Registration is now open! CIMAM 2025 Annual Conference

Enduring Game: Expanding New Models of Museum Making
With the guiding mantra: “Of Necessity, Virtue”
Turin, Italy | November 28–30, 2025

We are pleased to announce that registrations are now open for CIMAM’s 57th Annual Conference, taking place this year in Turin, Italy, from November 28 to 30, 2025.

Organized by CIMAM, the conference is supported by Fondazione per l’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea CRT and Fondazione CRT and co-hosted by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Fondazione Torino Musei, and Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, involving museums and cultural institutions of the city.

Titled Enduring Game: Expanding New Models of Museum Making, with the guiding mantra “Of Necessity Virtue”, this year’s edition invites museum professionals to come together in a spirit of critical inquiry and collective imagination to explore the evolving role of contemporary art institutions in an increasingly complex global context.

Key Dates and Information

• Conference Abstract
• Conference Program 28-30 November
• Speakers & Guests Bios
• Register now! Until September 30, or when capacity is reached!
• Content Committee
• Optional Post-Conference Tour to Langhe & Milan

Conference Program

This year, the conference is designed as three collective working sessions around the paradox of having to face important and hard systematic changes – cuts and a growing climate of political and social antagonism – while inventing and revitalizing the social, pedagogical, and cultural mission of the multiple institutions dedicated to contemporary art.

The Content Committee proposes a carefully choreographed three-day program to foster deep engagement and shared reflection. Each day will open with a welcome remark and an artist's intervention, followed by a 40-minute keynote lecture, breakout sessions, and complementary performative acts, which will set a tone of bodily and intellectual attention.

Day 1 motto: Doing Less vs. Doing Differently

The first day will open with a thought aimed at situating and better understanding the paradigm shift we are facing, so motivating participants to actively participate in the conference by breaking into groups with guest moderators. These initial sessions are intended to challenge ingrained assumptions and create a shared vocabulary for thinking about institutional transformation. By focusing on “doing less” not as withdrawal but as recalibration, we invite a reconsideration of the qualitative over the quantitative in cultural work.

The day will begin with a performance by artist Alessandro Sciarroni (Italy), followed by a keynote address from Françoise Vergès, Senior Fellow at the Sarah Parker Remond Center for the Study of Racism and Racialization, University College London (UCL), UK. The morning concludes with breakout sessions facilitated by 25 moderators, lasting 90 minutes.

Day 2 motto: Mapping Desires

The day will open with a performance by Abdullah Miniawy —expressionist, writer, composer, and performer (Paris, France)— followed by a keynote address from Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University, New York City, USA.

Short presentations will follow this, each lasting 15 minutes and Q&A by speakers Karen Archey, Head of Curatorial Department, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany; Rustom Bharucha, Professor, International Fellow of the British Academy in London, Kolkata, India; Alessandra Ferrini, Artist, Researcher, Educator, University of the Arts London, Corby, UK; Francesco Manacorda, Director, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Torino, Italy, and Azu Nwagbogu, Founder/Director, African Artist’s Foundation & LagosPhoto Festival, Lagos, Nigeria.

After the performance, keynote, and a series of short presentations, delegates will be invited to articulate, in moderated group discussions, their pragmatic aspirations and to imagine institutional models that respond critically and constructively to the changing realities of the cultural sector, avoiding utopian idealism in favor of a grounded and resilient imagination.

Day 3 motto: Transactions and Transmission. Tactics of Togetherness

The day will open with a performance by Diana Anselmo, performer and visual artist (Milan, Italy), followed by a keynote address from Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London (UCL) and Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose.

We propose the morning to continue with rotating breakout sessions to examine how museum communication as a transmission is perceived by audiences, interrogating the frameworks through which messages are transmitted—what is being communicated, how it is conveyed, and to what extent the publics are meaningfully informed and engaged.

Read the Conference Program

Post-Conference Tour - Contemporary art in Langhe and Milan

1 & 2 December 2025

The post-conference tour will kick off on December 1 in the Langhe, renowned for its rolling vineyards and culinary delights. This region, surrounding Turin, has also become a vibrant, ever-growing hub for contemporary art.

A network of site-specific installations and open-air museums has transformed the landscape into a dynamic cultural itinerary. Some notable highlights include a striking multicoloured mural work by Liam Gillick and Hito Steyerl and a shimmering aluminium sculpture overlooking spectacular vineyards by French sculptor Jean-Marie Appriou, transforming the villages of Roddino & Neviglie.

The Cappella del Barolo, a once abandoned chapel, has been completely transformed by artists Sol Lewit and David Tremlett, and has become symbolic of the region's fusion of art and landscape.

The Castelnuovo Calcea, Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Camo Art Parks showcase large scale works by acclaimed artists like Carsten Höller, Marguerite Humeau, Ugo Nespolo and Emanuele Luzzati and many more, which visitors can explore by taking different walking paths. As well as taking a tour with an art historian to explore the region, we will also have the chance to do some wine tasting, and enjoy the ridiculously good food, spend a night in the charming town of Alba nestled in the heart of truffle country.

On 2 December we will head to Milan where we spend the day exploring dynamic art spaces such as the Prada Foundation and Hangar Bicocca.

Learn more about the Post Tour

Call for Travel Grants

The Call for Travel Grant Applications to support individuals' curatorial and research development through attendance at the Annual Conference is now open and will close on June 16.

Apply for a Travel Grant.

The CIMAM 2025 Annual Conference is conceived and organized by the Content Steering Committee, made up of:

• Chus Martinez, (Chair of the Contents Committee), Director of the Institute of Art Gender Nature in Basel.
• Chiara Bertola, Director, GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino, Turin, Italy.
• Bernardo Follini, Senior Curator, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy.
• Leevi Haapala, Dean, Academy of Fine Arts, University of Arts, Helsinki, Finland.
• Malgorzata Ludwisiak, Ph.D., Museum Management Expert / Freelance Curator / Academic Teacher, Warsaw, Poland.
• Francesco Manacorda, Director, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin, Italy.
• Victoria Noorthoorn, Director, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Davide Quadrio, Director, Museo d’Arte Orientale (MAO), Turin, Italy.
• Kamini Sawhney, Head, Public Arts Projects, BlrHubba, Museum Management Expert, Independent Curator, Bangalore, India.