A Shared Vision for Modern and Contemporary Art Museums
CIMAM President Amanda de la Garza welcomes the renewed CIMAM Board, Patrons, and the CIMAM community to a new three-year term (2026-28), and shares CIMAM’s vision and strategic objectives for the mandate, reaffirming the organisation’s commitment to strengthening and responding to the needs of its unique international network of professionals working in modern and contemporary art museums and collections.
As a Board, we will strive to preserve and strengthen CIMAM’s core values: diversity, solidarity, and collective critical thinking. At a time when art museums and cultural ecosystems face profound challenges and threats, CIMAM must continue to be a place where professionals can reflect on the present and future of institutions through imagination, commitment, and ethical principles. We come from a complex history, crossed by inequalities in the art world, and, at the same time, our institutions are being shaped by contemporary critical discourses. Like any other social institution, we face limitations, contradictions, and fragilities, but we are also one of the few spaces left where complexity still can exist through the myriad of art.
Amanda de la Garza, Deputy Artistic Director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), Madrid.
The new CIMAM Board is composed of 15 Museum Directors and Artistic Directors who collectively represent the diversity, geographical reach, and professional breadth of the organisation. The Board, which operates on a voluntary basis, serves as a shared leadership structure, collaborating across regions, contexts, and diverse perspectives.
Together, the Board is committed to promoting CIMAM's vision:
A world where the contribution of museums, collections, and archives of modern and contemporary art to the cultural, social, and economic well-being of society is recognized and respected.
CIMAM’s vision is realised through a clearly defined mission: In a context of growing social fragmentation and increasing pressure on cultural institutions, CIMAM will continue to work in building networks of collaboration, support, and professional solidarity, promoting a culture of care and shared responsibility.
In this framework, the objectives for CIMAM's 2026-28 term can be summarized as follows:
- Enhance Members' Engagement and Dialogue, strengthening CIMAM’s role as a platform for encounter, dialogue, and reflection, fostering critical exchange and collective learning among its members, through different programs and formats, which can produce a more constant dialogue among members and focus on those topics and networks needed by our membership.
- Build Networks of Collaboration, Support, and Professional Solidarity: Invest in building networks of collaboration, support, and professional solidarity, promoting a culture of care and shared responsibility within our institutions and across the ecosystem. Continue giving our support to professionals and institutions that face critical situations across the art museum field, and at the same time to build bridges between different organizations and allies so we collectively face the challenges of the present. Not only by responding through urgency but by creating the frameworks that can guide our work.
- Expand the Diversity and Representativeness of our Community: We will seek to expand the membership in underrepresented regions and to increase institutional affiliation. Our commitment is to plurality and diversity and to the values that accompany this vision. For this goal to be achieved, we should also promote and guarantee the sustainability of its programs and of the organization itself. Therefore, through the newly created Development Working Group, we will create a strategy that can help us achieve our goals in partnership with individuals and organizations that share our vision.
- Develop Practical and Relevant Resources such as ethical frameworks, guidelines, and position papers – that address the real needs of professionals and support both their daily practice, as well as reflections that can help us shape a vision for the future of art museums, as part of broader social ecosystems. Through this work, CIMAM seeks to care for and sustain its community, while contributing critically and responsibly to ongoing discussions about the role of museums and cultural institutions in contemporary society, grounded in ethical, public, and democratic values.
- Foster Dialogue About Different Institutional Models and New Leadership Formats: CIMAM should become the space where a conversation about institutional models and new formats of leadership should take place, considering cultural diversity and geopolitical disparities as a point of departure. We can no longer have a single model for cultural institutions, but rather diverse ways of being a museum.
These objectives are carried forward in practice through the collective work of CIMAM’s Working Groups and the contributions of all members, reflecting CIMAM's commitment to an open and inclusive platform for dialogue that fosters collaboration, solidarity, peer exchange and shared knowledge creation, and supports collective and critical reflection on the role of our institutions as spaces with a public mission that are ethical and socially committed.
- Explore CIMAM’s Working Groups and the Board members contributing to them.
- Annual Conference 2026, Harare, Content Steering Committee, chaired by Elvira Dyangani Ose, Director, Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, Spain. The Annual Conference is CIMAM's most important meeting throught the year, attended by directors and curators of modern and contemporary art museums and collections and independent professionals from all over the world.
- Travel Grants Program, chaired by Clara M. Kim, Chief Curator & Director of Curatorial Affairs, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles, United States. The CIMAM Travel Grant Programme is designed to foster cooperation and cultural exchange between contemporary art curators and museum directors from emerging and developing economies and their counterparts from other regions of the world within the context of the CIMAM Annual Conference.
- Webinars and Membership Engagement, chaired by Chus Martinez, Head, Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel, Switzerland. Rapid Response Webinars are moderated by board members located in different time zones and guests to provide brief updates on urgent issues for the profession throughout the year.
- Outstanding Museum Practice Award, chaired by Kamini Sawhney, Artistic Director, Public Arts Project, BLRHubba (Bengaluru Hubba), Bengaluru, India. The OMPA recognises the incredible work being done in museums around the world. It aims to promote excellence in innovation in modern and contemporary art museums, encourage public access and exchange, and sustainability within the sector.
- Museum Watch Program, chaired by Doryun Chong, Artistic Director and Chief Curator, M+, Hong Kong. The Museum Watch Program aims to assist modern and contemporary art museum professionals in dealing with critical situations that undermine their ability to undertake their professional practice and affect a museum’s ability to operate to international standards of best practice.
- Sustainability and Ecology in the Museum Practices, co-chaired by Joselina Cruz, Director and Curator, Museum of Contemporary and Design (MCAD) Manila, Philippines, Pasay City, Manila, Philippines, and Tatiana Cuevas, General Director, Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáeno, Mexico City, Mexico. In an increasingly complex and rapidly changing context, museums must be resourceful, innovative, and proactive in addressing their ecological, social, and economic impact. The CIMAM Sustainability Working Group supports this transition by fostering shared knowledge, critical reflection, and practical tools that help museums embed sustainability into their governance, practices, and public missions.
CIMAM members are warmly encouraged to participate actively in CIMAM’s programs and initiatives, both by contributing their perspectives and by drawing on these collective frameworks to inspire ethical standards across the sector.
- Stay up to date and get involved in CIMAM’s activities through What’s On Now.
The CIMAM Annual Report 2025 documents how the organisation’s vision and mission were translated into concrete actions, collective efforts, and measurable results across its platforms and programs.
The year marked the close of the 2023–25 term, led by Suhanya Raffel, Director of M+, Hong Kong, with other 14 Board members, a period that significantly strengthened CIMAM’s role as a global and diverse platform for dialogue, exchange, and professional solidarity.
By the end of 2025, CIMAM reached a record 1,022 members across 94 countries, reflecting its growing relevance and the trust placed in the organisation worldwide.
Participation across programs was relevant: the CIMAM 2025 Annual Conference in Turin convened 302 participants from 56 countries, awarding Travel Grants to 39 museum professionals from 19 countries.
Member engagement continued throughout the year through five Rapid Response Webinars and five CIMAM Connects sessions, reinforcing CIMAM as a space for exchange across diverse institutional and cultural contexts.
CIMAM's Museum Watch positioned CIMAM as a voice in ethical museum practice with the launch of Best Practices for Museums Working with Living Artists, placing artists at the centre of institutional reflection.
Sustainability emerged as a key axis of museum practice, strengthened through strategic alliances, and through its fifth edition of the Outstanding Museum Practice Award (OMPA), CIMAM recognised three exemplary museum practices responding meaningfully to the public and social mission of museums across diverse contexts.
The Report also highlights CIMAM’s role as an international network, activated through three Board meetings in 2025, in Hong Kong, Barcelona, and Turin, and through the Free Admission Program, which this year partnered with nine biennials and over 350 institutional members to foster spaces for exchange and research.
These efforts significantly expanded CIMAM’s global visibility, reaching over 1.6 million users and engaging a specialised community of 24,832 followers across social media platforms.
All this work has been made possible by the sustained trust of CIMAM’s members and the individuals and organisations supporting the CIMAM Patrons Program and Program Supporters, whose commitment enables the organisation to continue developing platforms for dialogue, research, advocacy, and encounter—ensuring CIMAM’s continued growth and meaningful contribution to the contemporary museum sector.
In light of the shared vision and values outlined above, we warmly invite current members to renew their CIMAM membership and continue participating in the organisation’s programmes, platforms, and initiatives. We also encourage professionals who have not yet been part of the CIMAM community to join us in this new three-year term.
- Renew your membership by contacting members@cimam.org (Individual Memberships) or institutionals@cimam.org (Institutional Memberships).
- Join CIMAM as a new Individual or Institutional Member.
At a time of increasing pressure on cultural institutions, belonging to a professional community such as CIMAM feels more urgent than ever. CIMAM offers a space of active support, where challenges can be shared, best practices exchanged, and the public relevance of modern and contemporary art museums collectively defended and celebrated. Together, we can continue to strengthen a network grounded in the core values of CIMAM: diversity, solidarity, collective and critical thinking.