The conference "Reexhibiting the Museum – New perspectives on nineteenth-century exhibition, collection, and display" will be taking place in Birmingham on November 12th, 2025.

The single-day conference aims to shift the academic conversation away from the dominant narratives of nineteenth-century museum-making that too often centred around major national museums and galleries based in London. Instead, we want to bring together researchers working on museums and their collections across and beyond the UK, bringing new perspectives and centring new narratives.

It will explore diverse aspects of nineteenth-century museum formation, including colonialism, municipal and regional galleries, and non-museum spaces, to bring a fuller picture of museums and exhibitions — their displays and their visitors — to the historical record.

Topics may be and/or refer to the
- development and innovation in nineteenth-century museums
- strategies of display in museum and non-museum spaces in the nineteenth-century, including temporary exhibitions and international exhibitions
- national, regional, and municipal museums
- methods and mechanics of nineteenth-century collecting
- collections of societies and mechanics institutes
- international connections between nineteenth-century museums (influences, models, or collaborations)
- movement and transport of museum objects and artworks across spaces
- colonialism and the nineteenth-century museum
- British museums’ links to Empire
- museums in the colonies

We encourage submissions from PhD candidates, early career researchers, and established scholars. We welcome submissions for individual papers of 20 minutes (followed by up to 10 minutes of discussion and questions); themed sessions (90 minutes for three papers or 60 minutes for two paired papers, including discussion and questions); round tables or workshops (maximum 90 minutes).

Please submit abstracts of no more than 300 words together with a brief biography as an e-mail attachment to reexhibitingthemuseumgmail.com no later than July 12, 2025.

For round tables or workshops, please include a description of the proposed form and content (300 words maximum).

Successful applicants will be notified by August 12, 2025.

Committee:
Mary Clayton-Kastenholz,
Dr. Maialen Maugars,
Amalia Wickstead

For more information on how to submit your abstract, please visit: https://rtmconference.wixsite.com/info

ThinkTank Birmingham is a fully accessible venue with lift access to all conference areas. An Induction loop system is available, and sensory maps of the space are provided online, alongside other accessibility measures.