© River & Rowing MuseumSteve O’Connor on getting a grip on finances, pulling together a clear and coherent plan to set a path to sustainability, and building the momentum needed to return the River & Rowing Museum to the centre of the community and deliver a world-leading educational product hosting the debate on healthy rivers. In the six months between my announcement as the new Director of the River & Rowing Museum (RRM) at the start of 2023, and taking up post in July of that year, I had the same sentence delivered to me multiple times, “River & Rowing Museum, great opportu ..read more

The increasing intersection between art restitution and human rights includes potential new avenues that may be used to commence restitution claims — Eleni Polycarpou (partner), Camilla Gambarini (special counsel), and Grace Finnigan (trainee) at leading law firm Withersworldwide on why a broadening of the definition of “culture” lends itself towards a human rights framework of restitution ——————————————————————————————- In international law, the definition of “culture” has shifted in recent years towards a broader concept of “cultural heritage”. The rationale is to move beyond tangible ..read more

EARLY-BIRD REGISTRATION NOW OPEN: SAVE OVER 20% ON YOUR TICKET Explore the ideas shaping the future of museums at Museum Ideas 2024 on Thursday 10 October 2024 Discover how museums can be reimagined as co-produced, people-focussed, community-led organisations. An international programme of speakers will inspire you to push the boundaries of the museum experiences you create by building deeper connections, rethinking power and agency in the museum space, and reimagining the audience experience across digital, physical, and human interactions. Explore uniquely co-created projects with emotion ..read more

In this study day participants get the unique experience of building and playing their own escape rooms. In groups you will respond to themes and stories in real heritage sites and then using escape room props, equipment and tools, will devise your own pop-up escape rooms. Playing the roles of designer and player you will get a real sense for what makes a successful immersive experience. You will benefit from an in-depth walk-through of the entire process of designing, developing and delivering an immersive playable experience and discover how you don’t need ludicrous budgets to create a memo ..read more

In this study day, led by leading co-creation consultant Stella Toonen, you will explore approaches to achieving meaningful co-creation with communities and inspiring community-led change in your museum. This workshop will consider the values that can inform co-creation practices and explore different models for best practice when it comes to listening to community needs and dreams, sharing power, embedding democratic decision-making, and managing open-ended projects that aim to inspire change. You will have a chance to consider how such approaches might change your organisation or practice f ..read more

Discover how you and your museum might break free from convention and gain first-hand experience of how to create people centred and community led interpretation. Walk away with practical and actionable next steps that you can take back to your museum. In this era of participation and co-creation, join us to explore how museums are actively working to broaden representation and reimagine how they work with audiences. The study day will look at projects in progress to gain valuable insights of what to do at the initiation stage, including championing a more inclusive approach within organisati ..read more

This study day will help you answer a question: what new technologies can help create tomorrow’s museum experiences? We are living through an important moment where advances in artificial intelligence are creating a new era of technological possibility – and risk – in front of our eyes, in real-time. In this workshop you’ll get to understand what AI is, how it works and learn about it’s history in the arts. We’ll look at case studies of emerging applications of AI in museums, and you’ll get the chance to rapidly prototype a new museum digital experience using AI. The workshop is led by C ..read more

ResourceSpace Unit 52-53 Shrivenham Hundred Business Park Watchfield Oxfordshire SN6 8TY T: +441367 710245 E: info@resourcespace.com W: resourcespace.com ResourceSpace is easy to use Digital Asset Management software. It’s open source and we’re an employee owned certified B corporation. The software itself is free and there are thousands of users across the world. We provide the support and work with you to set the system up, configure it to meet your needs and run training sessions with you to make sure you’re comfortable using and managing it. ResourceSpace relies on metadata so any file y ..read more

Members of the Musee Guinee study group, working through the curriculum in August 2021. Study groups conducted immersive tours of the surrounding built museum environment, and engaged in mapping exercises aimed at rethinking the relationship between the museum and its context © image courtesy of the Musee Guinee / MuseumFutures Africa projectBoubacar Diallo, Head of Collection and Inventory Department at the National Museum of Guinea, on decolonizing the Museum in Africa What is the future of the museum in Africa? Knowing where we come from allows us to project ourselves into the future. In 19 ..read more

Dan Vo © ISKA Photography Discover how to create award-winning, community-led tours and event specific museum programming with Dan Vo. Inclusion and outreach are essential to museum futures, and queer visitors are an important and crucial audience that must be catered to. This workshop will give participants the ability to develop programming inspired by their own museum collection that will make them relevant to the diverse LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and more) communities. While there is a focus on queer programming, this bespoke workshop can certainly also be use ..read more