Reviving the global museum experience through intercultural dialogue
A partnership with UNESCO to train Museum, Culture and Heritage Professionals as dialogue facilitators
Museums and heritage sites around the world are facing an urgent challenge: visitor numbers have dropped significantly, and many institutions have yet to recover their pre-pandemic attendance levels. At the same time, these spaces remain essential - not only for preserving tangible and intangible heritage, but for offering places where people can meet, reflect, and engage with one another. In a post-pandemic and increasingly polarized world, this role is more important than ever.
Recognizing this need, the key global actor in culture, UNESCO has introduced the “Live Museum” concept—an initiative designed to renew the museum experience by integrating facilitated intercultural dialogue directly into cultural site programming. The goal is simple but powerful: transform passive observation into active engagement.
To bring this vision to life, UNESCO partnered with Soliya, a long-standing global leader in dialogue facilitation. Through the collaboration this fall, 35 Museum, Culture, and Heritage professionals from 24 countries were trained in the art of Intercultural Dialogue Facilitation. Participants included senior museum directors, curators, educators, and heritage site managers from North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Throughout this experiential training, participants practiced foundational facilitation tools and applied them to real-world topics such as hospitality, memory, clothing, genocide, slavery, alphabets and language, the role of elders, climate change, and superstition. Many used photographs of artefacts, documents, or monuments as prompts for conversation—an approach that proved deeply effective in sparking insight and meaningful cross-cultural exchange.
Every session connected theory to practical application on how facilitation skills could be integrated into the professional context. Many participants expressed a strong interest in incorporating dialogue-based experiences into their institutions’ public programming, enriching and deepening the museum experience.
“The course deepened my understanding of how museums can move beyond preservation and exhibition to become active facilitators of intercultural understanding.” - Participant, Egypt
At Soliya, we believe that intercultural learning flourishes through meaningful conversations. This partnership with UNESCO has allowed us to bring that approach into a new and powerful context: cultural institutions. Museums and heritage sites are uniquely positioned to inspire curiosity, empathy, and connection. Visitors seeking to learn about other cultures—or deepen their understanding of their own—will now have the opportunity to go beyond simply observing artefacts and sites, engaging instead in meaningful dialogue with locals and fellow visitors.
This collaboration marks an exciting milestone in showcasing the value of facilitated dialogue. Soliya is proud to support UNESCO’s mission to reimagine the museum experience worldwide and reinforce intercultural understanding. We look forward to working with even more cultural institutions to expand this impact!