The bullet-scarred Old Airport in the city of Entebbe, Uganda, will be turned into an aviation museum. In 1976, an Air France plane was hijacked by sympathisers to the Palestinian cause and landed at Entebbe, with the blessing of President Idi Amin. The hijackers demanded the release of all Palestinian political prisoners in exchange for the, mostly Jewish, passengers.

In one of the most dramatic rescue operations, Israeli commandos under the cover of darkness, flew into Entebbe, rescued the 100 passengers and flew out before the Ugandan army could mount a credible defence.

The raid on Entebbe was pictured in many movies, including the most recent Oscar-winning film, ‘The Last King of Scotland’. So apparently, now is the right time to capitalise on the history surrounding the building by turning it into a kind of aviation museum, with the raid on Entebbe as the main attraction.

Read arcticle (New Vision (Kampala, 17 July 2007)

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The architecture and design magazine Arcspace has realised an online projectspace in Second Life, the so-called Multimedia Building, where it will enable visitors to run videos, conduct forums. exhibit projects, listen to music and a lot more. They are currently running a Gehry (yes, from the architect who designed the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao) Technologies flythrough video, produced by Vanilla Five for the exhibition Digital Project at the Danish Architecture Center in Copenhagen. The first exhibition will be up in September.

Join Second Life (Membership is free)
More about the project in arcspaceSL announcement

Tate has set ambitious targets to increase its ethnic minority visitors by 2010, The Art Newspaper can disclose. In 2006-7, Tate Britain had 49,000 Black and Ethnic Minority visitors (3%), and it hopes to increase this to 5%. Tate Modern had 200,000 ethnic minority visitors (4%), and it too is aiming for a 2% rise.Using MORI researchers who interview a sample of visitors, Tate monitors individual UK residents aged 17 and over, so the figures exclude children, school groups and foreign tourists. Nationwide, the proportion of the UK population from ethnic minorities is 9%, although the concentration in Greater London is larger.

Last month a Tate spokesperson explained: “It is our ambition to improve the number of Black and Minority Ethnic visitors and we are working on a strategy.” In the current funding agreement with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Tate’s Diversity Strategy is described as a “key priority”, although no statistical targets are set.

Read full article (Art Newspaper, July 12, 2007)
Tate Online

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Go have a drink at the roof of the Metropolitan Museum, while enjoying the new Frank Stella exhibition and a stunning view of Manhattan and Central Park.

Metropolitan Museum website