Well-being has emerged as a key concern in museum theory and practice. Until now however the focus has been on the well-being of museum visitors, whilst the well-being of museum workers has received less attention. This article aims to contribute a specific focus on the emotional well-being (understood here as mental health and emotional resilience) of the museum workforce, as museum work can be emotionally draining, to the point of compromising emotional stability. Museological theory on health, well-being and care in museums is brought into dialogue with theory in psychology on emotional well-being, and connected with examples of practice at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum (MICR), Geneva, in order to substantiate the argument that taking care of the emotional well-being of the workforce is an essential part of "care" in museums.
This article addresses the theme of care for gallery, library, archive, and museum (GLAM) professionals by exploring a suite of practices of care for staff wellbeing co-developed within Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library in central London. We begin by providing some context on why and how practices of care for staff are being developed at Wellcome Collection. We then share three case studies drawn from across the organization on: working with creators of material through new acquisitions; assessing and working with sensitive material; and engaging the public with our collections. We conclude by reflecting on key learning from these case studies and considering next steps: the challenges and opportunities to embed learning and practical tools for care across all teams.
This essay presents a reflection on a funded cultural project focused on museum work in the Global South (2020-2024), and raises questions about power, hierarchy, and legibility in the contemporary museum landscape. Focusing on the ways in which knowledge is produced about museums, and drawing from the published material developed through the project, the authors analyse how "southness" as framed within this project speaks to broader interpellative structures within a global cultural knowledge economy. The authors locate tensions between embedded and localized museum work practised by museum-workers in complex and turbulent social contexts (such as Maputo, Bahia, Ahmedabad), and the imperative to make museum-work legible within a larger discursive network or knowledge economy. Ultimately, the authors point to the limitations and inadequacies of existing museological terminology and concepts, which remain tethered to larger imperial structures of thought, and argue for a recourse to experimental and bold practices of translation and imagination within museology and cultural work.
Museums' response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized as evidence of the sector's resilience. Concurrently, there is evidence across the United Kingdom of a shrinking workforce and stagnating sector. Drawing on interviews with museum sector staff conducted in 2021-2022 and in 2025, predominantly in Northern Ireland, this article critiques narratives of resilience and their impacts in the museum sector. This article suggests that individualized expectations and resilience can obscure the need for systemic change. Recognizing the long-term impacts of austerity and recent crises including the rising cost of living and international conflict, we argue for the need for an ethics of care focused on the long-term wellbeing of museum staff, contending that this is integral to the sustainability of the sector. This article calls for this ethics of care to be built into strong museums leadership, particularly at the level of governance and policy.
There is a growing expectation that art museums and galleries will embrace digital and hybrid innovation while actively engaging with social issues. This study investigated digital and hybrid initiatives implemented by ten European institutions between 2021 and 2025, focusing on why and how these technologies have been used, such as improving accessibility, promoting inclusion, and advancing broader social responsibility. Through fieldwork and cross-institutional analysis using publicly available data, the study outlines four main thematic directions: science and conservation knowledge, educational and reflective practice, multimodal and sensory engagement, and addressing urgent societal issues. This study fosters important discussion about how digital media impacts participatory cultural practices within the museum sector, as well as provides practical insights for cultural institutions, particularly concentrating on museums' social responsibilities.
We argue that in the last decade diaspora museums have emerged as a significant institutional formation. Mobilized by communities, within these institutions storytelling is deployed to complicate discussions of identity and migration. These museums are particularly prominent in Chicago, a city known for its diversity, as well as a place where migration is contested and politicized. Our study examines how storytelling functions within three Chicago diaspora museums: the National Hellenic Museum, the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, and the Haitian American Museum of Chicago. Through these case studies we demonstrate how diaspora museums strategically employ storytelling to challenge missing stories, revise dominant narratives about diaspora, and advance social justice. Ultimately, we argue that these institutions use storytelling to facilitate and enhance connections between diaspora communities, as well as across cultures. Emphasizing the importance of diaspora stories, we argue that this memory work can advance empathy and new approaches to migration.
This article examines how Hong Kong's state-run museums have been reconfigured to serve the ideological imperatives of the post-National Security Law era. It focuses on two key institutions: the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence, which underwent a major reconceptualization between 2018 and 2022, and the National Security Exhibition Gallery within the Hong Kong Museum of History, which is curated by the Committee for Safeguarding National Security. The article analyses how both state museums employ selective historiography, spatial design, and affective display to recast colonial and wartime past as narratives of Chinese unity and resilience. These institutions exemplify an emerging national-security museology, which fuzes commemoration, pedagogy, and alignment of memory with state ideology. By reflecting on these developments in the context of more pluralistic curatorial practices elsewhere in East Asia, the study reveals how Hong Kong's museums have become central instruments in the governance of identity, belonging, and historical truth.
This paper examines the Ecos del Mar exhibition, an immersive museography initiative developed by the University and Coorporation in Medell & iacute;n, Colombia, to foster marine conservation awareness through innovative exhibition strategies. Rooted in community engagement and environmental advocacy, the project integrates sensory technologies, participatory storytelling, and local ecological knowledge to create impactful museum experiences. By bridging scientific research and cultural interpretation, Ecos de Mar seeks to shift public perceptions of marine ecosystems and inspire sustainable behaviors. The article situates this case within broader debates on the social role of museums in environmental education, arguing for co-creative museography as a powerful tool for conservation in regions facing ecological and social vulnerability.
Climate change and global heating are issues of great concern in contemporary society. This article discusses how four museums of cultural history in north-western Europe have exhibited climate change. The analysis reveals that these museums rely on a classical philosophical perspective in their presentation of climate change, going back to the Platonian cardinal virtues. By applying such a perspective, the museums also indirectly take stand in the debate about the museum's role in contemporary society and the relations between a historical and a contemporary perspective in museum outreach.
Liverpool's World Museum and Belfast's Ulster Museum are home to important United Kingdom ethnographic collections beyond the British Museum in London. They are also located in "difficult" cities, understood here as sites with dark histories and legacies, namely Northern Ireland's "Troubles" and Britain's largest slaving port, respectively. This article examines the extent to which this affects efforts to adopt a decolonial perspective on collections that are closely connected to British imperial conquest. It argues that while the World Museum's "Benin and Liverpool" exhibit achieves a synergy between colonial contextualization and co-curation, the Ulster Museum's "Inclusive Global Histories" exhibit appears to omit the colonial element from its explicit commitment to decolonization.
This paper examines the potential of using comics in museum mediation as a symbolic reparation activity that responds to colonial legacies in museums. The analysis focuses on two comic creation workshops developed in conjunction with the Education Team of the National Museum of Colombia. The workshop's theme addressed the representations of racialised identities in the Museum and aimed to reflect on racial discourses present in the collection, inviting participants to redress previous images of oppression by creating a comic page about the objects and characters displayed in the galleries. Findings suggest that comic creation can facilitate symbolic reparation initiatives from colonial legacies in museums by raising awareness of the discourses that tie together objects and images, and by giving participants tools to mediate and, in some cases, remediate hurtful representations. The dialogue between anti-racist comics and museum collections can also encourage critical reflections towards everyday acts and representations of racism.
As museums and other heritage organizations are coming to terms with their colonial pasts and their contemporary legacies, there has been extensive coverage on how they may enact such practice. However, limited academic consideration has been given to how it may implicate one dedicated stakeholder group: their volunteers. Volunteers are fundamental for organizations to function on a daily basis, and so it is important to fully gauge and understand volunteer responses to decolonization. Using semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this paper explores the Fulham Palace's decolonial practice to answer two questions: "why do volunteers either support or oppose museum decolonization" and "how can organizations overcome potential opposition to engender volunteer support for decolonization?" The findings suggest that volunteer responses are filtered through both the moral opinions of volunteers regarding the narration and (re)presentation of histories of Empire and volunteer motivation, place attachment, and the significance of their activity.
The National Ainu Museum and Park, located in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, opened to the public on July 12, 2020, as an institution to promote the culture of the Ainu, the Indigenous people of Hokkaido. Its official Japanese name translates to "symbolic space for ethnic harmony," but it is more commonly known by its Ainu name, Upopoy-literally "singing in a large group." Planned alongside the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Upopoy has drawn criticism for its reluctance to fully address the historical oppression of the Ainu by the Japanese state. Taking this criticism as a starting point, this paper examines the background and function of the institution as a state apparatus. By unpacking how subtly-yet no less damagingly-Upopoy performs ideological labor for the nation-state through its exhibits, this paper explores how the institution might resist this labor and contribute instead to Ainu self-determination and decolonial possibilities.
Climate change has extensively influenced museums as a field, but how museums treat the topic in their displays is not necessarily straightforward. In the 2010s, the field began to recognize the societal dimensions of climate change, with the history of how they arrived at their current positions revealing some essential aspects of museums as societal agents. In three case studies I investigate a number of varied approaches made by art museums with regard to climate change and ask, what are the roles adopted when representing climate change in exhibitions? Specifically, I examine three art museums that initiated exhibitions on climate change in Finland in the 2000s. The museums' roles shifted between those of being mediators of information, collaborators, and even activists. These considerations simultaneously emphasize the opportunities available in addressing complex topics in museums and reveal the challenges inherent in fully expanding on their potentials.
This paper explores museum educator practice in relation to the exploration of socio-ecological issues through a museum facilitated youth panel. Using data from ethnographic program observations, pre- and post- program interviews with two educators who co-led the panel, the paper adopts a poststructural analysis in order to interpret the educators' plans for the program, alongside their reflections on enacting it. The analysis highlights the multiple discourses that are implicated in the educators' work, which both align with and challenge institutional status quo in relation to youth and their engagement with socio-ecological issues. As such, this paper raises important questions as to how museum-based, and non-formal education more widely, might best support transformation towards sustainable futures.
The Museum of Transology contains the UK's largest collection of objects re/presenting trans, non-binary and intersex people's lives. It is a project that fosters and centres community for trans people at a time when transphobic attacks in the UK are on the rise (Pearce et al., 2020a). This paper utilizes empirical interview and documentary analysis data to discuss the Museum of Transology as a museum, archive, collective memory, and community building tool. I articulate the importance of a project like the Museum of Transology, one which allows trans people to "touch through time" (Dinshaw et al., 2007, p. 178) to create an affective connection with the past. I discuss how the project's live archiving practice allowed the organization to rapidly respond to the Black Lives Matter movement, adapting their collection practices in real time. The Museum of Transology challenges how we understand and conceive of the purpose and practice of museums.
Walid Raad's exhibition, Cotton Under My Feet, at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (Madrid) in 2021-2022 explored the cultural, financial, and geopolitical histories and narratives embedded in the art and artifacts of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. As Raad notes, the sale of the Collection to Spain in 1993 constituted "one of the largest private-to-public transfers of art in the world." However, I argue that Raad's installations and walkthroughs during the exhibition created an interstitial space that disrupts categorizations of collections as wholly private or public. Raad's archival investigations, curatorial interventions, and art installations position the Collection as a force field in its own right that contributes to notions of an artist's museum. Moreover, Raad's walkthroughs play a pivotal role in the project, not only by engaging visitors in a "free fall" (Raad) through the Collection, but also by demonstrating the significance of artists as agents for, or voices of, collections.
