Museums Association Conference 2010 in Manchester

The Museums Association has announced the full programme for its Annual Conference & Exhibition, which takes place this year in Manchester, from 4-6 October 2010 at Manchester Central Convention Complex. It is Europe’s biggest gathering of its kind for museum and gallery professionals.

Manchester boasts some of the UK’s best museums and galleries outside the capital. The conference will include study tours of many of these, and major evening events at the newly-reopened Peoples’ History Museum and the new extension to the Museum of Science and Industry.

Click HERE to view selected exhibitor profiles

The Conference sees over fifty conference sessions as well as the Exhibition and its seminar programme (free to all), networking events, evening receptions, professional development surgeries and fringe events.

Conference themes this year:
Working in partnership looks at why partnerships are all the rage and reveals the secrets of collaborative success.
Showing off posits that the age of the blockbuster exhibition is dead and looks at how museums and galleries can encourage creativity and use collections to best effect when the hard times bite.
Whose museum is it anyway? examines the benefits and barriers to public participation in museum decision making, and asks if it should be the ultimate goal of a museum to be a truly democratic organisation.

Keynotes include:
Neil MacGregor Director of the British Museum on the BM and BBC’s A History of the World in 100 Objects series and its legacy.
Alex Poots Director of the Manchester International Festival will talk about leadership, creativity and taking radical risks.
Jeremy Hunt Secretary of State for Culture will open the conference with an address.

For more information see the Museums Association website
www.museumsassociation.org/conference