Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) encompasses the practices and knowledge that communities inherit, sustain, recreate, and transmit. It offers meaningful opportunities for museums of all types—an idea this panel aims to explore.
Since the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, and skills have been formally recognised as part of cultural heritage. More recently, the new ICOM museum definition and updates to the Code of Ethics for museum professionals have further affirmed ICH as a core concern for all museums.
Yet ICH is still often seen as the domain of ethnographic or folklore institutions, or associated primarily with educational programming.
At a time when museums are seeking to strengthen their local relevance and renew their relationship with audiences, ICH can serve as a major strategic lever. It places human practices at the heart of museum narratives, stimulates scenographic innovation, enriches digital museum interpretation, and opens the door to ambitious participatory approaches.
By fostering transmission, co-creation, and intergenerational dialogue, ICH enables museums of all kinds to rethink their missions and develop new forms of collaboration.
