Museums as venues

Recently, museums have increasingly been thought of as democratic places again. This requires visitors as actors, less passive consumers and more actively participating stakeholders. This rethinking of audiences and visitors poses challenges for institutions – they have to create the appropriate framework, though their starting points are quite different: Museums that strive for prestige function completely differently from those that increasingly see themselves as places of interaction for a local audience. Art museums have different possibilities than say cultural history institutions. Utilising a historic building creates different conditions than using a new museum building. Even if the conditions they have to work with are different, all museums share similar basic issues: Which concepts promise audiences interesting event spaces? How can these spaces be designed architecturally? Do openness and empowering audiences possibly come at the expense of research and theme-based offerings? Finally, what expertise is needed in teams that cannot simply grow in the face of increasingly precarious financial situations? As part of the event, we will be looking at institutions that are currently attempting this kind of transition. In addition to staff, active users will get a chance to share their ideas and wishes. And workshop participants are also invited to express their concerns from their everyday museum work.