Closed museums and what happened to their collections (2000-25)

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.

[Panel] Identity: new and historical migrations in comparison

Today I will have the pleasure of joining remotely the 3:00 pm session (2:00 pm UK time) of the Radici festival at the Circolo dei Lettori in Turin, focused on the theme Identity: new and historical migrations in comparison [in Italian]. “The session Piemontesi nel Mondo features Maddalena Tirabassi, Director of the Centro Altreitalie sulle … Continue reading [Panel] Identity: new and historical migrations in comparison

Charting cultural events on Eventbrite

Here's a new paper led by our PhD student Yue Wang, to be presented at GISRUK 2025 in Bristol! 🌎 🎹🎭 Abstract: This study explores the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of cultural life by investigating the dynamics of cultural events in Greater London. We leverage over 50,000 data points retrieved from Eventbrite to analyse the … Continue reading Charting cultural events on Eventbrite

The museum boom: A bird’s eye view

New overview article in Cultural Trends from the Mapping Museums project. 🏛️📈🔎📊 Abstract. During the late-twentieth century there was a significant increase in the number of museums in the UK. Apart from the polemic heritage debates of the 1980s and 1990s, the boom in museums was not much investigated. Our project “Mapping Museums” collected and … Continue reading The museum boom: A bird’s eye view

Of museums, Covid, and social media

New open-access article from the Museums in the pandemic project 🏛️🌎💻 🦠 Abstract. This paper examines social media activity by UK museums during the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a general perception that as museums closed their doors for extended periods, their digital presence increased to maintain connections with their audiences. However, much of the research conducted … Continue reading Of museums, Covid, and social media

Museums and their geodemographic context

Here's our new short paper to be presented at GISRUK 2023 in Glasgow! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏛️🌎 [PDF] "The geography of the cultural sector concerns the location of producers, consumers, and venues of the Cultural and Creative Industries (CCIs) to answer questions about their development and dynamics. Considering the case of the UK museums, we use national data … Continue reading Museums and their geodemographic context

Mapping museums in the UK

This article, written with museum guru Fiona Candlin, is the culmination of years of tortuous data collection and analysis and outlines a detailed quantitative geography of UK museums. It's available open access in the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. All the data and resources are freely available on GitHub. Abstract: Museums are important centres … Continue reading Mapping museums in the UK