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
The Fitzwilliam Museum has appointed Dr. Ladan Akbarnia as its new head of curatorial and professor of Islamic world collections, starting in September 2025. Dr. Akbarnia was formerly a curator at The San Diego Museum of Art and The British Museum.
Openings & closures
Visitors will soon be able to step inside the V&A East Storehouse for the first time as the facility opens to the public on Saturday 31 May 2025. The 16,000 square metre space houses over 250,000 objects, 350,000 books and 1,000 archives across four levels.
New look inside V&A East Storehouse as it prepares to opens to public
Exhibitions
‘Garden Futures: Designing with Nature’ presents over 400 objects exploring garden design from Persian garden paradises to contemporary videogames, featuring Piet Oudolf’s naturalistic designs, Dior menswear inspired by Charleston gardens, and Zena Holloway’s Rootfull biomaterial dress by Phoebe English. The exhibition includes a 17th-century Iranian tile panel, William Morris wallpaper, and interactive elements such as the Garden videogame by Biome Collective and origami-inspired plant pots made from marine waste by Glasgow-based POTR. V&A Dundee hosts this UK-exclusive exhibition until 25 January 2026.
Newlands House Gallery in Petworth presents ‘Andy Warhol: My True Story’, featuring previously unseen drawings, prints, photographs, recordings, films and archival materials exploring the private aspects of Warhol’s life and work. Key exhibits include early drawings such as ‘Man with Hearts’ and a fictitious ‘One Million Dollar Bill’, screenprints including ‘Mona Lisa (Four times)’, the 1966 film ‘The George Hamilton Story (Mrs Warhol)’, and Bob Adelman’s photograph ‘Andy Warhol Empties his Boots after being Pushed into the Pool by Edie Sedgewick’, alongside contemporary works by David LaChapelle, Gavin Turk, Rob and Nick Carter, and Philip Colbert. The exhibition runs 6 June 2025 – 14 September 2025.
Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in Bristol opens ‘Gender Stories’, the first of three new MAGNET touring exhibitions created by the Museums and Galleries Network for Exhibition Touring partnership. The exhibition has been co-created by the museums it will visit and will be personalised by each venue to maximise relevance to local audiences through venue-specific public programmes led by artists and local communities. The exhibition runs 31 May 2025 – 12 October 2025, before moving to Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, and World Museum in Liverpool.
‘I’ve Never Read Elizabeth Gaskell’ opens at Elizabeth Gaskell’s House in Manchester, featuring work by three young writers Georgia Affonso, Princess Arinola Adegbite and Guruleen Kahlo who completed a spring residency at the Georgian villa. The immersive exhibition flows throughout the house and includes Guruleen’s short stories, Georgia’s play available in audio format, and Princess’ seven poems positioned in areas reflecting their inspiration and themes including the garden overlooking Elizabeth’s writing table. The exhibition runs 03 July 2025 – 09 November 2025.
Tate St Ives in Cornwall presents ‘Arise Alive’, a major survey of Liliane Lijn’s five-decade career exploring kinetic art, light and energy, and feminism through sculpture, installation, painting, drawing, collage, video and performance. Key works on display include Sky Scrolls (1959-61), Fire Lines (1960), Liquid Reflections (1966-8), Poemcon ‘Arise Alive’ (1965), Prism Stones (1978), Crossing Map (1983), Conjunction of Opposites: Lady of the Wild Things (1983), Woman of War (1986), and Electric Bride (1989). The exhibition runs from 24 May 2025 – 2 November 2025.
The Tower of London has opened a refreshed permanent display within St Thomas’ Tower, the Wakefield Tower and the Lanthorn Tower, focusing on medieval kings and queens alongside everyday Medieval Londoners and royal household workers. Objects on display include a stone from a Jewish mikveh (c.1200) on loan from the Jewish Museum London, a 13th century Seal Matrix from an Italian knight and a 13th century gold and enamel pyx from the British Museum, a lead toy knight (c.1300) from London Museum, and a wicker fish trap excavated from the Tower moat containing fish bones from the 15th or 16th century. The display opened 24 May 2025.
‘Becoming Shakespeare’ opens at Shakespeare’s Birthplace in Stratford-upon-Avon, featuring five curated spaces including a wraparound projection experience called ‘Shakespeare’s Spark’ and artefacts from the Trust’s collections. The exhibition explores Shakespeare’s formative years through themes of birth, sense of place and destiny, created in partnership with Sarner International.
The Design Museum in London will present over 250 objects from the legendary Blitz nightclub that operated for just 18 months between 1979-1980 in Covent Garden. Personal items on display include Spandau Ballet’s 1970s Yamaha synthesiser used to record their first album, Gary Kemp’s handwritten lyrics to ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’, ensembles worn by club-goers including Chris Sullivan’s blue tartan suit, leather garments owned by Steve Strange, and Darla-Jane Gilroy’s monochrome clerical robes worn in David Bowie’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’ video. The exhibition runs 20 September 2025 – 29 March 2026.
Emery Walker’s House in Hammersmith, presents ‘Making Her Mark: Women in the Arts and Crafts Movement’, examining the contributions of female artists including May Morris, Louise Powell, Phoebe Stabler, Katharine Adams, Ethel Sandell, and Mary Sloane. The exhibition features works in embroidery, pattern design, jewellery, ceramics, bookbinding, manuscript illumination, painting, and printmaking, including a silk cushion designed by May Morris and embroidered by Dorothy Walker, a bust of May Morris, and a bedcover designed and created by May Morris. The exhibition runs 5 June 2025 – 29 November 2025.
‘The Most Tiresome Place in the World: Jane Austen & Bath’ opens at No.1 Royal Crescent in Bath to mark the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth. The exhibition will feature letters, first editions of the novels, and the only manuscript she wrote in Bath, exploring her life in the city between 1801 and 1806. The exhibition runs 5 July 2025 – 2 November 2025.
‘Cedric Morris: Artist, Plantsman & Traveller’ presents more than 20 works on loan from Tate, National Portrait Gallery, Gainsborough’s House, Philip Mould Gallery and private collections at The Granary Gallery in Berwick-upon-Tweed. The exhibition includes pencil sketches from Parisian and Algerian cafés from the early 1920s, still lifes of eggs and iris seedlings from the 1940s, landscapes from Portugal and Turkey, Iris Seedlings (1943) on loan from Tate, a portrait of Morris by Lucian Freud, and three works by Arthur Lett-Haines. The exhibition runs 7 June 2025 – 12 October 2025.
Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust in Chatham is offering exclusive rooftop tours of Commissioner’s House, Britain’s oldest intact naval residence built in 1704 for Captain George St Lo. The tours, led by Assistant Director for Historic Buildings and Projects Nigel Howard, provide access to the rooftop of the Scheduled Ancient Monument to support the building’s major restoration project. All proceeds from the limited-time tours contribute directly to the preservation funding for the structure that oversaw construction of ships including HMS Victory and served as a strategic command centre through both World Wars.
Funding
The Tank Museum has reached its fundraising target to restore its M47 Patton tank. Following a public appeal, supporters have helped raise the £50,000 required to get the M47 running, and it is due to make its public debut at TANKFEST 2025.
