Care-ful Museums Symposium

Care-ful Museums Symposium – Thurs Apr 30, 10 am–4:00 pm

£30 per person + £2 booking fee

See the full day schedule here

How do museums demonstrate care – for volunteers, staff, visitors and the communities they engage with? Join museum and health professionals, creative health practitioners and those working at the intersection between health and creativity.

Be inspired, connect with other people working to develop creative health projects in museums, pick up practical ideas (big and small), and hear how others have considered or attended to people’s needs through ‘care-ful’ practice.

Creative health thrives on connection. Join us to be part of a wider community of makers, thinkers, and museum and health practitioners. Leave feeling connected, inspired and empowered — knowing you are not working alone, but alongside others shaping more care-ful, creative futures.

This symposium accompanies our exhibition The Shape of Care: Making Care Visible in which our Pathways to Wellbeing community has explored what care looks like — its presence and absence, the moments in which it is given or received, and the ways it can be felt, witnessed, and made visible through making. Presented through personal and powerful responses, the exhibition celebrates the small, sustaining gestures that can sometimes be overlooked or undervalued: patient attention, thoughtful exchanges, creative connections.

Keynote speakers

• Hollie Smith-Charles – Director, Creative Health & Change, Arts Council England
• Nuala Morse – Director of Research (Museum Studies), University of Leicester; author of The Museum as a Space of Social Care (Routledge, 2021)
• Victoria Hume – Director, Culture, Health & Wellbeing Alliance & Louise Campion – Working Together Project Lead and Head of Learning at The Holburne

Afternoon sessions will offer real-life case studies (big and small) and practical examples of creative health projects in action from across the South West.

Ticket price includes refreshments on arrival and free entry to museum exhibitions:

• The Shape of Care
• Zandra Rhodes: A Life in Print
• Don McCullin: Broken Beauty

Lunch is NOT provided; please bring your own or use our Garden Cafe.

If you would like to come but face financial or physical barriers, we offer bursaries* to cover ticket price, travel, support with physical access needs, or caring costs. *Up to £200 per person.

Bursaries are available for staff, volunteers, and freelancers (with a current contract with a museum) who work at Accredited / Working Towards Accreditation museums in the South West (Arts Council England Area, SW region plus Hampshire Solent).

If you do not meet the eligibility criteria, we have a limited number of discounted tickets available. Please contact s.williams.brown@holburne.org to discuss.

This symposium is made possible by generous support from the Health and Wellbeing in Museums Fund, delivered by the Museums Association with support from the Julia Rausing Trust. Thanks also to Museums Development Fund South West and Bath Spa University who have partnered with us.

Full refunds will be given up to 14 days before the event. After Thurs 16 April (5pm) we cannot refund the ticket price. We will try to resell unwanted tickets on your behalf and refund you (minus a £2.50 admin charge).