Rethinking Museums: Bart van der Heide on Innovation, Impact & Cultural Agents

Museums are no longer just exhibition spaces – they are evolving into cultural agents that shape contemporary discourse. But how can they break free from tradition and truly engage with society?

In this episode of the Culture Shifts Podcast, Bart Van der Heide, Director of Museion in Bolzano, joins me to discuss the evolving role of museums in society. With a background in curating and leadership at institutions like the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Kunstverein Munich, Bart has been redefining Museion’s mission since 2020 – turning it into a dynamic, forward-thinking institution.

We dive into the challenges of translating theory into action, the importance of community engagement, and why museums must embrace their role as political and cultural agents. Bart also shares his thoughts on measuring impact beyond visitor numbers, adopting sustainable practices, and creating a brand that truly reflects institutional values.

It’s a conversation about innovation, responsibility, and how museums can drive real change in today’s world.

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Transcript

Bart van der Heide (00:03.256)
For me, museums are still highly political domains. The only language that we have is coming from the corporate world. KPIs and all these kind of things. And people in museums are incredibly resistant to that. We were the first museum of contemporary art in Italy that wrote a sustainability roadmap.

Moritz Gaudlitz (00:32.078)
Contemporary art museums are under growing pressure to stay relevant. While they are expected to be authentic and credible cultural institutions, many struggle to move beyond theory and translate ideas into impactful formats. The challenge isn't just about programming. It's also about redefining their role and organizational structures for the future. A key moment in this transformation was the new museum definition introduced by ICOM, the International Council of Museums.

By expanding museums' to include inclusivity and sustainability, this definition reflects a broader, more engaged role for cultural institutions and society. But embracing these shifts requires fresh thinking, new formats, and often additional resources, pushing museums to rethink not just what they show, but how they operate. So how can museums break free from outdated structures and become true cultural platforms of change? One institution actively addressing this challenge is Museon in Bolzano, Italy.

Moritz Gaudlitz (01:33.826)
Welcome to another episode of the Culture Shifts Podcast. I'm Moritz Gautlitz and your host. Today, I'm joined by Bart van der Heide, Director of Mosaion. With a background in curating and museum leadership, having worked at institutions like the Stadolig Museum in Amsterdam and Kunstverein Munich, Bart has been leading Mosaion's transformation into a dynamic, forward-thinking institution since 2020. In this episode, we explore how contemporary art museums can move beyond tradition

Truly engage with today's society.

How are you today? Great to have you. We've been talking about museums, the future of museums, solutions for problems that exist in the cultural sector, worldwide, European-wide, Italian-based. But today I would like to talk with you about the museum you work in, where you're the director of Museon in Bolzano, in Bozen, in German, Bozen, in Italian and English, Bolzano. I would like to ask you, museums today face immense pressure to stay relevant and impactful.

Perfect, thank you so much.

Moritz Gaudlitz (02:36.812)
At MUSEON, you're actively pushing for innovation, for new ideas, for new programs. Can you share examples of a concrete format or initiative that goes beyond traditional exhibitions to engage maybe with audience better or even in a more meaningful way?

That's a really crucial question. And that's also what we try to do here at the museum to also start practicing what we preach. So you see a lot of the museums that have been working in the past and these topics of sustainability or inclusivity or diversity are used in programming, theory and communication a lot. But what is missing is really concrete and effective.

formats in which that is also practiced. In that regard for me, I think the innovation of museums is not happening today on the level of programming, but very much on the level of organization. So how do we manage to turn these like quite hierarchical structures into more porous systems in which we allow?

impact and exchange with our stakeholders in a more sustainable way. not only through individual projects, but very much building longer relationships through solidarity, allowing effective cooperation and so on. So that's what we're doing here, that's what we're trying already for the last four years in the time in which museums are under incredible transformation.

Need for transformation because the pressure from the public sector is getting higher to secure their relevance. And I think it was, you know, me as a professional wanting to develop in this field further, it was not the established museum that could really allow me to create these new formats. It is really like a museum, like museum, this mid-size young museum in which you can actually do these things because these like

Bart van der Heide (04:44.098)
fundamental reorganizations are much easier in these smaller realities.

That's a really nice first overview. mean, it's also very interesting that you say a smaller reality. believe Bolzano is smaller than Amsterdam, maybe also smaller than Munich, where you worked too. But on the other hand, we have a reality that is, let's say, trilingual. We have three languages in that area in Bolzano. That's an even bigger reality, I guess, also to be confronted with, isn't it?

Yes, it's a very conservative reality in the sense that contemporary culture is relatively new. Of course, there were in the past important galleries that were active in Bolzano, but the real international art world and these platforms that showed international art really happened from the 80s onwards. It's very new and...

This museum that I'm running opened in 2008 as a public-private partnership, even though it started as a foundation in the 80s with incredible controversy because it is quite a challenge to open up or to install contemporary culture within the collective memory of a territory like this. So it is a real grassroots enterprise.

to not only program a museum, but also to create this relevance in front of this museum, around this museum, and really develop an audience that also sees contemporary culture and contemporary art as a crucial partner in social sustainability or innovation.

Bart van der Heide (06:25.708)
We are constantly growing, we're constantly developing. We don't need to destroy a status quo in order to build something new. We can just continue building on top of what we have because as in museum years, we're still very much in our infancy.

Relatively young. Yeah, that's right. And also you've been there for five years now, no?

Yes. And the way Mosaion has done it in the past to really build this audience, this critical mass around contemporary culture, it's very much through education. So since the eighties, they've really invested in schools to such a degree that now we are really building a generation in South Tyrol that...

is familiar with our building and with our program and with our values much more than their predecessors in a way. That generation is in their thirties. And so we continue to develop these formats to also keep them engaged and keep them feeling at home in this building.

Yeah, that's a really good point. mean, being home in a building, being home in a museum, being home maybe also in a museum that is a base for culture, for education, for new formats. If we look at institutions in general, like worldwide or nationwide, lots of cultural institutions, unfortunately, get stuck in theoretical discourse because they don't translate the ideas into change, into tangible change, into program, into something that the

Moritz Gaudlitz (08:00.076)
visitors can really also feel. What are the biggest challenges or also obstacles preventing museums and maybe also at the example of Museon from evolving? And how do you address them with tangible solutions? What are your tangible solutions at Museon that you developed and maybe you're still in the making?

Yes, I think it's about making a museum more authentic. The pressure of the public sector, especially younger generations on these public museums, is that they do not practice what they preach. As you say, it's all in theory and in communication, but the organizations themselves, they pretty much remain the same. So in order to be authentic, people also need to feel that first of all,

This museum is representing the public sector that they also feel represented by. So the challenge is to really actively live the democracy that we achieve or we aspire. That has to do with, you know, changing very top-down structures. It has to do with an awareness of decision-making, like who is at the table when decisions are being made. It's about

defining the priorities through solidarity. These are all, in a way, new values that are different in a very classically scientifically organized organization. So what we've done so far is we try to develop a profile for the museum that is more than the sum of its exhibitions. That means that we've introduced two new programming lines

apart from our international exhibitions. So we now have three pillars in our profile, which adds to the exhibitions an arts club and an academy. And both the arts club and the academy are developed in effective cooperation and solidarity. That means that

Bart van der Heide (10:08.94)
The Arts Club, for instance, is developed by an autonomous forum, which consists of young creatives in South Tyrol between 20 and 35 years old, and the young talents and creative talent in our own museum. They meet each other in this autonomous forum and program all our public programming vis-a-vis the exhibitions. The other pillar is called the Academy, which includes several

formats, it's like a general portfolio of our research around the collection and our research in terms of our institutional organization in which we actively work with external partners or we had the first class of our new master program that we developed with Unibet Set, which is called Foam, the Future of Art Museums. I approached these

new formats, much more from the perspective of solidarity, in which we together with these stakeholders define what is important, what we want to establish in the creative sector or in the cultural heritage of the territory. And we work together until we reach it. So these are these elements through which we are collaborating with our stakeholders through solidarity.

Thank you so much Bart. This was a fantastic and great overview and also answered already all my next questions. No, I'm just kidding. I mean, there are some things or some keywords that I noticed that I would like to dive in a bit more. The first one was the program that you do with the University of Bolzano, the future of the Contemporary Art Museum. I remember that in one of our previous talks that we had,

you've been talking about the museum as a contemporary agent rather than just an exhibition space. And if you also, or if we think about also my listeners or also the visitor worldwide or in Bolzano or also here in Milan where I'm based or in Berlin or Paris, then the idea of a museum is still a gallery space with paintings. This is like maybe still the classic idea of a museum. I go inside, I see something,

Moritz Gaudlitz (12:24.514)
that is painted or maybe there is a video, maybe there's photography. And now when we talk about this contemporary agent and all the initiatives that you just mentioned, the collaborations, the necessity of also what can a museum be and maybe also what has a museum to be in the future or now, what does it exactly mean and how do museums shift in the coming years?

Yeah, I think we're still an international exhibition venue. Our exhibitions are very much operating on an international level and that also should remain. The research behind that and the knowledge behind that is the core business of a museum of contemporary art. However, it is about also trying to...

implement these elements of sustainability and this demand for sustainability in a broader way of the profile of the museum. What we've done is we were the first museum of contemporary art in Italy that wrote a sustainability roadmap in which we've really, with an entire team, sat down and thought about, what

does sustainability mean for us and how do we turn them in concrete goals and also means of measurement. On the complete broad spectrum of the museum organization, we wrote this sustainability roadmap and we're following it. And it's very much about these ESG, so ecology, social and governance. We're working now.

on governance in which we try to implement a way of working that is sustainable in terms of our talent development, decision-making also more within the organization and between working groups. we're installing a project management, like a reorganization into a more matrix organization in order to really allow

Bart van der Heide (14:29.486)
our young talents to grow within the organization and feel that they are also can contribute in the future development of this museum. Then of course, at the end, it's always ecology, which is an important aspect that we're working on already in terms of recycling all our exhibition materials, but that needs a little bit more time to really also turn into a more structural working method.

That brings me to my next question. mean, if we look again at this word or the great idea of the contemporary agent, the museum as a contemporary agent, does Museon or any other contemporary agent nowadays should be a place for finding solutions to the problem that exist or should it also address problems in terms of asking questions around the problems? You mentioned ESG. I mean,

that's been going on for a while now. And we even realized that worldwide, there are countries, there are governments that are cutting that. And luckily, we are not yet there. And hopefully, we will never be there. But do you think that the museum as a contemporary agent should be or is already a place where you find the answers to the problems or maybe already the solutions? Or should it be just and remain a place for inspiration and to ask questions instead of giving answers?

For me, museums are still highly political domains. What happens here, it is visible, has local politicians, they pick it up, it has a voice. So what we do, people see. For me, it's the question about who benefits of that political space and also the awareness that this political space is more than the limits of a building. This political space is what we create.

as a community. And I think a museum of contemporary art can be this agent in creating this and identifying a political space which is larger than just the building. And that is what we are trying to do because I am a firm believer in the public sector, especially today in which you see the administrative state more and more eroding. I am a firm believer of also the importance and the quality of it because it is in the end about how we live democracy.

Bart van der Heide (16:53.152)
And as these museums in the past have always been very hierarchical, they are associated with exclusion, colonialism, and so on. So we all know that. So for me, the bottom line is like, okay, who benefits and who defines this political space? And I see ourselves much more as an agent there than the organization that also defines it.

For example, on the worldwide museum structure, there you see maybe some museums become more commercial. They become more like a brand, know? Like this branding of a museum where you then, I don't know, buy a sweatshirt. I was not wearing today my Museum of Modern Art sweater because I knew that my talk would have been too political, I guess. But they become like an institution because of the building, because of a narrative that is related to a brand.

Then there are other museums that are related to the content. And then there are the museums that are related to the character of a platform. And I see Museon also growing or already existing as a platform that opens up, that has a bit more like, almost like I would say, like a little radars to connect with people that define this kind of agent structure. Am I right? Or is it, is it something that you also want to?

develop within the next year's also last question because it's a long one if there would be a percentage of what you would like to reach what do you like to fulfill within your position museum as a director what percentage are you.

We are 40%. And, it's the 40 % of a very, very high ambition in which the museum ideally is also shaping a mindset of the future in which the Museum of Contemporary Art is also accepted as a political partner for social innovation and in terms of the future sustainability of the territory.

Bart van der Heide (18:58.784)
At the moment, Moseun is seen by politicians and the old guard as a hobby. And I want to really, through our practice, really gather such a strong constituency around the museum that they cannot think anything else anymore. So in that sense, branding is crucial also for us. We chose a form of branding, which is much more about communication and multiplication in which

these groups that we are affiliated with and that we are working with in solidarity also start multiplying our values, the values of the public museum and so on. So it is about building constituency and multiplying the values of democracy and inclusivity and diversity through practice and through concrete exchange. And that is a different way of branding, I guess. less, it's an alternative to a

commercial way of branding maybe, but I'm telling you, like, this is also one very crucial point in the organizational change that we are experiencing in which we are really also confronted with our own status quo because the museum has a very clear CI, for instance, right? And it's a very clear, it's very clean, it's a logo. Basically in the past, everything was branded under that logo because

We're a young museum. We also need to be visible as such. Now, when we work with these autonomous forums or with these stakeholders in this vision of multiplication, this logo brand is more difficult to control and which is for us and for our communication team, sometimes also quite confronting and frustrating. So how can we still in a way, police what our brand is?

You know, it's a way of branding, which is maybe differently, but for me, more authentic.

Moritz Gaudlitz (21:02.016)
Absolutely. Thank you so much. If we look at the positioning of the museum also from a regional, from a geographical point of view, if you look at you're in the north of Italy, you're in the Alps region, there are not so many contemporary art museums. Maybe not at all. mean, in your radar of 100 kilometers or 200 kilometers. Is there any, I would not say problem. yeah, I would say problem because this podcast is also about solutions and the problems existing.

If we look at competitors, or is there anything that you have to face like a challenge or a competition or something in the region as a standalone contemporary art museum?

Yes, we have a lot of challenges. These challenges are of a political nature. You we are predominantly financed through the province and you see that politicians still have a very classical understanding of what a museum should be. They are not in a way open for the cultural assignment that we've defined for ourselves, even though

Over time, even the ICOM definition of museums has been rewritten in which specifically these topics of inclusion and collaboration with the communities are specifically also introduced within this new definition. That is what we're doing. So there is a lot of work to be done to also change your mindset, to also inform the people why we're doing things.

And these are these confrontations that we feel every day and we need to really every time in a way find a way around them or find a way to incorporate them and adjust to them. So the challenges that we face are much more internally in this changing these organizational cultures and organizational structures, changing the mindset of our main financial stakeholders in terms of the other.

Bart van der Heide (23:06.93)
museums of contemporary art. To be honest, I don't see any competition because there's no other museum that does the same as what we're doing. And I think the impact of us is much more in the longer term and not in the direct branding kind of approach.

Fantastic. Thank you, Bart. I'm happy that there is no competition. I think it's also in terms of the contemporary art, all my respect, because I think it's very difficult to run a museum of contemporary art if we look, for example, at a museum that talks about the past or like museums that always just show what the past has done. In your case, I mean, I just want to bring that up because you're in Bolzano and we have also the famous Ötzi, Iceman, there for decades.

and needs to be kept cold in ice. It costs a lot of money, like a lot of money, but this is not, this is not, I don't want to make it uncomfortable, but it's just when we think about this would be my question to you. If Ötzi, the Iceman, were to visit Museon today, the agent, what do you think would surprise him about contemporary art? Or maybe not just surprise him, what do you think, how would he react?

I think Asi would be a real supporter for contemporary art. I think he would love it. He came from Sardinia with a body full of tattoos, went into the wilderness, ended up in the Dolomites. He was someone who took risks and had an international viewpoint on the world without any limits. yeah, it's just a shame that he encountered someone who

tried to kill him and effectively did so. That's still a story that people try to find out. I think Otzi was a cool guy. was an intrepid person, I would say.

Moritz Gaudlitz (24:57.39)
Thank you so much. That's great. We are not keeping it like that. I still have a last question for you to sum it up. Looking ahead, what excites you most about the future of museums as agents of change, as new platforms? Are there any trends or models from other fields or industries apart the art, apart the museums, that you believe museums should adopt for the future?

Yes, I think what I really want to learn and there are like museums like Centro Botin in Santander who already developed it for years already with think with Harvard University is to start to measure our impact apart from the quantitative ways of measuring visitors because okay quantitative numbers are

important, but it only represents a fraction of what museums are doing. And not only us, like also other museums are doing a lot in social sustainability and impact and education. There's no way of measuring these formats concretely. yeah, I would like to come to a moment in which I can also say like, okay, you know,

This is the cost and these are the benefits. Just to find a way to communicate with politicians and really also be able to represent the full spectrum of what we're doing because we're constantly measured through these like quantitative measurement data and not the qualitative data.

Thank you so much. mean, it sums up that to also align with the solution series of this podcast, that the solution for all problems is education. And therefore, I think every platform, every agent, every contemporary agent, if it's a museum, if it's a school, if it's a book, if it's a podcast, if it's an article, a keynote, a university, I think this is the most important thing. And it's pretty hard to measure the impact.

Bart van der Heide (26:56.142)
But we should because that is how the landscape is moving and we need to move with it, but at the same time also protect the values that we stand for. So we need to also there find this moment of language. And I've experienced that that was the main challenge that we're facing. Yeah, trying to measure impact, identifying impact and goals and all these kinds of things with this sustainability roadmap.

The only language that we have is coming from the corporate world, KPIs and all these kinds of things. And people in museums are incredibly resistant to that because we are a non-commercial organization. We stand for non-commercial values and social values. So bringing that language into a museum, just doesn't work. However, we still need to be able to measure what we're doing. So we need to find a way to adapt that.

very commercialized corporate language that it also benefits the cultural sector and the public cultural sector, which has to remain non-commercial and would have to remain democratic.

Thank so much, Bart. That was great. Thanks for the conversation. I just want to add here for all the listeners out there, if there's someone who's really into finding a non-commercial way of measuring cultural impact, get in touch. Bart van der Heide, thank you so much for being part of our podcast today.

It's a pleasure. Thank you so much

Moritz Gaudlitz (28:34.158)
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