As funding models tighten, the strength of arts, culture, and heritage increasingly depends on community-driven, decentralised approaches. By embracing diversity and collaboration, regions can turn cultural assets into stories that resonate locally and globally.

In Catalonia, the Barcelona Provincial Council Local Museum Network brings together 65 museums across 51 municipalities. The network fosters a dynamic, multidisciplinary museum model, turning museums into accessible public service centres. By collaborating across municipalities, they pool resources and expertise, creating richer exhibitions, broader audiences, and a stronger regional identity.

In Massachusetts, the Berkshire Arts and Culture Alliance (BACA) unites ten major institutions, including MASS MoCA and the Norman Rockwell Museum. With a combined budget of $212 million annually, mostly from philanthropy and earned income, BACA attracts 1.7 million visitors yearly, generating around $1.5 billion in economic impact. Collaboration strengthens cultural infrastructure and tourism while boosting the local economy.

In Andhra Pradesh, India, the Kondapalli Bommala Experience Centre celebrates the village’s artisan-made wooden toys. Through tours, demonstrations, and educational programs, local artisans, authorities, and educators collaborate to preserve and share traditional knowledge, positioning Kondapalli as a national example of rural creativity and self-reliance.

These cases show how decentralised, collaborative cultural ecosystems enhance regional identity, drive tourism, and engage communities. Sharing resources and expertise allows institutions to achieve more collectively, while elevating cultural presence globally.

Investing in these networks is essential. By empowering local institutions and fostering partnerships, regions can build resilient cultural identities that thrive locally and internationally. Collaboration isn’t just a strategy—it’s the foundation of sustainable, vibrant cultural ecosystems.

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Museums are more than buildings. They are art galleries, cultural centres, marae, historic sites, science centres, open-air museums, botanical gardens, aquaria, and countless other spaces where communities share culture, stories, and local identity.

Centralised, private, and volunteer-driven museums in New Zealand often operate in silos. The future lies in working together to create a connected network that benefits everyone.

Collaboration unlocks new possibilities:

• Coordinated programming that links exhibitions, workshops, and events across multiple sites.

• Shared communications and promotion under a cohesive brand that positions the network as a unified, engaging destination.

• Connector roles — communications, content, and engagement specialists — who are not attached to a single museum but ensure knowledge, resources, and audiences move freely across the network.

• Bookable ‘museum journeys’ that enable visitors to move seamlessly between sites, experiencing the full diversity of local culture, stories, and creativity.

This approach is already proven to work. The Discovery Trail in Ithaca, New York, brings local cultural institutions together to deliver coordinated programming, shared promotion, and a bookable, connected visitor experience. Visitors move seamlessly between sites, discovering local stories as a unified journey — demonstrating how collaboration can unlock a network’s full potential.

To achieve this locally, networks could:

• Develop a shared brand identity that clearly signals the connected experience.

• Consider connector roles to manage programming, promotion, and engagement across museums.

• Encourage co-created exhibitions and events, where local communities, micro/small museums, and centralised institutions collaborate on content.

• Promote bookable museum trails that give residents and visitors a curated journey across the network.

When different forms of expertise and passion intersect, museums become living networks, reflecting the people, places, and stories of the community.

Culture, creativity, and local identity thrive when they are shared, co-created, and celebrated by everyone. Collaboration is not optional, it is the key to a vibrant, sustainable, and networked museum experience.