Research Seminar | Regional Exhibition and Collection Histories

Research Seminar | Regional Exhibition and Collection Histories

Wednesday 11 November, 4:15 – 5:30pm

Lecture Room 1, Arts Building, University of Birmingham

Drop-in, free

A seminar and launch event for Dr Sophie Hatchwell and Dr Hana Leaper’s book Post-1945 Art Collections and Regional Research Networks: Collaborative Art History (Routledge, 2026) hosted by the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies.

In this seminar, Drs. Hatchwell and Leaper will discuss their long-running research into post-war art collections, regional research networks, and the public histories of museums and exhibitions. Their collaborative work, explored in the book Post-1945 Art Collections and Regional Research Networks: Collaborative Art History  (Routledge, 2026), has examined how regionally rooted research can generate new histories of art, place, and display, while also addressing the practical and ethical conditions under which such research is produced.

In their current exhibition, Big Data; Networked Narratives (Exhibition Research Lab, Liverpool Sept 2026-Jan 2027), they use co-curation methodologies and archival data from John Moores Painting Prize exhibitions 1957-1987 to reconsider how post-war British art collection histories can be made more open, plural and accountable.

The seminar will be followed by a drinks reception from 5:30 – 6:30pm in the Mason Lounge, Arts Building, University of Birmingham.

An installation of collaborative artwork, with red writing on brown cardboard.
Installation view, ‘The John Moores Painting Prize and the Rise of the Sixties in Liverpool’, Exhibition Research Lab Gallery, 2019, showing collaboratively created artwork co-ordinated by Charlotte Hill and views over Liverpool. Photograph: Hana Leaper

About the speakers

Sophie Hatchwell (FRHistS, SFHEA) is Associate Professor in History of Art at the University of Birmingham where she is Deputy Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange for the College of Arts and Law. Sophie is Academic Lead of the University’s Culture Forward network and leads the editorial team of Midland Art Papers. Her recent publications include ‘Civic Galleries and interwar exhibition cultures in Britain’, Museum History Journal (2024), and Post-1945 Art Collections and Regional Research Networks: Collaborative Art History, Routledge, 2026.

Hana Leaper is Reader in Histories of Art and Museum Studies, Programme Leader of the Exhibition Studies MA, and Director for Research of the Exhibition Research Lab at Liverpool John Moores University. She holds an embedded post with the John Moores Painting Prize and her article ‘Contemporary Co-Production with Historical Collaborative Feminist Precedents: Exploring community-led exhibition-making through The Famous Women Project’ was published in Visual Cultures journal earlier this year. Alongside Dr Sophie Hatchwell, Hana co-convened the Post-War Painting in Regional Collections research group.

Access 

  • The Arts building has step-free access and automatic doors at the entrance
  • There is step-free access throughout the building, and a lift to other floors
  • There is an accessible toilet on the ground floor
  • for more information, see AccessAble or feel free to contact our team at [email protected]