The Stirling Smith, established in 1874, serves the people of Stirling and further afield be conserving and managing its collections, providing access to them and acting as custodians for future generations.

Local identity is vested in and is enhanced by these collections, and it is our duty to:

• Conserve and store the collection to the highest standard
• Actively manage and provide public access to the collections
• Pro-actively promote the Stirling Smith as an effective and vibrant cultural institution

The collection will be used to:

• INFORM all who visit to seek out and discover more
• COMMUNICATE the known stories and histories, past and present, so that these can be enhanced and enriched
• CONSTRUCT through research the histories which have still to be written
• EDUCATE visitors in the matter of citizenship, through the explanation of local customs and usages
• VALIDATE the lives and the achievements of the people who live and work in Stirlingshire
• ENRICH the experience of participants through the emotional content and context of the objects and art works
• ENGAGE new audiences and inspire future generations to care for and enjoy the collections
• ENCOURAGE the wider community to be involved
• ACT as the collective cultural repository and memory for the constituent communities which make up Stirlingshire, guaranteeing that the remembrance of these communities will be vibrant enough to inform and instruct all future initiatives

Delivering Our Vision
We want to share our collections and make it easier for people to gain access to them. We need more space and to make better use of the space we have. Our building needs to be brought into a better state of repair and to have the correct climate and security provision to enable us to bring other collections and exhibitions to Stirling. Our education work is at the heart of what we do but our existing facilities constrain what we can deliver. We want to continue the great artistic and creative energy that Stirling had for hundreds of years and create an environment where the energy of the present sits comfortably alongside the objects in our collections.

So we are about to embark on a journey to transform the Smith for the 21st Century.
We will:

• Re-configure the interior space to provide new gallery space
• Extend the building to create new open access collections storage
• Provide new space for education and engagement activity
• Re-present the core exhibition to tell Stirling’s story