Experiencing the future of museums: Their transformative role in society

The Benaki Museum invites audiences to engage in a forward-looking exploration of the future of museums, placing culture at the center of how we imagine, shape, and inhabit the worlds to come. Museums are no longer neutral custodians of heritage; they are active agents in shaping social imagination, cultural values, and collective futures. As spaces of reflection, experimentation, and transformation, they are uniquely positioned to support new ways of understanding and being in the world. This signature event, drawing on the CoMuseum International Conference as an ideas hub, offers a two-part exploration of the future of museums. It brings together perspectives from experts in strategic foresight with a facilitated, participatory workshop that invites participants not only to reflect on the future, but to experience and explore it collectively. Participants will consider questions such as:

• What plausible futures can we collectively imagine with culture at the center?
• What forms of care, spaces, and experiences will people need from museums in 30 years?
• How might museums connect the deep past with radically new futures?
• Could museums evolve into something beyond today’s imagination?

Inspired by UNESCO’s Futures Literacy framework, the event employs embodied and performance-based methodologies to enable participants to access new forms of knowledge through collective intelligence, emotional awareness, and experiential engagement—contributing to a deeper understanding of how museums can anticipate, imagine, and shape future possibilities.