Written and supplied by Dominic Neergheen, MAGNET Touring Exhibitions Coordinator
A year on since Hair: Untold Stories closed at its final tour venue, we look back at how the pilot project, which opened at the Horniman Museum and Gardens in December 2021 and subsequently toured to Tullie House in Carlisle and Weston Park Museum, Sheffield, is helping to shape MAGNET (Museums and Galleries Network for Exhibition Touring) moving forward.
The network was established in 2020 against a backdrop of significant challenges and barriers. With a lack of collections-based touring exhibitions and industry-wide budget cuts reducing museums’ ability to generate their own exhibitions in-house, hindering the collective capacity to serve new and existing audiences. The urgency for “a new ‘partnership framework’ to extend their [museums] reach throughout England in a more strategic way” only increased as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.*
“Partnerships can create opportunities to respond to the local context by involving communities in the co-production of exhibitions and the reinterpreting of collections. For the curators and other staff involved, this can lead to a deeper engagement with audiences and the opportunity to share skills and knowledge with peers across the country. Partnerships can also be an effective way for museums and galleries to work collaboratively to explore and address issues of underrepresentation and marginalisation, a key priority for the sector.”
With the support of Art Fund, the network took on this opportunity for a highly ambitious trial to test three ways of working: the MAGNET model of co-development across partner organisations, touring, and a community co-production model.
You can read the Hair: Untold Stories exhibition final report in full, but we wanted to pick out a few key takeaways here:
- Provided a proof of concept for touring co-developed collections-based exhibitions, creating a supportive environment in which museum professionals, communities, stakeholders and artists can collaborate to form new narratives.
“When I went to see the exhibition, the depth of the breadth blew me away. The age range involved and represented was as diverse as the people involved, I think.” Community Fieldworker
- Built the resilience and capacity of the network, bringing together professionals during the pandemic from across the partnership.
- Supported each host museum in creating an ‘appointment to visit’ for existing and new audiences.
However, that is not to say that a network partnership, which now involves 12 museums and galleries, does not come without its challenges.
That is why we are actively learning from the Hair: Untold Stories project as we develop and tour three new exhibitions, which open to visitors in 2025, with Art Fund support and supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
Watch this space – click here to find out more about the MAGNET project or join our LinkedIn group for the latest news and updates.
* See The Mendoza Review: an independent review of museums in England | Neil Mendoza
