ICOM UK is made up of all the current ICOM members resident in the UK. An Executive Committee is elected every three years and is responsible for:
- Ensuring the timely and efficient administration of ICOM UK’s affairs
- Setting and defining strategic goals
- Ensuring effective financial management and reporting
- Championing the work of ICOM UK and ICOM
- Liaison with the ICOM Secretariat
ICOM UK Committee
Dr Christian Baars – Co-Chair (Head of Collections Care Department, National Museums Liverpool)
Christian Baars is Head of the Collections Care Department at National Museums Liverpool where he is responsible for the safety of, and access to, collections (in storage, on display, loan and during transport) and collections management data. Following on from two decades of environmental campaigning early in his life, he has successfully implemented numerous projects to reduce the energy-dependency of museums.
Christian is an Institute of Conservation accredited Conservator/Restorer, and an Associate of the Museums Association.
He previously worked at National Museum Cardiff, served the Welsh Museums Federation as Treasurer, and was Project Manager of a project to review and improve use of collections in local museums in Wales. Holding a PhD in the evolution of Earth’s atmospheric composition, Christian has published extensively on Heritage Science, Conservation and Palaeontology, and co-authored a book on the curation and care of museum collections.
Maria Blyzinsky – Co-Chair & UK Blue Shield Representative (Independent Heritage Consultant and Writer)
Being the trustee with responsibility for liaison with the UK branch of Blue Shield International, Maria looks forward to strengthening ties between the two organisations.
She has a longstanding interest in the protection of culture under threat, having been an advisor to Heritage Without Borders where she trained museum professionals to work in post-conflict zones. As an Anglo-Ukrainian, she is involved with numerous initiatives to support cultural heritage colleagues in Ukraine. In 2022, she organised Heritage in Crisis, an ICOM UK pilot project of on-line talks now available on YouTube.
Maria is a London-based heritage consultant and independent curator. In 2008, she co-founded The Exhibitions Team, an association of museum professionals specialising in exhibitions, collections and interpretation. Her career began as a volunteer for Peterborough City Museum and Art Gallery, followed by various roles at the V&A and Royal Museums Greenwich, where she is now Curator Emeritus for the Royal Observatory. She is an alumna of the University of East Anglia’s Museum Leadership Programme, a former trustee of the National Jazz Archive, and served on the Museum Association’s Professional Development Committee. She is currently researching a book on generating ideas for exhibitions. As a secret rock and blues fan, Maria’s career highlight to date was acting as a heritage consultant for Abbey Road Studios.
Claire Messenger – Secretary (Manager, International Training Programme (ITP), British Museum)
Claire manages the British Museum’s International Training Programme (ITP) where she creates, develops and delivers an annual programme and a variety of further engagement projects that reflect current thinking in the culture and heritage sector. Through sharing knowledge, skills and experiences, she works to create and promote a sustainable global network of museum and heritage professionals.
With previous roles in the British Museum, leading a departmental administration team and working on loans, exhibitions and special events and projects, Claire now leads the International Training Programme team.
She works extensively with cultural bodies including historic buildings, sites and estates; private and council museums; foundations and trusts; university museums and departments; overseas institutions, governments and embassies. These local and global networks have proven essential to delivering programmes and projects for the ITP and helps support fellows to shape their own institutions while ensuring the programme remains relevant, flexible and at the forefront of current thinking.
Claire sits on the Supervisory Board of the British Egyptian Society, is a member of the Museums Association and of the British Museum’s International Activity Group. She is also an alumnus of the Clore Leadership Programme.
Abeer Eladany – Treasurer (Curatorial Assistant, Aberdeen University Museums)
Abeer Eladany graduated from the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, and then gained a postgraduate diploma and Pre-MSc degree from the Faculty of Tourism, Helwan University. She worked at the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, for more than 10 years before travelling to Italy to study conservation of ceramics in Florence. She then joined the KNH Centre, University of Manchester, to study Biomedical and Forensic Studies in Egyptology where she achieved her MSc and PhD. In 2015, Abeer gained an MLitt in Museum Studies from the University of Aberdeen.
In her current role as a curatorial assistant at the University of Aberdeen’s Museums and Special Collections, she promotes wider access to the museum collections. Abeer’s research interests are mainly related to human remains, the history of Egyptology, and Museology (particularly Ethics and Repatriation), and she has joined archaeological excavations in Egypt and in Scotland.
Abeer is an active volunteer for a wide range of charities ranging from community projects to heritage groups in the UK and is currently a Trustee for SHMU, a community media organisation and one of the core cultural organisations in Aberdeen. She is also a director on the Board of Trustees of Soundfestival a new music incubator based in north-east Scotland encouraging new music creation and discovery.
Abeer is a member of the Slavery, Empire and Scottish Museums steering group that has recently published recommendations following a large public consultation regarding how Scotland’s existing and future museum collections and spaces can better recognise and represent a more accurate portrayal of Scotland’s colonial and slavery history.
Arran Rees – Head of the Bursary Committee (Museum Data Manager, Collections Trust)
Arran is a researcher and museum professional currently working on the Congruence Engine project – employed by the University of Leeds, but living in sunny (rainy) South Wales. He has worked in and with museums for over a decade, having spent time as a curator and a collections manager in museums such as the Museum of Cardiff, The Royal Mint Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
In 2017 he started his PhD at the University of Leeds where he investigated collecting social media and memes in museums, and is generally interested in contemporary collecting and different approaches to collections management.
During that time, he joined the ICOM UK committee as the new Student and Emerging Professional member and has since taken on roles relating to the website and social media, and now as Head of the Bursary Committee. He also spends a large amount of time trying to encourage his cat to love him.
Huaiyuan Ren – Student and Emerging Professionals Representative (PhD Candidate)
Huaiyuan is a PhD candidate in the School of Arts, University of Kent. He received a Business Administration BA from Tianjin University, China in 2017. Huaiyuan came to Kent to start a MA program in Curating in the same year, which he completed in 2018 with the exhibition Beyond The Barricade in Studio 3 Gallery curated with fellow colleagues.
In the spring of 2019, Huaiyuan started his PhD research on contemporary art exhibitions from the 1980s onwards in China and the UK. His working title is The Different Approaches of Chinese and Western Artists and Curators (Art Dealers) Towards Exhibitions. His research focuses not only on the artistic approach of artists and curators, but more importantly, on how contemporary art in both countries influences each other, and how the exhibitions and art world in general influence the public, shaping and changing the avant-garde culture of an entire society.
Hannah Crowdy – Northern Ireland Representative & Committee Member (Head of Curatorial, National Museums Northern Ireland)
Hannah Crowdy has worked as a museum professional since 2002, beginning her career in a range of curatorial roles in local museums in England.
In 2009, she re-located to Northern Ireland to take up the new post of Interpretation Manager at National Museums NI, and in 2017 she was appointed to the role of Head of Curatorial. She is now part of the Senior Management Team and is responsible for a department of forty-two professional staff, leading the organisation’s core activities of collections development and research, and overseeing the exhibition programme and education programmes.
She has taken a leading role in National Museums NI’s work relating to contested histories and the legacy of the past in Northern Ireland, which has included the development of The Troubles and Beyond gallery at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. She has also devised and is leading on ‘Inclusive Global Histories’, National Museums NI’s programme of work to decolonise its museums and collections.
She sat on the Museums Association’s Ethics Committee from 2017-2023, and in that role participated in the Steering Group for the Decolonisation Confidence and Skills Programme. She is also on the Board for the Belfast Photo Festival.
Duncan Dornan – Scotland Representative & Committee Member (Head of Museums and Collections at Glasgow Life)
Duncan Dornan was appointed Head of Museums and Collections for Glasgow Life in 2015, having joined the company in 2013 as Senior Museums Manager.
Prior to this he had worked with the National Museums of Scotland since 1999 as a Museum Manager, establishing the new, National Museum of Rural Life. Within Glasgow Life his role involves responsibility for the management and development of Glasgow’s 8 world class museums along with the innovative Glasgow Museums Resources Centre.
He is also responsible for the cities collections; covering archaeology, natural history, technology, fine and decorative art and social history, the special collections in the Mitchell library and the city archives.
Nerys Rudder – Committee Member (Collections Services Lead, National Museums Liverpool)
Nerys Rudder, BA, MA, MSc, is Collections Services Lead for National Museums Liverpool. She is privileged to have enjoyed 25 years’ experience as collections manager, curator and conservator in the UK and Caribbean, working across galleries, libraries, archives and museums.
A past chair of ICOM Barbados, Nerys is also a member of the talent and participation committee of the International Institute for Conservation. An International and AHRC Scholar she is an alumna of Cardiff University and Central Saint Martins College. In her spare time, she has cultivated an unhealthy attachment to difficult houseplants.
Liz Johnson – Committee Member (Director, Museums & Collections Development, Arts Council England)
Liz Johnson is currently Director, Museums & Collections Development/ Birmingham, Arts Council England.
Liz has worked in museums, arts, heritage and the third sector for the last 20 years. She started out as the first female security guard at the National Railway Museum and has also worked for the British Architectural Library at the Royal Institute of British Architects, the University of Leicester, a start-up women’s charity, Leicester City Council, the Museum, Libraries & Archive Council and the National Trust. This is her second stint at Arts Council England. Liz is an Ambassador for the National Forest.
Natalie Urquhart – Overseas Territories Representative & Committee Member (Director of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands)
Natalie Urquhart is the Director of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands. She holds an MA in Art History, and Arts Policy and Management, and has over twenty years’ experience in the cultural sector specialising in strategic development, collections management, and curatorial programming.
Natalie is a past president of the Museums Association of the Caribbean (2017-2020) and a representative for their ICOM affiliated member committee. She has formally served as a core committee member of the Tilting Axis Caribbean arts alliance, the Nationals Arts & Culture Awards Committee, the Cayman Islands National Cultural Policy Committee, as well as contributing to working committees for UNESCO, ICOM, the EULAC Foundation, and others. She currently serves as a Project Advisor for the Shared Islands Stories Project (University of St Andrews), Advisory Board Member for University of the Cayman Islands Cultural Studies programme, and as the Creative Director for Cayman Art Week.
Natalie is a leading authority on Caymanian art and author of the islands’ first formal art history. She is the recipient of several National Awards for her work and was recognised in the 2022 Queen’s New Year Honours list with a British Empire Medal for her contribution to arts and culture in the Cayman Islands and wider region.
