FUTURE TALKS 025 FROM FAILURE TO SUCCESS

INNOVATIVE CASE STUDIES IN THE CONSERVATION OF THE MODERN

The Conservation Department of Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum - is organizing the ninth international conference in the FUTURE TALKS series at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, from 5 to 7 November 2025.

The FUTURE TALKS conference series, initiated every two years since 2009, is an international conference format for the transfer of knowledge on modern material and technology innovations to current conservation research projects. The focus here is on the active restoration of modern materials and the analysis and documentation of the technologies used. Specific interdisciplinary projects are presented, scrutinized and evaluated as part of specialist lectures, workshops, speed lectures and panel discussions.

FUTURE TALKS is internationally regarded as the platform for the preservation of modernity.

CONFERENCE TOPIC

16 years, eight conferences and a good 230 lectures later, we would like to dedicate the FUTURE TALKS 025 conference to an aspect that is directly linked to the evolution of human culture: Innovation through mistakes.

In our culture, especially in the working environment of conservators and conservation scientists, mistakes are usually associated with professional failure. This is understandable, as in the worst case this can lead to the loss of irretrievable cultural assets. What is crucial in this context, however, is how to deal with failure.

Mistakes and failures have always been an integral part of innovative scientific research. The decisive factor is the acceptance of being able to make mistakes and the willingness and motivation to share and learn from them, develop improvements and draw the right conclusions

While it is still common practice at conferences and in professional exchanges to emphasize only the successful and effective case studies, the frank dialogue has a much greater, indeed almost inexhaustible potential for innovation and professional progress in our field.

The FUTURE TALKS offer both the professional and the necessary protected framework for discussing and advancing relevant projects.

Beyond this focus, FUTURE TALKS 025 will also take a closer look at outstanding research projects that have never been published before.

In addition to lectures on this topic, a panel discussion and the opportunity to discuss specific questions with experts in small specialist groups, or in 1:1 mode, designers and artists will give inspiring insights into their current fields of activity in exciting keynotes in dialogue with the content of the lectures.

BACKGROUND

Since the beginning of industrialization, the increasing development of new materials and the associated innovative forms of technology have had an ever greater influence on the design of goods and works of art. To this day, materials are designed, modified and adapted to the needs of the market and the environment.

Conservators who are confronted with cultural assets of the modern age must recognize and interpret these complex relationships in order to gain an appropriate understanding of the ageing processes and thus define suitable conservation methods and correspondingly adequate treatment strategies. In this context, the interdisciplinary dialog with conservation scientists, engineers, designers and producers represents a central tool for understanding modernity.

In this context, the FUTURE TALKS have been offering an international, discursive platform for innovative case studies every two years since 2009. The focus of this conference series is on the application, restoration and analysis of modern materials and technologies in design and the visual arts. In order to increase the proportion of practice-relevant contributions, a special focus is placed on exemplary case studies.

With more than 2000 participants from over 30 nations, the first eight conferences and the seven conference post prints published to date have generated an enthusiastic response and made the term FUTURE TALKSinternationally synonymous with the preservation of modern materials.

FUTURE TALKS is internationally recognized as THE established forum for professional networking, interdisciplinary lectures, workshops and discussions on modern materials and technologies and their impact on the world of museums, galleries and private collections.

With a focus on an increasing number of interdisciplinary contributions related to technologies and modified analysis techniques, our aim is to optimize the decision-making process in the conservation of modern materials and to discursively guide and define possible avenues for active treatments.

The FUTURE TALKS help to sensitize the public to the fact that even industrially produced products are subject to a gradual degradation of material, which in the worst case can lead to a loss of our cultural identity and history.

ORGANIZER

The conference series is initiated and organized by the Conservation Department of Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum.

The Conservation Department has been focusing on the phenomenon of the ageing of modern materials for 22 years now. Through numerous conference papers, specialist publications, practical research projects and international teaching assignments (University College of London (UCL), Doha, Qatar, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart and Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, Austria), the Conservation Department of Die Neue Sammlung is one of the world's leading institutions dealing with the ageing and restoration of modern materials in design.

TARGET GROUP

In order to facilitate a lively and interdisciplinary dialog, the conference is aimed at conservators, conservation scientists, designers, architects, artists, curators, collectors, engineers and design and art producers.

VENUE

Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany

DATE

November 05 - 07, 2025

BOOKING

Starts in spring 2025 – look for further announcements

FURTHER INFORMATION

Tim Bechthold

Head of Conservation – Die Neue Sammlung I The Design Museum

tim.bechthold@die-neue-sammlung.de