UNESCO

Anders Högberg and Gustav Wollentz from the UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures were on the 22 November 2024 invited to conduct a workshop on future awareness for the management group at the Department for Nature and Cultural Heritage in the Region Västra Götaland. During the day we met 12 persons, and the workshop lasted for four hours. It took place at the Museum of Natural History in Gothenburg.

The main question we explored was: What will the museums’ societal role/mission look like in 2050? This question was approached through a series of sub-questions, for example with the aim of identifying societal challenges and how these can be proactively met through actions today.

The workshop was based on dialogue and the exchange of different perspectives and experiences. By such an approach, participants took on a more open approach to different types of futures in relation to the museums’ societal role and mission. In the exchange after the workshop, it was highlighted as particularly important to be able to approach the future as open where several different alternatives are conceivable. Participants expressed it as liberating not to see the future solely as an extension of the present, and to be able to seriously engage in considering alternatives for the future.