We are navigating an epochal period of geopolitical turbulence and disruption—compounded by climate catastrophe and the lingering impacts of the pandemic—that requires planetary-scale cooperation.

Forums for cross-cultural exchange, where people encounter ideas, artifacts, and perspectives different from their own, become crucial spaces for enabling the kind of collaborative learning needed for global coordination.

However, the same challenges that necessitate cultural exchange also make it more difficult. What to do? Perhaps the current sea-changes developing in technology—including artificial intelligence, extended reality and immersive environments, big data applications and visualizations, web3 and blockchain—can, if thoughtfully applied, enable deeper and more meaningful collaborations than ever before possible.

These creative interactions can only happen if cultural producers take an active role in shaping our technological future to align with the core values—open access and participation, reciprocity, mutual learning, and shared responsibility—that support cultural exchange and global cooperation. Our shared future is not guaranteed; we need to build it, together.