MAGNET Toolkit

The Museums and Galleries Network for Exhibition Touring (MAGNET) is a network of museums and galleries that have pooled resources to share their collections with diverse regional audiences.

MAGNET’s first collaborative touring exhibition, Hair: Untold Stories, opened in December 2021 and subsequently travelled to two further venues. Building on the lessons learned from the pilot, MAGNET received funding from Arts Council England and Art Fund to continue its work. Since then, 12 partners have co-curated a further three collections-based touring exhibitions: Gender Stories, Colour and Human Natures.

MAGNET has co-developed this series of resources and templates based on their experience.

This free-to-use toolkit is focused on the joint planning and co-development of partnership touring exhibitions.

The seven documents have been published as guidance for templates and will need to be adapted and made accessible based on your specific context.

The toolkit is for practitioners within the arts and heritage sector who are planning to work in partnership with other museums and galleries. The resources cover everything from the inception and establishment of a network to the development and refining of exhibition content.

The seven documents have been published as guidance for templates and will need to be adapted and made accessible based on your specific context.

Template Network Partnership Agreement

This overarching agreement helps you to formalise the relationship between a group of museums. It ensures all partners are aware and supportive of the project, its outputs, modes of delivery and management of change.

Template Touring Exhibition Partnership – Memorandum of Understanding

You can use this working document to outline the arrangements for the production and tour of an exhibition. It includes a detailed breakdown of roles and responsibilities and should be updated on an ongoing basis.

Template Interpretation Plan

This template helps you to plan and agree interpretative approaches for collaborative exhibitions. It establishes the collective context, target audiences, objectives, content and external partnerships.

Crafting the Big Idea – Guided Session

This document outlines a guided session that you can use to define an exhibition’s content and give partners clarity on the subsequent steps of development. It was developed by North East Museums.

Community Engagement Checklist

This checklist helps you to decide whether to undertake community engagement activities and determine what form they might take. Every project is different and the checklist can be adapted to meet your specific needs.

Template Design and Build Brief for Touring Exhibition

This template helps you to set out your tender for a single design contract when working in partnership. It covers 3D exhibition design and build, 2D creative direction and title treatment but can be adapted to different approaches. It is particularly helpful for organisations interested in promoting reuse.

Template Environmental Responsibility Guiding Principles

This template helps you to ensure alignment between partners on the approach to environmental responsibility when working on a collaborative temporary exhibition. It can also be used as an appendix to procurement documents such as an Invitation to Tender Design and Build Brief and to engage other suppliers. The principles were drafted by the Design Museum, who were the environmental responsibility consultant on the project.