Museum Studies Network News, Autumn 2025

Introduction from network coordinator Robert O’Toole

The network has generated a lot of interest and excitement, across Warwick and beyond. We now have over 200 members, and plenty of views for the recordings from our opening conference in May. Thanks again to our brilliant presenters and helpers.

Inspirational! It certainly changed how I experience and think about museums, as I discovered over the last few months, visiting 25 museums in Britain, Holland, Germany, and Belgium. But is it possible to be “over-museumed”? I’ve been testing the limits of my endurance. Read more in the reflective account at the end of this newsletter.

This term, I am planning to promote our local museums much more actively to the students in the Arts Faculty. Hopefully we can organise some visits and get students to record their reflections on their visits. If you know of interesting events and opportunities for students, please tell me.

The network is based in the Digital Arts and Humanities LabLink opens in a new window (DAHL) at Warwick, which supports digital capabilities and projects, and explores the use of tech in research and teaching. Warwick members can access all DAHL online materials. Non-members can request access from .

Museum Explorations podcast

Learn about the unique opportunities and challenges for curators and designers at two of our local museums.

In episode 1, we talked with Jon Radley at Market Hall Museum, the county museum in Warwick - with its wide range of exhibits from human and natural history.

In episode 2, Chloe Johnson gave us a personal tour of the Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum and the exhibition A Different View: Women Artists in the collection (the museum has, possibly, the highest percentage of works by women in the UK). The building itself is fascinating, having been converted from Victorian Turkish Baths, with all the environmental and spatial challenges that entails. Our discussion revealed how the curators make the most of its sensory characteristics to create diverse experiences that engage, enchant, and challenge.

Podcasting is a great medium for dialogue and discovery, as I learned when I recorded interviews on location with Chloe and Jon. New AI-enhanced technology means we can easily record on location with relatively cheap mics, enhancing the voices while keeping in just enough of the background ambience. This is especially effective in the Leamington recording, in which we can hear the different sound textures as we move through the very different spaces in the museum.

Subscribe to the podcastsLink opens in a new window.

Learn about our simple and easy approach to making podcastsLink opens in a new window (DAHL Shorts video).

Museum Explorations YouTube channel

I have also recently bought some new video making equipment, the kind that is used by vloggers: a DJI Osmo gimbal (for professional camerawork on a phone), and a DJI Action 4. I’ve been learning how to use these to film museum visits. I’ve got lots of footage from my summer museum visits. I’ve also done a film of a visit to the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, during which I unexpectedly met and recorded an interview with the brilliant tour guide Spooky Joe. I’ve been really surprised by the sound quality on the Action 4. It gets it just right, using its built in mic and voice isolation, simplifying recording greatly.

Last week I was at Bodleian in Oxford for a Digital Humanities event, and got to visit the Oxford Uni. Natural History Museum, one of my family's favourite places. A classic Victorian museum that encourages easy exploration, but which has been updated with 21st Century storytelling and science communication techniques.

I also spent time in the Oxford Uni Mathematics Institute filming the Maths + Art = Nature exhibition of Kathleen Hyndman’sLink opens in a new window wonderful paintings (free entry). It’s the first time I have seen many of the works in close-up, and experiencing the sensations of colour and texture – something that is impossible to convey digitally. The same can be said of the specimens in the Natural History Museum, especially the tactile exhibitions. I gave my friend John Pilbeam (from the Bodleian) a tour, and filmed it for the YouTube channel. He was especially happy about the bear near the entrance, and the invitation to touch its fur!

This term the Mead Gallery in the Arts Centre at Warwick has a quite sensational (in both senses) exhibition of sculptures by Takuro Kuwata, called "Tea Bowl Punk"Link opens in a new window. I will be visiting soon with Shuanshuang Chi (PhD student, CCPMS) to film our reactions to it. This will be fun!

Hopefully with some good examples produced, we can encourage students to make similar videos.

Subscribe to the YouTube channelLink opens in a new window.

Exhibitions by Warwick people

There are also a couple of exhibitions by Warwick academics that I haven’t seen. Kate Astbury (SMLC) has curated and designed an exhibition about the history of the French prisoner-of-war theatre that was built in the keep at Porchester Castle, Hampshire, in 1810 by some of Napoleon's conscripts who had surrendered in Spain. Watch a BBC news item about the exhibitionLink opens in a new window. Read more hereLink opens in a new window.

Cathy HamptonLink opens in a new window (also from SMLC), working with staff and students, created an exhibition as part of the Peace and Reconciliation project with Coventry Cathedral.

Paul Savva-AndreouLink opens in a new window from SMLC has photographed and filmed the exhibitions, including using a 360 camera. We will update you on that when the recordings are available.

Publications

By Warwick academics

We are starting to build a Warwick Museum Studies reading list, using the Zotero platform. This will include key resources from the world of museums and museum studies, with a special focus on Warwick people. We know that there's a significant body of work out there to be documented. For example, Jamie Larkin in CCMPSLink opens in a new window is a museums and heritage specialist - see his publications list on his homepageLink opens in a new window. Jamie's paper (with Fiona Candlin) "What is a Museum? Difference all the way downLink opens in a new window" (2020) is a good place to start. Just what is a museum? We all know of museums. But just a short list of candidates generates a confusing diversity of forms, functions, and purposes. To what extent is the nicely presented history of the O'Toole family in the cafe of that name in Earlsdon a museum? Sort of. But not in the same way as the National Gallery. But is that a museum? Or an art gallery? What's the difference? Jamie and Fiona have a good solution, drawn from a philosophical approach designed to cope with dynamic, emergent, complex systems. That then might lead us to consider the question: how does, and how should, the University relate to museums?

Which leads us to another of our projects...

Special edition of the Exchanges journal, and how you can contribute

Following on from the conference, a small team has been working on a special edition of the IAS journal Exchanges – Dr Raad Khair Allah (currently at Edinburgh University), Lisa Zhang (student from the History of Art), and Isabella Jeong (Eng Lit alumnus). The broad theme, following on from the conference, is "the university and museums, museums and the university, the university as a museum, museums as universities".

Interested in helping? Contact Robert. The edition will include critical reflections (with an emphasis on engaging, exciting, practice-related articles) and more traditional peer reviewed articles (with an emphasis on interdisciplinarity, or giving an insight into a specific discipline’s approach to museums).

Find out more and consider contributing or joining the editorial teamLink opens in a new window.

Plans for the next event, on gaming, arts, humanities and museums

As you will discover from my reflective piece below, I spent part of the summer on a tour of museums in Europe, planned by my children, and inspired by the historical strategy game Europa Universalis IV – hence their detailed knowledge of Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. At the Centre Charlemagne in Aachen, we learned about Napoleon’s love for the early Christian Emperor and then followed that up with a visit to Waterloo. That’s just one example of how gaming is giving young people new ways into history and culture. We need to know more. I don’t play games, but am intrigued. So, I plan to find out more. We have academic expertise in gaming (Feng MaoLink opens in a new window of IGSD has produced a great guide to serious games in educationLink opens in a new window). David LambertLink opens in a new window of History, working with Rohit HaripLink opens in a new window of Design Studies, is creating a tabletop game that simulates the struggle between forces of Revolution and Counter-Revolution in the Eastern Caribbean, 1793-1798. We have students (and staff) who love playing games, digital and analogue. Let’s bring the two together in an academic conference with real live gaming.

The Campus as Gallery and Museum

The Arts Faculty campus meander, a guided walk, reminded us of just how much there is to see on campus, and how we can engage with its history to understand the present and to think about its future. The art collection is everywhere - following the principles laid down in the original campus plan by Eugene RosenbergLink opens in a new window (a colleague of La Corbusier): parkland interspersed with buildings and art. Over in the garden at the centre of Tocil residencies, we can learn about Tocil Farm House and the Clayton Family, who farmed the land before the University. A plaque with information was recently unveiledLink opens in a new window as part of our 60th Anniversary celebrations. On our meander also visited several of the gardens, starting with the fragrant Delphic GardenLink opens in a new window next to the FAB, illustrating the importance of all of the senses in engaging with the past, present, and future.

Bridges Conference and Exhibition, bringing together art and mathematics

Helena Verrill from our Mathematics Department is leading an interdisciplinary team to plan a major international conference at Warwick in 2027. This will part of the US based Bridges OrganisationLink opens in a new window. It will include an exhibition of mathematics and science related art, and a families day in Coventry. We are currently fundraising and establishing connections. Contact Helena for more information.

Museum Technologies

We are working on some reviews of impressive and effective digital tech in museums, with the aim of running workshops as part of the Digital Arts and Humanities Lab (DAHL) ShortsLink opens in a new window. Workshops are recorded and available online, with several already focussing on museums and heritage, as well as more general topics such as podcasting, AI, transcription, VR, and GIS.

At Bletchley Park Museum in Milton Keynes we experienced some of the most effective uses of tech we have seen, all of which was in full working order. More on this soon, including the ATS Heritage digital guide; large multi-touch capacitive touchscreens (possibly Skin UltraLink opens in a new window by Displax); and amazing sound design (while sitting in the garden we genuinely thought a Spitfire was doing aerobatics overhead, but it was just 3D projected sound).

The CreaTech FrontiersLink opens in a new window project has a stream on museum and tech, with funding and training opportunities available.

And finally, Robert's reflections on (yet another) Summer of Museums

Last year our family summer holiday was an epic road trip from Denver through to Salt Lake City, then up through Yellowstone and Montana to the Canadian border, followed by a few days in Massachusetts. It was museums all the way! As well as some nature and palaeontology digs. By the end the children did say they were done with museums, at least for now. And then...

We spent this summer visiting a diverse range museums in Britain, including:

The Herbert in Coventry; Compton Verney; Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum (podcasted about); the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth; the Natural History Museum in Oxford; Bletchley Park (for the first time, and it is amazing); Jurassic Discovery in Seaton (animatronic dinos!); Lyme Regis Museum; as well as the many pop-up exhibitions at the Victory Show, including a hyper-realistic and very gruesome WW2 field surgery.

Emma and I got to the Guggenheim in Bilbao and enjoyed the outdoor exhibits more than the main show. We also visited a nature museum and history locations in Santona, a key town in the Peninsular War. In nearby Limpias, we found an open-air naval museum. And in Cangas-de-Onis, we stayed in a hotel with a museum in a monastery. Or was it a monastery turned into a museum surrounded by a hotel? As mentioned above, the lines that define "museum" are blurry.

And then, having last year said that they were all museumed-out (3 weeks of American museums), my sons took me on a tour in Europe: the Airborne Museum (WW2) in Arnhem (so immersive we came away with shell shock); Helpoort history museum and the Natural History Museum in Maastricht; the Cathedral Treasury and the Centre Charlemagne in Aachen (stunning museums); Wellington’s HQ in Waterloo, followed by a whole day exploring the amazing museums at the Lion’s Mound and the Hougoumont farm house (best audiovisual exhibition I’ve seen anywhere); and finally, the Natural History Museum in Brussels.

What did I learn? So, so much. But specifically, how diverse and innovative the world of museums is, and how well museum designers are responding to the changing needs of audiences. But also, how much the personal human experience still matters – the most memorable thing for me was an impromptu talk given to us by a historian about the history of Maastricht. For the children, the highlight was the Treasury in Aachen, with its relics of Charlemagne and the early Christian church.

Just how did they get such detailed knowledge and great enthusiasm for a seemingly obscure topic? It turned out that my sons have developed their knowledge of European history by playing computer games, especially Europa Universalis IV. That has revitalised their motivation to visit museums, and their ability to make connections with what they find there. I’m not a gameplayer, but I can understand the power of this medium. And that’s why I’m planning to run an event later in the year, bringing together research and design thinking about museums with actual game playing. Hopefully I can recruit some students to help, and we can have some fun. Europa Universalis V should be out by then, using new AI features to automate gameplay, and hence raising some interesting technical, artistic, and ethical questions.

It was also an opportunity to engage them in some challenging historiographic questions: how and why is the representation of WWII biased in the museum in Aachen? It's brilliantly presented, and in many ways very honest about Germany's responsibilities for horrors. But some things are missing. The way in which history is constrained into a series of small boxes in a timeline flattens it out, elides the scale of the impact on conquered nations and people, limits the sense of horror, and perhaps makes forgetting easier. Similarly at Waterloo, it often feels a bit too contained - the audiovisual 3D show at Hougoumont is a refreshing contrast, showing how immersive experiences can be used to "break us out of the rectangle" (out of the 2D frame).

The focus is also very much on war - not on peacemaking, diplomacy, remembering - the hard work that makes up 99% of human endeavours. Interestingly, Europa Universalis is a diplomacy and politics game. There's something interesting in that about generations. They play war simulations, but perhaps that has become too unreal, too distant. Whereas the "battles" we fight in peace are ever present. In a recent talk at Coventry Cathedral, David Lees of SMLC helped us to refocus on peacemaking and reconciliation (which is what that Cathedral is all about). He told us about the Mémorial de CaenLink opens in a new window and its very different focus and approach, in Normandy, a place dominated by military history. That might be our next visit.