2026 Irish Museums Association Annual Conference

In an increasingly polarised world, museums hold the potential to serve as active spaces where diversity is recognised and social inclusion is promoted. Traditionally seen as places of learning, memory, and community, what does it mean, however, for a museum to be a space of ongoing social exchange, where equity and diversity drive daily practice? Can museums genuinely function as “shared spaces” for all?

Taking place at Monaghan County Museum - within a border county where histories and identities intersect - the conference will interrogate the role of museums as inclusive civic spaces, where belonging is enacted through action, collaboration, and shared responsibility.

It will consider how museums and their collections can reflect, challenge, or dismantle divides, creating genuinely shared spaces by exploring:

• How have museums historically shaped societal narratives, and - crucially – how might their role evolve in the future?
• How can museums enable meaningful collaboration within institutions, ensuring substantive structural change, and with diverse communities?
• In what ways can geographic or border contexts influence collaboration, storytelling, and solidarity?
• How can museums continue to support the values of equality, diversity and inclusion at a time when those values are under attack and face organised pushback?

Have you a great idea for a conference session? Something you’ve been thinking about, or working on, that you’d like to share with the wider museum community?

The Irish Museums Association (IMA) invites individual or session presentation proposals for the Annual Conference 2026: Shared Futures – Museums as Spaces of Belonging. Proposals may be for 20-minute individual presentations, 50-minute panel discussion sessions, or workshops.

The IMA annual conference is the main gathering of the Irish museum sector. It aims to provide a platform for critical dialogue around the role and purpose of museums and inform sectoral agendas, while assisting museums with their thinking as they realise their full potential.

How to propose a session?

If you have an idea for a session let us know by emailing your submission to programme@irishmuseums.org by noon, Monday, 30 June 2025.   

Preferred format: Word Document

Include:

• Title of presentation
• Presentation abstract (250 words max.)
• Session format (presentation, panel conversation, interview, interjection, provocation, workshop, etc)
• Speaker(s) biography (150 words max.)
• Contact details (email and telephone number)

Further Information

For further information or if you wish to discuss your proposal, contact the conference convenor: Margarita Vásquez Cárdenas, Programme Manager, Irish Museums Association on programme@irishmuseums.org

Details of previous IMA conferences are online at http://www.irishmuseums.org/  in the Conference Archive section of the website.

The conference advisory panel is formed by Gillian O’Brien, Brian Crowley, Liam Bradley, Riann Coulter, Bernie Bradley, Gina O’Kelly, and Margarita Vásquez Cárdenas.