Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum

Intersectionality: Museums, Inclusion, and SDGs

Founded in 2008, The Inclusive Museum Research Network is brought together by a shared concern for the future role of the museum and how it can become more inclusive. We seek to build an epistemic community where we can make linkages across disciplinary, geographic, and cultural boundaries. As a Research Network, we are defined by our scope and concerns and motivated to build strategies for action framed by our shared themes and tensions.

The Seventeenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum calls for research addressing the following annual themes and special focus:

We have reached the critical turning point eight years on with seven to go for realising the UN 2030 Agenda addressing the Sustainable Development Goals. The new Museum Definition of ICOM and the seminal UNESCO Museum Recommendation position museums as civil society agents in this process through local action adding to national and international aspirations and active citizenship. The challenge is locating museums within the holistic framework of cultural, economic, social and environmental sustainability. The intersectionality of the momentum across all cultural borders for climate justice, poverty alleviation and inclusion must be innovative charting path breaking approaches bridging the gulf between the Global North and the Global South. 17 Museums and 17 SDGs is an illustrative museum movement in Austria that has global relevance and lessons. This action strategy together with a range of European and international arts, museum and heritage case studies from all the continents provides for multilateralism, cultural exchanges and collaborative learning as we meet next In Vienna.