ITP at the Museums Association Conference 2024 kicks off next week!
Written by George Peckham, ITP Coordinator
We are excited that our week-long programme around the Museums Association Conference is kicking off next week!
A regular feature of the ITP calendar every year is attending the Museums Association Conference. This year’s conference is being held in Leeds and we are looking forward to welcoming five ITP fellows to join us for a week-long programme based around the MA Conference and visits to museums in and around the city. Joining us this year are:
- Kayla Kuʻualoha Annen, Ethnology Collections Manager, Bishop Museum, Hawaii, USA (ITP 2023)
- Mohammad Al Qaisi, Education Manager, Jordan Museum, Jordan (ITP 2022)
- Rodah Kalondu Lange, Curator, National Museums of Kenya, Kenya (ITP 2023)
- Priyanka Kundu, Museum Keeper, Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum, India (ITP 2022)
- Shreen Mohamed Amin Taher, Visiting Lecturer of Heritage and Museum Studies, Helwan University and Senior Museum Education and Programme Developer, The Children’s Museum, Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt (ITP 2016)
To see the fellows’ full biographies and their thoughts on attending this year’s conference, see our previous blog below:
The conference will take place on 12-14 November 2024 at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds and will focus on The Joy of Museums. The conference will celebrate the innovation, inventiveness and creativity that make our museums such incredible places.
Around the conference, we are planning on visiting some museums and sites in and around Leeds. For 2024 we’ll be visiting:
Leeds Discovery Centre is a purpose-built display storage facility built for Leeds Museums & Galleries in 2007. The centre cares for over 1.2 million objects ranging from natural history specimens, textiles, local and world archaeology, world cultures, and meteorites. The Discovery Centre offers a unique opportunity for hands-on exploration into the natural world, human history and ingenuity.
Thackray Museum of Medicine is the UK’s largest independent medical museum. Their aim is to inspire people with the passion and purpose of medicine and healthcare of the past, present and future. The Thackray Museum of Medicine houses a collection of over 47,000 objects from medical history which date from Roman times to the present day, along with 15,000 trade catalogues and 9,000 books on medicine and healthcare.
Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) is an art gallery, with both open-air and indoor exhibition spaces. The park is situated in the grounds of Bretton Hall, an 18th century estate. Artists come from the around the world, including Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, South Korea, the UK and USA. Artists on display in the park include Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Damien Hirst and Antony Gormley. There are always around 90 fascinating sculptures to discover in around 500 acres of gorgeous landscape.
National Coal Mining Museum for England is located at Caphouse Colliery, on the western edge of the Yorkshire coalfield, where mining has been carried out for centuries. In 1988 the Yorkshire Mining Museum opened at Caphouse and in 1995 it was granted national status. The museum offers guided underground tours where visitors can experience the conditions miners worked in and see the tools and machines they used as the industry and the mine developed through the years. Above ground, the museum sits on a 45-acre site, with over a dozen galleries documenting the social and industrial history of the mines.
Saltaire World Heritage Site and the Peace Museum
Saltaire is a Victorian model village near Shipley, West Yorkshire. Saltaire was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2001 and is on the European Route of Industrial Heritage. Today, the Salts Mill contains a permanent exhibition of the story of Saltaire and has a collection of over 400 works artworks by artist David Hockney.
Inside Salt’s Mill you will find the Peace Museum. It is the only museum in the UK dedicated to the history and stories of peace, peacemakers and peace movement. Since the museum was founded in 1994, they have been collecting items which tell the stories of peace in many different forms. The museum’s 16,000 object collection is made up of banners, personal objects, campaign materials and artworks donated by people and organisations all over the world.
Stay tuned on our social media pages for updates throughout the week from the fellows and the ITP team. We’re excited to welcome Kayla, Mohammad, Priyanka, Shreen and Rodah back to the UK and we hope they enjoy their time in Leeds and at the MA Conference.