MUŻE.X … the conference about the future!
The international museum conference to debate the post-covid-19 museum landscape
We have had to postpone due to the COVID-19 pandemic but we’re still committed to deliver. We feel the need for this debate more than ever before. The conference shall now be held in late October 2021 with a series of pre-conference events happening between October and early- December 2020.
More information and dates to be communicated shortly. In the meantime … What is the conference all about?
The conference is about shaping museum futures.
Being unreasonably bold would be faced with the challenges of the now that would acknowledge much more what comes across as reasonable. It might be absolutely unreasonable that we re-invent the museum institution to address climate emergencies. Transforming the museum into a public space with a participatory management model is an ambition yet to be achieved. We might ask whether Museums can morph into genuinely democratic, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical conversations about pasts and futures. We could also question whether museums can ever be fully integrated within communities, acting as co-catalysts for radical changes in ways of seeing and living. Indeed, will a human-central museum, at peace with the natural environment, ever see the light of day?
This conference seeks to present the latest thinking, actions and initiatives that modestly or radically depart from the traditional mould of curator/object-central spaces. We are keen on showcasing the latest developments in the museum landscape, be they conceptual initiatives or projects that are happening and evolving in the now, and which may well inform, influence and define the museum, particularly with regards to climate change, artificial intelligence and future technologies, but not just. We are open to anything that is absolutely unreasonable to predict a reasonable future for museums.
Who will be the keynote speakers?
The conference shall feature three key note speakers that are lead thinkers on museum futures. They are at the forefront of the latest museum developments be they institutional, conceptual or hands-on.
Jette Sandahl
… served as Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the National Museum of Denmark, and as Director Experience at National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. She was the founding director of the pioneering Museum of World Cultures in Sweden and of the Women’s Museum of Denmark. Most recently, she was director of the Museum of Copenhagen.
She attended the Getty Museum Management Institute, and has held a number of elected and appointed posts in the national and international museum world. Most recently, she led ICOM’s efforts to define a new framework and new parameters for a current museum definition. A long time EMYA judge, she now chairs the European Museum Forum.
Spanning her background in psychology and her museum career is a commitment to the formation of new paradigms and platforms for individual and collective empowerment, for cultural participation and social justice. She publishes within the board museological field.
Mike Murawski
… is a changemaker, museum thinker, and author living in Portland, Oregon, USA. Mike currently serves as the Director of Learning & Community Partnerships for the Portland Art Museum, and is the founding editor of ArtMuseumTeaching.
Prior to his position at the Portland Art Museum, he served as Director of School Services at the Saint Louis Art Museum as well as Coordinator of Education and Public Programs at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a contributor to the Museums as Sites of Social Action (MASS Action) initiative supporting equity and inclusion in museums, and served as First Wave Project Advisor for OF/BY/FOR ALL initiative based out of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History helping civic and cultural organizations grow of, by, and for their communities.
Mike is proud to be the co-founder of the #MuseumsAreNotNeutral campaign aimed at erasing the myth of museum neutrality and demanding our institutions act as agents of change. He has spoken nationally and internationally on the social responsibilities of museums and how museums can serve as agents of positive change and social action within their own communities.
Diane Drubay
is a long-standing member of the museum and innovation effervescence, a specialist in museum strategy but also an event curator, community builder, writer and artist.
She founded Buzzeum in 2007, a new media and communication agency which specialised in museums and cultural institutions, and the homonymous blog which gave her international fame by reviewing innovative museum news. Before founding Buzzeum she worked at the French Ministry of Culture and Communication as a digital project manager, and at the Henner Museum in Paris as the online communication manager and event curator.
In 2011 she co-founded Museomix, a hackathon for museums. In 2013 she founded We Are Museums in Lithuania, a yearly event and European hub at the intersection of culture and innovation which has been traveling since then to Poland, Germany, Romania, Latvia, Morocco and Poland.
Since 2014 she has curated the programming of Museum Connections, the international trade show and conference for museum businesses set in Paris every January.
For the last few years she has taught digital strategy and project management at Sciences Po Paris and EAC Paris, and regularly speaks at international conferences to share her vision of the future of museums.
Interested in being part of this exciting project?
We would definitely be interested to hear from all those of you out there who are changemakers at the forefront of the museum landscape. You might be an up-and-coming researcher or a seasoned academic, a museum curator in love with innovation and new ideas to explore or an educator pushing for new ideas and interpretation strategies. Go HERE to learn more if interested.
The bi-annual conference is an international project developed jointly by Prof. Carmel Borg and Dr Sandro Debono at the Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education (University of Malta). The conference seeks to inform the Department’s vision for and its active advocacy towards democratising the museum space and develop new museum models that are inclusive and polyphonic.
The conference is being held under the distinguished patronage of the President of the Republic of Malta.
