MUSEUMS OF THE FUTURE

Museums are built to preserve the past, but their own place in the future is far from settled. Who are they for, who decides what they collect and display, and how should institutions often shaped by wealth, empire and private patronage respond to changing public expectations?

George Osborne, Gus Casely-Hayford, James Lambert and Victoria Siddall join Kirsty Lang to examine the forces reshaping our museums: contested histories, restitution, public funding, philanthropy, technology and the need to reach audiences who have traditionally felt excluded. They also consider the museum’s most fundamental purpose: bringing people into contact with physical objects. As collections are digitised and experienced increasingly through screens, can technology ever reproduce the knowledge, wonder and emotional force that come from encountering, or even handling, the real thing?

And what does cultural leadership require in an age of political and financial pressure?