How are regional museums, galleries, and archives researching, interpreting, and presenting their institutional and collections histories?

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How are regional museums, galleries, libraries and archives researching their own histories — and how can these histories be shared more meaningfully with the publics they serve? These questions frame Regional Collections Histories on Display, a one-day conference hosted by LJMU Exhibition Research Lab in collaboration with the University of Birmingham on 11 September 2026.

Bringing together researchers, curators, archivists, artists and cultural practitioners, the conference will explore the institutional, social and public lives of regional collections. Its focus is timely: since 2021, museums, galleries and archives have increasingly used exhibitions, displays, digital platforms and participatory programmes to make collections histories more visible, while responding to changing expectations around accountability, inclusion and public engagement.

Convened by Dr Sophie Hatchwell and Dr Hana Leaper, the event grows from their shared research into post-war art collections, regional research networks, and the public histories of museums and exhibitions. It sits in dialogue with their book, Post-1945 Art Collections and Regional Research Networks: Collaborative Art History (Routledge, 2026), and with the research project “Public Collections Histories on Display”, funded by the University of Birmingham and delivered in partnership with ERL and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

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The programme opens with a keynote introducing the “Collection and Exhibition Histories on Display” research project, before moving into panels and workshops that explore collaboration, care, belonging, participation, digital methods and the politics of institutional visibility. Panel 1, “Reinterpreting Regional Collections Histories: Collaboration, Care and Belonging,” asks how exhibitions can make visible networks of locality, pedagogy, diaspora and institutional labour, with papers by Helen Cobby, Ella Nixon and Jelena Sofronijevic. Panel 2, “Beyond the Museum: non-traditional collections and participatory practice,” expands the idea of what a collection can be, moving from Merseyside heritage seeds to a Leeds bathhouse and digital mapping of trade cards.

In the afternoon, workshops explore how exhibition systems shape art histories. Sessions led by Ella Nixon and Em Langridge invite participants to consider how categories such as “regional,” “national,” “British” and “non-binary” are produced through selection, display and interpretation, using the John Moores Painting Prize exhibitions as case studies.

The day concludes with the opening reception for our Autumn Exhibition at the ERL gallery: Big Data; Networked Narratives: Decentring Collection Histories with data from the John Moores Painting Prize. Curated by Hana Leaper and Sophie Hatchwell with Geneva Beckford, Emily Fuggle, Em Langridge, Ella Nixon and Rebecca Savage, the exhibition explores the history of John Moores Painting Prizing. Arguing for a distributed and networked understanding of post-war British art, it maps where contributing artists lived and worked, and experiments with new methodologies for understanding their career trajectories and artistic practices.

Together, the conference and exhibition offer an urgent and inventive contribution to debates about regional collections, civic museums, public history and collaborative art-historical research. For scholars and practitioners working across museums, archives, universities and community settings, Regional Collections Histories on Display promises a rich day of shared methods, critical reflection and new connections.

Click here for the full conference programme (PDF).

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The building has step-free access. Please contact us directly to discuss any additional access requirements.

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Image: Installation view of ‘Breadline Britain: The Cymru Edition’ alongside the permanent collection at Cyfarthfa Museum and Art Gallery, Jun 2026, a case study from the ‘Public Collections Histories on Display’ project, a collaboration between University Of Birmingham, Exhibition Research Lab and Birmingham Museums Trust.

Description supplied by the event organiser.