Creating the museum - Online

While the birth of the concept of the museum has attracted lots of scholarly attention and the desire to create new museums is now a global phenomenon, the question of how individual museums, their collections, buildings and personnel, come into being has not been widely considered. Over time, local, regional and national museums, large and small have flourished. Some museums, however, although passionately wished for, ultimately stalled, and some were proposed but never realised. Some museums were created for particular audiences, while others evolved from earlier forms of collecting.

To further develop our understanding of the reasons for creating museums, and to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the creation of the National Gallery in London, this conference will focus on why and how galleries and museums have emerged and evolved globally. The conference will explore the different ways in which museums and public art galleries come into existence and the inspiration, rationale and objectives for ‘creating’ museums; and what the future impulses for creating museums might be.

The conference is jointly organised by the National Gallery and the Museums and Galleries History Group.

Speakers at the conference include:

• Susanna Avery-Quash (National Gallery)
• Alina Boteztau (University of Stirling)
• Sumner Braund (History of Science Museum, University of Oxford)
• Rachael Browning (Arts Council England)
• Tony Butler (Derby Museums)
• Fiona Candlin (Birkbeck, University of London)
• Gus Casely-Hayford (V&A East)
• Adèle Chevalier (Centre Alexandre-Koyré)
• Mary Clayton-Kastenholz (V&A / Warburg Institute)
• Diane Courtin (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris)
• Alan Crookham (National Gallery)
• Felix Driver (Royal Holloway, University of London)
• Tina Eyre (History of Science Museum, University of Oxford)
• Helen Goulston (University of Birmingham / Natural History Museum, University of Oxford)
• Elena Greer (Kingston Lacy, National Trust)
• Nicolas Heimendinger (Université Paris Nanterre / Centre Pompidou)
• Kate Hill (University of Lincoln)
• Romane Le Roux (IMPMC, Sorbonne Université / Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle)
• Anqi Li (University of Hong Kong)
• Diệu Ly Hoàng (Technische Universität Berlin)
• Emma Martin (University of Manchester)
• Olga Nikonenko (UCL, University of London)
• Rebecca Odell (Hackney Museum)
• Elizabeth A. Pergam (Society for the History of Collecting)
• Sabina Rosenbergová (University of Groningen)
• Colin Sterling (University of Amsterdam)
• Emma Yandle (Royal Geographical Society / Royal Holloway, University of London)

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for the Conference.