VIENNA.- With funding by the EU program CREATIVE EUROPE, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, MART in Trient and Rovereto, and mumok – Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien joined forces from April 2023 to May 2025. In collaboration with selected visitor groups, they laid the foundation for an innovative European museum practice.

The explicit goal was to enable a shift in perspective and structural transformation within the institutions, recognizing that visitors are not merely recipients of museum content, but active co-creators and authors of museum narratives.

Beyond mere rhetoric about change, this ambition was most clearly realized through reimagined residencies. Instead of inviting researchers and artists, experts from new fields were brought in to initiate change within the institutions themselves.

In the spirit of the project title, The Floor is Yours, the three museums let their visitors lead the way, inviting them to replace their roles as recipients of museum content to become active co-creators and authors of museum narratives. This change of perspective was to contribute to a structural transformation within the institutions. Visitor groups were integrated as experts from new fields to initiate change within the museums.

In Rotterdam, for example, young students from the Italian LABA Academy (Libera accademia di belle arti) collaborated with local Deaf educators to develop a visual communication system for events tailored to the Deaf community.

In Rovereto, social workers from the association NACHBARINNEN IN WIEN co-created a collage workshop with migrant women, followed by a discussion focused on navigating stressful family situations.

In Vienna, the project came full-circle as experts with years of experience in Deaf education critically examined the practices and potential of such formats in the local context.

During the final event in March 2025—a symposium at the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen—representatives from all participating communities and museum staff came together to reflect and draw conclusions.

Starting in fall 2025, the results of the EU project The Floor is Yours will be incorporated in the work of mumok’s education department. They will contribute to breaking down barriers and taking the museum another step closer to becoming a place for everybody.

Building on the successful collaboration with Austrian Sign Language expert Elke Schaumberger, mumok will expand its inclusive education offerings in fall 2025. Specialized workshop sessions for Deaf school classes will be established with the professional support of Deaf art educator and artist Lena Schramek. In addition, curator-led tours with sign language interpretation and formats conceived entirely in sign language will be permanently integrated into the program.

Another milestone in the inclusion strategy is the collaboration with an inclusion educator for blind and visually impaired people. In cooperation with mumok’s art-education team, the inclusion educator will develop accessible guidance systems for exhibitions and promote the use of 3D-scanned artworks from the Ludwig Collection to enable new inclusive approaches to the collection.

Simultaneously, the association NACHBARINNEN IN WIEN has designed the project space for the exhibition Never Final! The Evolving Museum. This marks another step in the long-standing collaboration between NACHBARINNEN and mumok. As in the 2023 exhibition, curatorial and spatial authorship will be consistently shared with community partners.