Global and national events here in the U.S. have really taken a lot out of me over the past few months. One of the many casualties was a reflection on a remarkable trip I took in November to the Persian Gulf to attend the ICOM Symposium in Dubai, and then to visit as many museums as I could manage in 10 days. I will focus on the symposium and then Dubai in the first post and I will cover Abu Dhabi and Doha in the second.
In November 2024, I had the great good fortune to be invited to present a keynote talk at the 2024 ICOM International Symposium at the Etihad Museum in Dubai, UAE. This event was the kickoff of a year’s worth of planning leading up to the 27th ICOM General Conference in Dubai in November 2025. The theme of that conference will be “The Future of Museums in Rapidly Changing Communities” and it will explore three sub-themes: Intangible Heritage, Youth Power, and New Technologies. I was excited to talk to the attendees about new technologies and how they do (or don’t) impact audience engagement.
Though it was meant to be a technology talk, I talked about visitors, design, and then technologies in that order because as a field I think we too often get caught up in the allure of newsworthy new tools at the expense of thinking about the problems we might solve with those tools. So, for museums that are struggling with where to start with generative AI, or VR to name just two examples, I advocated museums stop looking at new technologies to solve their problems and instead focus on better understanding the problems they want to solve. Once that’s done, it’s much easier to determine what technologies are best suited to help solve those problems. And in our case, I’d argue our #1 problem is visitor engagement. How do we better engage visitors with the cultural heritage we steward and help them more deeply partake of everything museums have to offer?
My answer was to focus on a framework for what I call playful engagement that centers four interrelated concepts central to creating compelling, memorable physical, digital, or blended participant experiences: sensory immersion, emotional evocation, narrative transportation, and gameful participation. If you want to explore these in more detail, my workshop at the ICOM ICEE conference in Estonia goes into more detail. Get it here: https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/icom-designing-for-playful-engagement-v3-pptx/273655518
While talking about playful engagement is something I do a lot, it was a refreshing change to be able to link it to some of the big questions that ICOM and the museum sector globally are grappling with in regards to new technologies.
How can museums integrate new technologies responsibly?
To integrate them, you must first understand them enough to make the judgement about whether they serve the museum’s needs. Technologies are tools, and you don’t need to buy every tool to fulfill your mission and when a new tool comes along, you need to understand how it works well enough to decide whether it’s better than the tools you presently use.
Critical assessment and experimentation (with the certain knowledge that experiments often fail, which is where you learn) and visitor testing become even more important than they were.
What are the implications for audiences?
We are bombarded with new technologies all the time, and those promoting them the hardest are often those who stand to profit from them the most. How is the average person supposed to decide whether generative AI is a good thing or bad when the only voices they hear are technology boosters? Museums have the opportunity to be places where visitors can have critical encounters with new technologies that are as carefully curated as we curate our exhibitions.
What are the implications for museum staff?
This is, to my mind, the thorniest issue the field has to grapple with, because it is going to require a fundamental rethinking of how the museum as a workplace functions. Gone are the days when a college degree provided all the training one would need to last an entire career. The world now demands that we be lifelong learners and that our workplaces be sites of professional development. In my current role as a strategy consultant I am often asked by senior leaders about what to do about the “skills crisis” , the mismatch between current staff and the technology needs of the current moment. One director once joked to me about firing everybody and hiring a bunch of 25 year olds who “got” social media as a viable solution. The trouble is that those 25 year olds will be 30 in five years, and there’ll likely be a new crop of technologies that they don’t know about unless we redesign our workplaces to build in continuous learning for the staff we already have.
How can museums embrace new technologies, while keeping the power and authenticity of cultural expressions at the heart of their experience?
I think that keeping our eyes on the prize – which is engaging visitors deeply in the heritage we steward – is the surest way to avoid getting swept up in the hype around technologies and making the smartest investments in the future of museums. This will require getting our hands dirty and trying things that are outside our current comfort zone, but I can assure you that this is infinitely more productive than sitting on the sidelines and waiting, or worrying without taking action. And it is by far the most rewarding.
If you’re interested, you can download the slide deck. It’s pretty short.
While joining ICOM colleagues from around the world was immensely gratifying, I was also excited to finally have a chance to see firsthand some of the high profile new museums that have opened in the Gulf in the past few years. Abu Dhabi gets a lot of attention for its concentration of museum megaprojects like Abu Dhabi Guggenheim, the Sheikh Zayed National Museum, teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi and more. Dubai also has its fair share of interesting museums.
The Etihad Museum
ICOM’s host was The Etihad Museum (“Union Museum” in Arabic) in Dubai. The museum campus contains the building where the UAE was founded in 1971 and is designed to be a living record of both the country and Emirati culture. As such, the museum is a testament to the national pride Emiratis feel and documents some of the massive changes that have occurred in the region since 1971. For this first time visitor to the Gulf, it was a very helpful glimpse into regional history and some of the cultural and political imperatives–like communitarianism and tolerance–that make the UAE such an interesting place.
Al Shindagha Museum
Looking at Dubai in 2025, it can be hard to imagine that in 1950 it was a small pearl diving port centered on the banks of Dubai Creek. The Al Shindagha neighborhood situated at the mouth of the Creek, was the heart of old Dubai. The Al Shindagha Museum presents a series of displays that chronicle traditional Emirati culture and the evolution of modern Dubai. The museum is not a single, purpose-built structure, but rather a collection of roughly 80 historic structures, including the former residence of the sheikhs of Dubai, which have been transformed into exhibit spaces, each highlighting a different topic like handicrafts or medicine. Wandering from building to building and threading one’s way through the narrow alleys gives one a sense of a Dubai of a very, very human scale, in stark contrast to the wall of skyscrapers that now dominates the skyline.
I’m a big proponent of object theaters, and the museum made great use of space to present multimedia in a compelling and, yes, immersive, setting. They also made good use of large scale exhibits that could gracefully accommodate single visitors and groups. A favorite of mine was a large 3D map of Dubai Creek with a series of video viewers that showed different historic buildings in old Dubai that morphed into animated reconstructions of those buildings as they were originally used. Very simple to use, and informative without a lot of text or narration.
I was a little surprised and disappointed that the interiors of the roughly ten buildings I visited had been completely emptied and turned into white box exhibit spaces. Many of the buildings touched on traditional culture, so the effect of transitioning back and forth from “I’m walking around in a neighborhood of old houses/I’m in a museum gallery” was jarring. In the end though, I think wanting more is not necessarily a bad thing, and there are still 70 more buildings waiting for me next time.
Museum of The Future (MOTF)
The Museum of The Future(MOTF) has probably gotten more news coverage than any other museum project in Dubai. From it’s eye-catching exterior, to the ambitious vision for the museum, and its impressive commitment to providing visitors with a human-led experience, MOTF is an incarnation of the Dubai government’s aspirations for the future of its people. The words written on the exterior are three inspirational quotes from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and the ruler of Dubai. They read:
“We may not live for hundreds of years, but the products of our creativity can leave a legacy long after we are gone.”
“The future belongs to those who can imagine it, design it and execute it. The future does not wait. The future can be designed and built today.”
“The secret of the renewal of life, the development of civilisation and the progress of mankind is in one word: Innovation.”
It’s very easy to get the message of MOTF.
The messaging about actively building a better future is central to the MOTF experience, which is framed around the story that you are visiting the year 2071 and the Mohammed Bin Rashid Spaceport, where the first of several guides you encounter will escort you to a rocket (an elevator) which will take you up to the international space station “Hope.”
The visitor experience is highly facilitated. Staff escort groups of visitors from gallery to gallery as you explore what living in orbit might be like, explore the Amazon rainforest, and explore a catalogue of life on Earth and how climate change might impact diversity over the next 50 years. At the end of the 2071 experience are a series of sensory exhibits that encourage you to recharge, slow down, and reflect.
I liked the messaging and the consistency of the Big Idea. Rarely have I have visited a museum that has as clear a message at MOTF. The world has serious problems and we can solve them if we try. All the staff I interacted with were highly-engaged and knowledgeable, as well as seemingly happy to be there. As a visitor, I felt well looked-after.
The popularity of the museum is a bit of a mixed blessing. Every gallery I was in was full of people and the staff worked hard to keep us moving so the next group could get in. I would’ve liked to have had the opportunity to wander a bit more freely. I also thought there were some opportunities for deeper engagement. You get a wristband with an RFID or NFC tag in it that allows you to personalize some exhibits. I would have liked to have had the opportunity to do more with that personalization, like have it send me information based on what exhibits I’d used like MONA in Australia, or shared photos of my visit like the Dali Museum.
As a new endeavor, I hope they’ll continue to refine their engagement strategies and build more.
That’s what I did with my free time in Dubai. I also walked along the Creek, went to the souk, and of course went to the top of the Burj al-Khalifa. Dubai Fort was unfortunately closed for renovations. :-(.
This is the first of a two part blog post. My next post will focus on Abu Dhabi and Doha.
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