Museums in the Arab World - holding a significant collection of the world’s cultural heritage - can reconfigure themselves as virtual platforms for their digitized artefacts and offer discussion rooms, workshops for assimilating new technologies, and spaces for intensifying regional cooperation. They would be spaces for a participatory discourse in societies under stress. To become such a "place for change,” museums must rethink their own roles, self-understandings, and capabilities. However, why museums have so far been prevented from assuming this role is not (only) due to technologies and funding.

Currently, the union of art and digital technologies is entering a new phase of relations. What opportunities does this open up for cultural organizations and projects? The Russian Fund of Cultural Projects "Thursday” shares its experience of creating the online exhibition ART-MEMORY - a socio-cultural project adapted for the Google Arts & Culture platform during the lockdown.

Users come to Tates website with different motivations, knowledges of art, and have different preferences for browsing information online. At Tate, we have undertaken research to understand, analyse and map these users needs and expectations. We have then used this analysis to consider how we can develop more effective ways for users to find and consume our content about art, as well as enabling them to create their own experiences and meanings.