Museums and Galleries: Locked down, but not locked out

Fascinating online debate as part of the York Festival of Ideas looking at the challenges and opportunities of the current pandemic for museums and art galleries.

This was a live Zoom discussion, but I watched the recording on YouTube later. It was well chaired by Jonathon Derbyshire, Deputy News Editor of The Times, and brought together four panellists from the sector. It was a imaginative range of speakers including Frances Morris, Direct or Tate Modern; Reyahn King, Chief Executive of York Museums’ Trust; Brendon Corrier, Senior Design Curator, V&A and Michael White, Head of History of Art at the University of York.

The chair set each speaker three initial questions, how are they coping, how galleries help community cohesion and how will the pandemic change how they operate long term? These were answered eloquently from Corrier using the example of a blog focusing on objects which have become important during the pandemic to Morris discussing Tate Moderns work with their local communities in Southwark and the balance of being an international collection in a local space.

As an ex-University of York student, I was pleased that two speakers local to the festival had been included. How I wish the University had had a history of art department in my day and I was interested to hear about the current work of the wonderful York Art Gallery.


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