Museum Control
We ensure museums retain at least 70% ownership of their artworks, preserving institutional control and curatorial independence while generating vital financial resources.
Financial Innovation
Our platform bridges traditional museum stewardship with modern financial mechanisms, creating secure, transparent, and legally compliant investment opportunities.
Cultural Accessibility
We're committed to expanding public access to cultural heritage by keeping artworks in museum collections while creating opportunities for broader community engagement.
While accessioning represents the formal entry of an object into the permanent collection, and deaccessioning marks its official removal, reaccessioning recognizes a new role for select works that have accrued shared public significance. These are artworks that remain in the collection and on public view, yet can also generate support through public investment—functioning like a micro-endowment shaped by collective civic ownership—where members of the public contribute to building the museum’s endowment through shared participation in works held in the public trust.
Reaccessioning Explained:
An Alternative to Deaccessioning
Reaccessioning is proposed as a third approach to collection stewardship, complementing, but distinct from, the formal processes of accessioning and deaccessioning—an alternative to either.
The model does not suggest selling ownership or curatorial control. Instead, it proposes the issuance of fractional financial interests via a separate legal structure— keeping the museum as principal steward, while creating a public-facing mechanism for generating long-term capital. This mechanism would take the form of a marketplace or platform—established and managed by a third-party entity—that facilitates the issuance, governance, and exchange of fractional interests. The museum would not be responsible for managing investor activity, ensuring it remains focused on its core mission of care and access. This financial architecture mirrors existing systems such as gold ETFs or REITs, in which the underlying asset is held in trust while value is distributed through share issuance. The public’s participation represents a form of civic investment—not just in the object, but in its continued stewardship and role within the institution that cares for it. Thus, it would offer a way to build long-term support by aligning financial participation with cultural commitment.
Taken together, these findings suggest that the conceptual foundation for reaccessioning already exists within museum thinking. Leaders are not opposed to innovation. They are cautious about risk, insistent on ethics, and deeply aware of the public obligations attached to their role. Any future effort to implement reaccessioning must be developed in close partnership with the sector—with policies, safeguards, and communications designed to reinforce the museum’s role as a civic institution, not a commercial enterprise.
Reaccessioning is not just a mechanism—it is a reframing. It recognizes that certain artworks carry enough symbolic value to be elevated again: not through removal or commodification, but through distributed custodianship. In doing so, it expands the idea of what it means to belong to the public trust.