Schedule

What does visual literacy mean in a museum of visual arts for someone who cannot see? At M Leuven, accessibility is more than just removing barriers but creating a fundamental right to culture.

Join us as we share our journey of integrating the blind and visually impaired community into the heart of our museum operations. From focus groups to training our entire staff and rethinking our programs, we’ve learned that true inclusion requires a shift in mindset, not just a ramp at the door. We’ll discuss our successes, our “trial and error” moments, and how we are building a sustainable, inclusive future for every visitor.

There is often a (wide) gulf between culture lovers and sports enthousiasts. In the hyperdiverse city of Antwerp, martial arts in all its forms are widly practised. And many of these citizens are not acquainted with visiting museums, and vice versa.

We collaborated intensively with the city’s sports department, communities and clubs. In this way we enhanced the takeover of the Martial Arts exhibition from Wereldmuseum Amsterdam with images and stories that reveal the hidden world and heritage of Antwerp’s martial arts scene.

We also strengthen community connections by actively teaming up for a broad and varied public programme.

If diverse audiences aren’t coming, the issue isn’t them—it’s us. This session shows what happens when a museum stops designing for audiences and starts co-creating with them.

What happens when a photograph begins to move? This presentation explores After the Frame: Dance performance with Francisco Camacho, a site-specific performance inspired by Jeff Wall’s iconic imagery, where choreography unfolds within the exhibition space, in the show Jeff Wall – Time Stands Still. Photographs, 1980-2023. Revisiting Gust (1997), Francisco Camacho and invited performers activate the tension, stillness and latent drama embedded in the photographic image. Moving through the gallery, the performers embody instability, encounter and disruption, inviting audiences into an immersive and sensory experience. This talk reflects on the creative process and the potential of performance to transform how we see, feel and inhabit visual art.

The Chef-in-Residence program provided Toronto History Museums (THM) with a unique opportunity to bring foodways to life by exploring food as an expression of culture, history, and identity through the lens of Chef Jean Régis Raynaud. Through cooking classes, activations, tastings, and co-created menus for long-table dinners, the Chef shared the stories behind ingredients, recipes, and his community’s traditions. This program highlighted how food connects communities across generations and cultures. It reactivated the City’s museum foodways as spaces where food is not only preserved but practiced, tasted, and celebrated.

What happens when you hand over your public programs to a local arts organization? You make 8,000 new friends. Join the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Public Functionary to hear about the months of planning, production, and partnership leading up to a five-week, record-breaking series.

As one of the world’s largest museums located in a diverse, cosmopolitan city, The Metropolitan Museum of Art has the challenge of understanding how to work with and serve various audiences. This talk will cover how we adapted our programming, and developed new, language-inclusive programming, to innovate, further accessibility, and build long-term relationships with audiences.

Exemplified by a spring 2026 public program, this presentation shares key takeaways of the Getty Museum’s annual college night – from lessons learned from previous iterations, setting achievable desired goals and the overall development and implementation of a keystone public program targeted for college audiences today.

We created a fulsome residency that is embedded into the museum culture, the DJ has a dedicated space; the opportunity to bring in guest DJs to spin on given nights; and excitingly, they are invited to respond to the PMA’s collection to bring it to life via sound frequencies.

What happens when museums stop talking about the future—and invite their audiences to design it? The Mobile Futurium explores this idea through futures workshops that take place directly in schools. Using futures thinking as a method—combining scenario thinking with maker-based activities—students imagine futures and turn their ideas into tangible prototypes. In this talk, we share how “futures literacies” can be developed through creative, hands-on exploration. Using the Mobile Futurium as a case study, the presentation shows how futures methods can spark curiosity, empower youth voices and open new conversations about societal change far beyond museum walls.