Twelfth International Conference on The Inclusive Museum

Abstract

Who are our future visitors? Museums might be facing a decline in visitor numbers as a consequence of the slow disappearance of museum’s core visitors, the babyboomers, and generation X. If museums assume their relevance will remain they might wake up with an unpleasant call. In the experience and attention economy museums are fading on the radar in the age group of 16 to 26. Museums will have to find ways to deserve attention, break through, and deliver something that matters, in ways that are in tune with this elusive generation Z. To do so museums might have to experiment with different ways of curating, programming, involving the audience, be eye catching, and activate relevant touch points in order to connect. To get in tune eight museums left their comfort zone to go where GenZ is: a major pop festival. We want to find out how museums can conciliate competing cultures of the scientific, high art and the popular. Are ‘entertainment’ and ‘edutainment’ necessary to connect with the future generation of visitors? At least that’s what we like to challenge in this pilot project to bring art to GenZ on a pop festival in Belgium. Find out what we learned with ‘Art United’, a research project in collaboration with the University of Ghent department of sociology and fourteen major museums, cultural and research partners in Flanders and Holland.