Features

A box of delights | National Museum of Norway, Oslo

The chief curator of Oslo’s elegant new museum talks about the difficulties and joys of uniting four collections, covering 3,500 years of history, in a single building

Best in show | Reading copy of The Haunted Man, 1848, by Charles Dickens

Emily Dunbar chooses her star object from the latest exhibition at the Charles Dickens Museum, London

How the restoration of Skylark XI helped to heal a community

The raising of the pleasure cruiser from the bottom of Loch Lomond inspired a project dedicated to helping local people in addiction recovery

Museum of… Museum of Scottish Fire Heritage, Edinburgh

Part of a working fire station, the museum documents the oldest municipal fire brigade in the UK, and features artefacts dating from 1426

Far from home: Working with Indigenous communities

Momentum is gathering behind this work, but the UK’s efforts lag behind those of some other countries

Climate and colonialism

Sria Chatterjee says we need to confront our past to create a more just world

Museums without walls

Ecomuseums use landscapes to reconnect communities with their heritage and encourage responsible tourism

Voices from outside the sector

Museums Journal asked activists, environmentalists, writers and academics about their work and how they see museums addressing the climate crisis. Here are their responses

Best in show | Recycled artwork, by Michelle Reader, 2022

A new commission at the National Space Centre inspired by Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa, 1831

Best in show | Vivian Maier: Self-portrait, undated, MK Gallery

A shot that shows how the enigmatic photographer created presence through absence

Museum of… Royal College of Music Museum, London

This wide-ranging collection features the world’s earliest-known stringed keyboard and an original Mozart concerto manuscript

Show time | The evolution of exhibition design

A new archive is being set up that will chart the transformation in exhibition design over the last 40 years. Stephen Greenberg, one of the pioneers in the field, looks back at this ever-changing discipline