The Future of Cultural Centers: Melanie Keen, Wellcome Collection

*This event is occurring as a live webinar. Registrants will be emailed a link to access the program.*

The Future of Cultural Centers Dialogue Series

As the world rapidly changes around us, old frameworks for the development of cultural centers look less and less relevant. Continuing the success of the 2020 “Future of Cultural Centers” dialogue series, this year AIA New York will look at cultural institutions that take a mixed-use approach to programming and space and a more holistic view at the human experience. We will touch on opportunities and challenges around these hybrid organizations, questioning what would happen if we were to take this unprecedented time to explore new missions, visions, and models to help address existing institutional deficits. What will 21st-century arts and community spaces be like? Join us for this Spring line-up of conversations as cultural forecaster and museum expert David van der Leer, Principal of DVDL, speaks with professionals from around the US and beyond.

In this week’s installment, Van der Leer will be joined in conversation by Melanie Keen, Director of Wellcome Collection. The Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library based in London, UK, that aims to challenge how we all think and feel about health. Through exhibitions, collections, live programming, digital broadcast, and publishing, Wellcome Collection creates opportunities for people to explore connections between science, medicine, life, and art. The venue offers contemporary and historic exhibitions and collections, the Wellcome Library, an events space (The Studio), a research area (The Hub), a café, a reading room, a bookshop, and conference facilities. The Wellcome Collection is part of the Wellcome Trust. The space bridges the gap between a museum, a world-class Library, a meeting place, and a research space where academics, artists, and other creative minds can collaborate on interdisciplinary projects exploring medicine, health, and well-being.

Speakers:
Melanie Keen, Director, Wellcome Collection (London, UK)
David van der Leer, Principal, DVDL

Melanie Keen is Director of Wellcome Collection. She was previously Director and Chief Curator at the Institute of International Visual Arts (Iniva), where she was instrumental in the revitalisation of its mission and vision. Keen is an independent advisor to the Government Art Collection, sits on the British Council’s Visual Arts Advisory Group, and was on the selection committee for the British Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2019. She was one of the judges for Art Fund Museum of the Year 2020 and has recently been appointed to the Board of Visitors of Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

David van der Leer is a consultant, curator, educator, moderator, researcher, strategist, and writer. He is the principal of DVDL, a consulting and forecasting agency,where he advises institutions, government agencies, corporations, and individuals in reinventing the institutions of yesterday and building the most inspirational institutions of tomorrow. Along with his consulting work, David van der Leer is a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation where he teaches a course called (Re)Programming Museums.

Explore all events in the series and register for upcoming programs here.