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Museums Fostering Belonging

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Museums Fostering Belonging

Museums are trusted community anchors and ideal places to grow understanding. We know the incredible power of the arts, sciences, and humanities—in all their forms—to empower and inspire through knowledge, to facilitate a sense of individual and collective identity, and to comfort and help us heal during our darkest times. Museums can contribute powerfully to creating a more enlightened and empathetic society.

This is the urgency of our work in today’s world. As communities of all sizes around the globe confront racism, discrimination, and oppression—and address issues of immigration, religious expression, sexual orientation, gender identity, and the equal treatment of all people—the commitment of museums to fostering inclusion and belonging has never been more important.

In an increasingly polarized world, we are exploring the role of museums in:

  • bridging divides and bringing communities together
  • building empathy and understanding
  • fostering a sense of belonging
  • creating more welcoming and inclusive communities

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These Museums Helped Welcome Immigrants and Refugees to their Community, and Yours Can Too!

Welcoming America’s annual Welcoming Week enlists organizations around the country to welcome new immigrants and refugees into their new communities. This year, AAM is a national partner of …

Audiences and Inclusion: A Primer for Cultivating More Inclusive Attitudes Among the Public

In a deeply divided nation, museums can play an essential role in creating safe and welcoming spaces for the most marginalized and at-risk communities. A component of this work is in …

Pandemic-Friendly Ideas for Welcoming Immigrants and Refugees to Your Community

Welcoming Week is an annual event from Welcoming America that seeks to unite recent immigrants and refugees with longer residents in communities. Along with other organizations of all …

What Does a Welcoming Online Collections Portal Look Like?

In late February 2020, the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University became the latest institution to launch an online collections portal, a feature that is increasingly …

A Welcoming Week Celebration on the US-Mexico Border

This fall, AAM partnered with Welcoming America to encourage museums to participate in its annual Welcoming Week, in which organizations around the country welcome new immigrants and …

Belonging: Co-creating welcoming and equitable museums

“Can you describe a time you felt unwelcome or like you didn’t belong in a museum?” This question was posed during a recent conference call for the Facing Change Senior Diversity Fellows. …

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