Museums Seminar Explores Opportunity

Our 2016 Museums seminar held at Bonhams in conjunction with the auction house and Ecclesiastical insurance brought together some of the country’s top curators and museum professionals.

The Seminar ‘How to Survive and Prosper as an Independent Museum’, was designed to look at some of the challenges facing museums in difficult economic times, and share the experiences of some of our most successful museum directors and professionals.

Speakers included Janet Barnes, former Chief Executive of York Museums Trust, Tim Knox, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Isabel Wilson Arts Council England, Professor Steven Parissien, Director of Compton Verney in Warwickshire, and Dr Thomas Marks, Editor of the Apollo Magazine.

The subjects covered, which included collection management, exhibition strategy, publicity and fund raising, were highly relevant in today’s climate. Two recurring themes amongst speakers, was the importance of finding more creative and entrepreneurial solutions to financing and clear identification of the museum’s long-term direction and goals. Dr Thomas Marks (pictured above) exemplified this in his talk on how museums can get themselves noticed, arguing convincingly that in a very competitive cultural environment museums need to ‘think laterally’ and ‘take a sidestep from the obvious.’