Category: Events

Categories
Events

Museum Closure in the UK 2000–2025: an invitation

Monday 1 December, 6:00pm, Birkbeck, London WC1E

Chair: Isabel Wilson, Interim Director for Museums, Arts Council England
Speaker: Professor Fiona Candlin, Director of the Mapping Museums Lab, Birkbeck
Respondent: Lord Neil Mendoza, Chairman Historic England

Book your free place here (MuseumClosureUK.eventbrite.com)

Join the Mapping Museums Lab for the launch of new research exploring museum closure and collections disposal in the UK between 2000 and 2025. Professor Fiona Candlin will introduce a web application and the accompanying report, Collections from Closed Museums. There will be a response from Lord Mendoza, and discussion. The event will be followed by a drinks reception, and an opportunity for further discussion.

For information, contact mappingmuseums@bbk.ac.uk

Categories
Events

Museum Closure web application evaluation: an invitation

Can you help us to evaluate the new Mapping Museums Lab web application? Would you like a preview of the new Mapping Museums data on museums closure and collection disposal? Can you be in London on Monday 29th September 2025 from 2-4.30pm?

The Mapping Museums Lab is a multidisciplinary team based at Birkbeck, University of London and King’s College London. For our current project ‘Museum closure in the UK 2000-25’ we have collected data on which museums have closed, why, and what has happened to those collections. We’ve also developed software to help us analyse and visualise that information.

The evaluation session is an important means for us to gain feedback about the usefulness of the software. With your input we can further improve the system before it is made publicly available in November.

We’re particularly keen to have input from people working in museums, museum support organisations, and museum policy.

The trial session will be based on three activities:

A hands-on introduction to the web application.

Using the application to undertake a small number of information searches. This will allow us to gauge how easy the system is to use.

Group discussion about your experience of using the system and the ways that it could be improved and extended.

If you are able to join us for the afternoon or if you need any further information please contact Katy Pettit on k.pettit@bbk.ac.uk letting her know your job title / role and / or interest in the topic. We look forward to seeing you.

Categories
Museum Closure in the UK Events

Afterlives of Objects

The interior of the abandoned Ringwood Town and Country Experience. Artificial shopfronts with assorted detritus are on either side, and an armchair with a missing foot sits in the distance.
Ringwood Town And Country Experience. Photograph by Fiona Candlin, 2024

Thursday 24th October, 6.00 – 8.00pm

Clore Lecture Theatre, Birkbeck, University of London, 25-27 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL

Places are free but limited and must be booked in advance

Book here

In 2009 Fiona Candlin and Raiford Guins collaborated on The Object Reader (Routledge). Since then, they have individually pursued diverse research on the histories of objects, curation, design, and disposal.  This conversationbrings Fiona and Raiford together again with their longstanding collaborator, interlocutor, and friend Joanne Morra to discuss their current work in progress on the afterlife of objects: Fiona is currently driving around the UK visiting closed museums for her new book on the subject, while Raiford is on a world tour of video game museums researching his next book, Museum Games: Journeys in Search of Playable Media. Both are investigating the process of collecting, exhibiting, experiencing, caring for, and scrapping objects. They share a mutual fascination with where stuff goes. Jo and Ray were Founding Principal Editors of Journal of Visual Culture (2001-2019), and previously worked together on the journal Parallax. Fiona and Jo read each other’s material.

Joanne Morra is Professor of Art and Culture and Programmes Research Director at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. She writes on contemporary art and psychoanalysis. Her publications include Inside the Freud Museums: History, Memory and Site-Responsive Art (IB Tauris 2018), Intimacy Unguarded (JVAP, co-edited with Emma Talbot, 2017). She is now working on a book provisionally titled Holding Art: Women and Radical Care. 

Raiford Guins is Professor & Chair of Cinema and Media Studies in the Media School and Adjunct Professor in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is the author of Feeling Leeds: Notes on Loving a Football Club from Afar (Pitch Publications, 2022), Atari Design: Impressions on Coin-Operated Video Game Machines (Bloomsbury, 2020), Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife (MIT 2014), and Edited Clean Version: Technology and the Culture of Control (Minnesota, 2009). Guins also co-edits MIT Press’s Game Histories book series with Henry Lowood. His newest book, Changing the Game: How Atari’s Pong Bounced Across Markets to Make Millions, is forthcoming with MIT Press in 2026.

Fiona Candlin is Professor of Museology and Director of the Mapping Museum Lab at Birkbeck, University of London. She is author of Art, Museums and Touch (Manchester University Press 2010), Micromuseology (Bloomsbury 2016), and Stories from Small Museums (Manchester University Press 2022). Her new book is provisionally titled Stories of Closed Museums. 

For more information about this event contact Katy at mappingmuseums@bbk.ac.uk

Categories
Events

The UK Museums Boom (and what happened next)

The Mapping Museums project is coming to an end. Please join us for the closing lecture:  ‘The UK Museums Boom (and what happened next)’

Thursday 17th November 6pm

Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck, 27 Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL (Map)

Chair: Isabel Wilson, Arts Council England

Speaker: Prof Fiona Candlin, Professor of Museology, Birkbeck

Respondent: Lisa Ollerhead, Director, Association of Independent Museums

With a drinks reception to follow

Places are free but please book here: Book Tickets

During the late-twentieth century there was a significant increase in the number of museums in the UK. Yet, apart from the highly polemic heritage debates of the 1980s and 1990s, the boom was not investigated in any detail. There was no firm information on its location or character, or indeed on what happened next.  The Mapping Museums project was devised to remedy that situation.

Over the last six years we have collected and analysed data on over 4,000 museums, and conducted detailed interviews with the founders of the new museums. In this lecture Prof Fiona Candlin, the project lead, will outline some of the things we learned.

Categories
Events

New Activist Museums

Four images show, clockwise from top left: a red lipstick with an attached label that reads: "This lipstick was from my wonderful sister who was the first family member to accept and support my transition"; a street installation by the Museum of Homelessness with objects on tall white plinths on a pavement; Matt and Jess Turtle, founders of the Museum of Homelessness, standing in front of the steps of a church - the steps are lined with hundreds of small lights; E-J Scott, founder of the Museum of Transology, who holds a large label with the museum's name on it.
Clockwise from top left: Museum of Transology Object Number: MOT/122. Photo by Katy Davies, courtesy of Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion; Museum of Homelessness street museum installation, London 2020, photograph by Daniela Sbrisny; Matt and Jess Turtle; E-J Scott, photograph courtesy of Sharon Kilgannon @Alonglines Photography.

Please join us for an online event featuring the founders of two new activist museums.

Thursday 6 May, 6pm. Book here.

How do museums respond to the changing world around them? Featuring  the founders of two of these new museums, the Museum of Transology and the Museum of Homelessness, this panel explores the current flowering of museums which focus on social issues. New museums do not always follow established forms and may instead stage temporary exhibitions or pop-up street displays. Listen to a discussion of these new museums and tell us more about your thoughts and ideas on these innovative practices. 

Museum of Homelessness is a social justice museum. They carry out events, exhibitions and research that tackle homelessness and housing inequality. They also campaign and carry out direct practical actions. Jess and Matt Turtle founded Museum of Homelessness in 2015. 

The Museum of Transology is the UK’s most significant collection of material culture surrounding trans, non-binary and intersex lives. It aims to halt the erasure of trans lives from history by enabling trans people to curate their own stories. The MoT was awarded an Activist Museum Award for 2020–21.

This event is part of Birkbeck’s Arts Weeks 2021.

Image: (clockwise from top left) Museum of Transology Object Number: MOT/122. Photo by Katy Davies, courtesy of Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion; Museum of Homelessness street museum installation, London 2020, photograph by Daniela Sbrisny; Matt and Jess Turtle; E-J Scott, photograph courtesy of Sharon Kilgannon @Alonglines Photography.

Categories
Events

Meet the founders and archive launch

Geoff Burton (RAF Ingham Heritage Centre), Anne Read (Museum of North Craven Life), Steve Allsop (Ingrow Loco Museum and Workshop).

Why would you open a museum? How would you do it? Enjoy an evening of interviews with the founders of small independent museums, hosted by the Bishopsgate Institute. Interviewees will include: Steve Allsop (Ingrow Loco Museum and Workshop), Geoff Burton (RAF Ingham Heritage Centre), and Anne Read (Museum of North Craven Life).

This online event also marks the launch of the Micromuseums Archive. The Mapping Museums project has conducted extensive interview-based research to find out how and why people set up their own museums. The recordings, transcripts, and other materials are all available from the Archives at the Bishopsgate Institute, and the evening will include a glimpse into this archive.

The event is free and will take place on Zoom. Book here: https://www.bishopsgate.org.uk/whats-on/activity/archive-launch-mapping-museums

Categories
Events

Going Public

Partial map of UK showing East Anglia with locations of museums marked

After three-and-a-half years of intense research and development we will be publishing the Mapping Museums project on Tuesday 17th March 2020. To mark the event we will be having a panel discussion and a drinks reception at the London Transport Museum.

Tickets are free but places are limited. Please book your seat at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/mapping-museums-launch-tickets-88839716985

We are delighted to welcome four senior museum professionals to discuss the Mapping Museums database and findings, and the implications for the UK museums sector.

Panellists: 

Maggie Appleton, President of the Museums Association and CEO of the Royal Airforce Museum.  

Fiona Candlin, Director of the Mapping Museums research project.

Andrew Lovett, Vice Chair of the Association of Independent Museums, and CEO of the Black Country Living Museum.

Fiona Talbot, Head of Museums Archives Libraries Policy, The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Chair: Kate Bellamy, Director of Museums, Arts Council England. 

From March 17th the following will be available at: www.mappingmuseums.org

  • A database containing information on over 4,000 museums. This data can be browsed, searched, and visualised, and is free to use under the terms of the Creative Commons (BY) license.
  • A website that houses the database and web application, and resources linked to the project. These include a glossary, detailed information on research methods, transcripts of interviews with museum founders, podcasts, and links to the project publications. 
  • ‘Mapping Museums 1960-2020: a report on the data’. A report outlining growth and closure according to governance, subject matter, size, accreditation, and location. Available online and in hardcopy.
Categories
Events

Small museums in a global context

In June 2019, the Mapping Museums team ran a half-day symposium, where specialists on Brazilian, British, Canadian, and Tibetan museums talked about museums of taxidermied gophers, the importance of place, alternative histories, and the factors underpinning the expansion of the museum sector, among other topics. If you missed the event you can now watch those lectures online (click the links under each title to view the video).

From Gophers to Fear and Wonder: Studying the Small Town and Rural Museums in Alberta

Lianne McTavish

https://birkbeck.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=6e1c5d6d-36b2-425a-bb54-aa9600c53d60

Community museums of the 21st century in Brazil: local experiences for a global reflection

Bruno Brulon Soares

https://birkbeck.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=21fb1d2f-6dd5-4389-ace6-aa7a00ae68ca

Abstracts

Lianne McTavish

In 2013, I received funding to visit and analyze the small town and rural museums in Alberta, a province in western Canada. My research assistant (Misa Nikolic) and I first strove to find and map every museum in the province, a difficult task that eventually revealed 315 organizations. We then visited, photographed, and documented over 71% of those museums, highlighting the small and officially “unrecognized” museums in remote locations. My talk describes the challenges we faced, the adventures we had, and the lessons we learned during this process, highlighting such themes as automobility, resource extraction, and Indigenous cultures.

Bruno Brulon Soares

Community museums have transformed contemporary museum practice. In management their own museums, members of communities who are not experts or museum professionals have been able to represent themselves, and to work together to transform their social environment and lived realities. This presentation takes the Museum of Removals in Rio de Janeiro and the Museum of Sexual Diversity in São Paulo as examples of small community museums that have been actively used as political devices.

Categories
Events

Mapping Museums Website Evaluation 2019

Can you help us to evaluate the Mapping Museums website?

Mapping Museums is a large-scale research project that is based at Birkbeck, University of London, which aims at documenting at analysing the development of the museum sector from 1960 until 2020. We have now designed a database that enables users to browse, search, and visualise information on 4,000 museums and have developed a website that contains information on our initial findings, definitions, our research process, and the interview based research (including images and transcripts).

The evaluation session is an important means for us to gain feedback about the usefulness of the website. With your input we can further improve the system before it is made publicly available.

We’d like a wide variety of people to participate in the evaluation trial especially those who work in the museum sector or in academia.

The trial session will be based on three activities:

  • A hands-on introduction to the web application.
  • Using the application to undertake a small number of information searches. This will allow us to gauge how easy the system is to use.
  • Group discussion about your experience of using the system and the ways that it could be improved and extended.

The session will take no more than two and a half hours.

There is more information about the project available at http://mappingmuseums.wpengine.com/about/.

Locations and dates

2 – 4.30pm Thursday 26th September, Room 407, Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX (the entrance is on Torrington Square)

2 – 4.30pm Friday 27th September, Room 407, Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX (the entrance is on Torrington Square)

We would be very grateful for your assistance. If you would like to participate, please email the project director at f.candlin@bbk.ac.uk 

Researchers involved in the trial session

Researchers and contact details:

  1. Professor Fiona Candlin (f.candlin@bbk.ac.uk)
  2. Professor Alex Poulovassilis (ap@dcs.bbk.ac.uk)
  3. Dr Val Katerinchuk (valeri@dcs.bbk.ac.uk)

How the data will be handled in the study

Information obtained from you through the session will be used to inform the research work of the project and subsequent research publications. All personal data collected from this study including your name and contact details will be kept confidential. No reference will be made in oral or written form that could link any participant to information they have provided to us as part of this the study.

Your participation in this study is voluntary, and you may withdraw from the study at any time.

Categories
Events

Participate in our web application evaluation sessions!

Can you help us to evaluate the Mapping Museums web application?

Mapping Museums is a large-scale research project that is based at Birkbeck, University of London. It aims at documenting at analysing the development of the museum sector between 1960 and 2020. So far, the team has collected a rich range of data on approximately 4000 UK museums, and we have developed a web application that enables users to browse, search, and visualise that information.

The evaluation session is an important means for us to gain feedback about the usefulness of the web application. With your input we can further improve the system before it is made publicly available.

We’d like a wide variety of people to participate in the evaluation trial especially those that are involved in the museum and archive sectors, in academia, or in digital media

The trial session will be based on three activities:

  • A hands-on introduction to the web application.
  • Using the application to undertake a small number of information searches. This will allow us to gauge how easy the system is to use.
  • Group discussion about your experience of using the system and the ways that it could be improved and extended.

The session will take no more than two hours.

There is more information about the project available at http://mappingmuseums.wpengine.com/about/.

Locations and dates:

2 – 4.30pm | October 3rd 2018 | Room 407, Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX (the entrance is on Torrington Square)

We would be very grateful for your assistance. If you would like to participate, please email the project director at f.candlin@bbk.ac.uk briefly explaining why you would like to attend. We can cover travel expenses up to £20.

Researchers involved in the trial session

Researchers and contact details:

  1. Professor Fiona Candlin (candlin@bbk.ac.uk)
  2. Professor Alex Poulovassilis (ap@dcs.bbk.ac.uk)
  3. Nick Larsson (nick@dcs.bbk.ac.uk)

How the data will be handled in the study

Information obtained from you through the session will be used to inform the research work of the project and subsequent research publications. All personal data collected from this study including your name and contact details will be kept confidential. No reference will be made in oral or written form that could link any participant to information they have provided to us as part of this the study.

Your participation in this study is voluntary, and you may withdraw from the study at any time.