Facing the Future: Museums and the Next Generation is a new series of monthly lectures and discussions at The Courtauld, organised by Martin Caiger-Smith and Professor Deborah Swallow, involving museum directors from across the UK and beyond. The series aims to spark a lively exchange on the issues facing museums, and those who lead them.
The last few years have seen a number of high profile appointments in the leadership of museums. A new generation of museum directors has come to the fore at a time of unprecedented opportunity and change. The challenges they face are many: how to re-purpose or extend existing museum buildings; how to attract new audiences and engage existing ones at local, national, and international levels; how to serve artists and conserve art, rethink the purpose and range of collections and programmes, and face the digital future; and how to secure and increase funding in an increasingly tough and complex environment, in which public and private interests co-exist and, perhaps, compete. The museum directors from across the UK and abroad speaking at Facing the Future will consider these and other issues, reassess the role of the museum in society in the 21st century, and discuss their own plans, and aspirations for the future.
This series has been made possible with the generous support of the Friends of The Courtauld.
9 November 2016: Frances Morris (Director, Tate Modern)
5 December 2016: Nicholas Cullinan (Director, National Portrait Gallery, London)
30 January 2017: Taco Dibbits (Director, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
17 May 2017: Gabriele Finaldi (Director, National Gallery, London)
6 March 2017: Maria Balshaw (Director, The Whitworth, Manchester)
5 June 2017: Tim Knox (Director, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)