#london-museums

#london-museums

"What we wanted to do was to make this about people. When I came into my role, it was exactly at the time that the pandemic began. We built a team, an idea, and a vision through remote work."

The Natural History Museum, which saw a 13% increase in visitors to 7.17 million, which was also a record number of visitors for any UK museum or gallery. Their visitor numbers are now nearly a third up on the pre-covid year, marking a notable difference from the rest of the cultural sector, which is still generally down on visitor numbers compared to 2019.

Following the tragic death of Koyo Kouoh last May, the details of her final project- In Minor Keys, the international exhibition of the 2026 Venice Biennale-were unveiled this week by the collaborative team that will carry through her vision for the show.

Great news, culture vultures; it's the start of a brand new year, and that means a host of new exhibitions to look forward to. January is pretty quiet for new openings - we're all too busy watching The Traitors and trying not to spend any money - but there's plenty of unmissable culture on the horizon in the capital, from flashy fashion and design retrospectives to deep-dives into ageing, fandom and the studio behind everyone's favourite claymation canine and inventor duo. Joyless health kicks got you feeling glum? Stop meal prepping and start planning an enriching cultural diet instead, with our guide to the biggest and best museum openings coming up over the next year.

The city has such a bounty of world-renowned institutions that it can be hard to know which to visit first: from cutting-edge London exhibitions at the Tate Modern to Hope, the huge skeleton of a blue whale at the Natural History Museum.

This victory shows what happens when workers stand united and refuse to be treated as second-class.