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
Kathryn England, formerly COO of Zoological Society of London, has been appointed interim CEO throughout 2026. The former CEO of the wildlife charity, which operates London Zoo and Whipsnade Zoo, resigned this month amid an independent investigation into claims of “unacceptable workplace behaviour”, the organisation said.
Openings & closures
Fashion Museum Bath has launched a new ‘mini museum’, during its closure as it moves to a new home. The ‘Fashion Unpacked’ project sees the introduction of what the museum calls “the Trunk”, a wardrobe-like construction of cases, designed by illustrator Lesley Barnes and furniture maker William Warren.
Exhibitions
Winston Churchill: The Painter
The Wallace Collection | London
Opening: 23 May 2026 – Closing: 29 November 2026
A major retrospective bringing together more than 50 paintings representing the best of Winston Churchill’s artistic output from his first attempts during the First World War through to the 1960s. Half of the loans come from private collections and have rarely been seen in public, with a large group of works from Chartwell, Churchill’s family home. The exhibition includes works by his artistic mentors Sir John Lavery and Sir William Nicholson to explore Churchill’s artistic development.
Hold to this Earth: Works by Contemporary Indigenous North American Artists from Tia Collection
Yorkshire Sculpture Park | Wakefield
Opening: 13 June 2026 – Closing: 18 April 2027
The first group exhibition staged in YSP’s prestigious Underground Gallery brings together over 60 works by more than 30 contemporary Indigenous North American artists from Tia Collection. The exhibition spans numerous regions and genres, featuring sculpture, textiles, ceramics, photography, film and painting by artists including Rose B. Simpson, Jeffrey Gibson, Nicholas Galanin, Raven Chacon, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Marie Watt, Emmi Whitehorse, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, George Morrison, Bob Haozous, Yatika Starr Fields, Tyrrell Tapaha, Eric-Paul Riege and Raven Halfmoon. Artists’ practices are rooted in deep relationships to land, cultural memory and community, exploring identity, resilience and connections between body and place.
Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends
Young V&A | London
Opening: 12 February 2026 – Closing: 15 November 2026
The exhibition takes visitors behind the scenes of Aardman’s stop-motion animation process, from idea development and storyboarding to model making, filming and post-production. Over 150 items will be on display, including early character sketches, concept art, puppets, character ‘bibles’, props, scripts, set models, development sketches for Morph, early character ideas for Wallace & Gromit, a hand-drawn storyboard from ‘The Wrong Trousers’ train chase, and the duo’s motorbike and sidecar from ‘Vengeance Most Fowl’. Interactive activities for children include storyboarding, designing characters, experimenting with lighting a set, creating Live Action Videos, and ‘touch’ objects showcasing animation techniques and materials.
Maggie’s: Architecture that Cares
V&A Dundee | Dundee
Opening: 6 March 2026 – Closing: 1 November 2026
This free exhibition explores the design of Maggie’s cancer care centres across the UK, designed by globally recognised architects including Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and Benedetta Tagliabue. The exhibition features newly commissioned film and interviews, personal objects, photography, sketches and architects’ models, and quiet reflective spaces. It tells the story of how Maggie Keswick Jencks and oncology nurse Laura Lee created a blueprint for cancer care spaces that put human connection and nature at their heart, with each centre designed around ‘the kitchen table’ philosophy to create a sense of home and community in Dundee.
Beneath the Great Wave: Hokusai, Hiroshige, and ukiyo-e print
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester | Manchester
Opening: 14 March 2026 – Closing: 16 November 2026
The Whitworth’s first exhibition dedicated to Japanese prints in over 100 years presents iconic artworks by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) to explore the evolution of traditional ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings. The exhibition showcases rarely seen prints from the Whitworth collection alongside institutional and private collection loans. ‘Pictures of a Floating World’ ukiyo-e prints were popularised during the Edo period (1615–1868) and reveal Tokyo’s emergence as a city at the cusp of the modern age.
Funding
The Cold War Network has received £19,604 from the National Lottery Community Fund to expand National Cold War Heritage Week. The funding will support the creation of a Cold War Engagement Resource Pack and free training webinars for its more than 650 members, from military museums and historic airfields to independently run bunkers and archive collections, as well as major Cold War heritage sites managed by The National Trust and English Heritage.
Newcastle’s Discovery Museum has been awarded £193,000 by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop a new flexible space for high-profile temporary exhibitions. The new space will replace the Working Lives gallery and the first exhibition is planned for summer 2026.
