“Museum-iD magazine has energy. Like a great museum, it wakes me up, tells me stuff I didn’t know and surprises me. I feel better-informed and more hopeful for the future of museums after reading an issue” — Sara Wajid, Co-CEO, Birmingham Museum Trust

Museum-ID 2023 Edition

In a time of growing inequality, social and economic injustice, environmental emergency, and perpetual political crisis, we want to play our part in reimagining museums as ethical, people centred organisations. It means building trust in co-creation, fostering and honouring equal partnerships, embedding empathy and inclusive practice, and taking a stand against the myth of neutrality. It means handing things back and handing over control. Depending on who you talk to this approach is often either branded brave and radical or dangerous and foolhardy. Really it is simply human decency, respect and social justice in action. For museums to be meaningful they need to progress ethically and with integrity. Now is the time to build a more equitable and hopeful future for museums.

Contents:

MuseumFutures Africa
Sophia Sanan on the pan-African project which makes clear African museum workers and stakeholders are best placed to define and create their own cultural change

Future Museum Project
What the future of museums looks like in Guinea, Singapore, Botswana, and Argentina. Museum workers based in 18 countries across 6 continents have already contributed to the project

This Is How It Should Be
In a landmark case of cultural repatriation, Manchester Museum has returned cultural heritage items to the Anindilyakwa People of Groote Eylandt.

Hello Future: Manchester Museum
£15m transformation driven by the belief that museums have an extraordinary power to build understanding and empathy between cultures, across generations and time

Museum Ideas 2023
Study days and conference exploring the ideas shaping the future. 2023 was all about discovering unique projects with emotion, imagination and new possibilities

It’s About Handing Over Power
Art Fund award grants of £1million for museums and galleries to reimagine their support for their workforce and improve inclusion and diversity

Art Fund Museum Of The Year 2023
The Burrell Collection in Glasgow wins Museum of the Year with project to create the most accessible, inclusive and sustainable fine and decorative arts museum in the world

History As A Civil Right
How to build a social justice museum: Jennifer Scott on creating a museum with a mission to play a vital and active role in the ongoing fight for justice and civil rights

Museums As Sites Of Intense Longing
Puawai Cairns on the museum being a site of grief and how to rewire the emotional currents flowing from museum encounters by supporting indigenous communities

Generators Of Social Change
Miranda Millward and Thomas Procter-Legg on what happens when you enable young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities to curate their own spaces

Democratic Potential Of Handling Collections
Helen Arfvidsson on why handling collections can help us rethink how museums work and that our focus should be on speeding up the shift towards more inclusive practices

Taking A Stand Against Neutrality
Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell on repealing the myth of innocence within museums and considering the vital role of social justice in defining the 21st Century Museum

Routes To Return
New website launched to aid repatriation process from European museums – with laws, policies and guidelines as a resource to compare different approaches and learn from one another

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“Museum-iD magazine has energy. Like a great museum, it wakes me up, tells me stuff I didn’t know and surprises me. I feel better-informed and more hopeful for the future of museums after reading an issue” — Sara Wajid, Co-CEO, Birmingham Museum Trust

Issue 25 contents:

The Brutish Museums
Dan Hicks calls for western museums to wash their hands of colonial blood. This major new book reframes the current global dialogue about cultural restitution and repatriation

Museum Ideas Courses and Events
The 2022 season of Museum Ideas workshops, study days and conference is designed for museum workers looking for actionable advice and inspiring ideas they can use in their own work

MuseumFutures Africa: Creating New Possibilities in African Museology
Sophia Sanan on the pan-African project which makes clear African museum workers and stakeholders are best placed to define, map out and create cultural change

#FutureMuseum Project
Looking to the future of museums with Boubacar Diallo, National Museum of Guinea; Alvin Tan, National Heritage Board, Singapore; and Katy Ashton, People’s History Museum, Manchester

The Museum of Making
With a fully equipped workshop, specialist staff, and co-working spaces, Derby Silk Mill, site of the world’s first modern factory, has been remade as a new museum and makerspace

Taking A Stand Against Neutrality
Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell on why social justice is vital in defining the 21st century museum and argues repealing the myth of innocence within museums reveals opportunities to engage

Trust in Co-production: Equal Partnerships for Social Justice
Thomas Procter-Legg and Miranda Millward on building an equal partnership between a school for children with cognition and learning needs and Oxford University’s museums

Feel Your Way: Emotion, Power and Empathy in the Archive
Nina Finigan on how centering emotion acts as a catalyst to critique power and the myth of neutrality, and why it is essential to developing inclusive and self-reflexive archives

Being Human: Disrupting the Medical Gaze in the Museum
Kate Forde and Clare Barlow on the collaborative process of developing a gallery that explores our relationship with ourselves and each other and sets lived experience at its heart

Transforming Museum Experience
New toolkit with ideas and advice on how to create transformative museum experiences

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Museum Ideas 2019 — the eighth edition of the annual international conference — welcomed delegates from 26 countries and featured speakers from India, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, and UK. With a progressive attitude and international approach, the conference took place 10-12 September 2019 at Wellcome Collection and the Museum of London and explored the ideas that are shaping the future of museums around the world.

Speakers at the conference included: Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, University of Oxford; Anna Hansen, Director, Regionmuseet, Sweden; Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell, Head of Public Programs, Smithsonian American Art Museum and The Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C.; Kati Price, Head of Digital Media and Publishing, Victoria & Albert Museum; Nina Finigan, Curator Manuscripts, Auckland Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, Aotearoa New Zealand; Emily Siddons, Producer, Exhibitions, Experience and Engagement, Museums Victoria, Australia; Joyoti Roy, Head of Strategy, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya Museum, Mumbai, India; Kate Forde, Head of Exhibitions, Wellcome Collection, London.

This 250+ page book includes essays based on most of the presentations featured at both the pre-conference talks and the main day of the conference. Chapters include: With the People: Collecting Contemporary Protest Material; Taking A Stand Against Neutrality; In Search of Power and Resistance in the Archive; Defining Digital Success; Museums, Networks and Active Memories; The Art and Science of the Pop-up; and What Museums Can Learn From the Theatre. Order your copy and explore the ideas that are shaping the future of museums around the world.

“A conference for mind expanding conversations and international networking!” – Martin Payne, The British Museum

“A wonderful window into the international museums sector – a one-stop shop for networking and getting inspired!” – Jackie Keily, Museum of London

“An inspirational conference! A coming together of museum minds from across the world – gaining insights, sharing ideas and making connections.” – Gillian Crumpton, Ironbridge Gorge Museum

“Museum Ideas is a fantastic showcase for inspiring, creative projects and a great opportunity to meet and network with museum colleagues from across the globe. Looking forward to next year already!” – Lucy Morris, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

“Museum Ideas is the best museum conference there is. It constantly pitches high and secures superb, relevant speakers, who cover a rich and wide range of topics from international perspectives. It offers food for thought and feeds the soul with engaging and inspiring conversation, networks and ideas.” – Helen Whiteoak, National Portrait Gallery

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Issue 24 contributors: Dan Hicks, Professor of Contemporary Archaeology, University of Oxford; Sufea Mohamad Noor, artist and curator; Yana Barinova, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Strategy Officer, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, Ukraine; Nina Finigan, Curator Manuscripts, Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tāmaki Paenga Hira, New Zealand; Tehmina Goskar, Director and Curator, Curatorial Research Centre; Ellen McAdam, Director, Birmingham Museums Trust; Ros Croker, Senior Manager: Partnerships and Outreach, Royal Museums Greenwich; and Frances Lloyd-Baynes, Head of Collections Information Management, Minneapolis Institute of Art, United States

Selected Articles in Issue 24:

Wellcome News – Wellcome Collection announces Melanie Keen as new director and prepares to open new gallery to explore trust, identity and health

Taking Careers to the Next Level – Gain exclusive access to world-leading experts by joining a course at the V&A – deepen the knowledge you need to further your career

Reframing Archaeology in Museums – Dan Hicks on how a new exhibition at the Pitt Rivers museum explores the temporal, political, and imaginative limits of archaeology

In The Game to Change The Game – Sufea Mohamad Noor on how the lack of representation in galleries is the key barrier when it comes to inclusive participation

Memory Lab: Feeling Key to Understanding – Yana Barinova on guarding against hatred, bigotry, and fascism, and helping to build a more empathetic and tolerant future

Power and Resistance in the Archive – Nina Finigan questions what institutions remember, what they forget, and what this means for the work they do and for society

Citizen Curators and Cultural Democracy – Tehmina Goskar on how a work-based curatorial training course provides alternative pathways into museum work

Museum of the Year – St Fagans National Museum of History in Wales wins £100,000 prize and is named Museum of the Year 2019

Birmingham Museums: The First 7 Years – Ellen McAdam on a transformational journey from uncertainty and low morale to success and a commitment to representation

The Perfect Partnership? Rosalind Croker on how as resources become scarcer community groups and museums have to work in partnership more successfully

Preserving Digital Art – Frances Lloyd-Baynes argues that when it comes to their relationship with digital technology, museums are not all on the same tech trajectory

Museums and Civic Society – New report challenges role currently played by arts organisations in relation to civic society, arguing that they have a responsibility to do more

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Issue 23 contributors:

Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell, Head of Public Programs, Smithsonian American Art Museum and The Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C., United States; Nicola Bird, Project Manager, Multaka-Oxford; Community Engagement, Oxford University Gardens, Libraries & Museums; Nick Merriman, Chief Executive and Director, Horniman Museum and Gardens, London; Laura Wilkinson, Programme Director – New Museum, Museum of London; Maria Ribas, Head of Audience Development, CCCB Centre de Cultura Contamporània, Barcelona, Spain; Martin Brandt Djupdræt, Chief Curator and Head of Research & Presentation, Den Gamle By Open Air Museum, Aarhus, Denmark; Kati Price, Head of Digital Media and Publishing, Victoria & Albert Museum; Dafydd James, Head of Digital Media, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales; Gail Symington, Director of Collections & Public Engagement, Royal Museums Greenwich; Andrew Simms – author, analyst and campaigner – books include Ecological Debt: Global Warming & the Wealth of Nations; and Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?; Coline Cuau, Visitor Insights Manager, The British Museum; Harrison Pim, Data Scientist, Wellcome Trust, London; Katrina Lashley, Program Coordinator, Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum, Washington, D.C. United States; Jennie Carvill Schellenbacher, Curatorial Assistant, House of Austrian History, and PhD student, University of Vienna

Selected articles featured in issue 23:

Multaka-Oxford: a ‘meeting point’ for people and cultures – Nicola Bird on the new model of collaborative and socially engaged museum practice creating volunteer opportunities for refugees

Sharing the Love: Community Engagement in the 21st Century – Nick Merriman on why museums must look to the best of Victorian liberalism and re-avow the vital importance of appealing to all

Gallery of the Islamic World – In a new suite of rooms at the heart of the British Museum, this major re-display explores the Islamic world through art and material culture

Taking A Stand Against Neutrality – Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell on considering the crucial role of social justice in defining the 21st Century museum

Structuring for Digital Success – Kati Price and Dafydd James on why museums need to be better at defining digital success and the steps required for digital transformation

Collections & Communities – Rather than be defined by outcomes, Royal Museums Greenwich wanted their £25m Endeavour Project to be shaped by the journey

Invisable Insights – Coline Cuau and Harrison Pim on using data from TripAdvisor reviews to gain valuable insights into the visitor experience

The Museum of Rapid Transition – Andrew Simms asks what is the public role for museums in a world where civilisation faces existential environmental crises?

Reclaiming the Edge: Urban Waterways and Civic Engagement – Katrina Lashley on enabling communities to challenge the often stigmatizing narratives around their connections to the natural world

Towards a definition of the “Activist Museum” – Jennie Carvill Schellenbacher argues the more museums can can inspire action in their visitors, the more relevant they will become

Museum Visits of the Future – Pioneering collaboration plans to reimagine museum visits of the future using storytelling and virtual technology

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Articles featured in issue 22

#FutureMuseum Project
The 21st Century Museum: A Think-tank for Community – Kayleigh Bryant-Greenwell, Curator and Museum Education Specialist, Washington, D.C.; From Voice of Authority to Genuine Conversation – Elizabeth Cotton, Head of Human History, Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tamaki Paenga Hira, New Zealand; Recovering Our Human Sensibilities – Diana Chen, Gallery Lecturer, MoMA, New York; Museums as Agents of Change – Mike Murawski, Director of Education & Public Programs, Portland Art Museum; Experience-Driven, People-Centred – Dana Mitroff Silvers, Founder and Director, Designing Insights; Opportunity for New Audiences – Catherine Devine, Chief Digital Officer, American Museum of Natural History; Focus on School Programmes – Amy McDowall, Primary Learning Coordinator, Manchester Museum; Museums Must Take the Ethical Path – Bridget McKenzie, Director, Flow Associates; A Maturing of Immersive Experiences – Jenny Kidd, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff University / Co-Director, Digital Media & Society Research Group

Museum of the Year 2018
Art Fund announces the five UK museums which have been selected as finalists for the £100,000 Museum of the Year 2018 prize

Royal Academy of Arts, London
Transformational redevelopment opens up Royal Academy of Arts to reveal more of the elements that make it such a unique institution

Improving Digital Offerings for Schools
Kevin Bickham on how user-centred design methodologies are helping to improve the British Museum’s offering for schools

M+ Rover: Participatory Art in Learning
Winnie Lai on the travelling creative studio and exhibition space that tours local secondary schools and community spaces in Hong Kong

The RE:THINK Participatory Space
Joanna Salter on paving the way for a democratic approach to interpretation and interaction with visitors at the National Maritime Museum

Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
Groundbreaking home-turned-gallery has been subtly transformed by a carefully conceived and delightful extension and development

SAASCC, Kuwait City
Discover how you successfully deliver the world’s largest ever museum complex completed in a single phase

Innovation Accelerator
Tui Te Hau on the growing trend in museums to partner with industry and entrepreneurs to fast track innovation

New Canadian History Hall
Chantal Amyot and Lisa Leblanc on developing new ways of sharing and presenting stories and responding to visitor expectations

Making Glasgow Women’s Library
Adele Patrick on how art, activism and feminist agency has shaped the first quarter century of the ground-breaking organisation

Project Portfolio
Exceptional projects including the Middle East Galleries at the Penn Museum, and Ocean Liners: Speed & Style at the V&A

Post-Colonial Commonwealth Museums
Richard Benjamin on how cultures, stories and material objects are represented in a museum context within the Commonwealth

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Articles featured in issue 21

Future Museum: Cabinet of Curiosity Reboot for the 21st Century
Tonya Nelson – Head of Museums and Collections at University College London – on how museums of the future can use digital technology to reach a public with an appetite for knowledge and information, and a real craving for social, political and economic change

Future Museum: Finding New Perspectives and Relevance
Ros Croker – Endeavour Learning Project Manager at the National Maritime Museum – on how museums of the future will have to listen better to their audiences, be open to challenge and change, and become better conversationalists and collaborators

Future Museum: Generating Debate and Offering Paths Forward
Whitney Donhauser – Director and President of the Museum of the City of New York – on how museums can generate discussion and debate about the present and future of our society and offer paths forward based on innovative local and global solutions

Collecting and Displaying a Refugee’s Life Jacket
Bryan Sitch – Curator of Archaeology and Deputy Head of Collections at Manchester Museum – on why collecting and displaying a refugee’s life jacket helps promote understanding between different cultures and how it is part of a project to reinvigorate collecting

Activism, Homelessness and a New Kind of Museum
Jess Turtle and Matt Turtle – co-founders of the UK’s first Museum of Homelessness – on developing a museum on the basis of a social need rather than to preserve an inherited collection of objects

The Museum as Host in a Polarised World
Tony Butler – Executive Director of Derby Museums Trust and Founder of the Happy Museum Project – on why museums must use their unique qualities to bridge divisions and become conveners in a contested world

Should Museums Have a Personality?
Russell Dornan – Digital Producer at V&A Museum of Design Dundee and until recently Web Editor for Wellcome Collection – on why tone and voice are crucial online and what it means to funnel a museum’s online presence through a unique filter: ourselves

Everything Anywhere: Welcome to Your New Life as a Platform
Jonas Heide Smith – Head of Digital at SMK, The National Gallery of Denmark – on why museums need to be more reductionist yet more disorganized in order to succeed in the digital world

The Stories We Tell and the Right to Remember
Bonita Bennett – Director of the District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa – on how the museum can be a place of healing and hope, of restitution, celebration, and the re-energising of resilience

The Migration Museum Project
Emily Miller – Head of Learning and Partnerships at the Migration Museum Project – on establishing a national cultural institution exploring the role that migration has played in shaping the UK

Habemus. Let´s Hack the Museums
Christian Diaz – coordinator of HABEMUS – a volunteer project of the Universidad Nacional del Sur, Bahía Blanca, Argentina – on how a radio programme jointly constructed with listeners is helping to create new connections with the public

Never Going Underground: The Fight for LGBT+ Rights
Catherine O’Donnell – Programme Manager at the People’s History Museum in Manchester – on telling the stories of diverse lived experience and embedding co-production within their core strategic work

#ArchiveLottery: Randomly Opening Up Archaeology
Adam Corsini – Archaeology Collections Manager at the Museum of London – on using social media to open up collections and challenge staff to find new methods of engagement

Projects featured in issue 21

V&A Exhibition Road Quarter
The V&A’s largest architectural intervention in over 100 years creates a dramatic new entrance and vast new gallery space

Frost Science
Frost Science in Miami combines planetarium, aquarium and museum to create a sophisticated science and technology campus

National Army Museum
Transformation of National Army Museum aims to focus on public engagement and giving visitors the opportunity to voice their opinions

Musée d’arts de Nantes 
Extension and transformation of the Musée d’arts de Nantes creates an exquisite and welcoming contemporary space

The Garden Museum
Cleverly housed within the church of St Mary’s-at-Lambeth, the Garden Museum re-opens after £7.5 million re-development project

Art Fund Museum of the Year 
Winner and finalists of the £100,000 Museum of the Year – the largest arts award in Britain and the biggest museum prize in the world

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Articles featured in issue 20

Less is More: Digital With a Lean Team
JiaJia Fei – Director of Digital at the Jewish Museum in New York – on why museums don’t have to do it all when it comes to digital

The Idea Museum: Intangible Museum Collections and Dialogic Experience Design
Corey Timpson – Vice President, Exhibition, Research, and Design, at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights – on the experiential design of participatory exhibitions and collecting stories as born-digital artefacts

Talking to Strangers and Challenging the Social Media Echo Chamber
Rosie Stanbury – Head of Live Programme at the Wellcome Collection in London – on how museums of the future should enable people from different walks of life to talk about the big stuff – human endeavour, discovery, nature, history and the future

Intangible Heritage in the Digital Era
Matthias Henkel – Associate Lecturer at the Freie Universität Berlin and past Director General of the Nuermberg Municipal Museums – on how museums need to rethink how we collect, curate and present the digital landscape as the new public space

Increasing Diversity and Helping to Establish a Sense of Ownership
Peju Oshin – Freelance Museum Educator and Independent Curator – on how museums of the future must understand that engaging diverse audiences requires simple questions rather than over-engineered thinking

Temporary Exhibitions for the Contemporary Cultured
Fiona Cole-Hamilton – Interpretation Developer at the Natural History Museum in London – on the challenges of attracting and engaging a new target audience and presenting complex scientific ideas

Not Just a Building, But Building Community
Amy Schaffman – Education Manager at the Augusta Museum of History in the United States – on how museums of the future must become extensions of the communities they serve to play their part in building a healthy society

MOOCS and Heritage: Storytelling for a Global Audience
Katherine Biggs – Multichannel Producer for Historic Royal Palaces – on why the explosion of online learning offers heritage organisation the opportunity for mass engagement on a global scale

The Museum of Mindfullness, Wellbeing and Mental Heath
Louise Thompson – Health and Wellbeing Manager at Manchester Art Gallery – on how museums of the future could be sanctuaries from the challenges and demands of the modern age and shelters for the stressed, the sick and the socially isolated

We Need To Talk About Donors
Maxwell Blowfield – Communications Officer at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London – on the urgent need to share fundraising ideas as museums have to raise more money from donations

Transforming Shakespeare’s New Place
Delia Garratt – Director of Cultural Engagement at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust – on the contemporary re-interpretation project aiming to make emotional connections to Shakespeare

Rapid Response Collecting
Alice Millard – Learning and Engagement Assistant at The Novium in Chichester – on how adopting a rapid collection strategy allows museums to keep up-to-date with social and political changes

Projects featured in issue 20 include:

National Museum of African American History and Culture
New museum devoted to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history

Mathematics Gallery, Science Museum, London
Remarkable Zaha Hadid designed gallery at the Science Museum reveals the importance of mathematics in all our lives

Museum of the City of New York
New $10.5m permanent exhibition explores the story of the city from village to global capital and asks visitors to design the city of the future

Design Museum, London
Ambitious five-year £83m project completes as Design Museum opens in new home

Wonderlab, Science Museum, London
New £6m interactive gallery designed to help visitors make an emotional connection with science

Special Features in issue 20:

Handheld Digital Interpretation
International Project Guide

Museum Display Cases
International Project Guide

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