50 Fellows connected to museums and cultural institutions across 31 African and European countries are part of TheMuseumsLab 2026.

We are pleased to welcome the 50 Fellows of TheMuseumsLab 2026. Connected to museums and cultural institutions across 15 African and 16 European countries, this year’s cohort brings together a wide range of experiences, perspectives, and areas of expertise.

Working across fields such as curation, cultural heritage, community engagement, conservation, research, and digital innovation, the Fellows reflect the diversity of contemporary museum and heritage work. Their practices engage with topics including restitution and provenance research, decolonial approaches, archival work, education and mediation, as well as artistic and interdisciplinary forms of knowledge production. Together, they represent a broad spectrum of approaches to respond to current social, political, and environmental questions.

The Fellows are based in:

Belgium • Burkina Faso • Czech Republic • Egypt • Ethiopia • France • Germany • Ghana • Italy • Kenya • Kosovo • Lithuania • Malawi • Morocco • Netherlands • Nigeria • Norway • Poland • Portugal • Rwanda • South Africa • Somalia • Spain • Sweden • Switzerland • Tanzania • Uganda • Ukraine • United Kingdom • Zambia • Zimbabwe

Their Fields of Expertise include:

Accessibility • Anthropology • Archaeology • Archives • Architecture • Art • Art Museum • Arts And Culture • Artistic-curatorial support initiatives • Artist • Collection • Collection Management • Collection Research • Communication • Community Archiving • Community Engagement • Community Empowerment • Contested Memory • Contemporary Art • Contemporary Art from Africa • Conservation • Cooperation projects • Co-creation with Communities • Curation • Curatorial Practice • Curatorial Research and Exhibition Development • Cultural Collaboration • Cultural Heritage • Cultural Heritage Programming • Cultural Heritage Research • Cultural Mediation • Decolonial Practices for Museums and Archives • Decolonisation • Design • Digital Archivist • Digital Heritage • Digitisation • Diversity Management • Ecology • EDI • Editorial and Publications Work • Egyptology • Ethnography/Anthropology • Ethnology • Exhibition • Festivals • Geoscience • Heritage • Heritage Management • Heritage Promotion • Historical Research • History • Intangible Heritage • Interpretation • Knowledge Dissemination • Learning Service • Librarian • Lost or Destroyed Museum Collections Management • Mediterranean Studies • Migration • Museum Acquisition • Museum Documentation • Museum Education • Museum Governance • Museum History • Museum Practices • Museums • Oral History Documentation and Storytelling • Packaging and Dissemination of Heritage Information • Paintings Conservation • Participatory Engagement • Photography • Post-colonialism • Preservation • Project Management • Provenance Research • Public Engagement • Research • Restitution • Sci-com • Sustainability • Tanzanian Art History Research • Technology • Theatre • Tourism • University Lecturer • Visual & Sonic Culture • Visual Arts • Visual Narratives

Beginning online in May and continuing onsite in Berlin and Kigali, the programme brings the Fellows together across three modules. Through lectures, workshops, site visits, and exchange with international experts, they will engage with institutions, collections, and communities, and work collaboratively across different formats.

We look forward to meeting the Fellows of the 2026 cohort and to the exchanges, ideas, and collaborations that will emerge!