Art Fund's new exhibition-touring programme, Going Places, launches this spring
Anna McNay finds out about the first two shows to open as part of Going Places, which will create dozens of exhibitions over the next five years.
A version of this article first appeared in the spring 2026 issue of Art Quarterly, the membership magazine of Art Fund.
Created by Art Fund’s Going Places programme, made possible with major support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and The Julia Rausing Trust, with additional support from a generous group of trusts, foundations and individuals, six UK museum networks spanning the country are working to co-create 12 touring exhibitions over the next five years, sharing their collections nationwide through 40 unique exhibitions (two per network, each touring to all of their networks’ three or four venues), made with and for their local communities.
This spring and summer, the first two exhibitions open to the public. These are Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art, from the Long Distance Connections network, at Penlee House Gallery & Museum, and a show (unnamed at time of writing) from the Green Spaces, Shared Places network, at Staffordshire’s National Memorial Arboretum.
Aaron Rossi, exhibitions and heritage manager at the arboretum and network coordinator for Green Spaces, Shared Places, explains how the four-partner network – Arlington Court and the National Trust Carriage Museum, the Dales Countryside Museum, Sunderland Culture and the National Memorial Arboretum – was initially brought together by Art Fund because of each venue’s outdoor space.
They also identified a shared desire to engage more actively with young communities. ‘We’re one of the groups that have placed engagement with our target community at the very heart of the process from the beginning,’ says Rossi. ‘We were keen not just to consult or co-create with young people, but to co-curate with them. It has been a truly community-first approach.’
The teams from the network’s museums made initial site visits to one another’s venues and have spent as much time as possible together physically, alongside virtual meetings. What makes it work for the Long Distance Connections network – Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Museums Worcestershire and OnFife – says Lesley-Anne Lettice, curator at Kirkcaldy Galleries, part of OnFife, is trust and good communication.
After an initial look through their collections, the three venues structured the ideas for their exhibition about women artists into six themes, for which they all had works that could slot in. Then they had to consider the quite different spaces each venue has. Penlee, for example, is a historic house, rather than a purpose-built museum. In preparation for the exhibition Kirkcaldy Galleries has also been able to send four of its works to the conservators and get eight works either reframed, reglazed or given new mounts.
As for exhibition highlights, there will be works by Tracey Emin, Barbara Hepworth and Paula Rego, plus a Wilhelmina Barns-Graham work from Fife, ‘which is a good one to look at because there’s a connection between her and Cornwall,’ says Lettice. ‘There’s also a nice link between artist Caroline Walker, who was born in Fife and is the newest academician at the Royal Scottish Academy, and Laura Knight, who was the first woman elected to full membership of the Royal Academy and by whom Walker’s work has been heavily influenced.’
The network is also working with young, frequently care-experienced people. Each venue will produce an interactive work created by them. Penlee, for example, is producing a textile banner that looks at women artists and political and social activism. At Kirkcaldy, they are working with a group interested in creating responses to some of the works in music and dance. ‘I think we’ve all been able to bring different things to the table,’ says Lettice. ‘And not necessarily just for this exhibition but thinking further ahead.’
Rossi concurs: ‘The fantastic thing about having this two-per-network, touring-exhibition approach that Going Places provides is that the first exhibition has really been a great opportunity for us to test some of those exciting methods of engagement and co-curation, and then really consolidate them for the second touring exhibition.’
The Going Places networks have also had many training opportunities through the project. ‘We’ve had support on creating sustainable touring exhibitions, trauma-informed training and writing audio-descriptive labels,’ says Lettice.
For the Green Spaces, Shared Places network’s first exhibition, the venues are busy gathering stories. ‘There’s a big oral-history strand,’ says Rossi. ‘Our sites are all situated in post-industrial landscapes and are steeped in mining heritage. We’re starting to see all these connections, and I think we’ll have a core touring exhibition of objects and tools that will go between the sites, with an indoor and an outdoor element, but then each site will also have its own site-specific interpretation that may include additional objects that really contextualise things for our local audiences.’
Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art, Penlee House Gallery & Museum, 30 April to 27 September. Free entry with National Art Pass.
Green Spaces, Shared Places exhibition, the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire, 11 July to 27 September.
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