The international conference will address changes in curatorial practices in the wake of digital transformation and the resulting ethical, ecological and social challenges. Experts from museums, universities and cultural institutions will discuss how digital technologies are expanding access to cultural heritage, challenging existing hierarchies and enabling new forms of participatory knowledge production. The focus will be on questions of authenticity, representation and responsibility in dealing with digital artefacts, reproductions and virtual spaces. The possibilities and risks of artificial intelligence for curatorial processes and the ecological impact of digital infrastructures will also be addressed. The aim of the conference is to open up perspectives on sustainable and equitable cultural access in the digital age and to bring together the aesthetic, ethical and ecological dimensions of globally networked cultural practice.

Wednesday, 4 March 2026

01.00 pm Welcome and Introduction
Renate Buschmann, Ursula Frohne, Josina Dehn

1st Panel: Collaborative curating in digital space

01.15 pm Curating with the Carrier Bag: Institutional Critique and Feminist Collectivity in the Digital Realm - Marie France Rafael (Zurich University of the Arts)

02.00 pm Changing Museums with Swarm Curation - Marina Nething (Museum Ulm) / Alina Fuchte (Kunstpalast / NRW Forum Düsseldorf)

02.45 pm Break

03.15 pm Droste Worlds: How Digital Technology is Opening New Memorial Space - Jörg Albrecht (Burg Hülshoff – Center for Literature)

04.00 pm Reversal, retreat, restoration? Assessing access in a flooded zone - Grischka Petri (FIZ Karlsruhe Leibniz Institute for Information Sciences)

04.45 pm Break

Keynote:
05.15 pm A Labor of Doubt and Repair: Archives and Digital Curating - Beatrice von Bismarck (Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig)

07.00 pm Dinner
 

Thursday, 5 March 2026
2nd Panel: Curatorial practice beyond physical spaces

09.00 am Sculpture in the Expanded Field? Digital Access and Art in Public Space - Berit Hummel (University of Münster)

09.45 am Virtual Present. Dreaming for the Future: Museum before Museum. Ars Aevi Sarajevo - Senka Ibrišimbegović (University of Sarajevo)

10.30 am Break

11.00 am Artistic-Curatorial Practices of Virtual (Re)Construction - Annette Urban (Ruhr University of Bochum)

11.45 am KINBURN: Insight-Specific Game - Anna Sokolova (Artist)

12.30 pm Lunch

3rd Panel: Incorporating diversity and inclusion through digital media

02.00 pm Digital Queer Curating as a Practice of Transformation – Between Responsibility, Power and Collective Spaces - Dr. Beatrice Fischer-Miersch (District Office Berlin Mitte, Department of Art, Culture and History / Postgraduate Program CAMPI)

02.45 pm Accessibility and Cultural Participation: The Städel Museum's Digital Strategy - Chantal Eschenfelder (Städel Museum)

03.30 pm Curating the Digital Divide: Ethical Challenges of Cultural Participation in Digital Infrastructures - Hauke Behrendt (University of Stuttgart)

04.15 pm Break

4th Panel: Sustainable dimensions in curatorial work – Part I

04.45 pm tba (via ZOOM) - Jon Ippolito (University of Maine)

05.30 pm Break

Keynote:
06.00 pm Computational Museology: New Relations between Machine Intelligence, Synthetic Artefacts, and Embodied Aesthetics
Sarah Kenderdine (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)

07.30 pm Get together

Friday, 6 March 2026
4th Panel: Sustainable dimensions in curatorial work – Part II

09.00 am Infrastructures of Digital Curating: Power, Platforms, and the Politics of Access - Regine Ehleiter (Witten/Herdecke University)

09.45 am The Image as a Burden? Digitality after Sustainability -Michael Klipphahn-Karge (Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig)

10.30 am Break

11.00 am tba - Francis Marshall (London Museum)

11.45 am Training the Archiv: A Project Review and Lessons Learned
Dominik Bönisch Alpàri (University of Applied Sciences Düsseldorf (MIREVI))

12.30 pm Sustainable Curating: What it could mean - Reinold Schmücker (University of Münster)

01.15 pm Midday Snack

Keynote:
02.15 pm Fermenting Data and Curating Superintelligences: Sustainability and Access in the Posthuman World - Magdalena Tyzlik-Carver (Aarhus University)

03.45 pm Concluding Remarks

If you would like to participate, please register by 25 February 2026 at kfg.zuganguni-muenster.de.