This paper looks at how two art museums are striving to create relevant, dialogic gallery spaces where broader audiences can make meaning. Using the writings of theorist bell hooks as the framework, it proposes museum educators' experiences working from the margins of their museums' hierarchical organizations is fundamental to their work in leading such transformative change. These ideas are discussed in relation to permanent collection reinstallations and major architectural projects at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) and the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). (Contains 14 notes.)