The weekly feature rounds up the latest updates in museum appointments, openings, funding and new exhibitions from across the UK.
Museum Moves is supported by DJW Projects Limited: DJW Projects Limited. DJW Projects Limited is recognised as one of the UK’s leading forces in the audio-visual industry, providing creative lighting, Audio Visual and multimedia solutions globally to achieve the ultimate technological experience, using sound, lighting, vision and interaction.
Appointments
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has reappointed Professor Steven Gunn as Trustee of the Royal Armouries for a four-year term beginning March 1, 2025. Professor Gunn, who serves as Fellow and Tutor in History at Merton College, Oxford, is an expert in early modern British and European history with numerous published works on Tudor England.
Sir Mark Jones has been appointed Chair of Historic Environment Scotland (HES). Jones has previously served as Chair of the National Trust for Scotland from 2019 to 2025.
Sir Mark Jones appointed Chair of Historic Environment Scotland
Openings and closures
Construction work has commenced on the £15m DNA (Derry~Londonderry on the North Atlantic) Museum at Ebrington Square in Derry, Northern Ireland. Completion of the project is currently expected by Spring 2027.
Exhibitions
Framed: Cornwall Open
Cornwall Museum & Art Gallery | Truro
Opening: 26 October 2025 – 31 January 2026
The exhibition features 150 Cornish artists selected through an open call, displaying portraits, landscapes and still lives in pencil, pen, chalk, watercolours and oils. On display are sculptures in clay, metal and found materials, ceramics, textiles, stained glass, drawing, photography, collage and printmaking including engravings, woodcuts, monotypes and botanical prints, alongside paintings in oil, acrylic and watercolour, with an additional 53 artists featured digitally.
Sugar, Skill and Shiftwork: York’s Confectionery Workers
York Castle Museum | York
Opening: 26 September 2025 – Closing: September 2026
The community-led exhibition celebrates York’s confectionery industries including Terry’s, Rowntree’s and Craven’s, featuring five themed rooms exploring the city’s sweet-producing history. On display are workers’ items, uniforms, images, film, oral history, Long Service Certificates, diaries, ID cards, and household favourites such as Terry’s Chocolate Orange and KitKat with retro wrappers and packaging, supported by archives from York Oral History Society.
HS2 Exhibition
Thinktank | Birmingham
Opening: 27 September 2025 – Closing: 27 September 2026
The exhibition forms part of Railway 200 celebrations marking 200 years since the birth of modern railways, exploring construction of the historical Kilsby Tunnel and HS2’s Bromford Tunnel. On display are two cutter discs from HS2’s tunnel boring machines and an immersive audio-visual experience featuring sounds of a 1,600-tonne tunnel boring machine alongside a film showing the machine’s assembly and operation.
Pins for Peace
The Peace Museum | Bradford
Opening: 27 September 2025 – Closing: 30 November 2025
The exhibition features responses from artists inspired by The Peace Museum’s collection of badges, with giant badges displayed in the museum and at multiple locations on Bradford’s streets. Featured artists include Addam Yekutieli, Kid Acne, Peter Kennard, Gee Vaucher and Matt Sewell amongst others.
Theatre Picasso
Tate Modern | London
Opening: 17 September 2025 – Closing: 12 April 2026
The exhibition brings together over 50 works exploring aspects of performance in Picasso’s work, staged by contemporary artist Wu Tsang and curator Enrique Fuenteblanca. On display are paintings including ‘The Three Dancers’ 1925, ‘Weeping Woman’ 1937, ‘Nude Woman in a Red Armchair’ 1932, ‘Girl in a Chemise’ c.1905, ‘Horse with a Youth in Blue’ 1905-6, and ‘Bullfight Scene’ 1960, alongside prints, drawings, sculptures, textile works and collages, with the wool and silk tapestry ‘Minotaur’ 1935 on loan from Musée Picasso, Antibes, and ‘Acrobat’ 1930 from Musée national Picasso-Paris, plus Henri-George Clouzot’s 1956 film ‘The Mystery of Picasso’.
Colour: A Season of Shades, Tints and Tones
Tullie, Museum and Art Gallery | Carlisle
Opening: 27 September 2025 – Closing: 25 January 2026
The exhibition explores how colour has shaped art, identity, culture, politics and perception across centuries and continents. On display are works by Wassily Kandinsky including woodcut ‘Orientalisches’ from his album ‘Klänge’, Andy Warhol’s 1967 ‘Marilyn Monroe’, Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Moonscape’ (1965) printed on rowlux, and Katsushika Hokusai’s ‘Mishima Pass in Kai Province’ from ‘Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji’, alongside paintings and a textile from Kaffe Fassett, Bronze Age gold jewellery from Tullie’s collection, ruby-topaz hummingbird specimens, and social history objects exploring race, skin tone and identity.
Funding
The Welsh Government has awarded over £3 million in funding to 29 local cultural projects, with 18 museum initiatives receiving grants to enhance facilities and improve visitor accessibility across Wales. Notable projects include a £150,000 restoration of Pontypridd Museum’s historic 1910 Conacher Pipe Organ and digital enhancements for neurodiverse users at the Museum of Welsh Cricket.
Northumberland’s Bailiffgate Museum & Gallery is to create a new museum within the historic Northumberland Hall.The volunteer run, operated, and led museum has received £4.3m from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for the move to the town centre of Alnwick.
Volunteer-operated museum wins £4.3m to relocate to Georgian market hall
