Opinion
LGBT-centred work confers many benefits
How many events have you organised in the past year that aimed to engage with an LGBT audience? Can you relate any LGBT stories linked to, say, half-a-dozen objects in your collection? Is LGBT-themed collecting a part of your acquisitions policy? Does everyone working in your museum know what LGBT means, and if not, have …
What’s in a name?
Reading Salman Rushdie’s biography recently, I was struck by how significant a name can be. Rushdie’s father invented his name – and gave it to his family – because of his admiration for Ibn Rushd, a 12th-century philosopher at the vanguard of the rationalist argument against Islamic literalism. More than 800 years later, when the …
Museums can learn from the business world
Entrepreneurialism was a buzzword in museums a few years ago. But it can mean different things to different people. To unpick what it means, I interviewed leaders across the sector to explore how it is being interpreted and applied. Having been bandied around so frequently over the past few years, the word has lost some …