THE TIME IS NOW – Museums as Agents of Change

Museum for the United Nations is led by Molly Fannon, who joined as CEO in 2019. Molly’s international career has spanned international development work, strategy in the cultural sector, fundraising and academia. Most recently, as Director of the Smithsonian’s Office of International Relations and Global Programs, she oversaw global partnership and strategy work across the work of the entire Institution, uniting the sciences, art, culture, and education.

As Director of Parque Explora, Colombia’s largest science museum, aquarium and planetarium, Andrés Roldán leads his team in the creation of interactive and innovative learning environments that contribute to the public appropriation of scientific and technological knowledge. He also leads projects that dilute the museum’s walls and take it to different territories and communities, through workshops, community processes and itinerant experiences.

Bonita was appointed as director of the District Six Museum in 2008. Her professional training is as an educator with strong anti-apartheid activist roots. She completed both her under- and post-graduate degrees at the University of Cape Town and her 2005 masters dissertation focused on the narratives of people who had been forcibly removed from various areas in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Both her parents are from District Six, and she grew up in township called Bonteheuwel together with other families who were forcibly removed, when the areas where they lived were declared for ‘whites only’.

Raised on a dairy farm in Taranaki, Courtney holds a Masters in Art History from Victoria University of Wellington, and was the 2015 recipient of a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Scholarship to research contemporary museum practice in the United States. Courtney is the immediate past chair of Museums Aotearoa, chair of The Pantograph Punch, and a trustee of Arts Wellington and the Wellington Performing Arts Trust. She was the visual arts commentator for RNZ’s Nine to Noon programme from 2010 to 2019. She has also held governance and advisory roles with the National Digital Forum, Tohatoha (Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand), Inland Revenue, and MBIE.

As Executive Director of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, Elizabeth Silkes guides the strategic growth and direction of a thriving coalition of over 300 museums, historic sites, and memory initiatives in 65 countries. Through regional and issue-based networks, the Coalition supports Sites of Conscience across the globe in developing innovative public engagement and human rights programs.

George Okello Abungu is a Cambridge-trained archaeologist and former Director General of the National Museums of Kenya. He is CEO of Okello Abungu Heritage Consultants and a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement in Defense of Art from the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA). George Abungu has researched, published and taught in the disciplines of archaeology, heritage management, and museology, culture and development.

Frances Morris has played a key role in the development of Tate, joining as a curator in 1987, becoming Head of Displays at Tate Modern (2000–2006) and then Director of Collection, International Art until April 2016 when she was appointed to her current role. Frances holds a BA in History of Art from Cambridge University and an MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London and is an Hon Fellow King’s College Cambridge. She is a Board member at Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh and Board Mori Art Museum, Tokyo and a member of the CIMAM Board.