Craftworks Symposium Presentations
The Art Museum as Space of Hope: Affective, Useful, and Collaborative Action in Times of Uncertainty
CraftWorks Symposium, 2-4 June 2025
Trapholt – Museum of Modern Art, Craft and Design, Kolding, Denmark
Presentations
- Welcome – Birgit Eriksson, Professor
SESSION 1
Crafting Hope: Collaborative Art as Resistance and Resonance in Times of Neoliberal Culture Politics – Karen Grøn, Director at Trapholt – Museum of Modern Art, Craft and Design, DK
Relational Agency and Hope in and Beyond CraftWorks – Birgit Eriksson, Professor, Aesthetics & Culture, Aarhus University, DK
Hope in the Making: Affective and Material Practices in the Art Museum – Tina Louise Hove Sørensen, Assistant Professor, Aarhus University, DK
SESSION 2 Keynote
Fellow Travellers – the Museum as an Open System for Social Transformation – Alistair Hudson, Chairman of the ZKM, Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, DE
SESSION 3
Building Alliances of Solidarity Within and Beyond the Art Institution – Sabine Dahl Nielsen, Assistant Professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, DK
The (Design) Museum as a Parahost of Civil Action – Trine Friis Sørensen, Assistant Professor, Department of Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht University, NL
The Living Art Museum – Tafadzwa Nomphanelo Makwabarara, Curator of Cultural Empowerment at the Sainsbury Centre, UK
SESSION 4
Nostalgia, Creative Power and Hope – Mette Houlberg Rung, (PhD), Head of Collections and Exhibitions, Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, DK
From Polarisation to Belonging Through Cultural Education – Milda Ivanauskienė, Director of MO Museum in Vilnius, LT
SESSION 5 Keynote
“Oh My Brain, I Got to Complain. Well, You Can Complain, but I’m Gonna Do Something.” (Patti Smith, 1997) Polycrisis as Opportunity for Collective Resistance in the Museum – Bernadette Lynch, University of London and Manchester, UK
SESSION 6
Art Museums as Sites for Imagined Elsewheres in Youth Lives – Anne Mette W. Nielsen, Associate Professor, Danish Centre for Youth Research, Aalborg University, DK
Developing Strategies to Practice Resolution: Closing the Gap in the Transformative Learning Cycle to Promote Change and Foster Hope – Emilie Sitzia, Associate Professor, Cultural Education, University of Maastricht, NL
SESSION 7
Kill Your Darlings: Hope From Fire – Anthony Schrag, Researcher, Queen Margaret University Edinburgh, UK
Hope and Emotional Engagement in Museums – Marzia Varutti, Dr. University of Geneva, CH
SESSION 8
Museums, Plural Epistemologies and the Politics of Hope – Louise Fabian, Professor, Philosophy and History of Ideas, Aarhus University, DK
Instilling Cultural Humility: Building a Learning Art Institution for a Resilient Future – Fatos Ustek, Independent curator and writer, UK
