Ghent University Museum

About

GUM & Botanical Garden, or the Ghent University Museum and its botanical garden, is a museum that uses academic heritage to illustrate how science works. Since its opening in 2020, the GUM has combined various scientific disciplines and showed how doubt and failure are part of the research process without emphasizing success stories. The GUM describes itself as a "Forum for Science', "Doubt and Art.

In 2022-2023, PHALLUS. Norm & Form was the first major exhibition, followed by Wunderkammer of TRUTH in 2024-2025 and BORDERS in 2026-2027. The exhibitions explore relevant themes that stimulate the imagination, and every two years GUM hosts DARK WEEKends, an Art & Science Festival.

Prof. Marjan Doom is the artistic and general director of GUM & Botanical Garden. She previously wrote the manifesto Museum of Doubt for Academia Press, which served as the basis for the current vision of the GUM.

The scientific heritage collections of Ghent University comprise more than 400,000 objects from a wide range of disciplines. The Ghent University Museum (GUM) is responsible for the management and sustainable preservation of these collections. The Botanical...