Conference Program

The ability to explore possible futures and make far-sighted choices is an essential competence in today’s world, marked by an unprecedented hyper-acceleration. In Italy, however, this competence is still less developed than in other countries. From this perspective, museums carry plural forms of knowledge, rooted in cultural heritages that reflect the essence of humanity and in processes of interpretation and accessibility, and thus in the very meaning of our society in the making. Museum contexts are places of elaboration and hope, able to inspire and nourish imagination and intuition, fostering semantic capital (Floridi 2025) and the shared creation of cultural artefacts oriented towards desirable futures through processes of collective intelligence enacted by citizens. In particular, this contribution explores a possible horizon that goes beyond the network of “museums of the future”, attempting to respond to the legitimate question (von Foerster 1987) that follows: why a museum of futures? After an initial premise examining national regulatory references and international documents on the future of new generations, the paper then presents the network of museums of the future and the main global experiences in which museums and hybrid spaces propose significant practices oriented towards Futures Literacy, promoted by UNESCO since 2012, and towards Futures Thinking (Aldford 2025). Finally, after outlining the Pedagogy of Beauty®, an educational approach that promotes learning through beauty understood as a transformative experience capable of awakening human potential and creating authentic connections (Perotti, Cusmai, De Laurentiis 2025), and in order to combine a methodological architecture that enables a virtuous relationship with Futures Literacy, the contribution presents the experience of The Human Safety Net, based in Venice. The workshop proposals planned for 2026, addressed to students, young changemakers, and the broader public, were centred on Futures Literacy as a methodological core, in coherence with the values promoted by the interactive exhibition A World of Potential, through which the importance of being aware of one’s potential, and of the right we all have to express and fully develop it, is shared. A play-oriented approach proved to be a significant support for the dissemination and pedagogical rooting of Futures Literacy: rather than treating anticipation as a specialist exercise, it transformed it into an inclusive, creative, and engaging experience. Within this perspective, it becomes possible not only to talk about alternative futures, but also to sense and imagine them together, opening the way to renewed possibilities for action in the present, including a Museum of Futures that investigates “the futures of society”, where futures act and take shape, and that takes sustainability as a guiding thread, making visible how every choice in the present (energy-related, social, educational, technological) opens up multiple futures, whether conflicting or inclusive.