Towards an open, participatory cultural heritage

Since the modern museum was defined in the Age of Enlightenment as a cornerstone in democratic society, public museums have been on a mission to inspire and ensure equal access to knowledge, education, and participation in culture. With the digital technologies of the 21st century, we are seeing brand new opportunities to fulfil this mission. Millions, even billions, of people across the globe are connected by the Internet, where they have access to communicating, learning, exchanging, developing, creating, and sharing with each other. How can the cultural heritage sector embrace this unique opportunity to make our institutions and work truly support a connected world?

Museums around the world are acting on this question by 'going open'. They are providing free and uninhibited access to reuse of their digitized collections and data, and they are opening up their minds to a new open way of working with cultural heritage, where the public are invited to be co-creators of art, culture and meaning. At Statens Museum for Kunst, the National Gallery of Denmark, we are making practical and strategic efforts to share ownership of our collections and artistic heritage with the public. Building on the research and experiences published in my book Sharing is Caring. Openness and sharing in the cultural heritage sector (2014), I will present examples of how we are involving the public actively, and provide the background rationale for why we are opening up our collections and ways of working.