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 Portico Library in Manchester has appointed Susie Diggines as its new Chair of Trustees, succeeding John Carpenter who steps down after three years in the role. A solicitor and long-standing Greater Manchester resident, Diggines brings extensive leadership and governance experience and has previously served as Secretary of the Library. Her appointment comes as the Portico prepares the next phase of its Portico Reunited project, a major initiative to restore and transform the Grade II listed building.
Openings & closures
The Postal Museum is launching a series of exclusive, curator-led tours of its off-site museum store in Debden from April, opening the facility to the public for the first time in almost a decade. The store houses large-scale collection items including postal vehicles, pillar boxes and motorbikes that cannot be accommodated at the museum’s central London site. Tours are scheduled for 2 April, 25 April and 28 May.
Exhibitions
Beauty and Destruction: Wartime London in Art
IWM London | London
Opening: 20 March 2026 – Closing: 1 November 2026
A free exhibition telling the story of London during the Second World War through over 45 paintings and drawings alongside photographs, film, objects and oral histories. Works include pieces from the British government’s War Artists’ Advisory Committee, documenting how the war transformed the city and its inhabitants. Artists featured include Edward Ardizzione, Evelyn Dunbar, Bernard Hailstone, Henry Carr and John Edgar Platt.
Rising Voices: Contemporary Art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Victoria and Albert Museum | London
Opening: 16 May 2026
A landmark exhibition bringing together work by more than 40 artists from 25 countries across the Asia Pacific region. The exhibition draws on over 30 years of the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art’s Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. More than 70 works spanning sculpture, photography, painting, ceramics, weaving and body adornment will foreground First Nations perspectives and explore themes of re-visioning history, enduring knowledge and evolving faith.
Aleksandra Kasuba: Shelters for Senses
Tate St Ives | St Ives
Opening: 2 May 2026 – Closing: 4 October 2026
The first UK museum exhibition of Lithuanian American artist Aleksandra Kasuba (1923-2019) covers seven decades of her career, including paintings, mosaics, sculptures, public artworks and innovative spatial environments. The exhibition features ‘Spectrum: An Afterthought’ (1975), a passageway comprising brightly lit coloured zones with sounds and scents, and ‘Three-dimensional Rug’ (1971), part of a recreation of Kasuba’s ‘Live-In Environment’. The show explores Kasuba’s visionary approach to creating immersive, contemplative spaces inspired by natural forms and her interest in utopian architecture for social harmony.
Unfinished Business: The Mystery of Margate and Turner’s Bequest
Turner’s House | Twickenham
Opening: 23 April 2026 – Closing: 26 October 2026
The exhibition features J.M.W. Turner’s circa 1835-1840 painting ‘Margate (?), from the Sea’ on loan from the National Gallery, displayed in the house Turner designed and built by 1813. The show explores the complex history of the Turner Bequest and reveals how attitudes to Turner’s work changed across the centuries. It includes Turner’s will, original documents and letters from the National Gallery archive, and works by copyists Henry Tidmarsh and Bertha Mary Garnett.
Julio Le Parc
Tate Modern | London
Opening: 11 June 2026 – Closing: 3 May 2027
This exhibition features over 60 works spanning Julio Le Parc’s 70-year career, including interactive installations, light sculptures, and geometric abstract paintings. The show follows Le Parc’s mission to activate viewers through optical effects and sensory experiences, from his early ‘Surfaces’ series to his luminokinetic artworks and ‘Continual Light Mobiles’. Works on display include ’64 Reflective Blades’ (2017), ‘Blue Sphere’ (2001-22), and interactive installations such as ‘Ensemble of Eleven Surprise Movements’ (1965).
Marthe Armitage: Pattern Maker
Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery | London
Opening: 19 March 2026 – Closing: 19 July 2026
The exhibition features more than 40 prints, objects and archive materials from the lifelong career of visual artist Marthe Armitage (b.1930), who has spent decades dedicated to hand-drawn and hand-cut designs for wallpaper, curtains and decorative works. The retrospective showcases works spanning from her first lino block created in 1964 to her most recent 2023 print ‘Chess’, including rarely seen works on paper, sketches, sketchbooks and working drawings. The display explores Armitage’s expert craftsmanship and the botanical and architectural influences that have informed her intricate, nature-led patterns, many inspired by her native Chiswick.
Funding
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has received a development phase grant of £240,000 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund towards the renovation of its iconic Palm House, which could unlock further funding of up to £10m. The Grade II listed glasshouse, which last underwent renovation in the 1980s, is showing serious signs of deterioration, with the full project expected to cost £60m. The Palm House will remain open until 2027, when renovation work is hoped to begin.
