This article draws on a wider body of research that explores whether art and design teachers (art teachers) and museum and gallery educators (gallery educators) hold conflicting conceptions of 'critical and contextual studies'. The data analysis focuses on what interviewees said about each other in relation to crossing boundaries between institutions, subject and pedagogical content knowledge, conceptions of the discipline of art and design, the role of gallery education in curriculum development and influence over the development of the pedagogical identities of students. The social theories of communities of practice, discourse and boundary objects are used to explore and conceptualise the complexity of the interaction between the two groups. The article concludes that trans-institutional and inter-professional communities of practice can be established that have the potential to generate new forms of engagement, shared repertoire and joint enterprise.