AIC 53rd Annual Meeting

This session is an introduction to Your Neighborhood Museum, a social justice organization based in California dedicated to sustainable community-led cultural heritage preservation models. Our mission is to help each other care for our cultural heritage with a focus on under-represented communities and to investigate and address the root causes of inequities in the arts and culture landscape.




We do this by making critical resources such as art conservation, exhibition design, research, technical and administrative support directly available and accessible to those under-resourced and under-recognized by traditional institutions. We leverage our professional skills, networks, and experience to collaborate with artists, culture workers, and communities to develop community-led projects and support communities in reaching their goals. We utilize a mutual aid framework that places value in people and relationships to strengthen our capacity to address community preservation needs.




YNM moves beyond the recognition that the predominant museum model is unsustainable and unethical, and presents a successful alternative model to how cultural heritage preservation efforts and resources can be organized. We will share the conditions and motivations behind the inception of YNM, our methodology for program development, and the values and ethics that guide our vision for the future. We acknowledge, uplift, and build upon previous and continuous efforts made by BIPOC culture workers to create and sustain models that center community needs, talents, and strengths.