In November 2025, the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country – Artium Museoa opened The Land Shall Not Be Owned, an exhibition by Lebanese artist Marwa Arsanios (b. 1978) that brings together the five chapters of her ongoing body of work Who’s Affraid of Ideology? in which the artist examines the reappropriation and exploitation of land in different regions of the Middle East and Colombia. Curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio, the exhibition presents its fifth and most recent chapter, Right of Passage (2025), co-produced by Artium Museoa in collaboration with the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin and the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona. The exhibition will travel to Haus für Kunst Uri in Switzerland in 2026.

On January 16, 2026, the museum will present Looking through a circle in a circle of looks, a group exhibition critically and speculatively explores the role of the moving image in the construction of narratives and representations of otherness—constructed and defined from the West based on the entire epistemological apparatus derived from modernity—which constituted a diverse tradition of ethnographic cinema. Through the works of 25 filmmakers, artists and collectives, the project brings together ways of constructing established methodologies, questioning image production technologies, and countering dominant narratives and representations. Among the artists in the exhibition are Raymonde Carasco, Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, Maya Deren, Juan Downey, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Aida Harika, Edmar Tokorino & Roseane Yariana, Helena Producciones, Héctor Hyppolite, Sarah Maldoror, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Deborah Stratman, Trinh T. Minh-ha and Santiago Yahuarcani. Curated by Catalina Lozano, Chief Curator at Artium Museoa supported by conversations and exchanges with the artist Louidgi Beltrame.

Following its mission of researching, preserving and showing the work of feminist artists, Artium Museoa will dedicate an exhibition to the work of Juana Cima (Caibarién, Cuba, 1951). A key figure in the development of feminist activism and iconography in the Basque Country since the 1970s, Cima's work has always reflected her commitment to the struggle for social rights and the construction of new imaginaries. Her archive is now part of the museum's Documentation Centre, alongside those of other artists such as Esther Ferrer (San Sebastián, 1937) and Gema Intxausti (Gernika-Lumo, 1966). Opening in February 28, the exhibition is curated by Garazi Ansa (Oiartzun, 1989).

An exhibition dedicated to the work of the painter and filmmaker Rosalind Nashashibi (London,1973) will be held from June, focusing on a series of recent paintings that evoke Palestine’s grief and resistance in the midst of the violence inflicted on its people through references to historical painting and elements of popular culture. It is a continuation of her collaboration with Artium Museoa that started with the presentation of her film work in the in 2021 together with the painting A Wider Kind of Love (2021) now part of Artium Museoa’s collection, and proposes to create a platform from which to ‘never stop talking’ about Palestine.

The Autumn season will be marked by two new exhibitions. In October, a solo presentation by Argentinean, Amsterdam-based artist Irene Kopelman (Córdoba, 1974), known for her thorough explorations of different landscapes that go beyond the framing of a site. Centred around a new body of work, the result of a long-term research project in the region of Araba (Basque Country), the show includes documentation, drawings, and sculptures. The exhibition will also look closely to Kopelman’s rich editorial work, starting with her first projects dating back to the beginning of the 2000s.

In November the museum will present a selection of works by German photographer Jochen Lempert (Moers, 1958). Following his intuitive, yet precise methodology, he creates constellations of images in which the connections derive sometimes from the most subtle of details. His photographs of what is normally called nature —and often its depictions in popular culture— inhabit a space of hesitation in relation to the very nature of representation. The material operations involved in photography are integral to his practice, paying special attention to the printing process in the darkroom.

Furthermore, the Gallery Z programme dedicated to the moving image will return with a presentation of Foragers by Palestinian artist Jumana Manna (Princeton, 1987). Using fiction, documentary and archival footage, the film focuses on how Israel’s polices and obstruct foraging practices of wild edible plants, integral to Palestinian customs.

The museum will also launch a series of exhibitions linking art, illustration and publishing, starting with the work created in collaboration with artist Raisa Álava (Zuaza, 1990). Álava recently painted the mural Nomen Omen (2025), which has become part of the museum's collection. Her work will be the subject of the first exhibition in this series, which begins in 2026.

Also, in October, the museum will present a new hanging of its collection, based on acquisitions made as part of the Shared Collection promoted by the Basque Government since 2020. The committee for this collection includes Artium Museoa, the Tabakalera International Centre for Contemporary Culture and the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum. The works and artists that comprise it offer a dense and complex overview of the main debates in art in recent decades. This shared collection brings together works by more than a hundred artists, from which various genealogies and narratives are established that expand and dialogue with those already existing in the museum's collection, whose origins date back to the 1950s. Names like José Antonio Sistiaga (Donostia-San Sebastián, 1932 – San Juan de Luz, 2023), Mari Puri Herrero (Bilbao, 1942), Esther Ferrer (Donostia-San Sebastián, 1937), Juan Mieg (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1938), Darío Urzay (Bilbao, 1958), Ana Laura Aláez (Bilbao, 1964), Francisco Ruiz de Infante (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1966), Itziar Barrio (Bilbao, 1965), Abigail Lazkoz (Bilbao, 1972), June Crespo (Iruña, 1982), Kimia Kamvari (Colonia, Alemania, 1986) o Natalia Suárez Ortiz de Zárate (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1994) are just a few examples of the artists featured, whose works reflect the diversity of formats and techniques characteristic of contemporary artistic practice: painting, photography, sculpture, collage, video, installation, and drawing, among others.

In 2026, Artium Museoa launches the AMA Study Centre, a series of seminars connected to the programme focused on collaboration, experimentation and the articulation of transdisciplinary knowledge. This programme reinforces the museum's role as an active agent in the production of critical thinking and the construction of a participatory public context. Similarly, it will promote collaborations with academic and cultural institutions, as well as with local and international artists and collectives, strengthening the cooperation networks that Artium Museoa promotes from the AMA Study Centre.

For the seventh consecutive year, during the summer, Artium Museoa organises together with CICC Tabakalera and with the collaboration of Museo Oteiza, a new edition of JAI—Institute for Artistic Practices, a summer practice-based programme for artists that takes place in Vitoria-Gasteiz and San Sebastian with a visit to the Oteiza Museum in Alzuza. JAI acts as a space to exchange and disseminate artistic methodologies taking as a point of departure those of the artists participating in the programmes of the leading institutions. JAI’s committee is formed by the artists Ibon Aranberri, Alejandro Cesarco and Itziar Okariz, together with Oier Etxeberria (CICC Tabakalera) and Catalina Lozano (Artium Museoa).