Appointments

  • Lake District attraction Lakeland Motor Museum has appointed Carol Phillpotts to the role of Customer Service Manager.
  • The Migration Museum has appointed five new Trustees to its Board. The new appointments are Ayesha Hameed, a Community and Public Engagement Specialist, Eric Langham, a planner of new museums and cultural projects and founding partner of cultural consultancy Barker Langham and Kuljit Dhillon, Assistant Director of Strategy at the General Medical Council. Also appointed is Margot Finn, Professor of Modern British History at UCL, and Nilufar Fowler, Global Chief Client Officer at Mindshare, a WPP company.
  • The Museum of Homelessness has appointed four new trustees. It welcomes human rights activist Aderonke Apata, social scientist Dr. Stephanie Grohmann, Jamaican-born artist, curator and researcher Rachael Minott and human rights lawyer and campaigner Martha Spurrier.

Behind closed doors: The Museum of Homelessness on using secrecy to enhance visitor experience

Exhibitions and displays

  • The world’s oldest map of the stars will go on display for the very first time in the UK at the British Museum next year. The ‘Nebra Sky Disc’ is 3,600 years old and is the oldest surviving representation of the cosmos anywhere in the world, and will go on show in The world of Stonehenge. 17 February – 17 July 2022.

World’s oldest map of the stars to be exhibited in UK for first time  

  • A Hayward Gallery Touring exhibition exploring gender and identity from French photographer Claude Cahun is to open at Derby Museums on tour from the Southbank Centre, London. 22 October 2021 – 27 February 2022.
  • The British Museum is marking Peru’s bicentennial year of independence with Peru: a journey in time, an exhibition which features objects from the museum’s collection, including ceramics, precious metals, textiles and ritual paraphernalia, as well as pieces borrowed from Peru itself. 1 November 2021 – 20 February 2022.
  • New exhibition Waste Age: What can design do? at The Design Museum will include new exhibits that capture the impact of waste, including a large-scale art installation by Ibrahim Mahama made from e-waste in Ghana. The exhibition also includes exhibits from Formafantasma, Stella McCartney, The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Lacaton & Vassal, Fernando Laposse, Bethany Williams, Phoebe English and Natsai Audrey Chieza. Opening 23 October 2021.
  • Following the release of the latest 007 film, the National Motor Museum has revealed its latest exhibition: Bond in Motion – No Time To Die. It features cars, gadgets and costumes from the latest film in the series, No Time To Die. Now – November 2022.

Funding and acquisitions

  • Elizabeth Gaskell’s House has been awarded just over £39,000 of funding from AIM Biffa Award, as part of the Landfill Communities Fund, which will fund a new exhibition to show how Elizabeth Gaskell’s work is still relevant in the 21st Century.

Events

  • As part of Black History Month, the South West Dorset Multi Cultural Network (SWDMCN) is hosting a celebration event at Dorset Museum which will feature children’s activities, speakers, food, drink, music and dancing. 23 October 2021.
  • The National Football Museum is to host two football writing festivals this autumn – one for adults, and a second for children. The Football Writing Festival brings together football writers for five nights of interviews, insight and debate about football for its eighth year. 1 – 5 November 2021.
  • Hackney Museum is inviting residents to share stories of being African in Hackney, and help shape how African heritage in the borough is discussed and understood, in an exhibition and through a series of free online events. The ‘In Conversation’ workshops, led by writer, researcher and ‘African Object Lessons’ podcaster, Benjamina Efua Dadzie, are part of ‘Being African in Hackney: 1960s-2020s’, a new temporary exhibition at Hackney Museum telling the stories of people moving to, living, working, studying and growing up in Hackney, from the 1960s to today. Now – 15 January 2022.
  • The National Gallery has announced two regional museum partners to help train the next generation of curators.The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham, and Bristol Museum & Art Gallery will join the National Gallery in offering the 2022-23 Curatorial Traineeships, supported by Art Fund with the assistance of the Vivmar Foundation.
  • Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle is launching an open call to budding poets and artists to submit work on the pandemic for National Poetry Day, with the backing of Children’s Laureate, Cressida Cowell. Entries will be divided into three age categories, the deadline for all submissions is November 28.

Awards

  • Hertfordshire Association of Museums is now accepting public votes for its Museum Object of the Year 2021 award. Staff and volunteers from each of its museums have nominated an object they think will capture the public’s imagination, which includes a 101-year-old Columbian Printing Press. Voting closes on 21 November.

International news

  • A group of museums in Vienna have created accounts on a platform typically used to sell explicit videos and images. The move to OnlyFans is part of the “Vienna Laid Bare” initiative to promote nude artworks, and was launched by Vienna’s tourism board to combat reactions to its nude art, which reportedly included banned imagery on social media.
Back to top