September 22 - 24, 2026

Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney
Sydney, Australia

Description

Welcome to the micro-site for the Nineteenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum. 

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

• 2026 Special Focus—The Future of Museum Narratives
• Theme 1: Visitors
• Theme 2: Collections
• Theme 3: Representations

We are interested in the following lines of investigation: 

• No longer the universal individual citizen of our recent modern aspirations, visitors of today are recognizably diverse.
• What is the role today of the reader, the viewer, the audience, the citizen, the customer, the patron?
• The emerging communications environment—in which image, sound, and word are all made of the same digital stuff—affords new openings for museums and new challenges.

Inclusive Museum Research Network also supports a book imprint and a collection of journals.