Hull Maritime Museum reopens following £20.4m redevelopment

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Union members to strike at National Galleries of Scotland

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Fashion Museum Bath secures big capital grant

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New director of Heritage Fund Northern Ireland

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Two women closely examine intricate architectural models on a table; one wears a red sweater, the other a black hijab and blue gloves. The models feature curved structures with lattice-like bases.

V&A collections staff vote to strike over working conditions during heatwave

Institution says safety and wellbeing is of ‘utmost importance’ after workers raise grievance

V&A’s Tim Reeve takes top job at English Heritage

The charity has been without a permanent chief executive since Nick Merriman’s departure in June last year

Plans to relocate Walsall Leather Museum scrapped by new Reform council

Campaigners welcome decision to keep museum in its historic factory home

Union members at Royal Museums Greenwich to strike

RMG said it is disappointed by the industrial action, which will take place on 11-12 August

Updated safeguarding guidance addresses generative AI concerns

Kids in Museums offers advice on using images of children on websites and social media

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Digital detox: Is social media still worth it for museums?

The online landscape suddenly looks very different amid a backlash against tech giants. Geraldine Kendall Adams asks how museums are adapting to the post-X era

Can Subject Specialist Networks find a way to sustain themselves?

SSNs are a vital way for museum collections experts to share knowledge, but a lack of funding and no strategy to support them has seen some fall by the wayside

‘How many times can we transform?’: Change alone won’t solve the museum funding crisis

Support for the sector to ‘transition towards more sustainable business models’ is good news, but it must be underpinned by a systematic approach, says Bethany Rex

‘Let it wither at our peril’

Members Survey: Six in 10 respondents say their museum is planning service cuts as a result of funding pressure, with public-facing work most at risk. By Geraldine Kendall Adams

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Knowing who visited is not the same as knowing what they learned

Education teams need evidence that matches the decisions they are trying to make, writes Junyi Lin

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Jewish museums and staff need support

Hate crimes are impacting museums’ essential work, says Sue Shave

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We need a shared language to expand access and communicate the value of museums

Refreshed framework marks the next chapter for understanding the impact of museum learning, says GEM's Rachel Tranter

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Museums must avoid reducing football into a sanitised corporate spectacle

How should museums engage with the beautiful game, asks football fandom expert Josh Bland

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Policy column | Creating a meaningful strategy for museums

The MA is engaged in discussions about the planned policy

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Restitution is not a remedy for the past alone – it’s about the future we can create together

The return of the Jain manuscripts has made the Wellcome Collection rethink standard practice, says Adrian Plau

In practice

Spotlight | Running successful events

A vibrant and relevant events programme is a crucial way to bring in audiences and raise income – so what’s the secret to success?

Guide | Planning seasonal events

Tapping into key seasonal moments can help boost your events programme

Guide | Museum lates

Caroline Parry explores different models for after-hours events

Case study | Programming with the community

Heba Abd el Gawad shares lessons from a community takeover of Horniman

Case study | Building stakeholder engagement

Emily Ding shares how events are a key part of the Canal & River Trust’s fundraising strategy  

Case study | Exploring stories of peace in Lincolnshire

Louth Museum shares its low-cost approach to designing a new temporary exhibition

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Medieval tapestry scene showing armored soldiers on horseback shooting arrows, with Latin text above and more warriors, horses, and arrows in the background.

A thousand years in the making: The Bayeux Tapestry loan

Geraldine Kendall Adams unpicks the logistics of moving the fragile embroidery from France to England for a historic exhibition at the British Museum

‘Power has shifted’: Northern Ireland’s community-led museums

A growing number of heritage projects are allowing local people to explore and share their own stories rather than having others speak for them. By Simon Stephens

‘It puts the humanity back into the objects’: How craft is remaking collections

Many museums are harnessing the power of contemporary craft by inviting artists to take inspiration from their collections, says Corinne Julius

Making an archive sing

Simon Stephens visits the Red House in Suffolk, the former home of composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, the singer Peter Pears

World at war | Museums Journal, 1930-1960

As Museums Journal marks 125 years of reporting, Geraldine Kendall Adams looks at how world war two and new thinking about cultural value shaped the sector from 1930 to 1960

Profile | ‘I don’t have a typical museum background – I’m really proud of getting to where I have’

For someone who never expected to work in the sector, Helen Hartstein now has her dream job at Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum

Q&A | ‘If you’re going to attract funders, you’ve got to have a big, bold ambition’

As a new SS Great Britain museum opens, CEO Andrew Edwards talks to us about his wider plans for dockyard site – and how he dealt with a media backlash against its new name

Q&A | ‘Building meaningful participatory projects takes time, trust and investment’

Ameneh Enayat tells us how young people played a central role in creating the Story Museum's new immersive detective exhibition

Q&A | ‘I don’t think I ever thought we could ask to borrow The Hay Wain’

Emma Roodhouse, curator of Walking Constable’s Landscape, talks about the enduring quality of the artist’s work in the year that marks the 250th anniversary of John Constable’s birth

Q&A | ‘We have to bear our memory. Even if it is a nightmare, it should belong to us’

Museums Journal sits down with China's most famous dissident, Ai Weiwei, to talk history, rebellion – and his hopes of being forgotten

Profile | ‘Museums shouldn’t be afraid of income-generation’

Rebecca Atkinson talks to Sarah Hayes, the director of the Birmingham Conservation Trust and the Coffin Works, about breathing life into heritage buildings in the city

Reframing the value of living heritage – Un/Common People: Folk Culture in Wessex

This exhibition at Salisbury Museum takes a modern approach to celebrating the rich cultural traditions of rural England

A fascinating model for temporary exhibitions – Genghis Khan: How the Mongols Changed the World

Rebecca Atkinson is impressed by a show at the Royal Armouries that makes the world-shaping Mongol emperor relevant to British audiences

Digital | Moving paintings, fashion history, whaler’s memories

We take a close look at the cache

The Asian gaze | A Brief History of British South Asian Art, by Alina Khakoo

Postwar British visual art is given a new context in this slim but rewarding book

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Watch and listen

Radical Museums | S3E4: Nelson Cummins

Simon Stephens travels to Glasgow to meet Nelson Cummins, curator of legacies of slavery and empire at Glasgow Museums

Radical Museums | S3E3: Marian Gwyn

Sharon Heal speaks to Marian Gwyn, whose transformative initiative has worked to diversify and decolonise local museums in Wales

Radical Museums | S3E2: E-J Scott

Simon Stephens travels to south London to interview E-J Scott, founder of the Museum of Transology

Radical Museums | S3E1: William Mitchell

Sharon Heal meets William Mitchell, project director for the Action for Community Transformation (ACT) Initiative in Belfast

Radical Museums | S2E4: Agrippa Njanina

Sharon Heal travels to Belfast to meet Agrippa Njanina, a community engagement officer at National Museums Northern Ireland

Radical Museums | S2E3: Ken Paranada

Simon Stephens meets Ken Paranada, the curator of art and climate change at the Sainsbury Centre

Radical Museums | S2E2: Jane Henderson

Sharon Heal meets Jane Henderson, a professor of conservation at Cardiff University

Radical Museums | S2E1: Leonie Bell

Simon Stephens meets Leonie Bell, the director of V&A Dundee

Europe after empire

Europe after empire

Gary Younge introduces a series of articles that explore how decolonisation is being approached in European museums

‘Return the bones. Empty the museums’

Museums need to address the issue of the ancestral remains in their collections with transparency, openness and accountability, argues Dan Hicks

A whole new world

The Wereldmuseum Amsterdam has been working with artists and other creative practitioners to explore the impact of Dutch imperialism, but Carol Ann Dixon says more needs to be done to empower its own staff to contribute to meaningful change at the organisation

Representations of Blackness at Vienna’s Belvedere Museum

How Tayla Myree is bringing a much-neglected discussion to the public with her tour exploring Black iconography in the museum's artwork

What’s in a name?

Tracing ancestry through a surname uncovered a complex history shared by many, writes Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann

Profile | ‘I’ve been to prison several times. It’s no big deal’

Our guest editor Gary Younge meets restitution activist Mwazulu Diyabanza, who explains why he is taking the law into his own hands

We are committed to publishing accurate, engaging, challenging and constructive content on the issues, ideas, debates and practices that help museums serve the public better.

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