ICOFOM ANNUAL MEETING AND GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 2026

ICOFOM General Assembly 2026

We look forward to welcoming you to the ICOFOM General Assembly on 3 December.

This year we will have the session online, on the third and last day of our Annual Symposium after the speakers’ presentations.

Please find the agenda below:

  1. Call to order
  2.  Approval of the Agenda
  3. Approval of the minutes of the 2025 Annual Assembly (Available here)
  4. President’s Report
  5. Treasurer’s Report and Approval thereof
  6. ICOFOM By-laws Read them here
  7. Working-group Reports (Conferences, Publications, Communication)
  8. Sub-Committee Reports (ICOFOM LAC, ICOFOM ASPAC)
  9. Future Plans

 

19, 26 Nov. 3 Dec. 2026. Online

This edition will be held entirely online, through three live webinars focusing on the following themes:

Day 1 (11/19): Museums in a Polarized World: Why Museums still should Matter Today ?

This thematic strand invites critical reflection on the contemporary relevance of museums as spaces for encounter, negotiation, and the co-construction of shared meanings. It also raises broader questions concerning the opportunities and challenges associated with understanding the museum as an institution endowed with significant social influence. Should museums remain neutral in the face of structural injustice? Or does their very existence as spaces of memory inevitably position them within the political sphere? These questions invite renewed consideration of the ethical responsibilities that accompany the museum’s public role (Janes & Sandell, 2019, p. 8).

Day 2 (11/26): Difficult Pasts, Memory and Ethical Responsibility

Museums play a central role in shaping collective memory and in representing the realities that continue to generate conflict within contemporary societies. When confronted with histories of violence, colonialism, racism, dictatorship, genocide, and other forms of structural injustice, museums bear the ethical responsibility of developing narratives that are rigorous, inclusive, and respectful— narratives capable of fostering dialogue without reducing the complexity of the past.

Day 3 (12/03): Imagining the Museum of Tomorrow 

If museums aspire to play a meaningful role in addressing contemporary polarization and the challenges posed by difficult pasts, it is equally important to ask what kind of institutions they must become in the future. The profound social, cultural, technological, and environmental transformations of the twenty-first century compel us to reconsider not only the museum’s traditional functions, but also its models of governance, its approaches to participation, and the relationships it establishes with the communities it serves.

*These brief descriptions of the themes are taken from the full call for papers available here*

(Information on speakers, keynotes and program will be continously updated here)

Speakers:

 

For additional information or enquiries regarding the symposium, please contact: icofomconferences@gmail.com