Spending Patronage: MaILHoC address by Dinah Casson

Casson, Dinah

doi:10.60875/zqxn-6174

Spending Patronage: MaILHoC address by Dinah Casson

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2025-05-05_DinahCassonLecture_Transcript_FINAL.pdf

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Casson, Dinah

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May 5, 2025

Abstract

Dinah Casson CBE RDI is a British museum designer who has worked on several Science Museum projects including the Wellcome Wing and The Garden. After being introduced by Dr Alice Byrne, Co-I of the MaILHoC project, Casson looks back at 30 years of working in museum and exhibition design, a profession which she describes as a ‘bridge’ between curators and visitors. Casson gives an overview of her diverse portfolio of designing museums and exhibitions in the UK and internationally. From the seminal British Galleries at the V&A Museum, to projects such as Cité du Vin Bordeaux and the Benjamin Franklin Museum in Philadelphia, the designer describes how they approached the dynamics created by tensions between message, purpose and aesthetics. She also discusses the pragmatic challenges faced in projects funded by the Heritage Lottery, such as budget constraints and long planning processes. She talks about her experience of managing propaganda, sponsorship, and private patronage. She shares experiences of creating exhibitions with political undertones, such as for British Nuclear Fuels, which aimed to reframe the public perception of nuclear power. She illustrates how private sponsorship can shape not only exhibition politics, e.g. Lord Ashcroft’s donation of a large collection of military medals to a museum in exchange for naming rights, but also cultural production at large, e.g. the private purchase and transformation of Bishop Auckland, which effectively, reshaped the town and its cultural offerings. The keynote is followed by a Q&A with the audience, where Casson elaborates on relationships within exhibition teams, the use of text in galleries, and ‘matchmaking’ between museums and designers.