Expanding Art Museums
The Expanding Art Museums subproject of the Leuphana Innovation Community Art and Culture comprises a network of eight internationally renowned art museums. Its primary purpose is to facilitate networking among the participating museums and to conduct research on current organizational change in the museum sector.
We assume that organizational change must recognize and reflect the interplay between the “front stage” and “back stage” of art and cultural spaces: the negotiation and representation of social challenges and concerns (through art) are inextricably linked to the challenges of organizational change. The cooperative structure of the project is designed to systematically record, jointly reflect on, and help shape sustainable organizational processes and practices for the future of art museums.
In the Expanding Art Museums subproject, the participating international art museums meet twice a year for focus group exchanges and workshops. In February 2025, representatives from MUDAM (Luxembourg), the Metropolitan Museum (US), Louisiana (Denmark), Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland), Zentrum Paul Klee (Switzerland), and Belvedere (Austria) gathered at Munich's Lenbachhaus to discuss sustainability in the organization of art museums.
In this interview , Dr. Maximilian Schellmann, one of the organizers and researchers in the Art and Culture Community, provides insights into the current challenges.
Artistic mapping is one way of addressing social challenges: a method that allows conversations, spatial arrangements, and objects to be embedded in drawings. Mappings are suitable for reflection or exchange in transdisciplinary projects. Whether scientific or artistic in nature, it is a promising tool for knowledge transfer. One example of the practical application of this method is the Leuphana Codex, a collection of drawings by Jazael Olguín Zapata that were created during a workshop organized by the Leuphana Innovation Community Art and Culture.