Inclusive Centers for Culture: Symposium at Kin Museum of Contemporary Art

This symposium takes as its starting point the project Inclusive Centers of Culture: Collaborative and Inclusive Cultural Tourism Through Nordic Cooperation (ICCE), which focuses on improving the accessibility of cultural centers. The project emphasizes inclusivity and aims to enhance the accessibility and attractiveness of cultural centers for diverse audiences. The symposium provides a moment to share some experiences from the project itself, as well as a chance to draw inspiration from other case studies.

Friday, April 17, 2026

9:30 Welcome by Maria Lind, director at Kin.

9:45 Artists Bella Rune and Jonas Nobel on their ICCE project, Gold and Green Forests: An Interior Farce, at Kin.

10:15 Bettina Pehrsson, deputy director at Kin: Models of Mediation at Institutions of Contemporary Art

Examples of how institutions of contemporary art in the context of Europe are developing models of mediation will be introduced and discussed.

11:00 Niclas Östlind, professor of photography, HDK-Valand: Academy of Art and Design, Gothenburg: At home in Stigberget—Using Local Culture as a Method to Attract and Engage Visitors and Create New Knowledge

Stigberget is an important site in the Majorna district of Gothenburg. For much of the twentieth century, it was home to the Svensson family, who ran a wallpaper business. Both the father, Axel, and the son, Arne, were dedicated amateur photographers, with the city as their primary subject—an interest later inherited by their granddaughter, Eva Karlsson. By displaying their photos of Stigberget in a historic venue on Stigbergstorget, the exhibition attracted both dedicated visitors and those knowledgeable about local history. Through a number of educational and curatorial strategies—including the absence of visible captions—visitors shared memories and stories about the site with one another and with the organizers. This form of citizen research generated new and valuable metadata for the images.

Q & A

12:30 Lunch.

13:30 Emma Pettersson Juntti, mediator at Kin: Some Methods of Mediation at Kin

School holiday art camps and drop-in workshops, off-site staff meetings, and hometown evenings are among the mediation methods at Kin that will be introduced and discussed. The importance of front-desk hosts and hospitality will also be addressed.

14:15 The partners in ICCE introduce their contributions to the project 2024–2026. Pia Keränen, Lapland University of Applied Sciences, Laura Laivamaa, the City of Rovaniemi, Umeå Institute of Design (speaker tbc): Inclusion by Service Design

The presentation demonstrates how the project team has employed service design–driven methods to engage diverse target groups and audiences in developing services for cultural centers. It also highlights how insights from this co-creative development process will lead to future pilots that will test and refine new ways of fostering inclusion.

15:00 Internal discussion ICCE.

16:00 Coffee and conclusion.