Louvre Abu Dhabi is extending its reach beyond the gallery with a new digital platform designed to take its collections into everyday classroom teaching.
The Museum Curriculum Portal allows teachers to link artworks and artefacts from Louvre Abu Dhabi directly to subjects taught across all school levels. Developed by the museum’s Education and Learning Resources department, the tool connects more than 140 objects to disciplines ranging from mathematics and science to history, languages and physical education.
Rather than aligning itself to a single curriculum, the platform is structured around subjects. In a country where more than a dozen curricula are taught across schools, this approach allows educators to navigate the content based on what they teach, rather than the system they follow.
For teachers, the interface is intentionally simple. It functions like a search engine. Users can filter by subject, topic and subtopic, then access artworks accompanied by clear descriptions, contextual information and suggested lines of inquiry. The language avoids specialist terminology, making it accessible to educators across disciplines.
The ambition is to shift how art is used in education. Traditionally, museum visits are associated with art and humanities classes. The new portal instead positions artworks as an entry point into a range of subjects.
“What is often known is that you would always send the art teacher and the humanities teacher,” says Maral Jule Bedoyan, education and learning resources manager at Louvre Abu Dhabi. “Our intention was to break this barrier.”
Through the platform, an artwork can serve multiple purposes. A painting might support a lesson on geometry through its use of symmetry and form. The same work could also be discussed in relation to history, material science or cultural context. These connections are grounded in the object itself, encouraging students to engage with real examples rather than abstract concepts.
“The object becomes the facilitator for that conversation,” Bedoyan says.
The emphasis is not on instruction, but interpretation. In museum sessions, students are encouraged to observe, question and form their own conclusions. Bedoyan recalls a group encountering an installation by Emirati artist Hassan Sharif made from cut plastic slippers.
“One student said he sees the ocean,” she says. “No one fed him this information.”
The response emerged as the student looked more closely at the work, noticing the repetition of blue tones and the way the material gathered in waves. While many in the group dismissed it as waste, he connected it to the sea and to environmental concerns.
For Bedoyan, this kind of moment reflects the purpose of the approach. Educators guide the process, encouraging students to look again or consider another angle, but do not impose meaning. Different interpretations are allowed to sit side by side, with the focus on observation, curiosity and personal connection.
“We are giving the platform back to the experts themselves,” she says. “The teacher knows their subject.”
The tool also addresses practical considerations. Planning a museum visit can be time-intensive, often requiring advance preparation. With the portal, educators can map out lessons remotely, selecting specific artworks that align with their teaching objectives. If a visit is not possible, the material can still be used in the classroom through high-resolution images and guided prompts.
The platform went live on the museum’s website last September, as part of a pilot programme tested with more than 70 teachers. Their feedback has shaped the development of the tool, with further training sessions planned to support its rollout. An Arabic-language version is also in development.
The initiative forms part of a broader effort by the Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi to integrate cultural institutions into the education system. By linking museum collections to school subjects, the programme aims to strengthen the role of heritage sites as active learning environments.
For Bedoyan, the value lies in how early exposure to this approach can influence long-term thinking. Engaging with objects in this way is not about producing artists, but about encouraging curiosity, critical thinking and different ways of approaching a problem.
There is also scope for the platform to grow beyond a single institution. With several major museums and cultural sites now established on Saadiyat Island, Bedoyan notes the system could, in time, expand into a shared resource across institutions. The infrastructure is already in place, and discussions at the DCT Abu Dhabi level are exploring how it could evolve into a unified platform linking multiple collections.
