The Getty Foundation has launched a multi-year grant initiative to support 11 museums in the US and abroad with an initial $2.7m for projects that rethink how language, accessibility and community engagement can enrich visitors’ experiences The programme, dubbed New Interpretations, aims to move beyond traditional wall texts and labels, emphasising research, collaboration and tech-forward approaches.
The grantees include the Association for Art Museum Interpretation; the Australian Centre for the Moving Image; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Denver Art Museum; the First Americans Museum; the Fowler Museum at UCLA; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum; the Leeum Museum of Art, in partnership with M+; the Manchester Museum; the Queens Museum; and the Walker Art Center. Heather E. MacDonald, the senior programme officer of the Getty Foundation, tells The Art Newspaper that the foundation sought to partner with museums that have shown a commitment to visitor-centred research.
“We have an opportunity to support creative work that will serve as wonderful case studies for the field,” MacDonald says. “Because we are emphasising visitor research, evaluation and the dissemination of findings, we hope this work will reach peers and other organisations and create a ripple effect, with ideas being transmitted and scaled up.”
Visitors at the Design Ah! exhibition at M+ in Hong Kong Photo: M+, Hong Kong
The Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul and M+ in Hong Kong will host some of the first public-facing projects under the initiative, including a major international gathering at M+ in December 2026 bringing together museum professionals to discuss new approaches to interpretation and visitor engagement in Asia.
The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis will continue developing visitor guides and wall texts in Spanish, Hmong and Somali, an initiative it began in 2024. The collaborative project involves consultation and partnerships with communities in the Twin Cities area that aim to ensure that interpretive texts reflect the languages and voices of the communities they are reaching.
The First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City will work with a fellow to conduct visitor surveys with a significant focus on Native American audiences, and will produce a report on how museums can ensure that Indigenous knowledge and authority inform exhibitions. The results will also help guide an exhibition on the bicentennial of the Indian Removal Act in 2030 that will present historical and contemporary perspectives.
A member of Queens Museum's Access Cohort participates in a Co-Design Workshop Courtesy of JSA/MIXdesign
The Denver Art Museum will commission a research firm to report on the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on visitors, alongside on-site surveys and panels. The project follows an essay published earlier this year by members of the museum’s interpretive team on the American Alliance of Museum’s website, “A Colossal Mirror: Museums as a Refuge for the Real in the Age of AI,” which outlines the museum’s broader position on AI, authenticity and institutions. Earlier this year, the museum removed a ChatGPT-generated illustration of a Buddhist statue following visitor backlash.
“I’m hoping we will see a continued commitment to a visitor-centred approach at museums, which, in some ways, is still an emerging field,” MacDonald says. “As with our other funding, we want to support work that is creative and experimental, but also rigorous and based in research. In this case, there is a real commitment to better understanding the needs and desires of visitors.”