The Design Museum Ghent aims to be a place where everyone is welcome. After a long period of closure and renovation, the museum will be reopening its doors in 2026 to the general public, and in order to remain true to its mission, organized a citizen’s panel – De40, or “The 40” –to deliberate on how to become a place where everyone is welcome. Vera Sacchetti and Amelie Klein advised and supported the process of making and preparing the citizen’s panel, which was run by Doenker and the Design Museum Gent.

The process was documented and will integrate a forthcoming exhibition at the Design Museum Gent on the theme of redesigning democracy.
The citizen panel DE40 deliberated on the question of “How can Design Museum Gent make design accessible and relevant to a wide audience, regardless of background or prior knowledge?” during the months of April and May 2025, and was fully composed of Ghent residents. Learn more about how the panel came to be, by reading this detailed report on the sortition process and composition of the citizen’s panel (in Dutch).

In June, the recommendations of the panel were presented to the museum in the Gent City Hall. The full recommendations list can be consulted here (in Dutch).