The international conference ‘Borderless Museums’, organised by GECT GO, Zavod GO! 2025, ICOM Italy, ICOM Slovenia, ICOM South East Europe and ICOM Europe, which took place between Gorizia and Nova Gorica from 18th to 21st May, ended successfully.

It was an important moment of confrontation among museum professionals and cultural operators from all over Europe, Egypt and Australia: more than 130 participants shared experiences, projects and ideas on how museums can be the place where communities meet, dialogue and experiment solutions to overcome borders, break down visible and invisible barriers during about 15 thematic appointments among speeches, discussion panels and workshops. Among the participants were also representatives of some of the museum institutions of the cross-border area: the Provincial Museums of Gorizia, the Goriški muzej, the Poti miru Foundation, the Kobariški muzej, and the Pomnik miru of Cerje.

The challenge emerging from these three days of work is that museums must and can play a leading role in questioning established narratives and considering the point of view of the other. They are and can be, even more, laboratories for the involvement of communities, towards which careful reflection must be made: we need to understand what these communities are, how to involve them and why it is important to do so.

A number of valuable insights also emerged: from the museum run jointly by two cross-border municipalities in Sweden and Finland (the Torne Valley museum between Tornio and Haparanda) to the figure of the discomfort curator (museum curator of discomfort) proposed by the University of Glasgow to reflect on how to overcome the inequalities and outdated views still present in rapidly changing societies.