The conference objectives are to inform, create sensibility and foster debate about the functionality of institutions that document and promote contemporary art. An exchange of practices, experiences and theoretical reflections about the mission of specialists, museums, galleries, alternative spaces, journals, news programs and the press, fairs and biennials, their forums and websites as platform for interactions with increasingly diverse audiences. This is an opportunity to analyse, compare and evaluate strategies, results and alternatives, in order to improve communications among all the actors of society that intervene in the processes of legitimizing and situating contemporary art and artists within the local, national or international network. Sharing displacements and transgressions of standards, projects and experiences that revalue contemporary sensitivity in the face of the notion of art being constructed by our generation is a reason for bringing together amateurs, students, specialists, academics, professionals and businessmen for the purpose of discussing cultural policies with demanding criteria on the presentation, circulation, and representation of heritage in local and international forums. We feel that without the active, conscious participation of different audiences as collaborators in cultural undertakings, museum institutions are mere circuses or centres of leisure within the literal meaning of the word.