Professor Tilly Blyth: In Museums We Trust
ILAS Global Challenge lecture series
The latest in a series of Global Challenge lectures from the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Title
In Museums We Trust
Abstract
What role can museums play in maintaining or restoring trust in the public realm? Recent polls suggest that museums are some of our most trusted organisations, with museum curators ranking behind nurses, librarians and doctors, but alongside teachers. So what is the basis for this trust and can such trust be retained in the current politically charged environment? In this lecture Professor Tilly Blyth will explore the need for museums to continue to earn the right to that trust and argue that the role of museum curators is changing, from professionals with specialist knowledge and expertise in specific areas of the collections, to collaborators who work alongside local and international partners to build knowledge, confidence and empathy in museum collections and displays.
Biography
Tilly Blyth is the Professor of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, where she brings together sector knowledge with creative practice and academic research, to build a new generation of global museum professionals.
Prior to joining academia, Tilly spent over twenty years working with national museums, including the V&A, British Museum and Science Museum. As Head of Collections and Principal Curator at the Science Museum her leadership of the curatorial, research, library and archive teams resulted in a series of new galleries and a programme of exhibitions, with the Science Museum being declared a winner of the Art Fund Museum of the Year prize in 2020. She was also responsible for the acquisition of the Stephen Hawking Office into the museum’s permanent collections.
Tilly is a trustee of Bletchley Park Trust, an adviser on English Heritage’s Blue Plaques Panel, a member of British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) and a fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.
This lecture will be available in person as well as online via Microsoft Teams. For those attending in person, refreshments will be available from 6.00pm onwards. For those attending online, please register (by no later than 5.00pm on the day of the lecture) and joining instructions with further information will follow ahead of the lecture.
This lecture is free and all are welcome to attend.
- Event date
- Event Time
- 6:00PM
- Location
- Salvin Room, Keele Hall and Online via MS Teams
- Organiser
- Steve Kilner
- Contact email
- ilas@keele.ac.uk
- Contact telephone
- 01782 7 34449