The Museum of Modern Art of Rio de Janeiro (MAM Rio), founded in 1948, is one of the most important institutions of modern and contemporary art in Latin America. With a collection of over 16,000 works, it also stands out for its archival holdings, essential to art research in Brazil. MAM Rio operates at the intersection of art, culture, and education, developing programs that embrace multiple narratives and practices.
The MAM Cinematheque plays a central role in preserving and disseminating Brazilian and international cinema. Over the decades, the museum has catalyzed artistic experimentation and avant-garde movements in Brazil. In recent years, it has rethought its social role and expanded access, focusing on inclusion, memory, diversity, and sustainability. This vision has driven educational initiatives aimed at diverse audiences and the formation of professionals in the cultural sector. By engaging school communities, artists, curators, and early-career practitioners, MAM deepens its commitment to cultural democratization and inclusive practices.
The Inclusion Program: A Trajectory
How can a museum create collaborative spaces to rethink accessibility? Launched in 2019, the Inclusion Program celebrates its fifth anniversary in 2024. From the start, the residency has positioned people with disabilities as active agents in shaping inclusive policies and practices.
The program offers two two-month fellowships for people with disabilities engaged or interested in art, culture, museums, and accessibility. Residents integrate with museum teams and collaborate through meetings, educational actions, exhibition proposals, and institutional accessibility strategies.
Led by the Education and Participation Department, the program works with mentors, disabled artists, activists, and researchers, who co-develop action plans and support research. Their role blends theory and institutional practice, fostering dialogue, experimentation, and reflection.
The program is grounded in the belief that museums must collaborate with people with disabilities, recognizing their knowledge and perspectives as central to accessibility. It emphasizes active listening, co-authorship, and the disruption of normative institutional views. Rather than adapting content, it proposes rebuilding processes based on lived experience, which inform ongoing institutional case studies.
The program challenges outsourcing accessibility by offering institutional critique through reports and protocols, adopted by teams. In doing so, it strengthens community development and democratic cultural practices. It aims not just to include, but to transform relationships within institutions.
How Do Residents Collaborate with the Museum Teams?
Rather than treating accessibility as a goal, the Inclusion Program adopts it as a method. It rethinks institutional structures through dialogue with disability, influencing areas such as Communication, Curatorship, Education, HR, Museology, staff training, and architecture. Residents join guided tours, co-develop public activities, evaluate exhibitions, and propose audience-focused actions. Examples include:
Accessibility in Dialogue, a course expanded by residents,
A sensory collage workshop as part of the Zona Aberta project,
Training sessions for visitor services, covering visual impairment, Braille, and autism,
Accessibility evaluations of exhibitions such as Nakoada (2022) and Acts of Revolt (2023), resulting in improved tactile maps, lighting, and digital strategies.
The museum also implemented special hours for people with intellectual disabilities, autism, or sensory sensitivity. Residents come from diverse fields, visual arts, education, design, cultural research, and many have continued working in the sector, reinforcing the program as a professional platform.
Institutional transformation brings challenges. Accessibility requires coordination across departments and reevaluation of ingrained practices. Budget and political instability also affect continuity. Yet, staff engagement and residents’ daily presence foster sustainable change.
A key contribution is integrating accessibility into early curatorial planning. The residency has promoted tactile works and integrated audio descriptions, supporting long-term inclusive and multisensory experiences.
Visita Incluir_Museu da vida_Fabio Souza
Cultural Legacy and the CiMAM
In 2024, the Inclusion Program received the Outstanding Museum Practice Award from CiMAM, recognizing it as a reference in accessibility-driven institutional transformation.
As a result, 2026 will see two major initiatives: the Accessibility in Dialogue course will become an annual public conference, and a commemorative publication will celebrate the program’s five years, compiling reflections from participants and reaffirming MAM’s commitment to memory, education, and inclusion.
The Inclusion Program emerges from practices of listening, education, and critical reflection shaped by Global South contexts, where knowledge arises from urgency, absence, and imagination. This recognition belongs to a broader network of professionals who, even under constraints, continue to transform cultural structures. May these experiences serve as a call to action, encouraging institutions to embrace accessibility not as adaptation, but as an ethical, collective practice of transformation.