From 18 to 21 May 2025, the cities of Nova Gorica and Gorizia will host Borderless Museums. Redefining Museum Narratives and Inclusivity, the international conference promoted by GECT GO and Zavod GO! 2025, in the programme of GO! 2025 Nova Gorica-Gorizia European Capital of Culture. An appointment of great interest for the museum community, called to reflect on the role of museums in an era of profound cultural, social and geopolitical transformations.

The event will symbolically open on 18 May, coinciding with the International Day of Museums, a day coordinated by ICOM International since 1977 and conceived to underline the importance of museums as instruments of exchange and cultural enrichment, as well as of the development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples. This coincidence reinforces the message of the conference, highlighting the crucial role of museum institutions in promoting inclusion and overcoming all kinds of borders.

Organised by EGTC GO, Zavod GO! 2025, ICOM Italy, ICOM Slovenia, ICOM Europe, ICOM South East Europe, in collaboration with Walk of Peace and Goriški muzej, the conference will feature a rich programme of talks designed to stimulate discussion among professionals. Keynote speakers include leading voices from the international museum scene: Emma Nardi (President of ICOM), Sharon Macdonald (Director of CARMAH Berlin) Charles Esche (Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Arts London), Tamara Nikolić Đerić (independent curator), Steph Scholten (Director of the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow) and Roberto Balzani (Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Bologna), who will explore themes such as decolonisation, museum ethics, community participation, cross-border cooperation and overcoming barriers - physical, cultural and symbolic. 

The speakers, coming from all over Europe and Egypt, who will take part in the conference were selected by a transnational Scientific Committee through a Call for Abstract that was widely attended.

In a region marked by a complex history, where the border represented separation yesterday and opportunity today, Borderless Museums. Redefining Museum Narratives and Inclusivity proposes itself as a meeting space and the conference takes on an emblematic meaning: museums become bridges, instruments of dialogue and reconciliation, capable of representing shared memories and diversity, beyond all barriers.
The event will be a valuable moment of internal confrontation within the professional community, offering space for reflection, the sharing of practices and the elaboration of new common perspectives.
More information is available here.