What Happens When a Museum Gives Away Power?

You might think museums are in the business of collecting objects. Or maybe telling stories. But what if their most radical function—especially in a divided society—is to give people power?

That’s exactly what the Migration Museum in London is trying to do. And it turns out, when you hand over control of decision-making, exhibitions, and even values to the community… you get better museums.

At the Museums & Public Programs Summit 2025, Mona Jamil from the Migration Museum made a case for why co-production isn’t a progressive luxury—it’s a strategic necessity.

The Problem with “Inclusion”

Let’s start with the problem.

Museums love the word inclusion. They hold listening sessions. They translate panels. They invite community groups to visit their exhibitions. But most of the time, the institution is still holding the pen.

Mona and her team realised they were doing what many well-meaning museums do: designing projects for or about people—not with them. The relationships were temporary. The engagement was surface-level. And crucially, the power dynamics never really shifted.

So they decided to try something different. Something riskier. They asked a radical question:

What if the community doesn’t just visit the museum—what if they build it?

A People’s Panel, Not a Focus Group

The first experiment was the People’s Panel.

Unlike the typical advisory group that rubber-stamps pre-existing plans, this panel was formed to co-create the museum’s Community Engagement Values from scratch. There were no predetermined outcomes, no polished decks. Just a group of Lewisham residents, sitting in a museum in a shopping centre, figuring out what this place should stand for.

They talked. They disagreed. They shared meals. They argued over language. And in the end, they didn’t just produce a list of values—they co-wrote the methodology for how the museum would work moving forward.

And then something strange happened. The panelists didn’t just shape the museum. They became part of it. They formed relationships with each other. They took ownership. They stuck around.

That wasn’t a side benefit. That was the point.

The Exhibition Nobody at the Museum Instructed/Ordered/Prescribed

Next came Inside, Outside, and All In Between—the Migration Museum’s first community-curated exhibition. Five people from diverse backgrounds, all with lived experiences of migration, led the curatorial process.

These weren’t museum professionals. One was a young man who wanted to tell stories from Kosovo. Another reflected on what it meant to visit Ivory Coast as a child of immigrants. One had never even set foot in an exhibition space before being invited to curate one.

They brought stories that wouldn’t have surfaced through conventional museum channels. They brought honesty. They brought emotional complexity. And they built something more impactful than any external consultant could have engineered.

Because here’s the paradox: when you relinquish control, you often get more compelling results—not less.

Lessons from Letting Go

Mona didn’t pretend it was easy. Co-production, she said, is slow, messy, and emotionally charged. It requires planning for conflict, designing for inclusion, and thinking as much about tea and food as you do about evaluation metrics.

But the trade-offs are worth it. The museum got:

A stronger, community-owned set of values.

A toolkit filled with real, lived advice on collaboration.

An exhibition that told stories otherwise missing from the cultural landscape.

And perhaps most importantly, a cohort of people who now see the museum as theirs.

This wasn’t tokenism. It wasn’t marketing. It was structural.

So… Why Don’t More Museums Do This?

Because co-production challenges the very foundations of how museums have historically operated.

It asks professionals to stop being the sole authors. It blurs the line between audience and curator. It makes room for discomfort, conflict, and stories that don’t fit tidy categories. And it requires giving up control over outcomes.

But as Mona made clear, the reward is enormous: a museum that’s more relevant, more trusted, and more connected to the people it represents.

And as the Migration Museum prepares to open its permanent home in the City of London in 2027, they’re betting on co-production not as a phase, but as a philosophy.

Their goal? Collect 5,000 migration stories. Grow their People’s Panel. Expand the Community Curators Programme. And continue to do the hardest and most important thing a museum can do:

Let go.

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Mona Jamil, Head of Civic Engagement at the Migration Museum spoke at the Museums & Public Programs Summit 2025.