Museums between fact and fiction

Two-day conference: 12.10. and 13.10.2026

Museums are places of preservation, interpretation and presentation of (im) material cultural assets. They open up spaces for mediation and negotiation and are central actors in the transfer of knowledge and memory. This transfer is no longer taking place only through collection objects and exhibition projects, but increasingly also through digital platforms, participatory formats and transcultural networks that can restructure processes of collective memory (Assmann 2012).

Against this background, the question is how museums can integrate the potential of new technical developments in a meaningful and reflected way (Fuchsgruber 2025). A variety of new forms of interaction and participation are now available to them for this purpose (Thiel 2023; Gasser 2023): Digital technologies — from AI to VR — expand the possibilities of innovative and barrier-free communication.

At the same time, there are risks associated with the digital public sphere: The virtual space is also a place of fake news, AI-generated images and other forms of disinformation. As knowledge institutions with a high social reputation (Grotz, Rahemipour 2024), museums have a particular responsibility here. As actors in an open society, they raise awareness of these dangers and can counteract a division of society.

The conference aims to shed light on the diverse dimensions of imparting knowledge and memory in museums against the background of new digital technologies and AI-supported communication formats and to bundle interdisciplinary perspectives on this complex field.

The focus will be on the culture and history of Germans in Eastern Europe, an area of national remembrance that also concerns the centuries-long history of interdependence between Germany and its eastern neighbors. This includes the Shoah and the war of annihilation begun by Germany in the East and, as a result, the flight, expulsion and (late) resettlement of the Germans from autumn 1944. The international dimension is central to joint, future-oriented processing and mediation.

Download the program as a PDF (PDF, 242 KB).

Program Monday, October 12, 202612:00 p.m. Guided tour of the special exhibition “Heavy Material. Women — Costumes — Life Stories”

13:00 Welcome and introduction

1:30 p.m. Keynote by Heike E. Gleibs (Wikimedia Germany)

14:00 to 17:15 Strategies of critical media literacy Moderation: Matthias Thaden (MEK)

14:00 Use digital potential for historical image criticism and current media literacy. A web application for the critical handling of Nazi perpetrator photographs in the context of German-occupied Europe Axel Bangert/Martin Borkowski-Saruhan (German Historical Museum, Berlin)

14:40 “Polluted” cultural heritage in the digital space. How can digital formats promote a critical and agency-oriented culture of remembrance? Mara Metzmacher (House of Austrian History, Vienna)

3:20 p.m.: Coffee break

3:50 p.m. Viral hallucinations. The Center for Visual Media as a Model for Critical Image Competence at the Mona Behfeld Museum (Deichtorhallen Hamburg) Moderation: Cornelia Eisler (BKGE)

16:30 The role of alternative memory narratives in combating disinformation. The case of the Agnieszka Szczepaniak-Kroll Museum in Poznań (Institute of Archeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poznań branch)

5:15 p.m.: Coffee break

18:00 to 19:30 Panel discussion: Museums between fact and fiction. Challenges and strategies in dealing with fake news Moderation: Ingo Loose (Institute of Contemporary History, Berlin) Participants: Sabine Arend (SS-Sonderlager/Hinzert concentration camp), Sandra Hollmann (Jewish Museum Berlin), Jörg Morré (Museum Berlin-Karlshorst)

7:30 p.m.: Get-together

Tuesday, October 13, 2026:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. KI and the museum of tomorrow. Opportunities and risks for mediation and participation Moderation: Judith Schühle (MEK)

9:30 a.m. Games in museums — museums in games. Remembrance culture in the area of tension between exhibition and play Isabelle Hamm (Institute of Media Culture and Theatre, University of Cologne)

10:10 a.m. Collective Remembrance Negotiation Room. The “We Archive” in the Museum of Russian-German Cultural History Nico Wiethof (Museum of Russian-German Cultural History, Detmold)

10:40 a.m. Half full or half empty: IT in the museum as an opportunity and burden Jochen Mähnert (East Prussian State Museum with Baltic German Department, Lüneburg)

11:20 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.: coffee break

Moderator: Vincent Regente (German Society e.V., Berlin)

11:50 “Our Germans” in the Age of AI and Fake News Tomáš Okurka (J. E. Purkyně University, Ústí nad Labem)

12:30 p.m. Need for action due to AI hallucinations. Short videos and AI-optimized content as an answer Alexander John Bolton (Buchenwald Memorial)

1:10pm to 2:15pm: lunch break

14:15 to 15:45 Panel with final discussion: AI and the museum of tomorrow Moderation: Dorothee Haffner (HTW Berlin) Participants: Katrin Glinka (Berlin University of Applied Sciences), Jürgen Geuter (ART+COM GmbH, Berlin), Carolin Wagner (Berlinische Galerie)

A conference fee is not charged.

For our planning, please register by October 7, 2026 at: bkge@bkge.bund.de