Tracy Jones, Head of Communications, The National Gallery (London, U.K.)

Tracy Jones is Head of Communications at The National Gallery in London, where she has worked for 20 years. In her role she oversees Press, Marketing, CRM, Social Media, Public Affairs and Internal Communications for one of the most visited museums in the world.

She is also a Founder of Brera PR, a renowned public relations consultancy specialising in the arts and heritage sectors. Since its foundation in 2008, Brera has developed a reputation for delivering exceptional results for its clients at regional, national and international levels.

Tracy began her media career in radio, both as a journalist and presenter.

Soupgate - Navigating a Crisis in a National Museum

14 October 2022 saw possibly one of the most globally famous attacks on a work of art, when two Just Stop Oil protesters threw tomato soup over Van Gogh's iconic Sunflowers in London's National Gallery. Protesters would attack the museum twice more over the following two years.

How does a museum react when its artworks are attacked in the name of the climate emergency and the whole world is looking at it? Thanks to social media, breaking news spreads around the world within minutes – so how does it move at pace, but stay in control? How does it communicate on such a febrile matter, not only externally to journalists and stakeholders, but also internally to its own staff? How does it react to the changing landscape of who and what constitutes the media? How does it navigate relationships with those who might even be complicit in the attacks? What challenges and pressures does it face and how does it overcome them? And what does it learn and then do differently when the attack happens again. And then again…