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 Brontë Society, which operates The Bronte Parsonage museum in West Yorkshire, has announced the appointment of Lucy Powrie as its new Chair of the Board of Trustees. The 25-year-old is an author of The Paper & Hearts Society series, published by Hodder Children’s Books, and has amassed tens of thousands of followers on social media platforms as book content creator.
The Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport has reappointed Sir Mark Walport as the Royal Society Nominated Trustee for the British Museum for a four year term from 01 December 2024 to 30 November 2028. Sir Walport is Vice President and Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, Chair of the Kennedy Memorial Trust, and Trustee of the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation. He is the recently retired founding Chief Executive of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which is responsible for the public funding of research and innovation.
Matt Moore appointed Director of the Science Museum’s Science and Innovation Park from 1 November 2024. With 25 years at the Science Museum, Moore will lead operational, commercial, and access teams at the 545-acre site. Concurrent with this appointment, Programme Director Sian Williams, who led the Science Museum Group Collection transformation, will depart at year-end. The appointment follows the recent opening of the Hawking Building, which now offers public tours and hosts part of the Science Museum Group Collection.
Openings & closures
The London Museum Docklands is to reopen The Reflections Room next month. A new display space for artists, allowing them to explore a range of ideas connected to London’s history. It will launch on Friday 29 November featuring Exodus by British-Caribbean artist Zak Ové, a mixed media installation of colourful toy cars, trucks and human figurines, elephants, giraffes and other wildlife. The exhibition will run 29 November 2024 to May 2025.
Tullie Museum & Art Gallery has announced it is now reopening 15 February 2025, having formerly planned to open this Autumn. The whole site is set to close 11 November 2024 for two weeks, with a pop-up on 23 November 2024.
Action Stations, a visitors attraction in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard offering naval-themed laser tag, obstacle courses, and a climbing tower, is to close as it transforms into the new Royal Marines Museum. The attraction is set to close in February 2025 to undertake the transformation into the museum, which is subsequently set to open in summer 2026.
Site to close as it transforms into new Royal Marines Museum
Exhibitions
The 2025 Banner Exhibition at People’s History Museum in Manchester next year is set to showcase an array of significant banners from moments of social change. On display wil be a Homelessness Action Campaign banner from the 1940s, a Lesbians & Gays Support The Miners banner from 1984, and a ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ banner, created at the museum in 2015 by six learning disabled textile artists. The exhibition explores themes of democracy, equality, and social justice through these historical artefacts which have been used in various campaigns and protests throughout British history. The exhibition runs from 18 January 2025 – 29 December 2025.
The British Museum has announced two special exhibitions for 2025. Its first-ever exhibition dedicated to Utagawa Hiroshige, has the working title ‘Hiroshige: artist of the open road’ and will showcase prints, drawings, illustrated books and paintings from both the Museum’s collection and a significant loan from a major US collector. The exhibition explores the artist’s depictions of Edo Japan through urban scenes, landscapes, and flower-and-bird prints, marking London’s first Hiroshige exhibition in over 25 years. The exhibition will run from 1 May 2025 – 7 September 2025 in the Joseph Hotung Great Court Gallery.
The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace is to present the largest UK exhibition of Italian Renaissance drawings, featuring around 160 works by over 80 artists including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian. The exhibition showcases preparatory works for paintings, architecture and sculpture, alongside rare finished art pieces, with highlights including Leonardo’s Virgin and Child composition (c.1478-80), Michelangelo’s A children’s bacchanal (1533), and a newly reattributed study by Pietro Faccini. The exhibition runs from 1 November 2024 – 9 March 2025.
