Appointments
Professor Dominic Tweddle is to step down as founding Director-General of the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) at the end of the month. Matthew Sheldon, the current Executive Director of Museum Operations, will become Interim Director-General as the organisation recruits a permanent successor.
Director-General to step down at National Museum of the Royal Navy
The British Motor Museum has expanded its conference sales team in response to increased demand, appointing a new Sales Manager, Tawanda Mabhumbo.The new appointment joins the team from the hotel industry, having worked for brands Leonardo and Hilton.
British Motor Museum expands conference team in response to demand
Silverstone Museum has announced the appointment of three new Trustees to its Board this week. Joining are Dr Najat Benchiba-Savenius, Chief of Staff at Saudi Arabia’s TONOMUS; Dr Leonard Stall, founder of not-for-profit magazine and media platform Philanthropy Age; and Mike Niles, founder and former CEO of b:friend, a registered charity supporting isolated older people.
Arts Council England has announced four new members to its Designation Panel, which “helps museums identify and celebrate outstanding collections which deepen our understanding of the world and what it means to be human”. Joining the panel are Katie Eagleton, Director of Libraries and Museums at University of St Andrews; Belinda Day, Senior Curator atNational Army Museum; Janet Dugdale, Executive Director at National Museums Liverpool, and Hugh Maguire, Director at Dr Williams’s Trust & Library.
The SS Great Britain Trust has announced the election of a new Chair of Trustees. Matthew Jones joins as a trustee and will take over the role of chair in the first quarter of next year, when current chair Jim McKenna’s full term concludes. McKenna will maintain an involvement, taking on a subcommittee position to continue his support of the Albion Dockyard Project. Jones brings experience from the global pharmaceutical sector, including as founder member of a UK biotech company. Trustees have also elected that deputy chair, Sam Mullins, will remain in position when his current term is due to end. Mullins recently retired as chief executive of London Transport Museum.
Openings
A classic car museum was opened in Somerset this week. Showcasing cars and motorcycles mainly from the 1960s to the 1990s, County Classics Motor Museum is the creation of local entrepreneur Patrick Hawkins, a car enthusiast who has dedicated his life savings to its creation. The opening ceremony was led by TV presenter Richard Hammond, with a large crowd in attendance.
Exhibitions
The V&A has announced its 2024 Programme. Included in next year’s programming is ‘Tropical Modernism: Architecture and Independence’ at V&A South Kensington (pictured). The exhibitions will explore the unique architecture of West Africa and India after World War II by architects Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew. Working with scholars, architects and filmmakers, the exhibition will “interrogate a transitional moment in which new freedoms were won and how a break with the colonial past was articulated through art and architecture.” Runs 2 March 2024 – 22 September 2024.
Later in the year V&A South Kensington, ‘NAOMI’ will explore the 40-year career of fashion model Naomi Campbell. Produced in collaboration with Campbell, the exhibition will draw upon the model’s own wardrobe, along with loans from designer archives and objects from the V&A collection. The exhibition will include around 100 outfits, alongside an installation of photography curated by Edward Enninful OBE. Runs 22 June 2024 – 6 April 2025
The National Gallery has also announced its programme for next year. Among the exhibitions planned is ‘Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers’, its first exhibition of the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh in Autumn 2024. The exhibitions will also mark the centenary of the Gallery’s acquisition of the artist’s Sunflowers and Van Gogh’s Chair (1888), two of its most famous pictures, in 1924. Runs 14 September 2024 – 19 January 2025 .
Game On, an exhibition first conceived and curated by Barbican Immersive, opens at the National Museum of Scotland next year. The exhibition will open over 20 years after the museum was its very first touring venue in October 2002, after its initial opening run at the Barbican in London. The exhibition, which has since seen over five million visitors, will explore game design, different types of gaming, and the wider links between gaming and both music and film. Runs 29 June to 3 November 2024.
Discovered in 2009, a rare photograph album containing the images of local Victorian men, women and children who were arrested and imprisoned for committing crimes in Barnstaple is the focus of a new exhibition at the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon. ‘Barnstaple Prisoners: unveiling Barnstaple’s Victorian underclass 1867- 1877’ will present the photographs alongside research from Dr Sadru Bhanji, who first discovered them. Runs Dec 2 2023 – Feb 17, 2024.
Funding
The Tank Museum in Dorset has raised £20,000 from online supporters in just 24 hours, allowing it to carry out the restoration of a British tank. The museum ran the fundraiser on its website and promoted it on its popular YouTube channel.
Image:
Unity Hall, KNUST, Kumasi by John Owuso Addo and Miro Marasović – film still from Tropical Modernism -Architecture and Independence © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
