Mike Murawski

After more than 20 years of work in education and museums, Murawski has become an outspoken advocate for transformative, human-centered change in museums, nonprofits, and beyond. He is a consultant, change leader, and the author of the book Museums as Agents of Change: A Guide to Becoming a Changemaker (2021).

Murawski is also the co-director of Art Nature Place, a business based in Portland, Oregon, that provides consulting services to outdoors nonprofits, museums, schools, and government agencies focused around place-based learning, connection to nature, and overall bringing a more human-centered approach to the organizations and projects we work with.

He previously served as the Director of Learning & Community Partnerships for the Portland Art Museum, Coordinator of Education and Public Programs at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, and Director of School Services at the Saint Louis Art Museum. He earned my MA and PhD in Education from American University in Washington, DC. When he’s not writing, drawing, or thinking about museums, you can find him on long trail runs in the forests and mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

Mike Murawski will be speaking at the MuseumNext Forecast Summit 2025 :

Museums as Future-Makers

What if the future of museums was less about predicting trends and more about daring to create new ones?

Amid the uncertainty of the coming years, museums will be called to move beyond business-as-usual, forging futures grounded in care, human connection, and community resilience. This talk challenges museums to embrace their role as future-makers, treating radical imagination and collective future-thinking as essential infrastructure. Imagination is not a luxury—it’s a strategy—and we must ask ourselves: What would museums look like if we all got to work imagining—and building—a future we were deeply in love with?

Drawing on inspiring thinkers and projects from around the world—both within and beyond the museum sector—we’ll explore how the future isn’t only something to forecast, but something we can practice right now. Featured examples will highlight practical ways museums can co-create with communities, design for intergenerational futures, and connect global challenges to local, lived experience. Museums have the potential to become laboratories of the future, where people don’t just reflect on change but dream it, rehearse it, and build it—starting today.