30 January 2026
Visiting a museum is like learning a new language – it requires communication and presentation. In Berlin-Neukölln, 99 objects tell the entire history of this district, which is characterised by diversity.
About the guest—Dr. Matthias Henkel
I have a multidisciplinary background: archaeology taught me to infer the former whole on the basis of traces and fragments; empirical cultural studies gave me a feeling for the interpretation and significance of social contexts.
Visual anthropology and ethnology sharpened my sense of observation – as well as my feeling for the “right moment” and the enlightening perspective. Early on – in the 1980s – I also came into contact with electronic data processing in the field of cultural studies research.
Based on these influences, I developed my own approach to transdisciplinary material culture research, which sought to answer not only the classic questions of where and what, but also the questions of why, for whom and how.
I have been working in the operational world of museums for over 30 years now, both as a cultural manager in the public service and as a self-employed business person in a wide variety of fields. This has naturally left its mark on my approach to tackling the challenges of everyday working life.
In doing so, I have always used academic lecturing – alongside my professional work – as a kind of laboratory for developing new approaches to socially relevant issues.
Today, I am particularly interested in the question of how cultural, artistic and historical issues can strengthen social cohesion, how sustainability based on cultural values can be developed – in order to ensure human survival in a global context.
[MuCoDi]: Hi Matthias, thank you so much for joining us here. You bring immense experience and such a variety of expertise—I am curious to take this conversation deep into the present and the future of museums and the role of technology connected with humans and systems in a museum's life cycle.
[MH]: Thank you for the pleasure of engaging in dialogue with one another.
[MuCoDi]: We have noticed that you are a strong advocate of communication and content for a museum—for their socio-arts-cultural intersection with the society. As part of your teaching assignments, you proposed a seven thesis approach where for example, thesis 7 says—“If the message sent by the museum does not pay off for its own brand, there is no lasting bond between the museum and the visitor”. Now since we are seeing a gradual adoption of technology by the museums, what kind of cultural adjustments the museum leaders need to make internally in the institute—towards the unified message and positioning of the museum?
[MH]: Of course, museums must not close themselves off to technological developments; at the same time, however, it is essential that museums retain the expertise they have developed over centuries, as otherwise they would lose their public relevance.
With my seventh thesis – ‘If the museum's message does not pay off in terms of its own brand value, there will be no lasting bond between the museum and its visitors’ – I am suggesting that museum management must always work in two directions simultaneously.
The museum must be able to develop the structure necessary to accomplish its internal tasks.
At the same time, museum management must keep an eye on developments in society as a whole.
Only by combining these two perspectives can it be ensured that these two lines of development do not diverge but converge.
[MuCoDi]: In 2020, the pandemic forced museums to rethink their digital presence almost overnight—from 'nice to have' to 'essential for survival.' Now, five years later, we still see many museums thinking of digital as a ‘marketing supplement.' Based on what you're seeing across Europe, what separates the museums that successfully integrated digital into their core mission from those where it remained peripheral? And what's at stake for institutions that choose the latter path?
[MH]: It is simply a matter of the survival of institutions in the age of social perception: only those who are still visible today—in a transmedial context—will be able to have an impact on society as a whole in the future.
I am not talking about a complete transformation to digital! Rather, it is about building a bridge between the “good sides of the analog world” and the “positive perspectives of the digital world”; it is about a hybrid evolution.
[MuCoDi]: You've worked in Germany, Austria, and you have a lot of institutional and consultancy experience. We see many national museums grappling with questions of identity—whose stories to tell, how to address colonial collections, what 'European heritage' even means in 2025. What exactly is this tension if you can describe in your own words and how content strategy or a more holistic system thinking can help museums build the right narratives and the message structure to support their institutional mission, and their presence in the industry.
[MH]: As early as 1985, German philosopher Jürgen Habermas spoke of the “age of new complexity.”
Over the past 40 years, this impression of complexity seems to have grown exponentially; the transformation of our value systems has developed just as rapidly: in a world characterized by this exorbitant change, the search for identity is becoming increasingly difficult – perhaps this search is even marked by hopelessness.
I am writing this part of the interview at the turn of the year 2025/26 – commonly a day when people wish each other a “Happy New Year”... But is this traditional greeting still appropriate in view of the multiple crises we are facing?
With regard to the development of a transcultural philosophy, the Indian-German philosopher Ram Adhar Mall has suggested that we should focus more on searching for cultural overlaps rather than looking for clear-cut identities. The search for such social and value-based intersections seems to me to be particularly promising in the dynamic and diverse societies in which we live today, because it is not a matter of simple comparativism but of an intelligent search for synergistic niches.
It is precisely in this position that I recognize a unique selling point of cultural institutions such as museums, because if not us, then who else is in a position to discover, describe, and communicate relevant areas of cultural overlap on the basis of valid data (= historical sources)?
Such an approach would go far beyond the concept of “third places” described by Ray Oldenburg.
[MuCoDi]: You often talk about visitors’ journey and their experience. At present when they seek information at any device, for any context, and at any time—the journey is not linear. Does it create new challenges for the museums’ digital infrastructure—for example they need intelligent collections management to support the findability goals of visitors, they need systems for internal operations and communities, and they need interactive storytelling too. What directions do you visualize for their digital ecosystem requirements and their positioning changing to support these omnichannel visitors’ experience expectations?
[MH]: No story without real content—no content without a truly deep understanding of the facts and contexts.
Museums have learned the “language of objects” over centuries. This has given them a unique knowledge of the “grammar of cultures.”
These two core competencies are essential for creating an unforgettable museum experience. We create this experience together with our visitors. Why? Because it is only through the interaction between the museum's infrastructure and the sensory perceptions of the visitors that it comes into being.
[MuCoDi]: How do you measure the success of a museum over a period of time, say in 1 year or 3 years. I am not talking about the finances or the visitors’ count but the success for the institution in a more holistic sense.
[MH]: Designing exhibitions alone does not make for a successful museum. In order to interact with our visitors, we have developed the “Museum in Dialogue” format. Thanks to completely different event formats, we receive very different feedback from our visitors—for us, this is proof of concept.
Simply curating exhibitions is no longer enough to develop a holistic visitor journey. It's about using diverse formats and media to convey the underlying issues from different perspectives – only in this way can we enable our visitors and users to form their own, fact-based understanding of these complex issues.
In 2023/24, we conceived an exhibition that addressed Germany's responsibility for its colonial legacy. The impetus for this exhibition came from a publicly accessible monument in the Neukölln district of Berlin that presents a "colonial perspective." Within the exhibition, we juxtaposed this colonial viewpoint with a decolonized perspective from a Namibian artist. In doing so, we not only contrasted two perspectives but also created a dynamic basis for engaging in dialogue with representatives of the affected communities.
Visiting a museum is like learning a new language – it requires communication and presentation. In Berlin-Neukölln, 99 objects tell the entire history of this district, which is characterised by diversity.
If all goes well, visiting a museum lifts the veil of history.
We succeeded in curating a "moderated dialogue" throughout the entire duration of the exhibition, building a communicative bridge between Berlin's urban society and the descendants of the populations affected by the genocide in Namibia. Only after the exhibition's conclusion and the evaluation of all events did we publish a comprehensive, hybrid documentation of the project.
This documentation interweaves historical facts, academic lectures and seminars, artistic approaches, panel discussions, experiences from workshops, and in-depth interviews. In retrospect, we have thus created an entirely new, sustainable foundation of facts and documents upon which discussions about the historical events can now be based. Here is the story (opens in a new browser tab) for more context.
Especially when it come to dealing with the history of colonialism, cooperation with representatives of the affected communities is an important step towards mutual understanding: On the occasion of the opening, a representative of the victims' group completes the installation in the museum.
[MuCoDi]: There's a generational transition happening in museum leadership at present—directors who built their careers in the pre-digital era are about to retire or are retiring, and a new generation that's digital-native is stepping in. But at the same time, museums have multi-generational audiences and the staff. How do you think that the museums should invest in the cultural sensitivity in their leadership and the employee experience so that they remain relevant, visionary, and serve as the right example in the industry, and for the society too?
[MH]: Indeed, when generations change, there is always a risk of losing knowledge—especially experiential knowledge. Ideally, when key positions in museums are filled by a new generation, there should be a joint phase of support during such transitions. Of course, this does not only apply to transformation processes in the cultural sector, but should be a general task in business life.
I myself have had the opportunity to experience such a tandem phase and still benefit from it today because the entire institution benefits from this cultural and institutional memory.
[MuCoDi]: Do you think that the architecture education in colleges can support the future of museums? If yes, what is their role, and in what context and for what directions can they do it?
[MH]: Earlier, I spoke about the grammar of culture; architecture is only a small part of the work done in museums. I define scenography as the design of argumentative, walk-in spaces.
The development of such spaces can only be achieved through a holistic transdisciplinary approach to the design process.
[MuCoDi]: What role do you see for external partners—agencies, technology vendors, other museums—in achieving a museum’s digital vision? What does a good partnership look like?
[MH]: On the one hand, cooperation with external partners is essential because not all competencies can be provided within the museum; on the other hand, successful work can only be achieved if there is a deep understanding of how to jointly achieve the desired result. This often requires trust built up over many years and the ability to resolve conflicts together.
[MuCoDi]: If you imagine yourself in this same role in 2028, what's one thing you'll really admire yourself for doing in 2025 or in 2026? And what might be a missed opportunity you regret not pursuing sooner?
[MH]: The period of 3-5 years is too short for me. In my opinion, the real success—or failure—sometimes only becomes apparent after a decade has passed. It would be nice if, with the benefit of this temporal distance, one could be regarded as someone who made the right decisions at the right time.
We live in a very dynamic—one might even say disruptive—time: AI is going global. And the question is not only whether museums as institutions will be winners or losers in this development, but I also ask myself whether we as museums, which enjoy a very high level of trustworthiness in the public perception, are putting this reputation at risk if we go “all in,” or whether we will lose touch with society and relevance if we remain critically distant from this development.
The fact is that in the age of AI, everything that remains in a pre-digital state will remain outside the perception of AI. We could consider this an advantage, but it will probably turn out to be a disadvantage. In terms of its historical significance, this moment is comparable to the loss of the libraries of Alexandria (between the 1st century BC and the 7th century AD), which resulted in the loss of an inconceivable amount of ancient knowledge.
The question is therefore: what strategy can we as museums use to fulfill our responsibility for the treasure trove of historical knowledge entrusted to us? How can we tackle this challenge operationally? Which institution, which partner in industry or science could guarantee that our unique historical data material is handled in a truly responsible manner? How can we prevent digitized historical sources from being altered, deleted, or deliberately falsified at a later date?
This is probably one of the biggest and most responsible questions we have to ask ourselves. The tragic thing is that there is very little time left to address it—and it is frightening that this question has not yet been discussed sufficiently in the scientific community.
[MuCoDi]: Interesting, and I have enjoyed this discussion so much. Final question—if you could wave a magic wand to wish something for your museum, what would you wish for and why?
[MH]: For me, a magic wand would be a kind of seismograph that shows us how to make socially relevant topics of the day understandable using the museum's resources—it would be a tool for building a “bridge of relevance” between the past, present, and future.
[MuCoDi]: Now this one is not about the museums. Given a chance that you can visit any one museum in the world with one guest or co-visitor of your choice to accompany you for a full day tour, which museum you will select, with whom, and why?
[MH]: During my studies, I was part of an archaeological team that excavated a Neolithic grave. It was an absolutely special moment for us when we recovered the hand axe that had been lying in the grave for thousands of years.
I would love to meet the dead warrior who was buried with this stone axe as a grave offering—to ask him whether he considers the methods of archaeology necessary and justifiable for understanding times long past.
Thank you Dr. Matthias Henkel
Thank you, Matthias. I am sure that the industry will find a lot of inspiration in your ideas and your experiences. MuCoDi appreciates your time and being so thoughtful in the discussion.
PS: Dr. Matthias adds—
The questions posed to me in this interview have triggered a process of profound reflection.
In a figurative sense, we are in a phase of dual climate change:
On the one hand, we are observing a rapid shift in the global climate in the narrower sense, which will have consequences whose full extent we don't yet want to fully grasp. This climate change will, among other things, have repercussions for how we treat and preserve historical monuments.
On the other hand, we are experiencing a rapid transformation of the existing world order in these very weeks, accompanied or even triggered by a shift in values. We are even less able to assess the full global impact of this transformation.
How can or must we, as cultural managers, respond to this dual crisis?
A generational turn is needed—from depression to taking action. The foundation for this can only be a concerted global initiative for education and knowledge—based on democratic values.
In a sense, we need to transform the visitor journey of yesteryear, which consisted of creating a visitor experience, into a journey that at least enables a change in consciousness.
Against this background, I am involved on the one hand as co-spokesperson of the sustainability working group of the Berlin Museums Association - and on the other hand, together with three friends, I have developed a civic project that refers to Joseph Beuys' unique art action "7000 Oaks" at DOCUMENTA 7 in 1982: with our "CONFERENCE OF OAKS" (link) we want to set a - albeit small - example that at the interface between art, nature and society, sometimes unusual paths are needed to initiate positive social change.
See this story where I have I tried to describe my approach to a holistic understanding of sustainability.
Images credits Jens Ferchland, and Unsplash