on the walls.
Sources: The Art Newspaper; The Guardian; Durham County Council Cabinet minutes, 17 January 2024.
