On December 4, 2025, NUMIX LAB will host in Budapest a “What’s New” dedicated to museums and heritage. We had the opportunity to speak with Isabel Salgado, Director of Exhibitions, Collection, and Digital Projects at the CosmoCaixa Foundation, created by “la Caixa.” The foundation manages CaixaForum and is dedicated to promoting scientific culture and education. In recent years, the CosmoCaixa Foundation has developed a few innovative VR projects.

Could you introduce yourself as well as CosmoCaixa ?

My name is Isabel Salgado, and I am Director of Exhibitions, Collection, and Digital Projects at ”la Caixa” Foundation. In this role I oversee the development of the exhibition program across our CaixaForum and CosmoCaixa network, as well as the travelling shows that tour cities throughout Spain and Portugal. I also manage ”la Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection and CaixaForum+, our audiovisual content platform.

What makes our organization unique is that we work as a single team across disciplines (art, science, and the humanities) and, thanks to our network of centers and travelling formats, we are also able to produce major projects that reach audiences across many cities. Together, these strengths allow us to approach cultural projects from a broad perspective and to foster meaningful connections between fields that are often treated separately.

The history of CosmoCaixa and its pioneering role in museography runs in parallel with the dissemination of culture by the ”la Caixa” Foundation over the past 45 years.
What has truly set us apart throughout this time has been our constant search for the right formats to respond to the social needs of each moment.
In 1979, we began producing temporary exhibitions and, just two years later, opened a small Science Museum. Over the following two decades, we experimented with a wide range of formats: mobile tents of different sizes, Art in the Street, exhibitions hosted in other Museums or cultural centers, and even travelling shows presented inside trucks, which open up into exhibition galleries.

In 2004, drawing on all that experience and as a synthesis of those decades, we opened CosmoCaixa. In the two decades since, we have continued to innovate with new exhibition formats and technologies, and in 2019 we inaugurated the Universe Gallery.

Our most recent and most significant innovation is not physical but conceptual: working with Culture in its full dimension: art, science, and the humanities, and especially at their intersections. In all of this, we put the emphasis on fostering active participation, ensuring that learning is a shared and engaging process.

On December 4, you will speak at the “What’s New?” museums and heritage event. How does CosmoCaixa address the topic being discussed?

When it comes to audiovisual innovation, we have always prioritized storytelling and content over technology — using technology only when it is the right vehicle to connect with the public.

We have developed innovative VR projects such as Symphony (a 360º virtual journey into the world of music with Gustavo Dudamel and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra), produced planetarium films that we also adapted into VR, and were one of the first European institutions to collaborate with TeamLab on immersive exhibitions.

In Root for Nature, created with OASIS Immersion, the real effort and innovation lay in making this kind of immersive project sustainable and adaptable for touring. By the time of Numix, the exhibition will have been open in Barcelona for several months, giving us the opportunity to share not only how the public has received it, but also how it works as a space that conveys emotion while actively engaging visitors and encouraging their participation.

What are the three main challenges your projects are currently facing in terms of production and distribution ?

One constant challenge is finding the right technology for the diverse types of content we want to present. Our institution produces a wide range of projects (from VR experiences to planetarium shows and large-scale immersive installations) and each of them requires very different technical solutions. Identifying the most appropriate ones, and keeping up with the rapid evolution of the sector, is an ongoing task. Seeing how other institutions experiment with and apply technology is therefore always an inspiring reference for us.

A second challenge is ensuring that powerful immersive technologies are truly accessible to all audiences. This is particularly demanding in centers such as CosmoCaixa, where we welcome more than 4,000 visitors every day, including families, schools, and intergenerational groups. Designing experiences that are impactful and memorable but at the same time inclusive and easy to use requires constant adaptation and testing.

And a third challenge lies in making these technological narratives more cost-effective and easily adaptable for touring. This aspect is crucial if we want ambitious immersive projects to be sustainable, to travel to different cities, and to reach audiences beyond those who can physically visit CosmoCaixa. We experienced this firsthand with Root for Nature, developed with OASIS Immersion, where a major part of the innovation was precisely in rethinking how such projects could be made itinerant in an environmentally and financially viable way.

In this context, we see NUMIX LAB as a valuable platform: a space to exchange experiences, to learn from peers who are experimenting with new models, and to jointly explore how to balance creativity, technology, accessibility, and sustainability.

Many thanks to Isabel for his availability!

Charlotte BAUGÉ