Museums invited add temporary labels to railway-related objects
Does your museum hold rail-related art or artefacts?
Railway 200 is a national public engagement programme taking place throughout 2025 to mark the bicentenary of the first public journey by George Stephenson’s steam-powered Locomotion No. 1 – a moment widely considered to be the birth of the modern railway.
The Railway 200 campaign team is asking museums with rail-related art or artefacts to add a temporary label next to their rail-related exhibits.
The label explains that this year marks the bicentenary of rail and shares a QR code linking to the Railway 200 website.
Visitors would be able to learn more about the bicentenary, and access Railway 200’s interactive, historic timeline – which tells the story of the railway and was developed in collaboration with the National Railway Museum.
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The festival’s partner toolkit provides links to its logo, which can be used alongside the copy.
Contact Geraldine Platten in the Railway 200 campaign team to find out more: Geraldine.platten@gbrtt.co.uk
In partnership with Art UK, the Railway 200 festival is also asking the public to vote for their favourite UK railway artwork. The deadline for voting is midnight on Friday 11 April 2025.
On World Art Day, 15 April 2025, the 20 most popular artworks will be unveiled as part of a curated online exhibition on Art UK, which will run until 31 December 2025.
Ten heritage institutions get funding from GEM arts scholars programme
The Group for Education in Museums (GEM) has announced the recipients of funding from the new GEM Arts Scholars Enriching Lives Grant Programme 2024-27, which is supported by the Company of Arts Scholars Charitable Trust.
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The new grant programme supports learning projects inspired by fine, decorative and applied art collections, enabling museums and heritage organisations to engage with primary and secondary school pupils through hands-on experiences with works of fine and decorative arts.
Ten museums and heritage organisations across the UK have been awarded funding from the £40,950 total grant fund. Each recipient will receive up to £4,500, payable in three annual instalments, with the first payment to be distributed in March/April 2025.
The recipients are:
- MonLife Heritage Learning
- Haworth Art Gallery
- Gallery Oldham
- Cyfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery
- Temple Newsam House
- Dr Jenner House
- Reading University Art Collection
- Quaker Tapestry
- Bradford Museums & Galleries
GEM director Rachel Tranter said: "These diverse museums and heritage organisations presented compelling projects that will connect young audiences with creativity, culture and history. This initiative represents our shared commitment with the Arts Scholars to make heritage learning more accessible and to inspire the next generation of arts enthusiasts."
Rare cartographical objects loaned to public institution for the first time
The Sunderland Collection, a private collection of rare antique cartography, is loaning items to a public institution for the first time since it was established 40 years ago.
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The collection is lending eight atlases and maps to the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, which is affiliated with the University of East Anglia.
The works will be featured in A World of Water (15 March-3 August 2025), part of the centre’s Can the Seas Survive Us? series of exhibitions bringing together works by British and international artists from the last 250 years who offer a perspective on evolving marine ecosystems and oceanic habitats.
The Sunderland Collection’s rare version of the Geographia (Sebastian Münster, 1540) in original colour will be the oldest work to be included in the exhibition. The show will also feature Del’ Arcano del Mare (Robert Dudley, 1646-47) and Speculum Nauticum (Lucas Janszoom Waghenaer, 1586), which was a best-seller for nautical navigators of its time.
Helen Sunderland-Cohen, manager of the Sunderland Collection, said: “Access is at the heart of everything we do, so we are incredibly proud and excited to be making our first loan to a public institution.”
Royal Armouries launches Warrior Women podcast series
The Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds has released a new podcast series, Warrior Women, which takes a look at six figures from world history with the aim of challenging the misconception that women have been absent from the frontlines of history.
Each episode is dedicated to a central figure, including warrior Queen Lakshmi Bai, sword master diplomat Chevalier d’Éon, Soviet Sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, SOE agent Vera Leigh, Samurai Nakano Takeko, and Royal Marine Hannah Snell.
Funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the series is intended to spark “difficult conversations”, exploring themes of equality, oppression, propaganda, empire, and how history has preserved and sometimes manipulated the legacies of these protagonists.
The podcast is hosted by Anna Ward, exhibitions and displays interpretation manager at the museum.
"Warrior Women is not just a historical podcast; it is an important, progressive conversation about the role of women in history and society today. Their courage, resilience, and agency in conflict reflect the struggles still faced by women around the world today," said Ward.
"We invite listeners to embark on this journey, rethinking the past and scrutinising what these stories might say about our present."
Brontë Parsonage Museum opens accessible toilet facilities
The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth has opened a new building housing fully accessible toilets and changing facilities.
The new facilities were made possible due to funding from the Bradford 2025 Cultural Capital Fund and Arts Council England’s Capital Investment Programme.
The building includes four individual self-contained cubicles, one accessible toilet for people in wheelchairs or with prams that includes baby changing facilities and a Changing Places toilet – the only one of its kind in the local area. Changing Places toilets featuring more space and specific equipment including a hoist, moveable changing bed and wash down facility.
The toilets were built by local contractors Whitaker & Leach, and used locally-sourced suppliers and materials. The facilities also feature a sedum planted green roof to promote biodiversity.
The Brontë Parsonage Museum was one of 21 organisations in the Bradford district to receive investment from the £3m Cultural Capital Fund, which was created to deliver projects that will boost cultural infrastructure and enable Bradford residents and visitors to access and participate in cultural activities beyond the lifespan of the festival.
Survey launched to identify skills challenges in creative industries
The Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (Creative PEC) and Work Advance have launched a Creative Employer Skills Survey – a new survey of 1,300 businesses across the creative industries in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
The survey aims to foster an industry-wide conversation on the skills challenges of today and the talent and skills that will be critical to the success of the creative industries in future.
The survey is part of a wider skills audit process being led by the Creative PEC and Work Advance, which will provide evidence to inform the Creative Industries Sector Plan and subsequent skills provision for the sector.
It is co-funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Creative Industries Council, and led by a Steering Group including Skills England, devolved government and trade bodies from each creative sub-sector.
Creative businesses with two or more employees are invited to take part in an interview with researchers, who will gather information about skills shortages and gaps, training provision and future skills needs.
Historic Royal Palaces digitises royal fashion collections
Historic Royal Palaces has announced a new digital collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, which will offer a global audience access to highlights from the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection. The partnership will make nearly 200 garments available to explore online.
The Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection is a Designated Collection of national and international importance, comprising more than 10,000 pieces of historic dress and related materials. Spanning from the 16th century to the present day, it features garments worn by monarchs and historical figures, including Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Queen Elizabeth II.
The fragile textiles and documents in the collection can only be displayed for limited periods. High resolution digital imaging will now mean they can be viewed at any time, from any location around the world.
Visitors will be able to see intricate details of the garments through ultra-high-resolution photography and 3D scanning, allowing stitching, beads and embellishments to be examined in “astonishing clarity”.
The collaboration will also feature more than 20 curated digital stories and videos featuring curators and conservators.
Woodhorn Museum becomes home to Mik Critchlow Collection
Woodhorn Museum in Northumberland has announced it will open a new gallery dedicated to the late photographer Mik Critchlow later this year.
Born and raised in Ashington, Critchlow amassed an archive of over 50,000 pictures during his 44-year photography career. The new gallery, entitled The Coal Town Collection, will showcase more than 100 photographs from Critchlow’s Coal Town archive, which first went on display at Woodhorn Museum in November 2021.
Chronicling the town and people of Ashington over four decades, the archive provides a glimpse inside the town’s coalfield communities, and captures periods of major social, economic and political change in Northumberland. Critchlow personally selected each photograph for the original 2021 exhibition.
The gallery will also feature personal items on loan from Critchlow’s family, including cameras he collected and used during his career, unseen photographs, and other personal ephemera that provide an insight into the man behind the camera.
The Coal Town Collection will open at Woodhorn Museum in May 2025.
From 1 April 2025, North East Museums (formerly Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums) will manage Woodhorn Museum, Hexham Old Gaol and Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum on behalf of Northumberland County Council.
Holocaust Centre North marks 50th anniversary of the Cambodian genocide
Holocaust Centre North is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Cambodian genocide with a temporary exhibition opening on 31 March and running until 4 April – a few days ahead of Cambodian Genocide Remembrance Day itself on 17 April.
The day commemorates the day the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. The Communist military group ruled the country from 1975-1979, during which time two million Cambodian people — almost 25% of the population — were tortured, starved and murdered by the regime.
The temporary exhibition - Cambodia: 50 Years of Reckoning - brings together three artists – Dayanny So, Charles Fox and Komarine Romdenh-Romluc - whose work reflects on their own personal experiences of Cambodia during the genocide and afterwards.
Hannah Randall, head of learning at Holocaust Centre North said: “We are proud to be hosting these three remarkable artists to share their work on the Cambodian genocide at Holocaust Centre North. Their work showcases and highlights the human experiences of living through and surviving a genocide, as well as stories of finding refuge and rebuilding lives after trauma.”
Icom UK launches announces new appointments
Icom UK has announced the election of Maria Blyzinsky as co-chair of its board of trustees. Blyzinsky has been a trustee since 2023 and a champion of heritage protection, responsible for liaison with the UK branch of Blue Shield International.
She has also coordinated a partnership project between the Museums Association, Icom UK, Icom Ukraine, the Ukrainian Institute, and the British Council to develop a new museum guide to decolonisation focused on Ukraine.
Meanwhile Kristina Broughton has been appointed as Icom UK’s new strategic director. Broughton held recent roles as CEO of Wessex Museums Trust and chair of the South West Federation of Museums & Galleries. Broughton will lead the launch and implementation of Icom UK’s new strategic plan.
Icom UK has also launched its bursary scheme for 2025, making £10,000 available to Icom UK members for international activity. There are three deadlines for applications throughout the year, with the first deadline on Friday 25 April 2025.