What should the political perception be regarding fundamental cultural debates? Could museums be considered social-cultural ecosystems? Gerhard Wolf, Director of the Kunsthistorisches Institut Florence (MPI) reflects on the question “What can culture do?” understanding culture as sub-category of societies and states on the one hand. On the other hand he percieves culture as a hypercategory that subsumes nation-states. Wolf refers to the collaborative research and exhibition project “The Art of Containment” with the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In his book "Incarnations - A History of India in Fifty Lives" (2016), the author emphasises that historical individuals were once radical disturbers of their worlds. Yet through the prism of time their legacies often are reduced to aesthetic objects. Can some of their original edginess be recovered, without becoming overburdened by the weight of historical context? Sunil Khilnani, Avantha Professor and Director of the India Institute at King's College London indicates that museums and scholarly texts can sometimes be places of cultural domestication.

Which are the major topics of digital applications in museums? Is a more pronounced digital literacy in museums the key to their decolonisation and the paradigm shift of their roles? Can digitalisation work as a catalyst and confront the current issues in the cultural sector? Markus Hilgert, Secretary General of the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States discusses these questions with the presenter Jennifer Sarah Boone and the audience of the panel.

How to change the power relationships between museums and audiences? How could museums learn to listen to what society wants? How could they become trusted spaces for smart, reflective and responsive solutions? Johannes Vogel, Director-General of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin discusses this questions with the presenter Geraldine de Bastion and the attendees of the panel at Kraftwerk Berlin.

What is the museum of the future? What does it mean to curate exhibitions while cherishing and handling the “disobedience” of objects and practices? Are specific contextual practices needed? What skills does that creative disobedience require? A conversation between Nico Daswani from the World Economic Forum, Mohsen Mostafavi from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as Mateo Kries, Vitra Design Museum and presenter Sarah Bergh.

Should contemporary architecture become more embedded in the social, commercial and cultural conditions of society? Which are the main challenges of the future? What is the place of international collaboration and should architects become more political? Architect David Chipperfield and presenter Ali Aslan discuss the roles that architecture can play in cultural collaboration.

Is there a place of experimentation in the area of museum practice? How might the labels be amended in order to give more agency to the artists, to the curators and to the visitors? Catherine Flood, curator from the Victoria and Albert Museum and Bill Sherman, Director of the Warburg Institute London examine together with Jennifer Sarah Boone and the audience the necessity to rewrite the museum label.

How to avoid the “national” interpretation on museum collections? How can museums become places for debate and discussion around universal issues? Pepe Serra Villalba discusses the Romanesque Art Collection of the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona with Sarah Bergh.

Do styles describe a subject matter or rather represent different modes of narration? Andreas Beyer, Professor for Art History at the University of Basel reflects on historical narratives and the role of nationalism to the formation and implementation of European Art History as an academic discipline.

How could cultural institutions work together with activists? How do we capture the various narratives of history? Where do we find the “disobedience” of things? A discussion between Wayne Modest and Geraldine de Bastion on the transitions in cultural institutions such as ethnographic museums.