Future Scenarios for Museums and Art Institutions
How can we redefine the role of museums in a changing world?
British Council is a partner of the project
Project under the patronage of the National Institute of Museums
The Future Scenarios for Museums and Art Institutions is an innovative initiative aiming to redefine the role of museums and art institutions in the face of unprecedented global challenges. As the pace and scale of change increase, it becomes ever more difficult for institutional imagination and programming to move beyond familiar frameworks which, although effective in the past, are no longer adequate for contemporary needs.
The project’s authors seek to pose the right questions to uncover both challenges and opportunities in various scenarios for the future of museums and cultural institutions by the year 2050. Together with a wide range of stakeholders, they aim to create a vision where museums are not just repositories of the past, but dynamic spaces for dialogue between technology, art, and society. Viewing art institutions as laboratories of the future, the project invites them to play a key role in shaping tomorrow’s society and in building a more inclusive, sustainable, and technologically integrated future.
This project is not just about questioning the future of cultural institutions—it is a call to action, opening doors to designing new institutional solutions, exploring fresh relationships and synergies, creating new programmes and exhibition formats, and identifying knowledge and skill requirements for the future.
The project was initiated by 4CF The Futures Literacy Company, a leader in foresight and strategic expertise, and is co-organised by FutureEverything and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Events:
Workshops, 5-6 November at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw, Poland
The project kicks off on 5-6 November with a creative foresight workshop led by 4CF The Futures Literacy Company and Futures Everything Innovation Lab at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw. During the workshop, which will feature key representatives of Polish art institutions, four future scenarios will be developed, enriched with narratives and "artifacts from the future"—material representations of hypothetical museum environments. These speculative visions, reflecting the role of museums as agents of change by 2050, will aim to "bring the future to life" and spark discussion on the possibilities and challenges that cultural institutions may face in the coming decades. They will also help formulate recommendations for new practices, technologies, and relationships within art institutions up to 2050.
The workshops will explore the role of museums in the context of potential social, cultural, political, ecological, and technological transformations. Participants will address questions such as: What new institutional models may emerge in response to these changes, and how will they affect relationships between museums, cities, authorities, ideologies, the environment, and new social identities? By using modern foresight methods and design fiction, participants will also gain valuable tools for defining the missions and long-term strategies of museums and other art institutions amid volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Presentation of Results:
4th Research in the Cultural Sector Conference: (Co)Creation (28-29 November 2024) in Cracow, Poland
MUSEUMS AND TRUST: The 14th CoMUSEUM International Conference (4-6 December 2024) in Athens, Greece