Alicante Museums Unite for International Museum Day 2025

Municipal cultural centers including MACA, Las Cigarreras, Lonja, MUSA, and Tabarca Museum, along with provincial venues such as MARQ, Mubag, and the Juan Gil Albert Institute, the Ocean Race Museum, MUA, and the Alicante Water Museum are uniting to celebrate International Museum Day. The celebrations, planned to run from May 13 to 22, offer a program that welcomes audiences of all ages to experience the city’s rich museum landscape anew.

In 2020, the International Museum Day program pivoted to a fully virtual format and then blended online and in-person programming in 2021. In 2022, the museums once again joined forces to open their doors and showcase what they offer to residents and visitors alike.

This year, the city’s museums are refreshed and promoted via a new partner platform, Culture and Heritage. This single hub coordinates art and cultural content from all participating institutions in Alicante, highlighting each venue’s identity and consolidating activity into one accessible space for culture and tourism stakeholders and the public.

Alicante museums maintain public contact during DIM

The platform, built on RSS-style data aggregation, gathers information from dedicated pages for every museum and also enables staff to manage their own content. This makes updates straightforward and keeps information reliable for visitors.

Provincial museums

Under the banner The Power of Museums, this year’s International Museum Day promotes the idea that museums are engines of cultural exchange. The slogan underscores how museums help transform communities by serving as places of discovery, teaching about the past, and broadening perspectives for a better future.

Julia Parra, Vice President of Diputación de Alicante, emphasized the importance of the day, noting the dynamic role played by cultural centers across the province. She highlighted a diverse lineup of events intended for all audiences, including international exhibitions such as Gladiators: Colosseum Heroes and the Mubag’s permanent XIX-century collection, with collaborations involving the Prado National Museum. The Juan Gil-Albert Cultural Institute will take part in a special cultural program as well.

A view from the Gladiators exhibition at MARQ. Credit: Local Museum Archives

Municipal centers

Cultural official Anthony Manresa stressed that returning to normal after the recent pandemic enables the city’s museums and cultural centers to rejoin in this flagship event. DIM remains a focal gathering that draws visitors of all ages, offering a wide array of programs and experiences that showcase the city’s cultural vitality.

MUA

The University of Alicante Museum participates in DIM with a program designed to spotlight the university museum’s commitment to environmental sustainability and community building, as articulated by the Vice-Chancellor for Culture, Sport, and University Extension.

Water Museum

The communications leadership at Aguas de Alicante underscored the power of partnerships, noting that the city’s museums are delivering an inclusive program for residents to enjoy together. Activities include visits to the old town, museum tours, and family-friendly performances in outdoor spaces.

The Water Museum emphasizes water-centric cultural projects and environmental awareness, developed through collaborations with multiple organizations. The programming around the venue invites visitors to explore water in a broader cultural context.

Ocean Race Museum

Directors described the Ocean Race Museum as the only museum worldwide dedicated to global sailing, offering free activities for families on select days. Visitors can participate in guided visits, navigation workshops, and a sailing simulator that recreates the Open 70 experience aboard Brasil 1, the vessel that completed the 2005-06 circumnavigation.

There are also weekend offerings such as poetry readings, dance performances, storytelling, and a yoga session centered on oceans and museum power. The schedule includes special hours on certain days to maximize family-friendly participation.

Museum hours vary by venue and day. MUA, for example, will open on May 18 and May 20 during its usual hours, with expanded daytime hours on Sundays and Saturdays in the surrounding weekend. Other sites maintain their standard schedules while offering extended or special hours for the DIM celebration.

The Ocean Race Museum and other venues outline their DIM hours explicitly, ensuring visitors can plan a full weekend of activities. Museums including Mubag, Juan Gil Albert Institute, Tabarca Museum, and others will operate under normal schedules with occasional extensions for the festival period.

Each participating venue will offer a commemorative magnet featuring artwork selected by the institution, giving visitors a tangible reminder of the DIM experience and a keepsake of Alicante’s vibrant museum scene.