As the most popular museum in the sixth-most visited country in the world, Museo Soumaya believes in the power of the universal language of art. Its vast collection in Mexico City is home to nearly 70,000 pieces from over thirty centuries. Named for the grandmother of an LAS alumna (Soumaya Romero Slim ‘19), designed by her father, and run by her family through their foundation, Museo Soumaya is both a stunning architectural achievement and a treasure trove of remarkable works. It provides the perfect setting for exploring how art and education work hand-in-hand and enrich one another.

At the heart of the museum’s vision is a desire to connect deeply with its community, transforming art into a two-way conversation. From Van Gogh to Rivera, art serves as a bridge to international understanding. Yet Museo Soumaya also encourages visitors from Mexico to reflect on their own history and heritage. Exhibits showcasing popular and traditional elements of Mexican culture spanning decades provide powerful opportunities for personal connection.

Fostering such personal connections is a key aspect of generating appreciation of and engagement with art: every visitor brings their unique interpretation, adding to a shared, collective experience. Sharing these differing points of view creates a rich context in which art can be viewed and experienced as a collective. The museum’s mediation exercises, workshops, and activities are all designed to bring out these viewpoints and encourage reflection. 

With an incredible range that includes centuries of pieces from European masters, religious relics, an extensive coin collection, and artifacts from ancient Mesoamerican civilizations, Museo Soumaya holds vast potential for exploring and sharing artistic interpretations. The museum identifies the value of this discourse in the way that contemplation can explain even the most alien topics. This very theme of unfamiliarity is one explored in the temporary exhibition Ciudad de los Palacios. Currently located in the museum’s Plaza Loreto headquarters, it casts a critical eye over the historic center of Mexico City, where many significant buildings have been lost, damaged, or converted for new purposes. Showing sights that will be familiar to many locals in a way they may not have seen before prompts people to reflect on the city’s changes and the social issues that surround them. 

While celebrating differences, Museo Soumaya also showcases art as a tool to showcase our similarities. Art can invite dialogue and open the doors of understanding. It can help us identify the commonalities that make us part of a community. In this way, it will be easier to recognize how we complement each other. Just as visual arts allow us to examine and interpret the world, they also allow us to get closer to other peoples and nations, encourage empathy towards historical moments, and provide tools to reflect on the world in which we live.
 
The museum explores art’s complementary role in education, pointing out how art collections can transport us through time and space to bring theoretical topics to life. When art adds depth to subjects previously confined to textbooks, giving them a face, a backdrop, and real-life examples, it’s clear that art and education must go hand in hand. This approach is echoed in the LAS commitment to moving education beyond the confines of the classroom. 

Museo Soumaya carries out that mission daily. Local artists and students regularly work in its rooms, and music, dance, and stage performances fill its spaces with fresh artistic creation. Over its 30 years of operation, Museo Soumaya has built strong links with the local community, particularly with educational institutions and charities. It considers promoting the reintegration of the social fabric a key part of its goals, and its work with disadvantaged groups is a clear testament to that. 
 
With such philanthropic values at the forefront, the museum is an active extension of the Carlos Slim Foundation’s work, and they describe the safeguarding of Mexico’s artistic and cultural heritage as an honor and a responsibility. Offering free entry every day of the year across all four of its locations, Museo Soumaya continues to share the power of art to bring its diverse audiences together. 
 

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