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.
Museum Moves
Appointments
Moira Lascelles has been appointed Director of Burgh House, the Grade I listed historic house and museum in Hampstead, taking up the role this month. She joins from UP Projects, the public art commissioning organisation, where she served as Executive Director and Head of Partnerships. Her previous roles include Deputy Director of The Architecture Foundation and Consultant Curator for the London Festival of Architecture, with further experience at the British Council, Phaidon and CABE. She is currently Chair of Trustees of Metroland Cultures.
Openings & closures
Trent Park House in Enfield will open to the public as a museum in summer 2026. The ground floor state rooms have been restored to their 1930s appearance as the residence of Sir Philip Sassoon, while basement areas will reveal the listening stations used during Second World War intelligence operations, when conversations of captured German officers were secretly recorded. A National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported learning programme will accompany the opening.
Trent Park museum to open Summer 2026 revealing two strands of history
Exhibitions
Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt
The John Rylands Library | Manchester
Opening: Autumn 2027
The John Rylands Library will host its own version of ‘Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt’ in Autumn 2027, following the exhibition’s North American premiere at the Harry Ransom Center. The exhibition draws on the Library’s collection of ancient Egyptian papyri, described as one of the finest in the world, which has not previously been exhibited at scale. The display covers personal letters, legal petitions, magical spells, medical recipes, and early religious texts from Greco-Roman Egypt.
The Space Vault Exhibition
Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum | Birmingham
Opening: 1 June 2025 – Closing: 17 May 2026
The Space Vault Exhibition brings together 12 curated stories of human space exploration through immersive visuals and unique artefacts drawn from one of the UK’s largest private collections of space objects. Items on display include manuals flown on Apollo 8 and Apollo 9, mission checklists from Apollo 13, lunar dust from the Apollo 15 Hadley Rille landing site, and part of the nose cone of the first Starship to reach space. Entry is included in the general admission price for Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum.
Ffasiwn
National Museum Cardiff | Cardiff
Opening: 23 May 2026 – Closing: 4 April 2027
‘Ffasiwn’ presents photographs and films by French photographer Clémentine Schneidermann and Merthyr-born creative director Charlotte James, marking ten years of their project ‘It’s Called Ffasiwn’. The exhibition features nearly sixty prints, films and publications documenting a decade of participatory work with young people from Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil, spanning documentary photography, portraiture, fashion and performance. The exhibition operates on a Pay What You Can basis and includes a reimagined working women’s club installation created by Schneidermann and James.
Queen Elizabeth II: Fashion and Style
The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace | London
Opening: 10 April 2026
The largest-ever exhibition of Queen Elizabeth II’s fashion opens at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, to mark the centenary of her birth. More than 300 items from the late Queen’s personal fashion archive are on display, with over half never previously exhibited, including wedding jewellery, childhood garments, and the dress worn by her stunt double at the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. Archival materials including invoices, fabric samples, and design sketches annotated in the Queen’s own hand are also on display, alongside a dedicated section exploring her off-duty wardrobe.
