Inspiration

What it means to embrace your own dilemmas as a core competency of effective cultural leadership, Troidl and Zierold explain in their inputs.

In his keynote, Beat Fehlmann shows why transparency about impact is not an end in itself, but the foundation for genuine cultural policy dialogue.

The Gdański Archipelag Kultury (GAK) is no conventional cultural centre. Rather, it is a network of eight venues spread across seven city districts — decentralised, deeply embedded in its neighbourhoods, and very much in flux. Director Monika Dylewska-Libera and her deputy Jakub Walczyk are working to move the institution away from passive presentation and towards genuine participation. Their conversation offers a revealing glimpse into that process.

The Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk ranks among the most ambitious history museums in Europe. It tells the story of the war through multiple perspectives — European rather than national in its outlook. It is a stance that has brought the institution under considerable political pressure, and one that it now upholds with renewed clarity under director Rafał Wnuk. The conversation offers a closer look at the values and structures that define it.

The GUM Ghent University Museum is a rather singular science museum. With a clear concept and a highly flexible approach to the exhibits, director Marjan Doom has created a space that explores the fundamentals and boundaries of science – and is constantly evolving in the process. This interview offers an insight into the structures and vision of the institution and its team.

The VIERNULVIER arts centre in Ghent is renowned far beyond Belgium’s borders for its interdisciplinary programme and innovative organisational practices. Why is what is still a vision elsewhere simply everyday practice here? Cornelius Puschke found out in an interview.

"We want to be the most inclusive, imaginative and caring museum you will ever visit“ — with this ambition, Manchester Museum is making a bold promise. And its recognition as European Museum of the Year 2025 shows just how far it has come. How? Read on to find out.

The Manchester International Festival (MIF) has been a fixture on the international festival calendar for decades. Its success, combined with a large-scale cultural policy strategy for the North of England centred on the idea of "access and excellence", gave rise to something truly unique: Factory International. But how did it become what it is today? Find out in the interview.

Art and cultural institutions are coming under increasing political and societal pressure — a point made clear by Christoph Möllers in his online keynote.

Moderated by Dr Jeanne Bindernagel, Programme Developer at the German Federal Cultural Foundation, Borisav Matić (NEBITEF Belgrade), Jakub Depczyński (Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw) and Natalie Giorgadze (Culture Action Europe) shared and discussed their personal experiences of authoritarian interventions in artistic freedom during a panel discussion.

In her lecture, Prof. Dr. Teresa Koloma Beck highlighted how global political conflicts are increasingly shaping the everyday working lives of cultural and academic institutions.

In conversation with Cornelia Walter, Esme Ward, Director of Manchester Museum, explains how she has moved closer to realising her vision of a museum for everyone.

In her keynote, Nicole Ebber, Head of Governance & Movement Relations at Wikimedia Germany, explains how participatory strategic processes can be mastered in business and what she herself has learned from this.

How can institutions become more vibrant through change? And how might we develop a language that is grounded in scientific and planetary contexts, rather than viewing society through a dogmatic lens of innovation? Caroline Paulick-Thiel, Director of Politics for Tomorrow/nextlearning e. V., takes these questions as her starting point...

Professor Dirk Brockmann, Director of the Center Synergy of Systems at TU Dresden, takes the evolutionary success of fungi as the starting point for a conceptual approach. To him, “thinking like a fungus” means nothing less than communicating, building networks, and exploring despite blindness...

Aric Chen’s lecture is a compelling call for a culture of action. According to Chen, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, museums must recognise themselves more clearly as agents of change – not least because, as publicly funded institutions, they already serve as “third places” with the potential to act as testing grounds or experimental spaces...

In her welcome speech, Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska, Artistic Director of the Federal Cultural Foundation, invoked a quote from the economist and science theorist Otto Neurath to capture the current state of cultural institutions...

As part of the accompanying programme of “Übermorgen”, a series of research trips – tandem visits by institutional directors and representatives of local cultural policy – will take place in five major European cities. Here, programme director Cornelia Walter shares her insights.