SIG Professional Development of Museum Educators

Coordinator: Wencke Maderbacher, guest Eleonora Sermoneta (Director of Visitor Experience & Programming at Glenbow in Calgary, Canada)

To join session please registrate

21 January 2027

At the session, Eleonora Sermoneta will share what she has learned from years of working alongside community partners to make museums genuinely welcoming for neurodivergent visitors and people with sensory sensitivities. Drawing on participatory approaches to accessibility, she will reflect on what changes when museums design with communities rather than for them: who sits at the table, how trust is built, and how lived experience shapes the visitor experience.

Introduction
Every museum says it is “for everyone.” But some visitors find out at the door that the space was never designed with them in mind. For neurodivergent people and visitors with sensory sensitivities, that might mean the lighting, the noise, the crowds, or simply not knowing what to expect. Over the years, the most important lesson I’ve learned is that we can’t fix this from behind our desks. When community partners and people with lived experience help shape the work from the start, as co-designers rather than consultants brought in at the end, everything changes. The questions change, the solutions are better, and the trust lasts. Accessibility stops being a checklist and becomes a relationship. Today I’d like to share what that looks like in practice, including what’s hard about it, and hear how you are approaching it in your own institutions.

Bio

Eleonora Sermoneta is Director of Visitor Experience & Programming at Glenbow in Calgary, Canada, where she is shaping visitor, learning and community programs for the museum’s 2027 reopening. She was previously Senior Manager, Education and Public Engagement at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, and brings 20 years of museum experience across Canada and Europe. A specialist in accessibility and participatory design, she has led programs recognized with an Interpretation Canada Silver Award and a Galleries Ontario Key Partnership Award, and collaborates with the Canadian Accessibility Network (CAN).