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Maltese museologist opens international heritage festival in Slovenia
Dr Sandro Debono, Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Department of Arts, Open Communities and Adult Education at the University of Malta, was the guest keynote speaker at the prestigious Heritage in Motion 2026, held in Bled, Slovenia, from 29 September to 1 October 2026.
The international event, organised by the Forum of Slavic Cultures in collaboration with the European Museum Academy, brought together museum, heritage, film and digital culture professionals to explore changing relationships between cultural heritage, technology and contemporary society. Dr Debono’s keynote, titled Museum Fabulae for a Cybernetic Age, introduced a theoretical framework for rethinking museum storytelling in an increasingly phygital environment.
Dr Debono explored how the 21st-century museum is increasingly evolving into a cultural infrastructure through which multiple meanings and narratives can emerge. Central to the argument is a shift from predetermined museum narratives towards more responsive systems of meaning-making. As physical objects increasingly coexist with digital representations and data, interactions between collections, visitors and technologies can generate feedback loops through which new interpretations emerge and circulate.
The keynote forms part of a broader body of scholarly work that Dr Debono has been developing on museum theory and practice, including Mediterranean museology, museum futures, phygitality, and the changing relationship between museums, narrative, and participation.
