Introduction to Museums of the Future: Past Lessons, Present Reflections, Future Visions

Museums have a long history and have acquired different meanings, functions, andpurposes over time. Once conceived as repositories of rare and curious objects, they evolvedduring the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries into educational spaces structured aroundobject-based information (Günay, 2012). Museums have continuously broadened their missionover time and now “collect, preserve, classify, document, exhibit, and curate artefacts andtreasures that – depending on the type of museum – have cultural, artistic, historical or scientificsignificance” (Van Even et al., 2024, p. 379). However, museums are more than custodians andcurators of objects, artefacts, and artworks; they are dynamic spaces where knowledge,imagination, and cultural and historical memory converge. They are environments to sharpenvisual literacy skills, foster critical thinking, and cultivate curiosity, inviting visitors to discovernew perspectives and forge meaningful connections with history, art, science, diverse cultures,and the natural world (Sleigh, 2024; Van Even & Vermeersch, 2019; Mason et al., 2017). Bydefinition, museums are the “seat of the muses”, places where ideas, stories, and interpretationsare collected and reimagined.