To be held between 2 and 4 September, with live streaming, the initiative will promote the sharing and discussion of experiences and concerns that are common to museums all over the world, such as the growing presence of digital technology and the challenges posed by the pandemic and post-pandemic context, the role of educational services in today’s world, or even the importance of participation and inclusion of different audiences in cultural programming.

Over the course of three days, specialists and workers from museums and national and international cultural institutions such as the Louvre Museum (Paris), the Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Gallery (London), the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), the Frick Collection (New York), the Museo Reina Sofía and Fundación Juan March (Madrid), the National Museum of Asian Art [Freer-Sackler] (Washington), the Museo Poldi Pezzoli (Milan), Museu de Serralves (Porto), Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, CAM and the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, among others, come together for a comprehensive reflection on different topics.

The opening session under the theme “Art matters. Museums and Education” will give rise to a multidisciplinary debate around the (in)utility of the Beautiful, led by a panel of national figures from different areas, from Science to Philosophy. This session will be moderated by Paulo Pires do Vale and brings together figures such as Maria Filomena Molder (Modern beauty), Carlos Fiolhais (‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’: From John Keats to quantum physics), Henrique Leitão (What Art reminds the technical world), John Romão (Alterity: the first act of beauty) and Anabela Mota Ribeiro (I am a wastepaper collector, but I don’t like it. So I think: Pretend I’m dreaming).

During the following days there will be a series of debates with various representatives from international and national museums and institutions around various themes: Training and Mediation: ‘Education Departments’; Reaching Across Divides: integrating audiences; Museums for All: the exception is the rule; Communicating the Museum: History and stories; Audiences during and after the pandemic: the ‘new normal’; A Click Away: the digital museum.