SUSTAIN members have prepared the following for the 27th ICOM General Conference: The Future of Museums in Rapidly Changing Communities, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 11-17 November 2025.

ICOM-SUSTAIN’s FIRST IC DAY, 15 November 2025

This includes ICOM-SUSTAIN’s First IC Day, “Museums as Arenas for Action: Supporting Changing Communities in a Just Transition to a Sustainable Future,” 15 November 2025, in cooperation with the remarkable Museum of the Future in Dubai.

Schedule:

9:00 AM Museum Opens
9:30 AM Registration
10:00 AM Welcome: SUSTAIN chair, Morien Rees
10:05 AM Museum of the Future director, Majed Al Mansoori
10:15 AM Sharing SUSTAIN, Ben Melham, SUSTAIN board member
10:40 AM SESSION: Sustainable Development: From 2030 Goals & Beyond

• Access Beyond Ramps: Reclaiming Disability Narratives in Museums for Social Sustainability, Nevine Zakaria, Egypt/Germany
• Agenda MAC USP 2030, Juliana De Lucca, Spain/Brazil
• Activating the Sustainable Development Goals through Museum-Based Social Innovation: The MLEADS Model in Indonesia, Nofa Lestari, Indonesia [co-authored with Misari Musa, Sriwulantuty RO, and Nyimas Ulfah]

12:00 PM Lunch (Museum of the Future)
13:00 PM SESSION: Climate Justice, Equity, & Community

• Coastal Heritage, Climate Justice, and Participatory Museology in Costa Rica, Juan Pablo Zamora-Rodriguez, Costa Rica
• Activating Affective Knowledge: Experimental Human-Nature Encounters in the Natural History Museum, Berlin, Sylvana Jahre, Germany [co-authored with Julia Diekämper & Carolin Glahe]
• Empowering Cultural Institutions for the Sustainability Transition, Giovanna Gray Nassralla, Switzerland [co-authored with Martin Müller and Leticia Labaronne]

14:25 PM SESSION: Cultural Heritage & Sustainable Practice

• Crafting Continuity: Ithra’s Museum Practice as a Model for Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Action, Farah Abushullaih, Saudi Arabia [co-authored with Preeti Gaonkar]
• Stitching Spirit into Sustainability: Exploring Spiritual Sustainability as a ValuesBased Leverage Point in Sami Art and Museum Practice, Fangke Jiao, Sweden
• Beyond the Battlefield: How War Fuels Climate Change and What Museums Can Do Natalie Dziubenko, Ukraine
• Italian Ecomuseums Fostering Sustainability, Michela Rota [in absentia Michele Lanzinger], Italy

15:45 PM Comfort Break
16:00 PM Closing Conversation: Future Directions in Sustainable Museums

• Rossella Locatelli, Italy and Michela Rota, Italy, with SUSTAIN board members

16:30 PM Coffee Break
17:00 PM ICOM SUSTAIN Annual General Assembly (for ICOM-SUSTAIN members & interested individuals)

• Featured speaker, Lucimara Letelier, SUSTAIN vice-chair, live from COP 30 in Belém, Brazil

18:00 PM Guided tour 1 hour (for ICOM members) Maximum 45 per group
19:00 PM Open time to tour museum (including reflective space with meditative engagement)
21:00 PM Museum closes

If you have not registered for IC day please go to this page, scroll down to find the description of the ICOM-SUSTAIN IC day, and click “Join” https://dubai2025.icom.museum/international-committees-day

DIGITAL REGISTRANTS will receive a ZOOM link to SUSTAIN’s IC Day soon.

Additional SUSTAIN Sessions & a Workshop during ICOM

Session A: 12th November 2025, 14:30-16:00, Dubai World Trade Centre

Digital Media and Sustainability: Developments from the perspectives of AVICOM and SUSTAIN

SUSTAIN partnered with AVICOM which took the lead in planning this session with the goal of assessing the production and use of digital media in light of the United Nations’ declared Sustainable Development Goals. As AVICOM explains it: This interdisciplinary session aims to analyze developments from the perspectives of AVICOM, the committee for media, and SUSTAIN, the committee for sustainability. It will identify problems, shortcomings, and demands, while also presenting best-practice examples. Fundamentally, this session will also address the question of which digital initiatives and engagements are meaningful, unnecessary, or should be rejected in light of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Speakers and topics include:

• Divyeshkumar Gameti, Science Centre Surat, India: Meaningful Media: Evaluating Digital Engagements in Light of the UN SDGs
• Linda Neruba, Uganda Museum, Uganda: Navigating the Digital Shift: The Uganda Museum’s Journey in Safeguarding Cultural Heritage through Emerging Technologies
• Zhao Jing, Capital Museum, China: Accessibility and Inclusiveness of Digital Information: The Barrier-free Design of Capital Museum’s Official Website
• Alessandra Frontini , Romina Nespeca, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy: The Dark Side of Cultural Heritage Digitalization
• Sharon Pisani, University of St Andrews, U.K.: The HERALD Framework: Embedding the Sustainable Development Goals in Digital Heritage Practice
• Monica Bruzzone, University of Genoa, Italy: When Education Becomes Heritage. Empowering Museums through the Digital Skills of New Professionals. A Case Study at the University of Genoa

Session B: 12th November 2025, 16:30-18:00, Dubai World Trade Centre

How sustainable is the future in light of the rapidly changing environmental and social effects on communities?

ICOM-SUSTAIN, in partnership with NATHIST  developed a panel discussion that explores the intersection of social and environmental sustainability with sustainable development practices in museums, climate action, and environmental justice. The conversation will reflect on how the 2030 UN Agenda incorporates intangible heritage as part of the solutions for sustainable futures, and how museums can foster positive changes through community knowledge and collaboration. Three guest speakers will share their experiences, alongside insights from ICOM SUSTAIN and NATHIST regarding sustainable development and climate justice through museum initiatives.

Panelists include:

• Juan Pablo Zamora Rodríguez, Policy Advocacy Coordinator inMarViva Foundation
• Ms. Sheena Khan, Head of the Environmental Program of TERRA
• Ms. Peng Jen-Yi (Caroline), Assistant Researcher of Lanyang Museum
• Moderators:
  María Auxiliadora (Dora) Llamas Márquez, chair ICOM Spain, board member of ICOM SUSTAIN
  Phaedra Hui-Shih Fang, Secretary of ICOM NATHIST

Session C: 13th November 2025, 14:30-16:00, Dubai World Trade Centre

Why We Talk About Sustainable Communities (digital and online) and their Importance in the Cultural Sector (Workshop)

SUSTAIN has partnered with AVICOM to offer this workshop, led by SUSTAIN board member Michela Rota. The workshop addresses the concept of Sustainable Community and the transition in museums from Audience to Community. Rota bases the approach on standards articulated during the 2005 Faro Convention (aka Council of Europe Framework Convention on the Value of Cultural Heritage for Society). The workshop aims to share results from a survey of IC members conducted by SUSTAIN and AVICOM during October 2025, and feature examples of how to build and nurture an online community (concerning for sure the tools and how to use them).

Speakers include:

• Francisca Listopad, Researcher, Museum Studies, Instituto de História da Arte – FCSH, Lisbon, Portugal: The 2030 Agenda and Culture: How museums foster Sustainability through digital and online offerings
• Ixel Lindstrom, Alice Crazy-Bull, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, USA: How Indigenous Museum methodologies provide a framework towards sustainable communities
• Nataliia Tolstaia, Far Eastern Art Museum Khabarovsk, Russia: ADIT – an association and annual conferences. 30 years of the IT community in the changing conditions in Russia

You can read more about the overall ICOM 2025 program here: https://dubai2025.icom.museum/programme-details
You can register here: https://dubai2025.icom.museum/registration