With its research project “museum global”, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen is responding to the impact and challenges of globalisation processes. Taking its own collection as point of departure, a critical analysis will be started that questions the canon of western art historiography along with the methods of presenting and mediating art.

“Who does the museum belong to?” This at first glance simple question asked by a schoolboy from a “welcoming class” will be asked anew at the symposium against the backdrop of our changing societies. With the aim of studying and disclosing the existing structures in museums and responding to the growing diversity and heterogeneity in the ways of life exhibited in society, the symposium will think about new forms of mediating art and showing/illustrating cultural expressions and artefacts.

Who has a voice in the museum, and who should get one? The aim of the symposium is to find out who up till now has been represented in the museum and what possibilities can be set up for expanding the involvement of the general public. The attitudes of the institution and its protagonists play a decisive role in the encounter between museum and audience. What forms of personal and media-based mediation are particularly suited to widening people’s gaze, changing our perspectives, and communicating between one another as equals?

The symposium will take place from 18 through 20 January 2017 at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Grabbeplatz 5, 40213 Düsseldorf (in German and English, with simultaneous translation). It is directed to international museum experts, art and cultural mediators, and pedagogues. 

For more information, please download the Call for Papers