Eleventh International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

The Fashion Museum , the Photo Museum, and DIVA are three museums in Antwerp that today are at the top of the Flemish museum landscape. As cultural heritage institutions our museums are collectors, keepers, and promoters of cultural heritage and faced with the challenge of sustainable development. This entails recognizing and promoting the diversity and cultural dynamics of cultural heritage. Also unlocking cultural heritage so it continues to have meaning and value today to diverse communities and that this can also be passed on to the next generations. How to become inclusive museums – connecting and engaging more diverse audiences in all levels of our museums is a mission that evidently responds to the challenges of an urban and diversified society. Today, the question of audience development for our museums in Antwerp is more than relevant – it is in fact a necessity. The new patterns of super-diversity beg for a different understanding and new ways of audience development for cultural heritage institutions. Our vision is to give our museums a meaningful role in society that makes social, aesthetic and personal change possible. This means more critical reflective and active ways of dealing with (super) diversity in all parts of the organization and a stronger embedding of our museum activities in the ´urban fabric´ of the city Antwerp. Our outlook on audience development is not solely about increasing the numbers of visitors, but it is about transforming our museums into spaces where people from all backgrounds have agency and representation.