Museums and Sound: Design and Curating Strategies

2025-05-05

Guest Editor: Raffaella Trocchianesi

Editorial Assistant: Micol Riva

 

In today’s cultural heritage, Sound studies play a crucial role in shaping and envisioning new kinds of cultural experiences, enhancing narratives, and engaging audiences.

Sound studies is an interdisciplinary field that lies at the intersection of humanities, science, art, and technology. It moves at the boundaries of a wide range of disciplines such as musical history, sociology, anthropology, ethnomusicology and musicology, acoustics and psychoacoustic studies, film studies, communication, media, gaming, urban studies and architecture, arts, design and performance studies.

In this cross-cutting ecosystem, curatorial and design approaches are becoming increasingly crucial to shaping a comprehensive scientific and theoretical framework. 

We are witnessing a growing interest in the role of sound in cultural fields, and sound-driven design, sound curating, but also sound art, and sound archiving, as evidenced by various initiatives. Examples include the conference on Exhibiting Sounds of Changes (2018), a special issue focusing on the role of sounds in museums published in 2019 in Curator: The Museum Journal, and the sound and design track of DRS 2022: Bilbao.

These activities highlight the sound dimension as an emerging topic in the humanities and design of cultural heritage in this era of ceaseless digital transformation. Concurrently, many practitioners are embracing sound as a crucial element in their projects, as testified by several design interventions that incorporate sound as a key aspect of the overall design.

Given these premises, the current call questions the role of sound in the museum field, focusing on the sonic dimension understood as both content on display – such as in museums and temporary exhibitions centred on sounds, music, or movie subjects – and a narrative tool that conveys and generates new meanings. 

The aim is to gather studies and experiences that identify and analyze how museums and exhibitions developed since 2000 adopt sonic strategies. Additionally, it seeks to envision and verify new methods to enhance the cultural experience through sound while exploring innovative ways to narrate and display sound in museums and temporary exhibitions.

The ultimate objective is to establish collaboration models among creative industries and cultural institutions to envision new strategies for engaging cultural experiences through sound. Finally, this initiative encourages a transdisciplinary dialogue on how a critical approach to sound design can contribute to the growth of knowledge in the domains of museums, arts, and design.

The call addresses both the scientific community and professionals. Case studies, research, applied projects, and theoretical critiques from 2000 to today are eligible for application.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Cultural experience

  • New models of immersive sound-based cultural experiences that engage visitors either by focusing on sound as content (museums and exhibitions about music, musicians, sound art, and sound archives) or as a ‘design tool’ (uses of sound ‘integrated’ into the exhibition system)
  • Sound as a key to accessibility and inclusivity
  • Sound narratives as triggers for the participation of different audience profiles
  • New professions around sound in museums and exhibitions to imagine and create innovative experiences and modes of interaction among the professionals involved in the design process
  • New expressions of sound art as drivers for transforming the relationship between visitors and the exhibition space 

Designing sound

  • Sound design in the cultural context. Reading, codifying, and framing current design experiences
  • Approaches, practices, and tools that designers adopt to ‘use’ sound as a design material in the cultural context
  • Production of new forms of sound content for museums and temporary exhibition paths
  • Sound functions and roles of sound designers within the design process (e.g., generating atmospheres, telling stories, guiding visitors, creating interactions, ...)
  • Changes in the role of exhibition design and the boundaries of the discipline through new digital sound art technologies 

Sound Curating

  • Sound as a means to enhance curatorial narratives
  • Sound as a tool for interpreting curatorial strategies
  • Sound as a way of conveying new meanings by generating relationships between the themes and the collection
  • Virtuous models of collaboration among the scientific community, creative industries, and cultural institutions

 

Submissions will be sent as abstracts (maximum 3,000 characters, spaces included) in Italian, English or French and a short author biography (maximum 1,000 characters, spaces included) to the editorial board (mmdjournal@unibo.it) and the guest editor (raffaella.trocchianesi@polimi.it, micol.riva@polimi.it) by 1 July 2025.

Should they be accepted, full papers must be submitted for peer review by 15 January 2026.

 

Key Dates:

- Abstract submission: 1 July 2025

- Notification of acceptance: 1 September 2026

- Full paper submission (including images): 15 January 2026

- Reviewers report to authors for amendments: 1 April 2026

- Final text submission: 15 May 2026