Image: Hew Locke, The Watchers at the British Museum 2024 (c) Richard Cannon
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 National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) has announced its new CEO as Matthew Sheldon, who takes up the job after 30 years in various roles at the Portsmouth museum.
Labour MPs Lisa Nandy and Chris Bryant will lead the new government’s Culture, Media and Sport brief. Nandy is the new culture secretary, while Bryant is minister of state for DCMS.
Openings and closures
Museum and Art Swindon has reopened on the upper floor of the town’s Civic Offices. Having closed after a combination of the pandemic and repair works, it has since moved from Apsley House to the new venue, which provides around 40% more display space and additional areas for staff, volunteers and researchers. Officers at Swindon Borough Council have since been working to transform the first floor of the art deco Civic Offices building in Euclid Street to provide a home for the Borough’s first-class collections.
Black Country Living Museum in Dudley has opened three new shops set in the 1940s and 1960s. The open air museum’s newly opened high street stores are the Langer’s Army & Navy Stores, Halesowen & Hasbury Co-op, and Spring Hill Post Office. Each will be staffed by historic characters portrayed by museum staff.
Exhibitions
A new exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum will look back at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, the first to be covered by live broadcast, and will reveal how international artists such as Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Natalia Gontcharova and Umberto Boccioni were all engaged with themes of the sporting body. ‘Paris 1924: Sport, Art and the Body’ will display rare loans including the letter sent by American long jumper William DeHart Hubbard – the first Black person to win an Olympic gold medal – to his mother. Runs 19 July – 3 November 2024.
This summer Aerospace Bristol and Bristol-based hot air balloon manufacturer Cameron Balloons w have revealed details of a special exhibition and programme of hot air balloon themed family activities. ‘Look Up! The Story of Hot Air Ballooning in Bristol’ will include a hot air balloon alongside the last Concorde to fly, the original envelope and burner from Britain’s first modern hot air balloon ‘Bristol Belle’, and objects from Orbiter 3, the balloon that made the first non-stop around the world balloon flight. Runs 24 July – 1 September.
Derby Museums’ Egyptian collection, which includes the mummified remains of two ancient Egyptians, are the centre of an exhibition combining new research with loaned objects that help tell the stories of the mummified people and collections that are in Derby. Visitors will be able to see objects, some of which have been in storage for decades, as well as significant items on loan from other institutions including Manchester Museum, the British Museum and private collections.’Displaced: From the Nile to the Derwent’ is open at Derby Museum & Art Gallery until 24 November 2024.
A new exhibition by Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke will open this autumn at the British Museum. Following a two-year curatorial collaboration with the museum, ‘Hew Locke: what have we here?’ is the artist’s personal exploration of the collection, highlighting both treasures and lesser-known objects from Africa, India and the Caribbean. It will examine British imperial power while also considering “today’s often contentious and deeply felt debates around cultural heritage.” Newly commissioned sculptural work by Locke (pictured above) will form a central part of the exhibition. Runs 17 October 2024 – 9 February 2025.
Funding
Seven Scottish museums have been awarded capital as part of Museums Galleries Scotland’s Small Grants Fund. The national development body for Scotland’s museum sector provides grants up to £15,000 to successful accredited museums.
The Welsh Government has committed £3.2m for repairs to be carried out to both the National Museum Cardiff and National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth.
£3.2m for repairs to National Museum Cardiff, National Library of Wales
