Conferences

IAWM hosts several international and regional conferences for our members as well as meetings, workshops and seminars.

Upcoming Conference

2025: IAWM Conference 2025 & General Assembly

We are inviting you to the 2025 IAWM Conference and General Assembly. It is being held from Wednesday to Friday 27- 29 August.

The theme of the conference is ‘Feminist Strategies of Resistance in Women’s and Gender Museums’.

There will be more dates and deadlines about the conference in the coming months. We plan to have the conference website set up in March 2025.

You must be a paid up member to attend, so please join us!

Please click here and fill out the form to let us know about your intentions for the IAWM 2025 Conference and AGM.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you all next year.

Recent Workshops

2022: Welcome Webinar for IAWM Members 

Everyone interested is invited to learn more about IAWM at our upcoming webinar. ‘Welcome Webinar for members – old, new and future members of IAWM’ will be held at 10am (local time CST) on Thursday 31st March 2022, hosted at the Mexican Women Museum/ Museo de la Mujer. Join us virtually from wherever you are in the world! We already have participants attending from Mexico, Norway, Germany, Albania, Scotland, Ireland, South Korea, Chile, Senegal, and Canada. The purpose of this meeting is the mutual exchange of ideas, wishes, possible new projects, and collaborations. Our aim is to provide information about how the network can support you, promote possible partnerships & closer relationships, and give us a chance to get to know each other. Click here for the meeting program. All participants will get the possibility to make a 3-minute presentation of their own work, museum etc.

IAWM is grateful to the Mexican Women’s Museum for hosting this digital workshop. We congratulate them on the opening of their new museum. We also thank the Irish Embassy, Mexico for sponsoring the translation.

Past Conferences

2021: 6th International IAWM Conference at the Frauenmuseum Hittisau in Austria

Frauenmuseum Hittisau, the only women’s museum in Austria, in collaboration with IAWM held the 6th International IAWM Conference of Women’s Museums in September 2021.

Read more here.

June 2019: International Seminar on Museum Governance of the women’s museums of Senegal and Quebec in Dakar

The goal of the meeting in Dakar was to explore the possibilities of exchange and partnership in the museum sector of Quebec and Senegal and to present already existing best practices.

Read more here.

October 2018: 1st Asian-European IAWM Conference took place in Istanbul

Women’s museum founders and researchers from different countries took part in the meeting. The goal of this meeting was to enable exchange and synergies amongst Asian and European women’s museums.

Read more here.

Participants at the 2018 meeting

October 2018: The conference “Feminist Pedagogy: Museums, Memorials and Practices of Remembrance” took place in Istanbul

The Women’s Museum Istanbul and Sabanci University Gender and Women’s Studies Center of Excellence organized the conference and invited museum and gender professionals, activists, and scholars working on gender-sensible concepts of around the world.

Read more here.

March 2017: International Women’s Day at the European Parliament in Brussels

On International Women’s Day 2017 we had the chance to present IAWM through an exhibition at the European Parliament. The European Parliament’s Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality organized a global forum for gender equality leaders from the European Union Members States and beyond to discuss the topic “Women’s Economic Empowerment. Let’s Act Together!”

Read more here.

Pop-up banners at the Parliament exhibition
Participants at the Borgo conference

March 2017: Italian Women’s Museums conference in Borgo

The two-day conference was a meeting point for women’s museums from Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany. The goal was to enable exchange between women’s museums and experts from related fields.

Read more here.

November 2016: 5th International IAWM Conference, Mexico City

The 5th International IAWM Conference with the title “Women’s Museums: For a Culture of Equality” took place from 28 until 30 November 2016. Host of the conference was the women’s museum Mexico, which is led by FEMU (Federacion Mexicana de Universitarias AC) and the University of Mexico City.

Read more here.

October 2016: Conference “Women’s Museums: Centre Of Social Memory And Place of Inclusion” in Istanbul

The women’s museum Istanbul organized the conference. Experts and museum professionals from Turkey and many other countries met in Istanbul in order to talk about women’s museums and their role in society.

Read more here.

November 2014: 3rd European Conference, Bonn, Germany

25 IAWM members from 14 countries of Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa took part in a conference on November 6 and 7, 2014, at the Frauenmuseum Bonn to work on new strategies and projects. Topics on the agenda were amongst others talks about recruiting new members for the association, strategies to enforce the acceptance of Women’s Museums worldwide, plans for the next international conference in 2016, and discussions about the results of a research on Women’s Museums and their potential for increased international cooperation.

Read more here.

Participants from the 2014 First European Conference
Participant group

Oktober 2013: 2nd European Conference, Berlin, Germany

The Second European Conference took place in Berlin on 15th and 16th October 2013. Participating IAWM members came from Germany, Italy and Norway. On the agenda were discussions about future tasks of IAWM: membership campaign, newsletter, cooperation with other institutions such as ICOM, and the creation of a guideline on how to create and develop a new museum.

Read more here.

May 2012: 4th International IAWM Conference, Alice Springs, Australia

Representatives of women’s museum worldwide met at the National Pioneer‘s Women Hall of Fame in Alice Springs, Australia. The meeting in Alice Springs was a milestone because the members had decided that the network of women’s museums would become an international association with registered statutes. Not only did the participants pass the articles and a resolution, but they also elected an executive board of six members from various continents.

Read more here.

IAWM 2012 conference participants
Red ball of tangled threads

October 2011: 1st European Conference, Berlin, Germany

During this first meeting of the European women’s museums the delegates discussed the work of the coordinator of the network of women’s museums and formulated the next steps towards the foundation of the association.

Read more here.

May 2010: 3rd International Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Third International Conference of Women’s Museums in Buenos Aires on the 24th and 25th of May was part of the II International Feminist Congress 2010. The congress elected a new Council Committee with a single coordinator as well as representatives from each continent.

Read more here.

Group gathers in front of museum in 2019
Participants of the 2009 conference assemble on the stairs as a group

July 2009: 2nd International Conference, Bonn, Germany

The goal of this second International Conference was to make the network a strong instrument for women’s culture and women’s museums, to strengthen the exchange of knowledge and projects, and to lead the way to mutual support. The enthusiasm shall spread from this conference to other countries and further the rise of new fascinating projects.

Read more here.

June 2008: 1st International Conference, Meran, Italy

Until 2008, there has been little contact between different women’s museums worldwide. However, it was clear that mutual exchange is crucial for the quality of museum work. Hence, the idea of an international network of women’s museums was born. The 1st International Congress was a great success.

Read more here.

Group of participants from the 2008 conference

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At the end of the First World War, Virginia Gildersleeve, Dean of Barnard College, Caroline Spurgeon, professor of the University of London and Rose Sidgwick of the University of Birmingham decided to create a world organization that united university women, in order...

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Ayse Gül Altinay, Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Gender and Women’s Studies Center at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, was one of the cooperation partners of Women's Museum Istanbul to organise the the first Asian and European conference of...

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