Expanding Art Museums is part of the Leuphana Innovation Community Arts and Culture at Leuphana University Lüneburg.

In order to strengthen collective learning and knowledge transfer between academia and broader society, Leuphana University Lüneburg is currently establishing Innovation Communities in numerous fields of research. The Innovation Community Arts & Culture supports and helps shape transformation processes in artistic and cultural organizations by developing and reflecting new organizational formats and processes. The project fosters regional and international communities between research and practice, fusing university-based, culture-theoretical and organizational research and teaching with the practice-based experience, knowledge and reflexivity of artists, curators, cultural leaders and cultural organizers.

The project contains three main parts:

  • This part of the project comprises a network of internationally renowned art museums to investigate the current transformation of the museum sector. We assume that organizational change needs to acknowledge and reflect the interplay of “frontstage” and “backstage”: negotiating and presenting societal challenges and concerns (through art) are intertwined with the challenges. The project’s collaborative set-up is designed to collect, reflect and help redesign sustainable organizational processes and practices for the future of art museums.

  • This part of the project examines the organizing practices of local arts and cultural spaces, focusing on their challenges, everyday concerns and strategies. It emphasizes a sensitivity towards matters of diversity and participation. Local spaces such as DüNE, mosaique – Haus der Kulturen e.V.,Halle für Kunst Lüneburg e.V. and Kunstverein Lüneburg e.V. serve as real-world laboratories for experimenting with new organizational and programmatic approaches, modes of accessibility and forms of art education.

  • As a first spin-off project, the Community Art & Culture and Kampnagel Hamburg, Europe's largest production venue for contemporary performing arts, have teamed up to establish a ‘Scholar in Residence’ program to investigate the modes of organization at work in a cultural factory. Positioned in-between informal art spaces and art museums as formal organizations, Kampnagel presents a particularly rich setting and case for reconsidering the significance of cultural factories for the transformation of urban culture. The ethnographic and comparative research will take place in a phase of transformation, as Kampnagel is facing a large-scale renovation and spatial extension.

The Leuphana Innovation Communities are established within the project "TrICo" and funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space and Joint Science Conference | GWK within the initiative "Innovative Hochschule”.

Team

  • is a research associate in the project Spaces of Art Organization in which she works with various artistic and cultural spaces, exploring and co-designing organizational formats and processes. After studying Cultural Studies, she is now pursuing a PhD at the Institute of Management and Organization at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Her research takes an ethnographic approach to examine the spatial and rhythmic practices of self-organized art spaces. Using artful methods, such as drawing, she explores the affective and atmospheric dimensions of organizing.

  • is a professor of sociology of organization and culture at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Timon serves as the director of the "Institute for Sociology and Cultural Organization" (ISKO) and was a founding director of the "Centre for Digital Cultures" (CDC), and he is responsible for the MA program in “Culture & Organization” an the doctoral program in “Sociology and Cultural Organization”. His research and teaching primarily focus on cultural theories of organization, with an emphasis on media technologies, spaces, aesthetics, and politics of organizing.

    https://www.leuphana.de/en/institutes/isco/members/timon-beyes.html

  • is Professor of Business Administration, especially Entrepreneurship, Organisation and Culture at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Her research focuses on 'organising practices' in the cultural and creative industries, particularly examining the influence of space on creative practices. In current and previous research projects, she has investigated coworking spaces, creative hubs and artist collectives. With an increased interest in the organisational processes of artistic and creative practices, Prof. Cnossen's research draws on the communication-constitutes-organization (CCO) approach as well as insights from actor-network theory. As an active member of the CCO community as well as the Entrepreneurship-as-Practice (EaP) community, her collaboration and research extend across national and academic boundaries.

    https://www.leuphana.de/institute/imo/personen/boukje-cnossen.html

  • is a PhD student at the Institute for Sociology and Cultural Organization (ISKO) and researches the processes of spatial-organizational transformation in cultural organizations as well as the organizational modes of artistic production. She is Scholar in Residence at the Internationale Kulturfabrik Kampnagel and is observing the construction measures and extensive renovation work that will take place there beginning in summer 2025.

  • Robin Kuchar graduated in cultural sciences and holds a PhD from Leuphana University Lüneburg. He is co-editor of ‘Music City – Musical Approaches to the Creative City’ (2014) and co-initiator of the ‘Urban Music Studies Scholars´ Network’ (www.urbanmusicstudies.org). His main fields of interest are (alternative) cultural production, music scenes, and the relationship of culture and urban space.

  • PhD Maximilian Schellmann is Postdoc in the project Expanding Art Museums, which is dedicated to researching current organizational- and transformational processes within and around art museums. As part of his position, he is conducting interviews, observations, and document analyses with partnering institutions and stakeholders, both on-site and online. In his research and teaching, he is primarily focusing on the politics of organizing, the organization of space, cultural entrepreneurship, art and aesthetics.PhD Maximilian Schellmann is Postdoc in the project Expanding Art Museums, which is dedicated to researching current organizational- and transformational processes within and around art museums. As part of his position, he is conducting interviews, observations, and document analyses with partnering institutions and stakeholders, both on-site and online. In his research and teaching, he is primarily focusing on the politics of organizing, the organization of space, cultural entrepreneurship, art and aesthetics.

  • He primarily advises cultural institutions in the museum sector -from developing a comprehensive di-gital strategy to implementing cooperative, digital and innovative projects. These include the digitization initiativedigitorials.ch funded by the Migros Pioneer Fund, the Städel Online Course on Modern Art or the multimedia storytelling platform "Café Deutschland". Previously, Jörg Schulze was the CEO of „maze pictures GmbH "Head of Production" at Cine Plus Filmproduktion in Berlin and at the "Centre for Digital Cultures" (CDC) at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Since 2025 he works as „Head of digital Initiatives“ for the Barberini Museum, Potsdam.