Features
Roll up, roll up
Museums are marking the 250th anniversary of the circus with a series of exhibitions and events. John Holt finds out how gallery acrobats, showgirl curators and parachuting dogs are all playing a part in tracing the history and cultural impact of “the greatest show on Earth”
International opening – The Legacy Museum, Alabama
This important new museum was created out of a wider campaign to confront the legacy of slavery, lynching and segregation in the US, finds Rebecca Swirsky
World view
Eleanor Mills talks to Nicholas Thomas, the director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, about global cultures, collections and repatriation. Photography by Phil Sayer
Trendswatch – book clubs
Museums are starting a new chapter in an attempt to engage more people with their collections, says Deborah Mulhearn
Northern Lights
As the Great Exhibition of the North gets underway in Newcastle and Gateshead, Geraldine Kendall Adams looks at how the programme has come together against background of political upheaval.
Beauty and the beasts
Deborah Mulhearn discovers how museums are making animal magic in their displays on the natural world
Being Brunel, SS Great Britain, Bristol
This museum on the life and work of the Victorian engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel deconstructs what he made and what made him. By Nicola Sullivan
Arts Pioneer
Hugh Mulholland, the senior curator at Belfast’s Metropolitan Arts Centre, has helped to transform Northern Ireland’s contemporary arts scene, says Patrick Kelly. Photography by Phil Sayer