Valerie Wilson, Curator of Textiles, takes us behind-the-scenes to look at some of the most impressive items in our Irish Dance Collection! ☘️ To celebrate the #Fleadh coming to Belfast, this beautiful velvet costume is now on display at our sister museum @ulstermuseum.org for the month of August!

We were delighted to welcome Amber Butchart to Ashes to Fashion today! Her work as a fashion & textiles historian centres the stories of the people behind the clothes, humanising and bringing complexity to garments.

"We Should All Be Feminists" Newly on display, this t-shirt featured in Maria Grazia Chiuri's debut collection as the first female creative director at Dior. It was inspired by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s essay and TEDx talk of the same name.

'A Tale about a tail—a tail that belonged to a little red squirrel, and his name was Nutkin.' This week's #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'nature and animals' for 'An A to Z of Beatrix Potter' at The Armitt 🦔

Today's #OnlineArtExchange theme is sacred symbols, chosen with Liverpool Cathedral. Colin Middleton (1910-83) is one of NI's most treasured painters. 'Christ Androgyne' (1943) uses Surrealism to express his deep unease at the events of the Second World War & the suffering of those caught up in it.

What's rarer than a tropical rainforest? A #TemperateRainforest, which makes up less than 1% of global land cover. 🍃 Today is #WorldRainforestDay, so put on your wellies, grab a hand lens, and step into one of the rarest rainforest ecosystems in the world → bit.ly/4xoSG55

⚽ Who's ready for the #FIFAWorldCup? Who's your team? This week's #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'football for the FIFA World Cup' 🏆 To celebrate, we've taken a deep dive into our archives to find some of our favourite football related photographs. @artukdotorg.bsky.social

It's #WorldOceanDay, let's look at sponges! 🧽 It's hard to identify species of sponges by eye. Spicules, which make up the sponge's skeleton, are the most accurate indicator of species.

This small bronze disc is one of the most iconic pieces of early Irish metalwork. It was dredged from the River Bann at Loughan Island, near Coleraine, in 1939. It is delicately decorated in the La Tène style, dating to the Late Bronze Age-Iron Age. You can see it on display in @ulstermuseum.org

Today's #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'wallpaper' to mark 'The Art of Wallpaper' at the Watts Gallery. This painting's use of pointillism brings an incredible vibrancy, from the wallpaper to the carpet to the clothing, that reflects the excitement of the titular arrival.

Today's #OnlineArtExchange theme is myths and legends to celebrate 'Cornish Myths & Legends' at Cornwall Museum! Dhruva Mistry was born in India & spent illustrious years in the UK. Much of his work has been concerned with the idea of animal-human hybrids to suggest creatures of fabulous power.

"If you had 30 seconds to sum up your whole time as a nurse, what do you think you would say?" Today is #InternationalNursesDay ❤️‍🩹🩹🩺 Curator of Modern History, Rebecca Laverty, spent time with nurses who spent their careers at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, Co. Down.

🖼 This week's #OnlineArtExchange is ‘urban landscapes’ for the exhibition 'Underground (And Surface)' @ Guildhall Art Gallery. 🏗 'Cranes, Baker Street' was drawn and painted by Kenneth Shoesmith, who travelled the world and designed travel posters for the Royal Mail Line and for Southern Railways.

Our Fashion and Textiles collection holds around 5000 objects, from 16th century needlework to today's fashion - painstakingly rebuilt from the ashes of a collection destroyed by a fire in 1976. Join Curator Charlotte McReynolds in retracing the journey from ashes to fashion → bit.ly/4d4u4pS

'Making Her Mark: A Celebration of Women in Art' opens today at penleehousegallery.bsky.social, and to celebrate, this week's #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'women artists'. What an excellent opportunity to share 'I Overslept Until the Evening' (2014) by Makiko Kudo!

💃 Have you ever danced so hard that you've melted your dress? Watch as Bethany Skuce, Object Conservator, works on a dress made from gelatine sequins → bit.ly/4vzIVQo #AshesToFashion #FashionConservation #FashionHistory

On this day 85 years ago, Belfast suffered the second of four air raids that have come to be known as the Belfast Blitz. In 1941, Belfast played an increasingly important role in the war effort - but it was not well defended against an attack from the air.

Have you had a look at this astonishing little box in #AshestoFashion? 🔍 On Saturday 18th April, Dr Lynn Hulse examines the environment in which girls from middle & upper-class backgrounds learned to ply their needle, the training they received & the images they chose to stitch → bit.ly/3O6StBH

Today's #OnlineArtExchange theme is ‘ancient art’ for Gladiators of Britain & Uncovering Roman Carlisle at @tulliecarlisle.bsky.social! Inniscaltra, also called Holy Island, is an island in Lough Derg. The monastery was founded by St Caimin in the 600s, but was burned by Vikings in 836 and 922 AD.

"Anyway, here's Wonderwall." Today's #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'music' for 'A Grand Chorus: The Power of Music' @ the Foundling Museum. Judging by her cherubic friend's face, we can only assume the sitter was a beginner. @artukdotorg.bsky.social Lady with a Guitar (c.1600s), unknown. BELUM.U210

Takabuti has become an iconic resident at the museum. But who was she? How did she come to be in Northern Ireland? And what is her future? This video features some of the perspectives we’ve been listening to regarding ways of honouring and respecting Takabuti, a mummified woman from Ancient Egypt.

This week's #OnlineArtExchange theme is 'tiles'. The tiles of this renaissance church is just one impressive feature captured by Dirck van Delen. Architectural painting reached its peak in the work of seventeenth-century Dutch artists, who notably used architecture as a subject in its own right.

Last weekend was the highlight of Monaco’s social calendar: the 70th edition of the Rose Ball. This beautifully cut outfit was worn to the 1988 #RoseBall by Princess Caroline of Monaco. It was designed by Marc Bohan, whose tenure at Dior was marked by classic elegance and tailoring. #AshesToFashion

✋The Shrine of St. Patrick’s Hand dates from the fourteenth or fifteenth century. It is still used to hold a relic believed to belong to Saint Patrick. ☘ 600 years later, the shrine is still in use today during St. Patrick’s Day mass at St. Patrick’s Church, Belfast. Learn more → bit.ly/4s8lFaj

You can now read a new page of the Catalogue of The Native Plants of Ireland by #JohnTempleton (1766-1825), on loan from @rialibrary.bsky.social Paper Conservator Harriet Gillespie shares with us why she turns the pages of books on display. #UlsterMuseum #Botany

This week’s #OnlineArtExchange is ‘books’ for 'Lady Chatterley’s Cover: The Book Designs of Stephen Russ’ at Chippenham Museum @chippenhammuseum.bsky.social It felt only fitting to share some photographs in our collection of the Old Linenhall Library 📚

Throughout Ashes to Fashion and Discover Fashion, the artistry, creativity, skills and vision of women are on display. This International Women’s Day, take a closer look at the female designers behind some of our most stunning pieces 🧵:

This week's #OnlineArtExchange theme is art that explores the home, to mark the exhibition 'Catherine Opie: To be Seen' at National Portrait Gallery. 'Medical Students' by Gerard Dillon presents the everyday of shared student rooms - spaces where study, conversation and sleep happened side by side.

ASHES TO FASHION | NOW OPEN 👗 Enjoy this sneak peek of the sewing together of the exhibition 🧵 Book your tickets to Ashes to Fashion now → www.ulstermuseum.org/temporary-ex... #UlsterMuseum #AshesToFashion

Today’s #OnlineArtExchange theme is ‘renewal’ to celebrate our very own exhibition opening tomorrow, ‘Ashes to Fashion’ 💃 Just next door to ‘Ashes to Fashion’ you’ll find ‘Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Joscelyne: The Second Marriage’ (1972) by Anthony Green. @artukdotorg.bsky.social