Babies Belong in Museums at GEM '26

Babies belong in museums

At the GEM Conference at Bletchley Park, Kin by Nettie presented Beyond the Screen: What Babies Teach Us About Learning in a Digital Museum Age.

The presentation grew from a simple idea: babies are not “future audiences”. They are already participants.

Drawing on Little Kin and our work with babies and caregivers in museum settings, we explored what happens when we stop asking how to make very young children fit existing museum experiences and instead ask what museums can learn from the way babies already engage with the world.

Babies learn through movement, touch, repetition, sound, proximity and relationship. They notice atmosphere. They respond to people, objects and spaces long before they can read an interpretation panel.

That challenges some familiar assumptions about what museum learning is supposed to look like.

For Kin, this is also about belonging. If families encounter museums early, in ways that feel welcoming, ordinary and possible, museums can become part of everyday life rather than places people feel they need permission, knowledge or confidence to enter.

The presentation asked museums to think beyond digital engagement as simply more screens, and to consider what embodied, relational and sensory learning can teach us about participation for everyone.

Babies belong in museums — not because we are preparing them to become museum visitors later, but because they belong there now.