Watch content from MA Conference 2024, which was held in Leeds and online on 12-14 November 2024.

Plenaries

Welcome from Sharon Heal

Watch the welcome to Conference 2024 from MA director Sharon Heal.

Day one introduction with Cheryl Martin

Meet our conference host, award-winning writer and theatre practitioner Cheryl Martin, artistic director of the Red Ladder Theatre in Leeds.

Tracy Brabin

Hear from Tracy Brabin, Labour mayor of West Yorkshire who was re-elected with more than 50% of the vote in May 2024. She was the first ever woman metro mayor in England and chairs the UK Mayors Network.

President’s address and AGM

MA president Steve Miller and director Sharon Heal reflect on the past year and look forward to our work and plans for the year ahead. Find out about our organisational performance and proposed membership fees in our AGM.

Museums Change Lives Awards 2024

Celebrate the winners of our Museums Change Lives Awards from the amazing shortlist of museum projects and people delivering social impact in their communities.

Chris Bryant

Hear from Chris Bryant, who was appointed Minister of State at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in July 2024.

Cheryl Martin, Surfing Sofas and Museum of Homelessness

Hear from our conference host, Surfing Sofas and the Museum of Homelessness, with a live performance of Objects and Concepts, an album sharing the invisible stories of the UK's homeless community.

Day two introduction with Cheryl Martin

Cheryl Martin introduces the second day of MA Conference 2024.

Michelle Charters in conversation with Michelle Gayle

Michelle Charters, community activist and director of the International Slavery Museum, speaks to actor, singer and writer Michelle Gayle, co-founder of art education project the World Reimagined.

Closing remarks and securing our future

Hear closing remarks from our conference host and explore how the new government might impact the museum sector in the final session of MA Conference 2024.

Main sessions

A new dawn?

This session uses three key priorities identified by the English Civic Museums Network to explore whether the museum sector can work together to convince government of the critical role of museums in the 21st century.

Supporting decolonisation in museums: focus on Ukraine

Project team members from Ukraine and beyond share their thoughts on processes and lessons learnt during the production of a Ukraine-focused museum guide to decolonisation.

Backlash: museums in the culture wars

A group of panellists who have experienced kickback due to their work on inclusion, diversity or activism on certain “hot” topics share their first-hand experience and chart a path for how to move forward and persevere.

Beyond the Bassline

Those involved in the project reflect on Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music, the first major exhibition to document the 500-year musical journey of African and Caribbean people in Britain.

Uncertain Futures: museums and research creating social change

An introduction to the innovative methodologies used within award-winning Uncertain Futures, an ambitious collaborative gallery project exploring issues around work through the lens of women over 50.

Intelligent collections: AI's role in the future of museums*

Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are here to stay, and this session looks at the wide-reaching implications for the sector and explores how museums can use AI responsibly. *Session name provided by ChatGPT

How does museum attendance in the UK relate to inequalities in society?

This session gives an update from the AHRC-funded network on Addressing the Museum Attendance and Benefit Gap, exploring what the main drivers of museum attendance are for different groups.

In Practice sessions

The joy of people: relationship-building in museums

Leeds Museums and Galleries’ community team provides many diverse opportunities for people to shape its galleries by building strong relationships. This session explores their successes and the challenges they have faced.

Displaying contentious history: what can we learn from Colston’s statue?

The toppled Colston statue is a contentious object that evokes strong and divisive opinion, and this session explores M Shed’s journey to put the statue on permanent display.

Dynamic Collections: the art of joyful auditing

This session explores Birmingham Museums’ Dynamic Collections programme, which aims to create a complete public database of its one million objects – with communities included in the process.

Creating happy workplaces

The transformative work that museums deliver is made possible by their brilliant people – this session explores the barriers that prevent and factors that create positive work cultures and decrease or prevent burnout.

Access for all: poverty proofing at Paisley Museum

Children North East and Paisley Museum Re-imagined share how a joint poverty proofing project has influenced thinking and practice – and how the museum is supporting low-income families to access arts and culture.

700 years in the making: revealing hidden stories of gender

Hear about how the Royal Armouries worked with the LGBTQ+ community and their lived experience to research and present hidden stories within the collection that surface narratives around gender through history.

Bring joy back to teaching with collaborative curriculum planning

Leeds Museums and Galleries shares its highly successful model of history curriculum consultancy and explores how to co-create long-lasting, mutually beneficial change for schools and museums.

Trauma-informed practice in museums

Working with groups of people with lived experience of trauma and using objects from its collection, Manchester Art Gallery explored how cultural spaces can implement the principles of trauma-informed practice.

Supporter sessions

How to get the most from your agency partnerships

Catherine Warwick from Numiko discusses when to bring in an external agency partner, how to set up the relationship for maximum success, how to get added value from your agency and more.

Bloomberg Connects: connecting audiences to culture online or onsite

Bloomberg Philanthropies' Bloomberg Connects app is a free digital guide to museums, galleries, gardens and more, making it easy to access and engage with arts and culture from mobile devices, anytime, anywhere.

Open your doors to disabled visitors: how the new UK access scheme will transform accessibility in museums

All In, a new access scheme for creativity and culture, is coming to museums in 2025. Developed by disabled people for disabled people, All In aims to support the sector’s ambitions to improve accessibility and remove barriers.

Time Odyssey – a digital learning adventure for schools in UK museums

Time Odyssey, created in partnership by Art Explora and the British Museum, is a major new national learning programme that takes students on a quest through their local museum – both physically and virtually.