The announcement by UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, that a range of public spaces in England, including museums and art galleries, will be allowed to open on July 4 has everyone in the cultural sector working furiously to create a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment to entice people back in.

Art institutions are facing a reckoning over colonial histories and racist legacies. Though the issues aren’t new, calls to unpack the British art museum and heritage sector’s ties to colonialism have increased significantly over the past decade. As a result, institutions like the Museum Association, Pitts Rivers and Bristol Museums have begun to explore what it means […]

The new $60.5 million HOTA Gallery opened its doors on the weekend, updating ageing infrastructure and marking an exciting chapter for the Gold Coast. HOTA, or Home of the Arts, has been developed as part of a masterplan begun almost a decade ago by the Gold Coast Council to rework a 17-hectare site into […]

After being disenchanted with his work as a detective inspector in Rhodesia’s British South Africa Police, Derek Huggins quit his job and in 1975 decided to open an art gallery. The venture, Gallery Delta, is now an important institution in Zimbabwe’s art history. His partner and collaborator was his wife, Helen Lieros, […]

As museums have been forced to close their doors in the midst of Covid-19, many of these cultural institutions have proven just how nimble they can be, temporarily shifting their exhibitions from in-person events to online-only experiences. However, one museum in particular is waging its bets that virtual programming will […]

From the moment of its founding in 2011 and up until today, the Google Art Project online platform has been developing in huge (or should we say gigapixel) steps. How has the team managed to “capture” the collections of 600 world museums and what does the future hold for the […]

Yemeni geologist Fahd Albarraq manages the Yemen Geological Museum in Sana’a. In 2016, not long after civil war broke out, the country’s economy collapsed and the museum lost its permanent financing from the government. Albarraq and three of his colleagues reopened it, without pay, in 2017.

This is not a particularly proud moment for humanity. Divisive narratives, poverty, inequality, injustice, famine, radicalism, war, and human rights violations thrive in countries around the world, while the natural world also suffers because of increasing human carelessness. But what can we do? I believe we have many of the […]

The prestige of museums has never been higher. Every city that wishes to be on the map knows it must build one. No foreign trip feels complete without taking up the guidebook’s recommendation to visit one. We regularly hear that museums are our ‘new cathedrals’, in other words, the most […]

There’s no shortage of research indicating the benefits of museum visits for children. They can provide memorable, immersive learning experiences, provoke imagination, introduce unknown worlds and subject matter, and offer unique environments for quality time with family. Curious to hear more from people in the field, we asked educators from […]