The weekly feature rounds up the latest updates in museum appointments, openings, funding and new exhibitions from across the UK.
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Appointments
Communities Minister Gordon Lyons MLA has reappointed William McMullan as a Trustee to the Board of National Museums NI for a four-year term from July 1, 2025 to June 30, 2029. Mr McMullan, who previously served as a Trustee from 2021-2025, will help oversee Northern Ireland’s four national museums which collectively care for 1.4 million objects in the national collection.
Openings & closures
The Science Museum has announced that its new Space gallery will open on Saturday 20 September 2025. The new gallery will display Helen Sharman’s spacesuit, the Apollo 10 command module and UK space technology.
Science Museum announces September opening for new Space gallery
Strata Florida, the visitor centre at the medieval abbey has reopened following a collaborative arrangement between Cadw, the Welsh Government’s historic environment service, and the Strata Florida Trust.
Ceredigion visitor centre reopens through partnership with local trust
Exhibitions
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in Birmingham presents ‘Watch Us Lead’, a new exhibition by multi-disciplinary artist Christopher Samuel exploring the disabled experience through nine newly recorded interviews with disabled people of colour in the city. The exhibition features Samuel’s stained glass and drawings investigating themes of stigma, belonging and agency, alongside selected objects from Birmingham’s collection and the Birmingham-based Midland Mencap Archive. The exhibition opens 5 June 2025 with no specified end date.
Yorkshire Museum in York presents ‘Viking North’, featuring the largest collection of Viking objects on display in England outside London. The exhibition displays magnificent artefacts spanning the Viking Age in Northern England from 866 to 1066, including the renowned York Helmet, the Vale of York Hoard containing 700 pieces of gold and silver, the Bedale Hoard with silver from the Middle East, a silk cap from Coppergate, a silver-gilt bowl from Cumbria, and a newly-discovered Thor’s pendant with gold inlay. The exhibition runs 11 July 2025 – 2027.
Collaborators Lesley Barnes and Ross McAuley present ‘Fashion Play’ at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in Wakefield, featuring 33 handmade wooden sculptures and six large-scale mobiles with bold patterns and contrasting colours. The exhibition includes playful sculptures dressed in extravagant headdresses, bulbous skirts, and oversized sleeves, alongside vinyl illustrations and fabric hangings printed at Glasgow School of Art displayed throughout the YSP Centre. The exhibition runs from 12 July 2025 – 26 October 2025.
‘In Common’ at The Peace Museum in Bradford explores the 1981 protest movement when women travelled from Wales to demonstrate against the US cruise missile base at Greenham Common, remaining for 20 years. The exhibition features rarely seen objects and films from the museum’s collection documenting this peaceful activism movement. The exhibition runs 05 June 2025 – 14 September 2025.
Compton Verney in Warwickshire will unveil ‘Gilt’, comprising four separate golden trophy sculptures by Guyanese British artist Hew Locke OBE. The sculptures will be installed at the Robert Adam-designed entrance overlooking the landscape in the museum’s sculpture park, marking the first new addition since the park opened in March 2024. The exhibition runs from 5 July 2025 – July 2027.
V&A South Kensington opens ‘Design and Disability’, an exhibition centring disability as identity and culture through design, showcasing contributions of Disabled, Deaf, and neurodivergent people from the 1940s to present. The exhibition displays 170 objects across three sections – Visibility, Tools and Living – spanning design, art, architecture, fashion, and photography, including Sky Cubacub’s Rebirth Garments Binder, Microsoft’s adaptive Xbox controller, OXO Good Grips prototypes, the McGonagle Reader voting device, and Wendy Jacob’s Squeeze Chaise Longue. The exhibition runs 7 June 2025 – 15 February 2026.
‘Edwin Austin Abbey: By the Dawn’s Early Light’ presents the first UK exhibition in over a century dedicated to Philadelphia-born artist Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911), focusing on his last major project for the Pennsylvania State Capitol, Harrisburg. The display features a newly conserved 12-feet-diameter half-scale design for ‘The Hours’ depicting 24 female figures representing the hours of the day, six preparatory studies for ‘The Apotheosis of Pennsylvania’ including representations of Sir Walter Raleigh and Daniel Boone, and allegorical designs for lunettes representing ‘The Spirit of Vulcan’ and ‘The Spirit of Light’. The exhibition runs at the National Gallery, London from 20 November 2025 – 15 February 2026.
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and National Museums Scotland present ‘Giants’, a touring exhibition featuring life-sized 3D models and nearly complete skeletons of prehistoric creatures from 66 million years ago to the present. Key specimens include a megalodon, woolly mammoth, alongside interactive elements and immersive projections. The exhibition opens 2 August 2025 in Birmingham before moving to National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh in January 2026.
Funding
Art museum The Hepworth Wakefield has launched an urgent public appeal today, as it hopes to secure a sculpture by Dame Barbara Hepworth. The Hepworth Wakefield, named for the artist, hopes to acquire her ‘Sculpture with Colour (Oval Form) Pale Blue and Red (1943)’ after raising £3.8m.
£3.8m appeal hopes to acquire ‘missing piece’ of Yorkshire museum
