The webinar Museums Navigating Crisis through Cultural Rights will be held on 25 September from 10:00 to 11:00 CEST as part of the MONDIACULT 2025 pre-conference side events programme. It is organised by the Latvian Museum Association and Henry McGhie (Curating Tomorrow), in collaboration with the EU-funded project TOWCHED (Transforming Our World: Collections at the Heart of Life-long Learning and Education).
MONDIACULT is the world’s biggest cultural policy conference organised by UNESCO. It is a global forum bringing together policy makers and practitioners to shape cultural policy, establish a global cultural agenda, and foster dialogue on the link between culture and sustainable development. The 2025 edition will take place on 29 September - 1 October in Barcelona. The programme will revolve around six themes – Cultural Rights, Digital technologies in the culture sector, Economy of culture, Culture and education, Culture and climate action, Culture, heritage and crisis, and two focus areas - Culture for Peace, and Artificial intelligence and culture.
Events that are included in the Extended Programme “Towards MONDIACULT 2025” are taking place in the weeks and months leading up to the Conference, and are designed to support its objectives and broaden its global reach. The webinar Museums Navigating Crisis through Cultural Rights will explore the key question: what roles can museums and other cultural institutions play in promoting and creating peaceful, resilient communities, notably in times of crisis?
Cultural rights, including education, access to information and public participation, feature in the main sustainable development programmes, including the SDGs, Paris Agreement, Convention on Biological Diversity, Sendai Framework, and Our Common Agenda. For example, the Pact for the Future commits to ensuring that culture “can contribute to more effective, inclusive, equitable and sustainable development”. How can this enhanced contribution be achieved in practical, concrete ways? This event will showcase a range of ways in which museums are promoting cultural rights, bringing sustainable development agendas to life in communities and cultural institutions. The event aims to promote a ‘bottom-up’ approach, which recognises that people and communities can be active participants in sustainable development, when their cultural rights are respected, protected and fulfilled.
Moderator of the webinar Henry McGhie runs the consultancy Curating Tomorrow, working to strengthen the contributions of museums and similar institutions to sustainable development agendas, including the SDGs, climate action, human rights, DRR and biodiversity conservation. He writes a series of open-access guides on these topics. He will introduce his latest guide Agency, Participation and Solidarity: People-centred Sustainable Development, which emphasises the importance of the bottom-up, creative and expressive aspects of cultural rights and sustainable development. He also works as a consultant with ICCROM on the EU-funded project TOWCHED.
The talk by international human rights professional Martina Gastaldello, entitled ‘The Enjoyment of Cultural Rights by Everyone’, will focus on applying a human rights-based approach to museum work. Martina Gastaldello is currently working as a consultant at ICCROM in the EU-funded TOWCHED project, promoting the use of museum collections to advance Education for Sustainable Development. Previously, she held various roles in conflict, post-conflict and displacement settings with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as leading international NGOs across Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Martina holds an LLM in International Human Rights Law (University of Nottingham) as well as a Master's and Bachelor's in International Relations and Diplomacy (University of Trieste & Université Panthéon Sorbonne).
The webinar will feature case studies from Latvian and Spanish museums working to advance cultural rights.
Liliane Inés Cuesta Davignon, museum curator at the National Museum of Ceramics in Valencia (Spain) will explore how cultural rights and gender equality are addressed in the projects of the museum. In 2025, the Spanish Ministry of Culture approved a Cultural Rights Plan. One of the key elements was the gender perspective. In addition to guaranteeing equal participation, access, and opportunities in culture for men and women, museums can also guarantee the right to learn about women’s history and cultural heritage. We will present some research, documentation, and education projects of the museum that contribute to this.
Maija Meiere-Oša, researcher and curator of educational programs in Žanis Lipke memorial, will present the approach of the museum to communication of difficult heritage through art and technology. Žanis Lipke Memorial is dedicated to the Lipke family, who risked their lives to rescue more than 50 Jews from almost certain death in Riga during the Nazi occupation. The museum’s educational programs not only tell this remarkable story of courage but also raise awareness about human rights and educate young people on the importance of civil society. The Memorial works closely with writers, artists, theatre-makers, and digital creators to present history in creative, contemporary forms — connecting the past with the challenges of today.
The event is organised and hosted by the Latvian Museum Association (LMA), a non-governmental organization that brings together 129 state, municipal, private, and autonomous museums. Since 2020, one of LMA’s key focus areas has been sustainable development. In addition to maintaining a database of local SDG-oriented museum projects and providing relevant training for museum professionals, LMA participates in several international initiatives on this theme. The most significant among them are the UNESCO Participation Programme project ‘Localizing SDGs Through Museums and Libraries’ (lead partner, 2020-ongoing) and the Horizon project TOWCHED (2025-27).
The webinar will be streamed on the Facebook and Youtube pages of the Latvian Museum Association. No prior registration is required.
Contact information:
Inga Surgunte, Latvian Museum Association
E: inga.surgunte@skaidrs.org
T: +37129953235
Towched has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme under grant agreement 101177736
