Good evening, everyone.
First, I want to thank Manu Chander, our Board Chair, for that introduction. I also want to acknowledge that the Curationist Foundation supports us, and we are honored to have some of our board members here with us tonight.

Art, Access, and the Power of Cultural Memory

Before I tell you about the launch of Curationist Museum Services, let me share a quick story.
This week, with our team all here in New York City for this launch, we visited an art revival called Luna Luna at a local venue called The Shed. Luna Luna is this ambitious project by artist André Heller. Back in 1987, in Hamburg, Germany, he built a theme park designed by artists – he had convinced 33 of the Western world’s most popular contemporary artists—Basquiat, Hockney, Dalí, Lichtenstein, Keith Haring—to create something remarkable. A carnival of art, where visitors could ride a Ferris wheel covered with Basquiat’s drawings, walk through a pop-art labyrinth made of glass by Roy Lichtenstein, or waltz inside a pavilion by David Hockney. A place where art wasn’t just viewed—it was experienced. And then, after one summer in 1987, Luna Luna vanished. It was packed away in 44 shipping containers that ended up in Texas, forgotten for over 30 years - until it was rediscovered by the world again for this new exhibition.
I knew this story before going in, but I brought the team there because I saw the clear alignment with Curationist. And this was really reaffirmed when we walked through the door and they had this quote from Heller painted on the wall: "Art should come in unconventional guises and be brought to those who might not ordinarily seek it out in more predictable settings." That captures exactly what we believe at Curationist. Art and cultural heritage should not be reserved for a select few or locked inside of institutions with limited access. It should be open, dynamic, and participatory—made available to everyone in ways that challenge traditional, exclusionary narratives.

Understanding Each Other Through Art and Culture

Because here’s the thing—access to art and culture isn’t an aesthetic issue. It’s about understanding one another. It’s about connection. It’s how we recognize ourselves in one another, bridge divides, and make sense of the world. When we don’t have access to art, we don’t have access to each other.
When access to cultural heritage is restricted—whether by physical barriers, digital inaccessibility, or historical exclusion—it deepens the divides between us. In a time when polarization and misunderstanding are so prevalent, ensuring equitable access to art and history isn’t just about preserving culture—it’s about fostering empathy, social cohesion, and a shared sense of belonging. The ability to see oneself in history, to recognize connections across cultures, is essential to countering division and building a more just world.
Historically, museums have played a central role in fostering cultural understanding. But we must also acknowledge that much of this has been done through problematic means—looting, colonialism, and exclusionary narratives that have shaped how we talk about and study cultural objects. Many collections that exist today were built through systems of power that took artifacts and histories from their places of origin and reframed them through a Western-centric lens.
This is where Curationist comes in. Since our launch, we have played a vital role in the open culture movement, making it possible for people to explore millions of digital images of cultural heritage. But we’ve done more than that. We’ve created a space where users engage with objects in ways that challenge colonial legacies, reframe historical narratives, and uplift cultures that have been erased or marginalized.
Through editorial work, metadata enhancements, and collaborations, we help people find meaning beyond traditional institutional narratives. But as we’ve built this platform, we’ve come to a deeper realization—while we were making existing collections more accessible, we were missing critical voices. The voices of those whose histories have been systematically erased or overlooked were not reaching our platform in the way they needed to.
The reason that we uncovered was that many of the institutions that could share those voices lacked the tools, the resources, and the infrastructure to participate in the digital cultural space. We’ve seen firsthand that simply having a commitment to open access isn’t enough if the people who hold these histories are left without the means to contribute. The institutions we’ve worked with so far—many of them large, well-resourced, and well-established—have been invaluable in expanding access, but their collections alone cannot tell the full story.
To make a real impact, we need to go beyond working with those who already have access and start supporting those who don’t. We need to build new pathways for underrepresented institutions and communities to share their knowledge, to bring their digitized collections into greater public reach, and to take ownership of their own cultural narratives. We need to expand access, and we need to do so in ways that correct the inequities of the past.

Introducing Curationist Museum Services

That’s why we’re launching something new.
Curationist Museum Services builds on what we’ve already created and expands our work to support the creation of new digital collections, ensuring that smaller institutions, underrepresented communities, and forgotten archives become part of the conversation.
Here’s what we’re doing: • Helping museums build sustainable digital strategies so their collections remain accessible and properly maintained for future generations. • Providing hands-on training in best practices for metadata enhancement, licensing, and increasing visibility of digital assets. • Expanding collections beyond a museum’s own digital footprint by helping them share their collections not only on Curationist, but also on other popular open culture platforms such as Europeana, Wikimedia Commons, and Flickr Commons. • Focusing on smaller institutions and marginalized collections, ensuring their histories are not locked away or lost to time. • Offering a co-application process for grants, so institutions aren’t forced to bear the financial burden alone. • Sourcing funding for institutions that lack financial resources to expand the reach of their digitized collections.

In short, we are seeking to remove the barriers that have historically kept smaller institutions from participating in the open culture movement. At Curationist, we believe that, whenever possible, cultural knowledge should not be confined. It should not be locked in storage containers or hidden behind paywalls. It should be alive, participatory, and accessible to all.

Building the Future Together

We are at the outset of something ambitious. We are working to build a structure that ensures cultural treasures are not lost due to lack of resources or visibility. Just as Luna Luna was tucked away in storage for decades, we cannot let these vital cultural narratives be forgotten or hidden.
This is a vision that requires a community—institutions, funders, and supporters who believe in the transformative power of access to culture.
We are ready to engage institutions now, to work alongside them in ensuring that their collections reach wider audiences and are framed in ways that better reflect the richness and complexity of the histories they hold. But this work also needs those who will help us build and sustain it—those who recognize that cultural knowledge should not be confined but should be alive, participatory, and accessible to all.

A Call For Collaboration

After I wrap up, you’ll hear from a panel about the promise of what we are building, you will get a demo of the platform from our Platform Director, Amanda Figueroa, followed by an exciting panel discussion. I invite you to stay, engage, and imagine with us what the future of cultural accessibility can be.
I also want to mention that the Curationist Foundation is looking for more fiscal sponsors to help expand this vital work. If you are interested in supporting this mission, let’s chat during the reception after the demo!
Thank you. Now, let me introduce you to our Platform Director, Amanda Figueroa.