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
V&A Dundee has announced the appointment of four new board members, including the former council leader who served during the museum’s opening.
Exhibitions
200 Years of Birds of America
Liverpool Central Library | Liverpool
Opening: 10 October 2026 – Closing: February 2027
Liverpool Central Library presents ‘200 Years of Birds of America’, marking the bicentenary of John James Audubon’s 1826 visit to Liverpool to raise subscriptions for his book, held in the library’s complete four-volume set. Drawing on the city’s Archive and Special Collections alongside loans from the Victoria Gallery & Museum and National Museums Liverpool, the exhibition includes original sketches by Audubon, bird specimens he shot and preserved, original letters, and a rare taxidermy passenger pigeon, a now-extinct species, on loan from the World Museum. It also examines Audubon’s troubling behaviours, including the desecration of Native American graves and his use of enslaved people.
UP YOURS! God Save the Queens
Museum of Youth Culture | London
Opening: 23 October 2026 – Closing: 22 November 2026
The Museum of Youth Culture presents ‘UP YOURS! God Save the Queens’, curated by the Up Yours! Collective, celebrating the women who transformed punk’s visual and cultural language fifty years on, and dedicated to the legacy of X-Ray Spex frontwoman Poly Styrene. Bringing together rare and previously unseen artwork, photography, fashion and archival material drawn from sources including the Poly Styrene Archive, the Zandra Rhodes Foundation and The Rock & Roll Public Library. It places women at the centre of punk’s story, with contributors including Lora Logic, Dame Zandra Rhodes, Rhoda Dakar, Gina Birch, Caroline Coon, Linder and Don Letts.
May The Toys Be With You
Hopetown Darlington | Darlington
Opening: 9 January 2027 – Closing: 21 March 2027
Hopetown Darlington presents ‘May The Toys Be With You’, a touring exhibition marking 50 years of Star Wars, curated by collector Matt Fox and drawing on one of the UK’s finest collections of vintage toys, original cinema posters, prototype items and memorabilia. Shown in the Carriage Works, it features rare action figures, vehicles, playsets and promotional artwork, alongside a programme of themed activities including appearances by the 501st Legion and full-size X-Wing Starfighter and Land Speeder vehicles.
Bayeux Around Britain: Casting a Masterpiece
Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery | Norwich
Opening: 12 November 2026 – Closing: 10 January 2027
Norwich Castle presents the Stothard Cast, a group of three hand-painted plaster casts of details from the Bayeux Tapestry, on its UK tour as a British Museum Spotlight Loan. Made by artist Charles Alfred Stothard from moulds taken directly from the Tapestry in 1816 and acquired by the British Museum in 1878, the casts depict Harold Godwinson and Duke William of Normandy from scenes 46, 30 and 48, shown with a touchable 3D-printed replica and hand-embroidered replicas of Tapestry details.
Submergence
Preston Park Museum | Stockton-on-Tees
Opening: 23 October 2026 – Closing: 7 March 2027
Preston Park Museum presents ‘Submergence’, a large-scale walkthrough light installation by artists Squidsoup, featuring thousands of individually controlled points of light creating ever-changing patterns of light, colour and sound. Shown in The Spence Building, the installation marks the bicentenary of Stockton-born John Walker’s 1826 invention of the friction match. Entry is included with a Day or Annual Museum Pass.
Lys Hansen: A Retrospective
Perth Art Gallery | Perth
Opening: 27 November 2026 – Closing: 23 December 2027
Perth Art Gallery presents ‘Lys Hansen: A Retrospective’, marking the Scottish figurative expressionist painter’s 90th birthday year and its first exhibition dedicated to a living female artist since 2017. Featuring over 35 works, including large-scale paintings and sculptures spanning six decades, it includes a new work ‘The Brave and the Fallen’ (2026) and ‘How Virtue and Vice Meet, Mix and Unite, How Wisdom and Folly Blend Their Black and Their White’ (1987) from the collections cared for by Culture Perth & Kinross.
Funding
An additional £1.4m in funding has been secured for the restoration of Brighton’s Royal Pavilion Garden restoration project, closing a funding gap caused by increased costs.
Brighton’s Royal Pavilion Garden project secured £1.4m funding boost
