‘Inhotim is a Place of Possibilities’: The Impact of a Private Art Museum on its Local Employees’ Capacity to Aspire

Private museums have expanded worldwide since the 2000s, yet little is known about their impact beyond the art world and economic elites. This article aims to shed light on private museums’ impact on their surrounding communities by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and thirty-three interviews with employees of the Inhotim Institute in the mining town of Brumadinho, Brazil. It explores how locals perceive the museum’s impact on their lives through the interactions they experience in their work. Participants often described Inhotim as ‘a place of possibilities’, emphasising its positive influence. Using Appadurai’s concept of the capacity to aspire, the analysis sheds light on how employment at Inhotim broadened self-aspirations and expanded educational and occupational aspirations. The study also highlights the structural constraints shaping these aspirations, pointing out the limitations of private museums’ impact due to existing field structures and habitus. While aspirations were initially framed as doxic and aligned with dominant cultural fields, they nonetheless opened pathways for transformation and carried emancipatory potential.