After two years of research, the Museum Closure project report highlights significant trends in UK museum closures from 2000 to 2025. It reveals stark regional differences, with London gaining museums but losing council-run ones, while Scotland faced the most closures. Independent museums are replacing traditional institutions, though not fully compensating for losses.
Category: blog
Urban cinemas and rural museums
At the Italian Geographic Congress, two papers were presented by Andrea Ballatore and colleagues. One explores cinema consumption's socio-spatial dynamics in London and Beijing, highlighting accessibility disparities. The other examines the distribution of UK museums, revealing an urban-rural paradox and advocating for a broader understanding of museum geographies linking urban and rural contexts.
Family resemblances: Towards a typology of UK cinemas
Qi Gong's doctoral research at King's College London focuses on the geography of cinemas in London, exploring their social and cultural significance. By categorizing cinemas into distinct types and mapping their locations, Gong aims to reveal patterns of accessibility and highlight cultural inequalities, thereby informing policymakers and industry stakeholders about distribution and community needs.
Mapping Meaning in Latin with Large Language Models
Our PhD student Andrea Farina will present his latest research at CLiC-it 2025: Eleventh Italian Conference on Computational Linguistics. The paper "Mapping Meaning in Latin with Large Language Models", co-authored with me and Barbara McGillivray, focuses on preverbed motion verbs (like exeo “exit” or ineo “enter”) and spatial relations, important linguistic features that encode movement, … Continue reading Mapping Meaning in Latin with Large Language Models
New visiting PhD student: Luca Torchia
We are delighted to welcome Luca Torchia, a PhD student from La Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), to the Cultural Geo-Analytics Lab for a research visit from September to December 2025. Luca, trained as a sociologist, is currently pursuing his doctorate in economic geography at the MEMOTEF Department of La Sapienza under the supervision of … Continue reading New visiting PhD student: Luca Torchia
From notes to models: Leveraging LLMs for museum closure data
Our postdoc George A. Wright will present our latest research at the International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2025). In the paper “From Notes to Models: Leveraging LLMs for Museum Closure Data”, we explore how large language models (LLMs) can support researchers in transforming unstructured notes into usable data models. This … Continue reading From notes to models: Leveraging LLMs for museum closure data
Digital placemaking in the anarchist commune: Intersecting qualitative-quantitative methods
As a mostly quantitative researcher, I have found my recent engagement with qualitative scholars in the Digital Placemaking and Soft City Sensing DFF research network to be particularly illuminating. Against the quaint backdrop of Copenhagen, with its expansive cycling lanes and elegant inhabitants, I was reminded of Enrique Peñalosa's observation that "a developed country is … Continue reading Digital placemaking in the anarchist commune: Intersecting qualitative-quantitative methods
Thinking with machines: Some reflections on LLMs in academia
As somebody who studied computer science in the early 2000s, I find large language models (LLMs) like GPT and Claude an extraordinary, science-fiction-like technology. While sharing many concerns with sceptics like Gary Marcus, I believe LLMs are so disruptive because they truly are amazingly good at understanding natural language and performing countless tasks that used … Continue reading Thinking with machines: Some reflections on LLMs in academia
Movies from foreign lands: Computing the geographies of cinema
The article discusses President Trump's proposed tariffs on foreign film productions, aiming to boost domestic cinema and challenge "woke" Hollywood. With a decline in traditional cinema attendance and a shift towards globalized filmmaking, the authors highlight the complexities of film geography and the industry's reliance on international markets amid rising nationalism and protectionist tendencies.
New Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War
I am incredibly excited to be part of this groundbreaking initiative to tackle one of the most enduring and troubling issues in global affairs: slavery. As the lead of the Cultural Geo-Analytics Lab, I’m proud to contribute to work that not only deepens our understanding of slavery but also supports the development of tools to … Continue reading New Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War
Cultural Geo-Analytics Lab 