Home Uncategorized summary

Uncategorized

summary

see attachments

PART ONE: Climate Change, Sustainability & Museums

Read five essential texts from the Lecture 13 Learning Materials (see attachments) and then independently research the activist groups Extinction Rebellion, Dear Climate, and Liberate Tate. Then create your own video or audio recording within VoiceThread in which you present your thoughts on museums and climate change, using a few examples from the case studies listed below. You must incorporate information from a few of the lecture’s readings.

NOTE: you just need to write and I will record my voice reading what you wrote

CASE STUDIES

· Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM)

· Manchester Museum’s Rubbish Night

· Museum of Reading’s Where’s Reading Heading?

· Activist groups: Extinction Rebellion, Dear Climate, Liberate Tate

· Serpentine’s General Ecology Program

· Horniman Museum and Gardens in London – Environmental Champions scheme

· Tate Modern Sustainability Plan, summer 2019.

· Swedish Museum of Natural History (SMNH)

PART TWO: Museum Futures & Post-Covid

read at least four of the assigned texts ( see below), and in no less than 500 words, post what you think the future of museums will look like. In other words, how will museums reconcile with all of the social justice concerns we’ve learned about in this course? What suggestions could you offer a museum professional—about what to do and what not to do? Be sure to reference the texts you’ve read in this lecture.

Read at least 4 the following for your Lecture 14 assignment:

· AAM

“National Survey of COVID-19 Impact on United States Museums,” (Links to an external site.)

June 2020:

· AAM

“Considerations for Museum Re-openings” (Links to an external site.)

July 2020.

· Bishara, Hakim,

“13% of Museums Worldwide May Close Permanently to Covid-19, Studies Say,” (Links to an external site.)

Hyperallergic, May 20, 2020.

· Dickson, Andrew,

“Bye bye blockbusters: can the art world adapt to Covid-19?” (Links to an external site.)

The Guardian, April 20, 2020.

· Ellis, Adrian,

“Eight ways museums could make the most of the coronavirus crisis,” (Links to an external site.)

The Art Newspaper, June 11, 2020.

· Szántó, A. and Ellis, A.,

“Reopening Museums: A Planning Tool” (Links to an external site.)

(2020):

It seems evident that the natural history museum has reached a stage in the
evolution of its relationship to society where the generally prevailing oppor-
tunistic vagueness of intentions is becoming a liability which must be replaced
by a well-considered, well-integrated, and well-defined philosophy concern-
ing the museum’s place in the general research and educational system.

(Parr, 1959, p. 21)

The Anthropocene represents a new phase in both humankind and of the
Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined, so that
the fate of one determines the fate of the other.

(Zalasiewicz et al., 2010, p. 2231)

An institution such as a museum has a responsibility to empower the elec-
torate to make informed, scientifically literate decisions about their lives.
If in 2050 we were delivering the same messages, either we’ve failed at
affecting change in society and still needed to give those messages, or we
just got left behind and we were no longer on the frontier of what mattered
in society.

(American Alliance of Museums [AAM], 2011, pp. 50–51).

Museums, in the twenty-first century, loom larger than they ever have be-
fore. They are more socially and economically vital, they seek to offer their
publics more, and they arguably succeed in doing so in those countries in
which they have long been established.

(Thomas, 2016, p. 7)

Relevance

At the start of this century, the Smithsonian Institution’s scholar emeritus
Stephen Weil coined the phrase “making museums matter” as the title of
his much-quoted book (Weil, 2002). This quickly became popular because
it resonated with a growing awareness of the challenges and opportunities
facing societies and environments, both locally and globally. Yet “the
awkward fact remains,” he would lament, “that, for a variety of reasons,

2 A holistic ethos for
nature-focused museums
in the Anthropocene
Emlyn Koster, Eric Dorfman, and
Terry Simioti Nyambe

30 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

the museum field has never agreed—and until recently, has scarcely even
sought to agree—on some standard by which the relative worthiness of its
constituent member institutions might be measured” (Weil, 2006, p. 4).
The museum sector had, however, begun to differentiate between those
institutions still at ease with internally focused traditions, those striving for
a new relevancy-driven approach, and those increasingly immersed in ex-
ternal value contexts (Koster and Falk, 2007). Chronicling the reinvention
of philosophies and practices across the museum sector toward more exter-
nally valuable paradigms was the two-step selection of influential papers
for publication by Anderson (2004, 2012).

For a museum to aspire to its most externally valuable state requires
clarity on what being relevant entails in exact terms. Often used, but sel-
dom defined, “relevant” means relating to the matters at hand: clearly,
contextual matters require specification. In the twenty-first century, what
makes a natural history museum and its kindred institutions (museums of
anthropology, nature, nature and science, and the natural sciences—in this
chapter, all referred to as “nature-focused museums”) maximally relevant
is surely their most pivotal undertaking.

Whether the Anthropocene, which was introduced in 2000 (Crutzen,
2002), becomes formalized by the geological profession, it has become
a widespread term in many other disciplines and in news editorials and
headlines referring to humanity’s impacts on natural systems (Robin
and Steffen, 2007; Economist, 2011; New York Times, 2011; New York
Times, 2012; Carrington, 2016; Yang, 2017). As a pressing matter of ac-
countability, our response in this chapter to the relevancy question is that
nature- focused museums should wholeheartedly become resources to illu-
minate the meaning and implications of the Anthropocene.

The resources that nature-focused museums should arguably be in mod-
ern biodiversity and related contexts are analogous to museums in regions
with a high-magnitude earthquake or volcanic risk acquainting their com-
munities concerning hazardous phenomena and safety measures. For their
part, nature-focused museums have unique expertise and resources to
responsibly inform a brighter journey for humanity and nature together
(Koster, 2012). Indeed, not to mobilize these attributes would be to margin-
alize them on the sidelines of the challenges and opportunities that surround
life, both human and non-human. Cameron and Kelly (2010) recognized
that museums’ progress on the societal and environmental fronts is inevita-
bly punctuated by challenging moments that Koster (2010) discussed in his
review of the evolution of purpose in science centers and science museums.
Encouragement to pursue this direction comes with new book and arti-
cle titles such as “The Endangered Dead” (Kemp, 2015), “What Museums
Are good for in the 21st Century” (Thomas, 2016), and “Museums as
Catalysts for Change” (Rees, 2017).

This chapter reviews the evolving paradigms that surround collections;
discusses the contributing factors to our sector’s past inertia; explores the

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 31

Anthropocene as an encompassing framework for the future; touches on
several other related and timely opportunities for the sector; and profiles
what a holistic ethos entails in order to advance an institution in the most
efficient and effective manner, “to do things right” and “to do the right
things,” respectively.1 Several concepts from the business realm are infused
into our approach, including generative thinking:

The most important work that takes place in an organization is when
people first begin to identify and discern what the important chal-
lenges, problems, opportunities, and questions are… It’s the way in
which the intellectual agenda of the organization is constructed… The
question should be: do we have the problem right?… generative think-
ing is getting to the question before the question… It’s not about nar-
row technical expertise.2

Evolving collection paradigms

The impetus of collections as the primary raison d’être of museums has
been predominant. In a provocative paper entitled “From Being about
Something to Being for Somebody…,” we learned that “the overwhelm-
ing majority of American museums and museum training programs con-
tinue to operate as if… collections were still at the center of the museum’s
concerns” (Anderson, 2012, p. 181). Today, numerous museum collec-
tions total in the many millions and, collectively, natural history muse-
ums worldwide store about three billion specimens (Wheeler et al., 2012).
In this regard, it is noteworthy that science centers that may function
without collections have been a source of innovation for the wider mu-
seum field (Koster, 1999); specifically fit within the museum definition
of, for example, the American Alliance of Museums;3 and engage with
collections- based museums through, for example, the US-based Associa-
tion of Science Museum Directors.4

“Collection” was the keyword in six of the eight sections comprising
the worldwide code of ethics for the museum profession (International
Council of Museums [ICOM], 2006). The codes for the American Alliance
of Museums and the United Kingdom’s Museums Association, like other
examples, present a similar picture with these statements:

• Museums make their unique contribution to the public by collecting,
preserving and interpreting the things of this world. Historically, they
have owned and used natural objects, living and nonliving, and all
manner of human artifacts to advance knowledge and nourish the hu-
man spirit. Today, the range of their special interests reflects the scope
of human vision. Their missions include collecting and preserving, as
well as exhibiting and educating with materials not only owned but
also borrowed and fabricated for these ends.5

32 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

• Museums enable people to explore collections for inspiration, learning,
and enjoyment. They are institutions that collect, safeguard and make
accessible artifacts and specimens, which they hold in trust for society.6

Declarations of the natural history museum sector from over the last decade
are instructive windows into its evolving consciousness and the contextual
purpose of its collections:

• 2007, Paris: Representatives from natural history museums and re-
search institutes issued the Buffon Declaration:7 “given that science
is critical for sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems
and, through it, survival of human populations on this planet, the vital
contributions of these institutions are fourfold: a) They are the primary
repositories of the scientific samples on which understanding of the va-
riety of life is ultimately based; b) Through leading-edge research they
extend knowledge of the structure and dynamics of biodiversity in the
present and the past; c) Through partnerships, and through programs
of training and capacity-building, they strengthen the global capability
to address current and future environmental challenges; and d) They
are a forum for direct engagement with civil society, which is indispen-
sable for helping bring about the changes of behaviour on which our
common future and the future of nature depend.”

• 2012, Washington, DC: Learning-focused representatives from
mainly US natural history organizations issued the following decla-
ration: “Humanity is embedded within nature and we are at a criti-
cal moment in the continuity of time. Our collections are the direct
scientific evidence for evolution and the ecological interdependence
of all living things. The human species is actively altering the Earth’s
natural processes and reducing its biodiversity. As the sentient cause
of these impacts, we have the urgent responsibility to give voice to the
Earth’s immense story and to secure its sustainable future” (Koster
et al., 2012, pp. 22–23).

• 2015, Taipei: The ethical focus of this Declaration on Natural
History Museums and Biodiversity Conservation, as noted by
Dorfman (2016, p. 56), was to “give back… to the wild populations
that have provided their collection objects… A major role of natural
history museums is to collect and steward natural history objects,
generating knowledge regarding these objects and disseminating this
knowledge to the community. Natural history museums also engage
the public to form deep bonds with the natural world and commit to
its preservation. Increased human activities have caused catastrophic
declines in biodiversity. Both ethics and logic point to a mandate to
conserve vulnerable habitats and species. To achieve best practices,
natural history museums take action to conserve natural habitats and
populations” (ibid.).

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 33

The concluding sentences of the Taipei declaration approach the baseline
concept in this chapter’s purpose—namely, that nature-focused museums
illuminate the meaning and implications of the Anthropocene. With re-
spect to the checklist of questions to achieve progress with conservation
efforts posed by Miller and colleagues (2004), Dorfman (2016, pp. 56–57)
noted:

the natural history museums sector has not yet made great strides to-
wards adopting conservation action as an industry standard, despite
the exceptional work undertaken by some institutions.

In her assessment of conservation, museums, and codes of ethics, de Roemer
(2016, p. 249) opened with this statement: “Less a matter of differences
rather than of interconnectivity, the lines of what defines the museum, what
is the role of conservation and the nature and extent of their relationship,
are blurred.” In concluding, she observed, “conservation and museums are
interlinked; questions of which came first are, however, of less significance
than the recognition of their shared purpose and values” (ibid., p. 263).

Illegal wildlife trade, itself a massive and harrowing global issue, has
been poignantly reviewed by the United Nations (2014), and is a developing
focus of ICOM’s Committee for Museums and Collections of Natural His-
tory (ICOM NATHIST Wildlife Trafficking Working group, 2016). How
collections are most appropriately integrated into exhibitions also demands
diligent consideration. This applies most acutely to human remains, around
which intercultural respect with multilingual presentations is imperative, as
is the need to construct narratives surrounding identity, partnering authen-
tically with indigenous peoples on the conservation, interpretation, and
display of their heritage (Alberti et al., 2008; Torsen and Anderson, 2010;
Dorfman, 2016). For instance, the National Taiwan Museum collaborated
with the island’s indigenous Atayal and Paiwan tribes to revitalize and cele-
brate traditional weaving and glass techniques, both re-creating traditional
motifs and carrying the art forward with modern interpretations (Li, 2014).
In New Zealand, the Whanganui Regional Museum worked closely with
local Māori communities to research, restore, and interpret the region’s
treasures in a groundbreaking exploration of material culture and intangi-
ble heritage (Horwood and Wilson, 2008).

Overcoming inertia

The persistent traditional separation in museums between a collections and
research priority and a secondary educational function began to be tackled
a quarter century ago in a widely-circulated benchmark publication (AAM,
1992). While the dichotomy has diminished, differential funding often con-
tinues to be an issue in terms of connections with academia, salary scales,
and operating funds.

34 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

Another fundamental, but clearly related question, is why museums have
been hesitant to shift the time frame of their missions from a virtually sole
focus on the past. We contend that adding the present-into-the-future time
frame to the familiar past-until-the-present time frame reflects new influ-
ences on the community-building potential of museums (AAM, 2001) and
escalating anxieties over humanity’s environmental impacts (Koster, 2010).
With contexts of social responsibility more common than environmental
responsibility, this trend had some early prescient moments but has acceler-
ated since the 1990s as the following highlights make clear:

• Quoting John Dana from the early 1900s, “Learn what aid the com-
munity needs [and] fit the museum to those needs” (Peniston, 1999,
p. 16). As Koster (2016, p. 235) noted, the use of needs rather than
wants was a visionary new kind of calling on the museum’s sense of its
external responsibilities.

• The “introverted focus has engendered the belief that artifactual collec-
tions are the ‘reason for being’ for museums, rather than a tool through
which we gain and disseminate knowledge” (Duckworth, 1993, p. 15).

• “Almost all of the great natural history museums emerged in late
19th-century cities under the lengthening shadow of the Victorian
paradigm of ascending progress… The urgency of the vulnerability
of natural and cultural systems have transformed the nature of our
interests in them… What is the outcome and use of our research and
interpretative programs?… Most visitors have little or no tangible con-
tact or comprehension of the ecosystem they live in and depend on”
(Sullivan, 1992, pp. 41–43).

• Quoting Harold Skramstad, “Increasingly, the mission statement of a
museum, its essential statement of value-added, is going to have to con-
tain not only a concise and clear statement of what the museum does,
but a sense of the value that this outcome has in the larger work of the
community in which it serves. If there is nothing unique and special
about its work and the value of this work in solving a problem in peo-
ples’ lives, then so what? What’s the point?” (Weil, 1997, pp. 13–14).

• “Now is the time for the next great agenda of museum development. This
agenda needs to take as its mission nothing less than to engage actively
in the design and delivery of experiences that have the power to inspire
and change the way people see the world and the possibility of their own
lives… This will not be an easy task. It will require change in focus, organ-
ization, staffing, and funding for museums” (Skramstad, 1999, p. 125).

• “To be sure, museums remain showcases for collections and reposito-
ries for scholarship, but they have also become pits of popular debate…
They are no longer places where people look on in awe but where they
learn and argue.”8

• “In an era where budgets are tight… Museums provide a necessary
service to scientists and the public by housing specimens in a long-term

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 35

stable environment, providing specimens and data for research, educa-
tion and public outreach, and working to develop new technologies to
track speciation, biodiversity, and environmental change, just to name
a few” (Watters and Siler, 2014, p. 21).

• In reviewing Rader and Cain (2014), Johnson writes: “the book ends in
2005, with both natural history museums and science centers seen as
trusted, articulate voices grappling with new and evolving challenges.
Science literacy has been vastly complicated by a growing antiscience
movement. The urgent issues of preserving biodiversity, mitigating cli-
mate change, and promoting cultural diversity are driving some mu-
seums to take on additional roles such as conservation, advocacy, and
inclusion” (2015, p. 618).

The evolution of conscience in nature-focused museums has helped set
the stage for their agenda of relevance in the Anthropocene. However,
since the future cannot be collected per se, the question arises as to how
nature- focused museums can meaningfully illuminate the Anthropocene
in a future-oriented time frame. A starting point is a rigorous reflection on
museum practice with a view to engaging audiences in current scientific
debates, an example being the research partnership between the Carnegie
Museum of Natural History and the University of Pittsburgh (Steiner and
Crowley, 2013). The recent Welcome to the Anthropocene temporary ex-
hibition at the Deutsches Museum used this approach: “in keeping with
[our] tradition… displays of historic and contemporary objects from the
fields of science and industry bring the topic to life, while installations en-
courage active participation from the visitors’ (Möllers et al., 2015, p. 6).
At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, a discussion
series entitled “Anthropocene: Life in the Age of Humans,” including top-
ics such as “Imagining the Human Future: Ethics for the Anthropocene”
and “Evolution and the Anthropocene: Science, Religion, and the Human
Future,”9 is en route to becoming a planned new exhibition. “This provoc-
ative exhibit will focus on the Anthropocene, the slice of Earth’s history
during which people have become a major geological force… Alongside the
typical displays of Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, there will be a new
section that forces visitors to consider the species that is currently dominat-
ing the planet… We want to help people imagine their role in the world,
which is maybe more important than many of them realize.”10

Into the Anthropocene

While the geological debate continues surrounding the pros and cons of
different dates for the Anthropocene, with some expressing the view that “the
formalization should not be rushed” (Ellis et al., 2016), its value as a catalyz-
ing force for new approaches at nature-focused museums and across society
has emerged in the form of ominous alarms (Janes, 2009; Purdy, 2015).

36 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

The Anthropocene represents the best available frame of reference for
engaging society in planet Earth’s best possible future (Koster, 2016). It
prompts us to illuminate the past, present, and future of the human jour-
ney in an ecological framework with natural systems. Especially welcome,
therefore, is the 2017 conference theme of ICOM’s Committee for Museums
and Collections of Natural History, which is “The Anthropocene: Natural
History Museums in the Age of Humanity.”11

The Anthropocene draws attention to the array of human-caused, gen-
erally intensifying, changes in each of the outer concentric shells of the
Earth System: all are also affected by pollution. Here are their recent key
dimensions:

• Atmosphere—decreasing ozone, increasing carbon dioxide, climate
warming, and weather extremes

• Hydrosphere—ocean current changes, summertime Arctic Sea ice loss,
snow cover and glacier ice reduction, sea level rise, coral bleaching, and
river flow regime changes

• Biosphere—ecosystem disruptions, reduced biodiversity, invasive
species, extirpations, extinctions, and trafficking

• Pedosphere—paving over of soil, deforestation, farmland loss, and tundra
melting

• Lithosphere—nuclear waste disposal, hydraulic fracturing, dewatering,
and geological hazards in increasingly populous areas

Due to the high news volume regarding average weather trends, climate im-
plications, and coastal inundation, the evidently changing dynamics between
the atmosphere and the hydrosphere tend to dominate public attention, but
the others are no less important to grasp, try to mitigate, and present to
museum audiences. Here’s an example: ahead of Elizabeth Kolbert’s (2014)
book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, the New York Times
(2012, p. 5) published a pictorial tally of life under threat based on an eval-
uation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on the ability
of 52,025 species to survive. The most confident data was for birds, with 99
percent of known species assessed and 13 percent, or 1,253, threatened; for
mammals, with 85 percent assessed and 25 percent, or 1,138, threatened;
and amphibians, with 70 percent assessed, and 41 percent, or 1,017, threat-
ened. For reptiles with 29 percent of species assessed, 772 were listed as
threatened, and for fishes, 2,028, or 23 percent, were listed as threatened.
An accompanying article by Pearson (2012, p. 5) emphasized that vibrant
ecosystems are essential for human survival. Although the above data are
distressing, the overall picture worsens considerably when the analysis of
Tedesco et al. (2014) is included: they estimated the proportions of species
in several understudied taxonomic groups that went extinct before they
were described as between 15 and 59 percent. In his keynote address to an
ICOM congress almost three decades ago, cultural critic Neil Postman12

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 37

opined that “a good museum will always direct attention to what is difficult
and painful to contemplate” (Postman, 1989, p. 40).

The interdependence of virtually all the Earth’s shells is behind the ad-
ditional, and instructively encompassing, terms “ecosphere,” which refers
to all areas occupied by life, and “technosphere,” which denotes the realm
of human technological activity. In their overview of the history of life,
Williams et al. (2015) summarized several “fundamental stages”: a mi-
crobial stage starting 3.5 billion years ago, a metazoan phase beginning
650 million years ago, and a modern biosphere dominated by Homo sa-
piens, including human-directed evolution of other species and increasing
interaction between the biosphere and the technosphere. Summing up, they
remarked that in:

an intertwined biosphere and technosphere… [the] anthropogenic
influence would be responsible for a lasting change in the Earth System,
initiating a new trajectory for the biosphere that could last over geolog-
ical timescales.

(Williams et al., 2015, p. 18)

On an uplifting note, the Anthropocene also provides a transdiscipli-
nary framework for science literacy at all ages and stages of learning. The
drawback of so-called Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
(STEM)—that surged in popularity over the last decade is that it empha-
sizes separate traditional disciplines while excluding others that are also
fundamental (for example, art, the humanities, medicine), rather than in-
novative pedagogies toward realizing an encompassing purpose. This acro-
nym would, therefore, be more powerfully used in the manner of the North
Carolina Science, Technology, and Mathematics Education Center, which
is “Strategies That Engage Minds.”13 In a similar vein, David Skorton, sec-
retary of the Smithsonian, recently remarked:

The traditional scientific method has been wonderfully successful.
Modern life is indebted to it. However, the method has proven less
successful on its own in solving some of society’s more complex and
seemingly intractable problems, such as poverty, hunger, lack of educa-
tion, social justice, access to health care and in economic equality— all
problems that require close listening, emotional distancing, weigh-
ing of arguments and counter arguments—and direct participation
of those affected by the issues… one of the most effective ways is to
do so through the arts and humanities… It has been said that science
helps us understand what we can do; the arts and humanities—our
culture and values—help us decide what to do. Studying the arts and
humanities develops critical-thinking skills and nimble habits of mind,
provides historical and cultural perspectives and fosters the ability to
analyze, synthesize and communicate… In my new role as secretary of

38 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

the Smithsonian, I am learning quickly the leading role museums and
other cultural institutions can play in our communities, the country
and the world, and how they can affect and stimulate discourse and
action.

(AAM, 2016, pp. 40–42)

On the matter of the natural and human sciences, Van Praët (2015, pp. 8–9)
observed that these two fields “should now come together again to address
the current societal issues of humankind’s relationship with nature and our
complex relationship with the living world.” As much as the Anthropocene
concept helps museums to integrate prehistorical, historical, contemporary,
and forward-oriented contexts, the Big History concept creates a long view—
actually, a very long view all the way back to the Big Bang—of natural and
human history as one continuous story.14 This approach has been advanced
by historian David Christian15 and promoted by philanthropist Bill gates.16
It deserves inclusion in nature-focused museums because society has great
conceptual difficulty with the expanses of geological and astronomical time
frames. Big History also fosters society’s grasp of anthropology’s increas-
ingly detailed apprehension of the prehuman to human evolutionary tran-
sition,17 and of the transformative overview experience of planet Earth by
astronauts (Beaver, 2016).

Condensing the almost 14 billion years since the Big Bang into one calen-
dar year has the Solar System forming in early September, and condensing
the 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history has all human history squeezed into
the last minute before midnight on December 31. The Big History approach
helps greatly to link the more familiar—human history and very recent
prehistory—with the widely unfamiliar, and in many quarters the unbe-
lieved or rejected, course of Earth and pre-Earth history. From the stand-
point of nature-focused museums, Big History helps to bring all of nature
and humanity into one holistic perspective: clearly, all feasible progress in
this regard is vital.

There are several other big-picture concepts that arguably need to infuse
thinking and action in nature-focused museums:

• The Sustainable Development goals of the United Nations18 represent
a bold cooperative approach to realizing progress with regard to the
world’s largest societal and environmental challenges. Each goal, as
agreed upon in 2015, has aspirational targets to be achieved by 2030.
Entitled “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development,”19 the noble intentions of cooperating countries are fo-
cused on five areas: people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnership.
The second summary statement reads: “We are determined to protect
the planet from degradation, including through sustainable consump-
tion and production, sustainably managing its natural resources and
taking urgent action on climate change, so that it can support the needs

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 39

of the present and future generations.” UNESCO’s 2016 World Science
Day for Peace and Development20 called upon science museums and
science centers to align their efforts with the United Nation’s Sustain-
able Development goals (UN SDgS), while the 2017 Science Centre
World Summit to be hosted by Japan’s National Museum of Emerging
Science and Innovation has a “Connecting the World for a Sustainable
Future” theme.21

• The Triple Bottom Line approach22 was introduced in 1994 by the
founder of a British consultancy firm called SustainAbility. Advocating
that sustainable decisions need balanced attention to three bottom
lines—people (referring to social responsibility), planet (referring to
environmental responsibility), and profit (referring to feasibility and
growth)—the concept has proven difficult to quantify. It does, how-
ever, offer an important reminder that organizations should take a
long-term perspective to consider the future consequences of decisions.
Nature-focused museums could decide to seek support from corpora-
tions that subscribe to this approach preferentially.

• Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim and Mauborgne, 2015) describes an ap-
proach contrary to conventional profit motives. It advances the notion
of “uncontested market space,” of which the Cirque de Soleil23 is often
cited as a prime example. Formed in 1984 in Quebec, the group inno-
vatively reinvented the traditional attributes of a circus, with artistic
performers replacing trained animals. Its success, along with this year’s
news that two circuses are ending their 146-year run24 and that a ma-
rine park is ending its orca performances,25 comports with the belief
“in a better future for all living things” by the Association of Zoos and
Aquariums,26 and which envisions “a world where all people respect,
value, and conserve wildlife and wild places.” How nature-focused
museums can best leverage the refreshing principles of a blue ocean
strategy is an evocative question for our field.

• Concerned that “civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short
attention span,” the Long Now Foundation27 was established in 1996
“to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution; [it] hopes
to provide a counterpoint to today’s accelerating culture and help make
long-term thinking more common… in the framework of the next
10,000 years.”

Related opportunities

Koster (1999) discussed several emerging facets of science and natural
history museums, including new approaches to engaging audiences in the
research process and collections, through exhibitions and dialogues, and
through applications of child development psychology. Almost twenty
years later, the following statement seems more pertinent than ever to both
science and nature museums: “There is a growing recognition that [they]

40 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

do not need to have all the answers on a given subject in order to present
an illuminating experience to the public… It seems eminently preferable to
open minds by offering partial insights than it is to fill minds with an au-
thoritative account—or to fail entirely to address a subject’ (ibid., 289). He
concluded: “The challenge facing the museum field, both in science centers
and elsewhere, is to create compelling experiences on subjects of impor-
tance in ways that increasingly attract society to view museums as engaging
resources for lifelong learning” (ibid., 294).

In the second decade of the twenty-first century, there are new areas such
as the four introduced below that beckon the attention of nature-focused
museums:

• More than ever, children must be our audience focus in prekindergar-
ten, school, and family settings—onsite, offsite, outdoors, and online.
That the traits of scientific inquiry are baked into our mental DNA
from evolutionary survival needs was emphasized by gopnik et al.
(1999). Today there are annual conferences of the Children and Na-
ture Network28 and the Natural Learning Initiative,29 and the focus
of Sampson (2015), a science communication specialist, is the art and
science of falling in love with nature.

• Connecting adults to nature, outside, is another worthy focus of our
institutions and a movement spurred by several new books. A journal-
ist has explored how nature makes us happier, healthier, and more cre-
ative (Williams, 2017) and, striking a similar note, Selhub and Logan
(2012) are naturopathic doctors who reviewed the science of nature’s
influence on our health, happiness, and vitality.

• Citizen science is a surging movement that is likely the best route for
society at large to directly engage in the challenges and opportunities
of the Anthropocene. In 1990, a Canadian physicist envisioned: “The
task of the future is to build knowledge and understanding among and
between citizens and scientists, so that the distinction between the two
groups vanishes—so that both become citizen scientists, potentially
able to solve our problems together” (Franklin, 1990, p. 268). Today,
the movement is professionally supported by numerous websites,30
television documentaries,31 and several associations that hold annual
or biannual conferences; the newest book on the subject (Cooper, 2016)
was reviewed by the Washington Post.32

• Evolutionary medicine raises the specter of a new, more informed, type
of doctor-patient relationship to elucidate the personal relevance of
human evolution. “Evolutionary medicine poses a fundamentally new
kind of question about disease. Instead of only asking how bodies work
and why some people get sick, evolutionary medicine also asks why
natural selection has left all of us with traits that make us vulnerable
to disease. Why do we have wisdom teeth, narrow coronary arteries,
a narrow birth canal, and a food passage that crosses the windpipe?

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 41

Evolution explains why we have traits that leave us vulnerable to dis-
ease, as well as why so many other aspects of the body work so well.
For instance, the usual question about back pain is why it afflicts some
individuals. Evolutionary medicine also asks why back problems have
been a problem for all hominid species since they first walked on two
legs.”33 Furthermore, it sheds light on interdisciplinary collabora-
tions across all aspects of health care for humans, animals, and the
environment.34

Toward a holistic ethos

Building upon Korn’s (2013) advocacy for holistic intentionality, the core
conclusion of this chapter is that the maximized relevance of a nature-
focused museum is enabled by its holistic ethos. That is, the museum’s
traditional collections-based code of ethics is insufficient as the needed
compass for nature-focused museums in the Anthropocene. going forward,
not only is the salience of collections undiminished but in fact, they are of
ascending significance given the substantial loss of prehuman biodiversity
and the substantial ongoing human interference with natural systems. In
the nature-focused museum of the future, all parts of the institution need
their contributing voice to be heard in a completely integrated and holistic
manner.

In mainline dictionaries, ethos is defined as the characteristic spirit of a
culture or community as manifested in its beliefs and aspirations, the un-
derlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group
or society. Ethics is defined as a branch of philosophy dealing with what is
morally right or wrong, a system of moral principles, and an area of study
that explores ideas concerning good and bad behavior. A code of ethics for
museums—as set forth by the American Alliance of Museums and the Inter-
national Council of Museums, with added emphasis by the North Carolina
Museum of Natural Sciences on the needed duality of environmental and
societal contexts—would be a single document describing museums’ com-
mitment to putting the interests of society and the environment ahead of
the interests of the institution or any individual; as a cornerstone document,
it sets forth standards for professional practice and accountability.

Along these lines, the approach to an encompassing code of ethics taken
by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences35 (the institution for
which the first author is the director) is offered as an example. Its outlook
is rooted in the State’s motto from 1893—Esse quam videri, “To be, rather
than to seem”: in modern parlance and from an ethical perspective, these
words match the idiom of “walking the walk.” This stance is reinforced
by North Carolina itself as an instructive crossroads of nature (Earnhardt,
2013). Stretching from Cape Hatteras, where the gulf Stream swings north-
eastward toward Europe, to the almost seven-thousand-foot-high Mount
Mitchell along the Appalachian drainage divide, North Carolina ranges

42 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

from subtropical to subalpine with habitats including many unique features
in global biodiversity terms. Although a state museum, the North Carolina
Museum of Natural Sciences’ research, collections, and education horizons
are necessarily national and global in scope. In 2014, post- expansion, the
institution adopted “To illuminate the interdependence of nature and hu-
manity” as its mission statement and “What do we know?” “How do we
know?” “What is happening now?” and ‘How can the public participate?”
as its propelling questions. Spurred by a sense that a museum’s mission
statement should feel like the institution’s beating heart, the museum’s ap-
proach to its 2016 Code of Ethics was mindful of the above-noted 2007 and
2012 nature-focused museum declarations in Paris and Washington, DC, as
well as emerging trends in the museum field captured by such conversational
phrases as “Safe places for difficult ideas,” “From nice to necessary,” and
“From indifference to indispensability.” This institution views the geological
past as the key to the present and the future; regards whole Earth thinking
as a mindset to help narrow the gap between humanity and nature in the
reality of one biosphere; and embraces the Anthropocene as its best con-
ceptual framework for long-range approaches. The museum expresses its
public value as advancing the forefront of knowledge regarding the dynamic
world of nature in statements addressing, among others: the need to make
data collection and scientific research accessible to schools and the public;
the goal of providing experiences for all ages and backgrounds to be im-
mersed in nature; the objective of enabling quality family time in engaging
and meaningful ways; the desire to eliminate accessibility barriers to those
with disabilities; and the wish to engage the public in global sustainability
issues. The Code of Ethics then lays out the contributing responsibilities of
each governing body and each organizational section with these statements:

• Through the Director’s Office, the institution’s entire team, functioning
holistically and attentive to local, regional, national and global needs, ex-
emplifies the greater potential of nature and science museums by expand-
ing resources for the institution, demonstrating its unique public value, and
helping to advance the field as a whole through sharing of best practices.

• The Resource Administration team oversees the resource needs of the
institution, staff, and visitors by managing its portfolio of business
services, including human resources, budgets and grants, information
technology, and facility and security services in close cooperation with
state government, universities, and other partners.

• The Research and Collections team increases knowledge and insight into
the natural world by collecting, preserving, and documenting specimens
and objects, conducting original research, making data and results
available and accessible to the broader scientific community and the
public, and inviting society’s participation in collections and research
opportunities.

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 43

• The Living Collections team enhances awareness and understanding
of the animal world by maintaining, displaying, and interpreting a
healthy living collection; promoting conservation; enhancing the vis-
itor experience through integrated approaches to exhibitions, onsite,
and offsite programs; and advancing the fields of animal husbandry
and wildlife veterinary medicine.

• The Exhibits and Digital Media team propels the institution’s collec-
tions, research, and programs to the forefront of public knowledge
and enjoyment by developing and maintaining an engaging array of
interpretive experiences and media that address the learning styles of
a diverse public and the changing knowledge regarding natural and
cultural environments.

• The School and Lifelong Education team engages all ages and back-
grounds by creating and delivering a menu of engaging and inspirational
learning experiences onsite, offsite, online, and outdoors to assist with
the understanding and appreciation among students, teachers, and the
public of the natural sciences, the natural world, and humanity’s rela-
tionship to it.

• The Community Engagement team maximizes the institution’s positive
external impacts by understanding, attracting, welcoming, involving,
engaging, and re-engaging traditional and nontraditional audiences
via a scheduled menu of topical programs and events, excellent and
inclusive visitor service, and effective marketing and communications
strategies.

• The Regional Network team connects communities statewide with the
natural world by developing and maintaining programs, services, part-
nerships, and learning areas geared to the needs of each region and
providing administrative oversight and program optimization for the
state’s science museums grant program.

• The Development team, integrating the institution and its supporting
Friends organization, manages and grows contributed revenues by link-
ing the internal array of supportable activities with external sources of
government, corporate, foundation, and individual support, in turn,
building member and donor loyalty and the institution’s capacity to
advance its mission.

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, since 2015 a division
of the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources,36 has re-
cently completed its decadal reaccreditation by the American Alliance of
Museums. A gratifying outcome is that the alliance’s report concludes: “the
museum has forthrightly evolved its interpretative philosophy and strategy
to address bigger stories about humans as an inseparable element in the
ecosystem of all life, and therefore to be concerned about matters of con-
servation and sustainability.”

44 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

Conclusions

As Koster (2016, p. 237) pointed out:

In hindsight, the first mission of Apollo and introduction of the
Anthropocene should have bracketed a period of profound introspection,
reflection and inspiration across the nature and science museum sector.
This was a powerful opportunity to manifest the founding raison d’être
of the museum from The Muses in greek mythology… For nature and
science museums, the odyssey of their evolution since Apollo’s transform-
ative photographs of Planet Earth to today’s serious calling to be resources
for societal and environmental needs in the Anthropocene has become a
journey in which the ‘right conduct’ [as in the core definition of ethics] has
become unequivocally clear.

Having advocated in 2007 that “the search for greater relevance should
never cease” (Koster and Schubel, p. 119), Koster in 2010 (p. 90) empha-
sized that three facets of institutional culture should be in place:

The first concerns mission and vision—is there a clear and firm commit-
ment to be of value to the societal and environmental problems we face?
The second concerns leadership—is there a preparedness to be an activist?
The third concerns strategy—is there a relentless pursuit to be more ex-
ternally useful and to nurture new perspectives in funding stakeholders.

In the Anthropocene, nature-focused museums should not only aspire to-
ward our sector’s most valuable contributions to date in direct response to
the intertwined needs of societies and environments but also become an
exemplar of what relevance means to the entire museum profession.

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge their respective, and in many cases over-
lapping, networks of international colleagues with whom their ideas have
germinated and who have cumulatively informed elements in many of the
background concepts in this chapter. We are also grateful for the editorial
comments on a draft of this chapter by Joanne DiCosimo, former Director of
the Canadian Museum of Nature; Lucy Laffitte, a board member of the Inter-
national Big History Association; and Jason Cryan and LuAnne Pendergraft
of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, respectively, its chiefs of
Research and Collections and of Community Engagement.

Notes
1 https://johnfrederickabueva.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/doing-the-right-things-

vs-doing-things-right-ethics-blog-3/.
2 http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4735.html.

“DOING THE RIGHT THINGS VS. DOING THINGS RIGHT” :ETHICS Blog 3

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4735.html

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 45

3 www.aam-us.org/about-museums.
4 www.asmd.org/Home/SitePage/3#.
5 www.aam-us.org/resources/ethics-standards-and-best-practices/code-of-ethics.
6 www.museumsassociation.org/ethics/code-of-ethics.
7 www.bfn.de/fileadmin/ABS/documents/BuffonDeclarationFinal%5B1%5D .
8 www.economist.com/news/special-report/21591707-museums-world-over-

are-doing-amazingly-well-says-fiammetta-rocco-can-they-keep.
9 www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/your-guide-all-things-anthropocene-

180960599/.
10 www.nature.com/news/anthropocene-the-human-age-1.17085.
11 https://icomnathist.wordpress.com/conference-2017/.
12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman.
13 www.ncsmt.org/about/smt-center/.
14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History.
15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Christian_(historian); www.ted.com/talks/

david_christian_big_history.
16 https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-

for-a-history-class.html?_r=0; https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home.
17 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/magazine/neanderthals-were-people-

too.html?_r=0.
18 http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/.
19 https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld.
20 http://www.un.org/en/events/scienceday/.
21 https://scws2017.org/.
22 http://www.economist.com/node/14301663.
23 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirque_du_Soleil.
24 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/14/us/ringling-bros-and-barnum-bailey-

circus-closing-may.html?_r=0.
25 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098292/SeaWorld-San-Diego-ending-

killer-whale-show.html.
26 https://www.aza.org/.
27 http://longnow.org/about/.
28 https://www.childrenandnature.org/about/nature-deficit-disorder/.
29 https://naturalearning.org/about-us.
30 https://scistarter.com/.
31 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvjDp93eiSo.
32 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/have-a-scientific-passion-become-

a-citizen-scientist/2017/01/27/647e8a22-dcc9-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story.
html?utm_term=.50581f068e40.

33 http://www.randolphnesse.com/whatisevolutionarymedicine.
34 http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/about.php.
35 http://naturalsciences.or.
36 https://www.ncdcr.gov/.

References

AAM (1992). Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of
Museums. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums.

AAM (2001). Mastering Civic Engagement: A Challenge to Museums. Washington,
DC: American Association of Museums.

AAM (2011). The future is in the stars: An interview with Neil degrasse Tyson.
Museum, pp. 47–51.

AAM (2016). What do we value? Museum, pp. 38–43.

http://www.aam-us.org/about-museums

http://www.asmd.org/Home/SitePage/3#

http://www.aam-us.org/resources/ethics-standards-and-best-practices/code-of-ethics

http://www.museumsassociation.org/ethics/code-of-ethics

http://www.bfn.de/fileadmin/ABS/documents/BuffonDeclarationFinal%5B1%5D

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21591707-museums-world-over-are-doing-amazingly-well-says-fiammetta-rocco-can-they-keep

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/your-guide-all-things-anthropocene-180960599/

http://www.nature.com/news/anthropocene-the-human-age-1.17085

https://icomnathist.wordpress.com/conference-2017/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman

SMT Center

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Christian_(historian)

https://www.bighistoryproject.com/home

http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

http://www.un.org/en/events/scienceday/

https://scws2017.org/

http://www.economist.com/node/14301663

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirque_du_Soleil

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/14/us/ringling-bros-and-barnum-bailey-circus-closing-may.html?_r=0

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098292/SeaWorld-San-Diego-ending-killer-whale-show.html

https://www.aza.org/

http://longnow.org/about/

https://www.childrenandnature.org/about/nature-deficit-disorder/

https://naturalearning.org/about-us

https://scistarter.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/have-a-scientific-passion-become-a-citizen-scientist/2017/01/27/647e8a22-dcc9-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story.html?utm_term=.50581f068e40

http://www.randolphnesse.com/whatisevolutionarymedicine

http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/about.php

http://naturalsciences.or

https://www.ncdcr.gov/

46 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

Anderson, g., ed. (2004). Reinventing the Museum: Historical and Contemporary
Perspectives on the Paradigm Shift. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Anderson, g., ed. (2012). Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation
on the Paradigm Shift. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Beaver, D. (2016). The case for planetary awareness: How the new space age will
profoundly change our worldview. Space Times 2(55), pp. 4–11.

Cameron, F., and Kelly, L., eds. (2010). Hot Topics, Public Cultures: Museums.
Newcastle-upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.

Carrington, D. (2016). The Anthropocene epoch: Scientists declare dawn of human-
influenced age. Guardian, 29 Aug.

Cooper, C. (2016). How Ordinary People Are Changing the Face of Discovery.
New York: Overlook Press.

Crutzen, P. (2002). The geology of mankind. Nature 425, p. 23.
de Roemer, S. (2016). Conservation: How ethics work in practice. In: B. Murphy,

Museums, Ethics, and Cultural Heritage. New York: Routledge.
Dorfman, E. (2016). Ethical issues and standards for natural history muse-

ums. In: B. Murphy, Museums, Ethics, and Cultural Heritage. New York:
Routledge.

Duckworth, D. (1993). Museum-based science for a new century. In: Research
within the Museum: Aspirations and Realities. Taichung: National Museum of
Natural Sciences.

Earnhardt, T. (2013). Crossroads of the Natural World: Exploring North Carolina.
Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Economist (2011). Welcome to the Anthropocene, 26 May.
Ellis, E., Maslin, M., Boivin, N., and Bauer, A. (2016). Involve social scientists in

defining the Anthropocene. Nature 540, pp. 192–193.
Franklin, U. (1990). Planet under Stress: The Challenge of Global Change. Royal

Society of Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press.
gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A., and Kuhl, P. (1999). The Scientist in the Crib. New York:

HarperCollins.
Horwood, M., and Wilson, C. (2008). Te Ara Tapu: Sacred Journeys. London:

Random House.
ICOM (2006). ICOM Code of Ethics for Museums. Washington, DC: Interna-

tional Council of Museums.
ICOM NATHIST Wildlife Trafficking Working group (2016). Natural History

Museums and Wildlife Trafficking: A Framework for Global Action; A White Paper.
Washington, DC: International Council of Museums, Committee for Museums and
Collections of Natural History / Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Janes, R. (2009). Museums in a Troubled World: Renewal, Irrelevance or Collapse?
New York: Routledge.

Johnson, K. (2015). Surrounded by science. Science 347(6222), p. 618.
Kemp, C. (2015). The endangered dead. Nature 518, pp. 292–293.
Kim, W. C., and Mauborgne, R. (2015). Blue Ocean Strategy. Cambridge: Harvard

Business Review Press.
Kolbert, E. (2014). The Sixth Extinction. New York: Henry Holt.
Korn, R. (2013). Creating public value through intentional practice. In: C. Scott,

ed., Museums and Public Value: Creating Sustainable Futures. Burlington:
Ashgate, pp. 31–43.

Koster, E. (1999). In search of relevance: Science centers as innovators in the
evolution of museums. Daedalus 128, pp. 277–296.

http://23.de

A holistic ethos in the Anthropocene 47

Koster, E. (2010). Evolution of purpose in science museums and science centers. In:
F. Cameron and L. Kelly, eds. Hot Topics, Public Culture: Museums. Newcastle-
upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 76–94.

Koster, E. (2012). The relevant museum: A reflection on sustainability. In:
g. Anderson, ed., Reinventing the Museum: The Evolving Conversation on the
Paradigm Shift. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Koster, E. (2016). From Apollo into the Anthropocene: The odyssey of nature
and science museums in an external responsibility context. In: B. Murphy, ed.,
Museums, Ethics, and Cultural Heritage. New York: Routledge.

Koster, E., and Falk, J. (2007). Maximizing the usefulness of museums. Curator:
The Museum Journal 50(2), pp. 191–196.

Koster, E., and Schubel, J. (2007). Raising the relevancy bar in aquariums and
science centers. In: J. Falk, L. Dierking, and S. Foutz, eds., In Principle, In
Practice. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Koster, E., Watson, B., and Yalowitz, S. (2012). Natural history: Past, present,
future. Informal Learning Review, pp. 22–24.

Li, T.-N., ed. (2014). Rainbow and Dragonfly: Where the Atayal Clothing Meet the
Paiwan Multi-Colored Glass. Taipei: National Taiwan Museum.

Miller, B., et al. (2004). Evaluating the conservation mission of zoos, aquariums, bo-
tanical gardens, and natural history museums. Conservation Biology 18, pp. 86–93.

Möllers, N., Schwägerl, C., and Trischler, H. (2015). Welcome to the Anthropocene:
The Earth in Our Hands. Munich: Deutsches Museum / Rachel Carson Center.

New York Times (2011). The Anthropocene, 7 Feb., p. A22.
New York Times (2012). Are we in the midst of a sixth mass extinction? 3 June, p. 5.
Parr, A. (1959). Mostly about Museums. New York: American Museum of Natural

History.
Pearson, R. (2012). Are we in the midst of a sixth mass extinction? Opinion. New

York Times.
Peniston, W. (1999). The New Museum: Selected Writings of John Cotton Dana.

Washington, DC: Newark Museum Association/American Association of
Museums.

Postman, N. (1989). Extension of the museum concept. In: Museums: Generators
of Culture, Washington, DC: International Council of Museums.

Purdy, J. (2015). After Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rader, K. A., and Cain, V. E. M. (2014). Life on Display. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.
Rees, M. (2017). Museums as catalysts for change. Nature Climate Change 7,

pp. 166–167.
Robin, L., and Steffan, W. (2007). History of the Anthropocene. History Compass

5, pp. 1694–1719.
Sampson, S. (2015). How to Raise a Wild Child. Boston: First Mariner.
Selhub, E., and Logan, A. (2012). Your Brain on Nature. Toronto: HarperCollins.
Skramstad, H. (1999). An agenda for America’s museums in the twenty-first

century. Daedalus 128, pp. 109–128.
Steiner, M. A, and Crowley, K. (2013). The natural history museum: Taking on a

learning agenda. Curator: The Museum Journal 56(2), pp. 267–272.
Sullivan, R. (1992). Trouble in paradigms. Museum News, pp. 41–44.
Tedesco, P. A., Bigorne, R., Bogan, A. E., glam, X., Jézéquel, C., and Hugueny, B.

(2014). Estimating how many undescribed species have gone extinct. Conserva-
tion Biology 28(5), pp. 1360–1370.

48 E. Koster, E. Dorfman, and T. Simioti Nyambe

Thomas, N. (2016). The Return of Curiosity. London: Reaktion.
Torsen, M., and Anderson, J. (2010). Intellectual Property and the Safeguarding

of Traditional Cultures: Legal Issues and Practical Options for Museums,
Libraries, and Archives. geneva: World Intellectual Property Organization.

United Nations (2014). Illegal Wildlife Trade. geneva: UN Chronicle, Outreach
Division, Department of Public Information, vol. 11, p. 2.

Van Praët (2015). Museums sounding the alarm. ICOM News, pp. 3–4.
Weil, S. (1997). Introduction. In: Museums for the New Millennium. Washington,

DC: Smithsonian Institution / American Association of Museums.
Weil, S. (2002). Making Museums Matter. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution

Press.
Weil, S. (2006). Beyond management: Making museums matter. ICOM Study

Series 12: International Committee on Management, pp. 4–8.
Watters, J., and Siler, C. (2014). Preliminary quantification of curator success in life

science natural history collections. University of Oklahoma Journal of Museum
Studies 8(1), pp. 21–33.

Wheeler, Q. D., et al. (2012). Mapping the biosphere: Exploring species to under-
stand the origin, organization, and sustainability of biodiversity. Systematic Bi-
odiversity 10, pp. 1–20.

Williams, F. (2017). The Nature Fix. New York: Norton.
Williams, M., et al. (2015). The Anthropocene biosphere. Anthropocene Review

2(3), pp. 1–24.
Yang, W. (2017). Is the “Anthropocene” epoch a condemnation of human interference—

or a call for more? New York Times, 14 Feb.
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Steffen, W., and Crutzen, P. (2010). The new world of

the Anthropocene. Environmental Science and Technology 44, pp. 2228–2231.

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rmmc20

Museum Management and Curatorship

ISSN: 0964-7775 (Print) 1872-9185 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmmc20

Museums, Climate Change and Sustainability

Richard J. Hebda

To cite this article: Richard J. Hebda (2007) Museums, Climate Change and Sustainability,
Museum Management and Curatorship, 22:4, 329-336, DOI: 10.1080/09647770701757682

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09647770701757682

Published online: 13 Dec 2007.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 818

View related articles

Citing articles: 8 View citing articles

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rmmc20

https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmmc20

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/09647770701757682

https://doi.org/10.1080/09647770701757682

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=rmmc20&show=instructions

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/mlt/10.1080/09647770701757682

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/10.1080/09647770701757682#tabModule

Commentary

Museums, Climate Change and
Sustainability

RICHARD J. HEBDA

One of the most important series of reports (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change 2007) ever prepared for the global community paints a sobering picture of

the future. This most conservative account of climate change includes the following

in its ‘‘Summary for Policymakers:’’

� anthropogenic warming has affected physical and biological systems;
� drought affected areas will increase in extent;
� resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded;
� global potential for food production may at first increase but then decrease with

warming above 38C;
� health status of millions of people will be affected.

This report is nothing short of a wake-up call*that humanity’s course is
unsustainable and has depleted not only the resources we use, but also impacted

the very processes that sustain us and all other life on earth. Humanity is at a

crossroad and museums have a vital role in helping people make informed decisions

about which turn to take.
Traditionally, museums have been a window on the past, a place ‘‘where the past

lives,’’ as my institution the Royal British Columbia Museum (RBCM) declares. We

trot out historic artifacts, old plant and animal specimens, and host great exhibits

on famous people, events and cultures. A key objective of our activities is the visual

or experiential feast and, like other museums, we have tried to engage with the

issues of the day, but often with mixed results. The imperative of climate change,

however, provides a key opportunity for museums to become more socially relevant,

not simply as a place to see and read about interesting things (and perhaps to

strengthen our identity), but also to engage meaningfully in the most vital challenge

of our time.

In this commentary, I explore the RBCM’s voyage into the issue of climate

change as an example of how museums can play a central role in addressing the

fundamental question of the excessive size of humanity’s footprint on the face of

the earth.

ISSN 0964-7775 Print/1872-9185 Online/07/040329�8 # 2007 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09647770701757682

Museum Management and Curatorship

Vol. 22, No. 4, 329�336, December 2007

An Opportunity for a Relevant Exhibit

For many years now, I have been concerned about the issue of climate change and its

possible impacts, both globally and particularly in British Columbia (Hebda 1994).

My research field is paleoecology*the study of ancient environments. Within the
museum context, my original research helped set the stage for understanding British

Columbia’s prehistory and gaining insight into the origin and pattern of our

landscape and biological diversity. I studied past climate change and its conse-

quences, and was well connected to others interested in climate. These connections

and my research proved vital in the development of our museum’s programming,

confirming the point Reid and Naylor (2005) made about the need for original

research in museums. My work, and that of my colleagues (such as Rolf Mathewes at

Simon Fraser University) and our students provided an important contribution to

understanding climate change because we could envisage what a warmer British

Columbia might look like (see, e.g. Hebda 1995, Pellatt et al. 2001, Brown and Hebda

2002, Heinrichs et al. 2004). Only 8,000 years ago, we experienced warmer-than-

present climates, during a time when the physical form of the land and modern-day

species were already in place (Hebda 1998). The study of fossil pollen and other plant

remains from lake and bog sediment cores, now in the RBCM collection, revealed a

very different landscape than we see today. One of the key points for this now-

forested region was the much-reduced extent of forest under a climate warmer and

drier than today (Hebda 1995).

The evidence for climate change continued to build into the 21st century, at which

time most reputable scientists felt that change was under way and action was needed.

In Canada, funding became available through the Climate Change Action Fund of

the federal government. At the RBCM, we wanted to update the entrance to our

natural history gallery where climate was briefly explored. In the old exhibit, we

linked climate and weather, especially rain, to the pattern of ecosystems, but

otherwise gave it little importance. This was perhaps a reflection of society’s general

lack of recognition of climate’s central role in shaping the world and our lives. We had

also been struggling with the need to be more socially relevant, a message that came

to us from consultations with our many audiences province-wide. At that time, the

question of climate change and all that it implied, as far as human behavior goes, was

still a controversial issue. The political and public atmosphere was foggy, as people

did not know whom to believe, what information was science-based rather than

rhetoric, and where real uncertainty lay. There was a clear opportunity for us to

dispel the fog and to enlighten our audiences.

A key appeal of a climate change exhibit was an opportunity to link, indeed

integrate, the two solitudes (human and natural history) of many large museums in a

compelling manner. This challenge is central in the sustainability debate because the

progressive separation of humanity and nature is at the core of the problem facing

society today.
The climate change exhibit incorporated the following themes:

(1) Climate dominates (we often forget this in our comfortable, quasi-secure urban

habitats. . . ask the people of New Orleans).
(2) Changes in climate occur and have occurred; when they occur they affect the

physical and biological world and the people who depend on it.

330 R. J. Hebda

(3) The climate is changing now and changing quickly.

(4) Humans likely have a hand in the changing climate and thus have choices to

make.

Before broaching the issue of climate change, the exhibit (Figure 1) uses the

process of progressive discovery to make its points, leading the visitor to develop a

background context about what climate and weather are, and how they influence our

world. We use British Columbia fossils to show how different climates support

different life forms and ecosystems. Historical artifacts help explain what climate is

and how we measure its elements. Live-feed Internet images show weather conditions

under different climatic regimes. Artifacts from the devastating 2003 Kelowna fire

clearly demonstrate the consequences of an extreme, climate-related event. Natural

history specimens (Figure 2) expose the viewers to potential biological ‘‘losers and

winners’’ in the climate change sweepstakes.

The most difficult part to ‘‘exhibit’’ was the social dimension, especially the story

of the future because there are obviously no artifacts yet. Here we wanted to explore

ideas, concepts, possibilities and uncertainties, all of which are central to raising

questions about sustainability. Much concern was expressed over the use of too many

graphics and too many words, and how boring this might be. In response, interactive

computer terminals (Figure 2) turned static sections into dynamic ones. As part of

the exhibit, visitors can cause global warming by electronically puffing CO2 into the

atmosphere! There are static graphics too. One of these required several days working

with an artist to depict choices and consequences. People stop, read and interact, as

the exhibit prods the intellect and, perhaps, even probes the soul. Many people have

said ‘‘I must come back, there is so much to learn,’’ and by inference ‘‘I must learn

Figure 1. Entrance to the ‘‘Climate and Climate Change’’ exhibit at the Royal British
Columbia Museum. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Niemann, Royal British Columbia Museum.)

Museums, Climate Change and Sustainability 331

it.’’ They are engaged in the subject matter and the exhibit is relevant, although it

may not be as visually sumptuous as many blockbusters.

Socially relevant museum programs need to be more than simply a reflection or

summary of what is known at the time. They need to include fresh material, new

discoveries, and new ways of seeing things. By being original, the exhibit itself

becomes newsworthy and attracts attention to the subject. The most powerful and

influential elements of the RBCM exhibit are its maps of future conditions. Part of

the budget was dedicated to supporting new collaborative research, including the

University of Victoria and several provincial and federal government agencies. Using

newly available data, we developed a series of maps of future temperatures,

precipitation and the distribution of selected species and economic elements,

including heating and cooling costs and the potential for crops. The data were

displayed for three times in the future*2020, 2050, and 2080*and for three levels of
climate change*small, medium, and large. Simply watching the colors change on the
map of the region clearly communicates that the future will be different. The degree

and immediacy of the change caused many visitors, including those who saw

the maps in my public presentations, to imagine the possibility of the near-desert

climate of the southern part of the province extending as far north as the Arctic circle

by the end of the century, as well as the sharp decline in the iconic western red cedar

in lowlands of southern British Columbia. Will there be the commercial production

of pecans, rice and olives in the lower mainland of British Columbia by 2080?
More than a million people, including political leaders, corporate executives,

government bureaucrats, scientists, representatives of community groups and many

Figure 2. Exit area to the ‘‘Climate and Climate Change’’ exhibit at the Royal British Columbia
Museum, showing specimens of species that may decline with climate change (center) and two
interactive terminals with maps of climate change impacts (left of center). (Photo courtesy of
Andrew Niemann, Royal British Columbia Museum.)

332 R. J. Hebda

others, including members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have

viewed the exhibit and maps. I have heard a corporate executive express surprise and

concern during a tour and declare that we must change. Based on anecdotal

feedback, the response of tour participants, and numerous requests for display

material and information, our exhibit has been effective in changing people’s minds

and sowing seeds of unease about the future and our role in shaping that future.

Much interest has been expressed in the maps of potential crops in the future

under warmer climate. Aside from the idea that growing citrus commercially in

British Columbia is fascinating, the maps represent what many view as a rare

example of a positive outcome of climate change. This new information has been

widely circulated in major newspapers and explored on radio and television. Perhaps

this wide interest has arisen because it touches most directly on sustainability. Will

there be enough food? Are we sustaining the land?

Sustaining biodiversity and ecosystems is, to many people, an abstract concept.

Perhaps one needs a certain ‘‘environmental’’ faith or, at least, ecological training to

understand why it matters. In contrast, the value of sustaining agriculture requires

little explanation. The idea that our agricultural potential might change to something

like that of the Central Valley of California has caught the attention of many. People

have begun to discuss more widely the need to maintain the limited agricultural land

in the province because of its even more promising potential in the future. Others

contemplate, with optimism, the possibility of vineyards in the sub-boreal realms of

central British Columbia, but then confess that the degree of change required for this

transformation is worrying indeed. The changes forecasted raise questions about the

agricultural viability of the world’s warm regions that now supply ‘‘long distance’’

food (an issue highlighted by the IPCC 2007), and stimulate discussion concerning

the importance of local agricultural production as part of the ‘‘Hundred Mile diet’’

concept (Smith and MacKinnon 2007).

Although the exhibit and our approach do not exhort the visitor to take any

particular action, they do prompt questions and thoughts on the issue of

sustainability because the consequences of not being sustainable are examined. In

my public presentations on the topic, I do address concepts and actions related to

sustainability, using the maps of change as a point of entry, and the public wants to

know what they should do. How can they live more sustainably?

My advice is to practice good carbon stewardship by evaluating the impacts of our

activities, not only in terms of carbon (CO2) emissions, but also their consequences to

living carbon and the organic matter (dead carbon) upon which it depends (Table 1).

The challenge of the future is not only to reduce emissions, but also to sustain the

Table 1. The elements of carbon stewardship, their characteristics and values

Carbon stewardship: Balanced values for the future
Living carbon: organisms and ecosystems; sustains humans and ecological processes; provides

resilience and raw material for future ecosystems and use; removes CO2
Dead carbon: organic matter in soils, wastes; sustains living carbon, stored carbon, bio-energy

source
Ancient carbon: fossil fuels; ready and reliable energy source; predominant cause of climate

change

Museums, Climate Change and Sustainability 333

living systems that provide us with food, jobs and spiritual uplift, and the capability

to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The concept of carbon stewardship is central in the sustainability debate and

provides much scope for museum programs. Today’s climate change discussion is

highly focused on reducing emissions, but there is more to the issue than simply using

alternate or less energy. Much effort is directed at new technologies that exploit living

carbon (biofuels) and non-carbon sources of energy. Yet, growing crops for energy

rather than food, and converting forests to fuel may, upon comprehensive analysis,

turn out to be a poor carbon stewardship strategy. Biofuels replace ancient carbon,

but jeopardize living carbon systems (monoculture versus ecological diversity) and

may deplete soil (dead) carbon. The implication is that somehow we can continue to

demand even more resources for human purposes, as we have done in the past. The

danger of this approach, quantity versus quality, as an economic driver is well

explored in the book by Bill McKibben (2007) Deep Economy. Carbon stewardship

includes a consideration of all forms of carbon in the context of the carbon cycle,

with the most important to us being the living carbon*the plants, animals and their
ecosystems.

Regardless of what progress we make in removing carbon (oil, gas, coal), climate

change will nevertheless impact global living carbon (as noted by the Intergovern-

mental Panel on Climate Change 2007), and we must start preparing for such

impacts. These impacts will include changes in agricultural productivity, shifting and

different ecosystems, extinction and the loss of natural resource jobs. A key adaptive

strategy is to increase people’s knowledge about living systems, the processes that

sustain them, and how these are linked to climate. Here again there is an opportunity

for museums to explain the natural phenomena central to the sustainability of living

systems, such as nutrient cycling, primary productivity and hydrology. These

processes have complex ideas at their core and their interconnections are even

more confounding. Yet, people need to know how ecosystems, rainforests or farms,

work and their limitations and sensitivities.

Where To From Here?

First, practice sustainability as an institution. For example, the RBCM long ago

ceased using endangered tropical woods in our buildings and exhibits. Very recently,

we have joined with our major regional power utility to reduce electrical power

consumption and educate the public about how we are doing it. RBCM staff are also

well-known users of alternate transport to get to work.

Second, develop innovative public programs around the theme of

sustainability.

Museum collections, for example, hold the key to understanding trends and change.

By using collections to map shifts in the distribution of native plant and animal

species, we can see the losses that document our lack of sustainability. By mapping

the spread of invasive species using museum collections, we can also see our role in

the transformation of the land to a frequently unsustainable condition. By looking at

changes in technology, as illustrated by cultural objects, we can see how our capacity

to transform the landscape and our own culture has increased, and we can ask

ourselves the question: can this continue? For example, an exhibit on paving

materials that let water through rather than shedding it, might be an excellent way to

334 R. J. Hebda

explore the principles of hydrology, including the importance of water and our

negative impacts on it. Pervious surfaces, such as cobblestones, let water through into

the ground, leading to natural flow pathways that sustain streams. Impervious

surfaces cause sudden floods, concentrate pollutants, degrade streams and harm fish

populations. We can also explore the cultural stories of peoples who have tried and

largely succeeded in sustainable living, including our grandparents, our great
grandparents and the First Nations who lived in greater harmony with the land.

In our climate change exhibit, we used the example of the northward spread of a

warm water species, Humboldt squid, to make a point about climate change impacts.

People are naturally curious about big squid (recall the Victorian role of museums),

and the appearance of this strange creature off our shores also teaches us about

change, leads to asking what is going on, and stimulates discussion about

sustainability.

Third, collaborate widely. Sustainability as a theme falls largely outside the
traditional expertise and activities of most museums. Many other agencies and

organizations, however, have staff and expertise, albeit of a technical sort. The ability

to provide sufficient clean water is thought by many to be the next great

sustainability challenge. Imagine a museum partnering with a regional water utility

to explore the characteristics of climate and water supply, and examine future

demand. Add the need for sustaining the productivity and biodiversity of aquatic

systems and you have a highly integrated program which bridges human and a

natural history, as well as the physical and social sciences, and is, in addition, highly
relevant.

Above all, we must strive to bring together the skills and knowledge of scholars in

the human and natural sciences with the talents of museum interpreters, designers

and crafts people. The challenge is to direct people’s thoughts toward a consideration

of our unsustainable ways of life and an exploration of the options. The imperative of

sustainability impels us to contemplate the idea of the ‘‘deep museum,’’ where we not

only reflect on the condition of the world around us, but also illuminate the issues

that are fundamental to our future.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Lorne Hammond, History Curator at the Royal British Columbia Museum, for

helpful comments on a draft of this commentary.

References

Brown, K. J. and R. J. Hebda. 2002. Origin, development, and dynamics of coastal temperate conifer

rainforests of southern Vancouver Island, Canada. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, 32: 353�72.
Hebda, R. J. 1994. Future of British Columbia’s flora. In Biodiversity in British Columbia: Our changing

environment, edited by L. E. Harding and E. McCullum. Ottawa: Environment Canada, Canadian

Wildlife Service.

*** Impact of climate change on biogeoclimatic zones of British Columbia. In Responding to global
climate change in British Columbia and Yukon. Volume 1 of Canada country study: Climate impacts and

adaptation. Vancouver and Victoria: Environment Canada and British Columbia Ministry of

Environment, Lands and Parks.

*** 1998. Atmospheric change, forests and biodiversity. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 49:
195�212.

Museums, Climate Change and Sustainability 335

Heinrichs, M. L., M. G. Evans, R. J. Hebda, I. Walker and S. L. Palmer. 2004. Holocene climatic change

and landscape response at Cathedral Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. Géographie Physique

et Quaternaire, 58: 123�39.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 2007. Summary for policymakers. In Climate change 2007:

Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth assessment

report of the Intergovernmental panel on climate change, edited by M. L. Parry, O. F. Canziani, J. P.

Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden, and C. E. Hanson. UK: Cambridge University Press.

McKibben, B. 2007. Deep economy: The wealth of communities and the durable future. New York: Times

Books, Henry Holt and Co.

Pellatt, M., R. J. Hebda and R. W. Mathewes. 2001. High resolution Holocene vegetation history and

climate from Hole 1034B, ODP Leg 169S, Saanich Inlet Canada. Marine Geology, 174: 211�26.
Reid, M. and B. Naylor. 2005. Three reasons to worry about museum researchers. Museum Management

and Curatorship, 20: 359�64.
Smith, A. and J. B. MacKinnon. 2007. The 100-mile diet: A year of local eating. Canada: Random House.

336 R. J. Hebda

27
Museum Awakenings

Responses to environmental change at the
Swedish Museum of Natural History, 1965–2005

Ewa Bergdahl and Anders Houltz

Had museums, like so many of their specimens, failed to adapt, they would be extinct – the dead bones
of a former culture.

Donald Squires, Natural Museums and the Community (1973)

Conflicting views on the museum’s role in society and different conceptions of
what a museum is and should be hamper museums in their ambitions to
articulate and address the issue of climate change in exhibitions. As we intend to
show, this dilemma has deep historical roots. This article uses the Swedish
Museum of Natural History (SMNH) in Stockholm as a case to discuss the ways
in which museums of natural history have responded (or not) to the challenges
posed by human impact on environment during the recent decades when
environmental questions became a significant topic of political and public
debate.1 Has the museum articulated its agency as a creator and conveyer of
messages, and to what extent has it included ambiguous and contradictory
narratives in its representations? How has the museum positioned itself in
current global efforts towards achieving sustainable development and
environmental awareness, and how can its positions be understood in a historical
and social context?

The SMNH can trace its origin to the 1819 fusion of the zoological collections

of the Royal Academy of Sciences with significant private collections, but we
argue that the institution became what can be described as a museum in a
modern sense as late as 1965.2 Previously a research institute with an authority
based on extensive collections, it then parted from the Academy of Sciences and
was confronted by the obligation to actively and seriously communicate and
interact with the public.

In this chapter we focus on three exhibition productions over four decades,
where the museum has dealt explicitly with environmental issues. The first, Are
We Poisoning Nature? (1966), was triggered by Rachel Carson’s book Silent
Spring, and was the museum’s first real attempt to address current environmental
debate topics. It was followed by Sweden Turning Sour (1985), focusing the 1980s
debate on acidification. The third exhibition

Mission: Climate Earth

(opened in
2004, and still standing in 2015), was an early response to the reports on climate
change by scientists and environmental activists in the first years of the new
millennium.

The environment a political issue

Although we often think of the 1960s as the birth of an environmental
consciousness, different aspects of human damage to nature had been discussed
since at least the intense industrialization period of the late nineteenth century.3

Sanitary consequences of industrial enterprises, the contamination of streams and
water sources and the possibilities to protect nature, in its pristine state, were all
discussed, although as separate and mainly local questions. In this, as in other
questions, Swedish development followed the pattern of earlier industrialized
nations.

With the economic boom and industrial expansion of the post-World War II
decades, however, earlier warnings were drowned by the wheels of progress.
Swedish industry exported products and raw materials on an unprecedented scale
and living standards increased year by year.

Awareness of the limitations of natural resources was weak and so was
knowledge about environmental threats, among the general public and politicians

alike.4

When the biologist Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in the United
States in September 1962, the impact was immediate. The book became an
unexpected bestseller and soon reached an international audience. Chemical
pesticides had been celebrated for decades as the final solution to problems
ranging from malaria to pine weevils, but Carson turned the negative effects of
biocides in industry, farming and forestry into headline news.5

The importance of Carson’s controversial book is well known. A translation
into Swedish was published rapidly in March the following year. It sold in large
numbers and was discussed in meetings, newspapers and parliamentary debates.
In Sweden as well as in other countries it served as an eye-opener to a wide
audience – in fact the book received a response in Sweden that exceeded its
attention in the United States.6 The emerging environmental movement had
found its bible. Carson pointed to the consequences of chlorine, arsenic,
strontium and not least DDT, but the Swedish debate instead focused an issue
that was not in fact mentioned by Rachel Carson: mercury pollution. The debate
about mercury, fueled by Silent Spring, became the breakthrough that ushered in
modern Swedish environmental protection.7 Mercury was one of the biocides
most frequently used to exterminate vermin in agriculture and forestry, and the
issue became a hot political topic for the parliament and government, which had
appointed an environmental commission for biological balance in 1960. A few
years later, in 1967, this would result in the formation of the governmental
department Naturvårdsverket (The Environmental Protection Agency), which
meant that environmental issues had been established as a political area in its
own right for the first time.

The rise of environmental politics coincided with the emergence of a revised
national cultural policy, which strongly emphasized culture as a tool for the
development of the welfare state. The cultural program launched in 1961 by the
Social Democrat government stated that culture was a democratic right and that
the overarching aim of cultural policy was to make culture available to
everybody. Art, theatre, music and museum exhibitions were to be distributed to
the citizens regardless of geographic or social position. This meant new
assignments for existing cultural institutions, among them museums, but also the
emergence of new organizations for the distribution of culture. An important

aspect of this was to reach out to children and youth, and museums were
conceived of as a resource for schools in social sciences and humanities as well as
in the natural sciences.8

Museum crisis

In marked contrast to the old and traditional European natural history museums
– founded on collections from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries aimed at
scientific, systematic purposes – comparable institutions in the United States had
been created with a more explicit aim to address a public audience. The case of
SMNH is a good example of both the traditional, European-style outline and,
from the 1960s onwards, a gradual reconfiguration influenced by what may be
termed the American model.9

In 1916 the museum had left its crammed but centrally located premises in
Stockholm for a new, imposing and spacious building north of the city. In doing
so, it not only distanced itself from the public in a geographical sense, but it also
consolidated its identity as first and foremost a scientific research institution,
regardless of the fact that the move also meant ample space for exhibits.10

In the early 1960s, after four decades, the museum was in urgent need of
renewal. Still formally a department under the Royal Academy of Sciences, the
institution had stagnated to varying degrees in all of its capacities and was
hampered by internal conflicts and insufficient funding. The organizational
structure from 1916 remained intact and so did, to the most part, the
exhibitions.11 The collections on display, as they were characteristically termed,
were organized as they had been for nearly half a century, in halls that were
unheated and badly lighted. “Don’t forget to bring a torch if you visit the SMNH”
the newspaper Stockholms-Tidningen commented tartly in 1961.12 Apart from the
annual visits of generations of school classes, the visiting numbers were
decreasing during the 1940s and 1950s.13 But also the museum’s scientific activity
was showing signs of stagnation. Research in systematics and taxonomy, once
the pride of the institution, had by then lost its forefront position to the
universities, where the so-called white, or laborative, biology had emerged.14

A state commission on the museum’s future recommended that all research
activities should be taken over by the university.15 This deathblow to the
institution was narrowly avoided, largely thanks to the undisputed uniqueness of
its collections. Instead, a new organization was presented in the summer of 1965,
but formulated in a way that was nearly as radical. The existing seven
departments (vertebrates, invertebrates, insects, paleozoology, botany,
paleobotany and mineralogy) were all merged into one single research
department, and, combined with a new “museum department,” responsible for
exhibitions and educational activities as well as the administration of the whole
organization. Previously, each department had been taking care of its own
exhibitions, or collections on display, in addition to its research, and the central
administration had been placed at the Academy of Sciences. With the new
organization, the museum, with its own board responsible to the Ministry of
Education, was once and for all separated from the academy. It can be argued
that the reorganization marked the birth of this museum in the modern sense of
the word.16

The change of direction clearly echoed the new cultural politics implemented
by the Social Democrat government four years earlier. According to its 1965
directives, the museum’s main task was “to promote interest in knowledge of and
research concerning the plant and animal world, the structure and history of the
earth, and the biology and natural environments of mankind.”17 The assignment
was not, in other words, primarily to gather knowledge and conduct research
about nature, but to promote interest in these matters. In addition, the
interactions of mankind were explicitly mentioned as a responsibility for the
museum.

“Are we poisoning nature?”

The topic of the first proper exhibition by the new Museum Department, and
indeed by the museum as an autonomous institution, was chosen carefully. It was
an indication of direction both to the museum staff, to the research community,
to the politicians and, last but not least, to the public. The newly assigned

museum director and head of department, Kjell Engström, and his associate, Tom
Lötmarker, had traveled extensively to natural history museums in the United
States and were eager to address the public in new and more direct ways.18 The
choice to focus the controversial pesticide issue signaled a will to engage in
contemporary debate and to take the new museum directives seriously. It also
expressed a marked distance to the existing collections on display, which were
characterized by a detached positivist scientific position and systematics in a
traditional Linnaean sense.19

Figure 27.1 Director Kjell Engström guides visitors in the Are We Poisoning Nature? exhibition, Swedish

Museum of Natural History, 1996. Photo: Swedish Museum of

Natural History.

The exhibition dealt with a hot topic, but it also managed to direct attention
towards recent research conducted by the museum’s own scientists. A research
group focused on biocides had been formed a few years earlier, and its attempts
to trace certain biocides in the biological collections of the museum had proved
successful beyond expectation. Suddenly the long series of collection specimens
gained new relevance, and the results of the research group received attention
well outside the research community. Particularly, studies of the spread of
mercury in bird populations were groundbreaking and offered important
scientific facts to support the prohibition advocates.20 The successful biocide
group overshadowed the traditional taxonomists, but it also placed the museum’s
research in the center of debate, conveniently aided by the new exhibition.

Are We Poisoning Nature? opened in May 1966 and was the first exhibition
ever on environmental questions, not only at the SMNH but in Sweden as a
whole. It was a low-budget production, funded within the regular museum
budget, with a small contribution from the Museum Friends Association. It
consisted of some thirty numbered screens with text and illustrations, but very
few displayed objects. The simple production was convenient for transportation,
and the exhibition went on a successful tour for a number of years after it had
been displayed at the museum.21

Public and media attention was considerable, and the exhibition was
commented on in several newspapers. Sweden’s most prominent daily, Dagens
Nyheter, stated that the exhibition “shows the complicated dilemma caused by
the biocides through partly frightening examples, but does not provide conclusive
answers about the extent of damage caused by the uses of toxic substances.”22

The Svenska Dagbladet went further and criticized the question mark of the
exhibition title for its “remarkable caution.” since the fact that biocides do
damage nature was beyond doubt.23

An examination of the content gives some support to this critique. The
exhibition message was somewhat ambiguous; the texts raised plenty of
questions and provided generous amounts of facts and statistics, but avoided
making conclusions and formulating critical allegations. It was left to the visitors
to draw their own conclusions. The exhibition content rested largely on the
authority of the museum’s own research, for instance in its thorough display of
the effects of mercury emissions on birds. The presence of another authority was
apparent: the two final panels of the exhibition were devoted to an homage to
Rachel Carson (who had passed away in 1964) and her writings, displaying a
portrait of the author as well as several editions of Silent Spring.

The debates on pesticides had considerable effects during the late 1960s. One
substance after another was limited or prohibited: mercury, DDT, PCB and
cadmium. While Are We Poisoning Nature? was on tour, museum staff made
efforts to keep its content updated about ongoing developments. Somewhat
unexpectedly, the museum found itself in the midst of an emerging popular
movement, strongly connected to the 1960s radicalism. The earlier environmental
debate had been mostly academic, and narrowly focused on preserving nature
intact. In the 1960s, awareness about the interplay between humans and the

environment increased; humans entered the equation not just as agents,
threatening or saving nature, but also as potential victims. The environmental
movement engaged young activists who used demonstrations and radical
methods beyond the bounds of the parliamentary system.24 In this context, Are
We Poisoning Nature? held a modest standpoint indeed, but it was backed by the
acknowledged expert authority of the museum, which made it hard to ignore.

“Sweden turning sour”

Are We Poisoning Nature? had been a success, and paved the way for the
production of other temporary and traveling exhibitions at the SMNH. In part,
this strategy served to conceal the fact that the efforts to renew the permanent
exhibitions – to replace the collections on display with thematic basic exhibits –
had turned out to be a slow and difficult process. This was mainly due to the
acute pervasive needs of renovation of the interiors, which meant a considerable
state investment. The financial problem was finally solved in 1984. After twenty
years of annual requests, the renovation of the interiors started.25 But the renewal
plans also roused disputes on what the content and messages of such exhibitions
should actually be, and the question was further complicated by upset reactions
against the dismantling of the old displays. In a letter to the museum in 1986,
even the National Board of Antiquities criticized the dismantling of the displays
from 1916 on heritage grounds: “The display cases are original to the buildings
and their open, slender construction is in natural unity with the set interior
architecture.”26

At the same time, and two decades after the previous occasion, the museum
once more engaged in an exhibition dealing explicitly with environmental
issues.27 Sweden Turning Sour (Sverige surnar till), which opened in 1985, was not
exclusively produced by the SMNH, but involved about twenty independent or
governmental organizations. The production was coordinated by the relatively
small museum of forestry in Gävle, Silvanum, tightly connected to the forest
industry. This, too, was a traveling exhibition, but it did not commence in
Stockholm but rather on a large hunting and fishing fair in the city of Jönköping,

and was displayed at the SMNH in February the following year.28

The situation had changed in many ways since the 1960s. The environmental
movement had broadened its scope, and gained increasing support across the
political spectrum. Popular resistance against nuclear power had decided the
outcome of the general elections in 1976, replacing the Social Democrat
government with a coalition led by the Centre Party, which was strongly profiled
towards environmental issues. A 1980 referendum over the nuclear issue resulted
in a compromise, stating a gradual out-phasing of Swedish nuclear power, and
the next year a new political party, the Swedish Green Party, entered the scene.
Sweden Turning Sour focused on another dominant environmental issue of the

early and mid-1980s besides nuclear power – the acidification of land and water.
Compared to the pesticide debates of the 1960s, acidification was a more
distinctly international issue, since pollution and industrial emissions are
transported over vast distances without regard to national borders. The concerns
about acidification certainly had to do with domestic industry, but much of the
attention was directed towards the effects of industries abroad on nature in
Sweden. Heavy industries in the Eastern-bloc countries and coal plants in
Germany featured as major threats in the debate.

This perspective was clearly present in the exhibition, where the symbolic
Mother Svea, draped in the national colors, blue and yellow, was suffering from
pollution and turning gradually more sour. A map showed arrows of pollution
invading the Swedish borders from all sides, but only a few arrows illustrated the
effects of Swedish emissions on the neighboring countries. Acidification was
presented as an international problem, but from a national perspective.

The exhibition coincided with the 1987 publication of the Brundtland Report,
Our Common Future, from the United Nations World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED). The report established the expression
“sustainable development.” and its targets were environmental multilateralism
and the interdependence of nations. However, in comparison to the Brundtland
Report, Sweden Turning Sour expressed a “one-way version” of the multilateral
perspective.

The exhibition consisted mainly of a series of screens, but this time with some
displayed objects and some props, most notably the sectioned body of a rusty car,
registration number SUR 085. The color scheme was blue and yellow, to connect

to the Swedish flag. The expertise of SMNH did not play a central role – as could
be expected in a cooperation project involving several actors.

Figure 27.2 Flag poster, Sweden Turning Sour exhibition, Swedish Museum of Natural History, 1987. The

colors of the Swedish flag (blue and yellow) influenced the exhibition design. Photo: Swedish Museum of

Natural History.

The main actor in the exhibition narrative was industry, both as the cause of
the problem and as the provider of possible solutions. Industry was also present
as a contributor in a material sense; the project was funded by all of the involved
organizations, but also through sponsoring. Under the headline “There are
possibilities,” the sponsoring companies were given space to present their various
technological solutions to acidification. The message of the exhibition as a whole
was rather shattered, reflecting the many different voices, and the response in
mass media was limited. In April 1986 the Chernobyl nuclear accident in Ukraine
occurred, and all media and political attention was once more directed towards
nuclear hazards. Both the debate on acidification and the exhibition, still
traveling from one location to another, were drowned in the nuclear flood.

Mission: Climate Earth

In 2002, the museum started planning the exhibition Mission: Climate Earth
(Uppdrag: KLIMAT), its third major exhibition on environment. In contrast to its
predecessors, this was not a traveling exhibition; new political goals for culture
placed less emphasis on outreach to various groups of the population and this
meant less interest in traveling exhibitions. Mission: Climate Earth was planned
as a temporary exhibition but was later incorporated among the permanent
exhibitions of the museum.29

The exhibition was conceived of at a stage when public awareness about the
climate issue was still limited and the scientific debate between protagonists and
skeptics still active. This was the first exhibition ever in Sweden on climate
change, and internationally an early attempt to grasp the climate issue in a
museum context. This placed the museum in a somewhat awkward position,
since it meant taking a stand in what was then still an unresolved scientific
controversy. Furthermore, to deal with the climate issue, the museum was largely

Figure 27.3 A poster presenting the Mission: Climate Earth exhibition, showing well-known Stockholm

locations flooded by high waters, Swedish Museum of Natural History, 2014. Photo: Ewa Bergdahl. See Plate

31.

dependent on the authority of external scientists. While Are We Poisoning
Nature? had been safely supported by the results of the museum staff researchers,
there was no comparable inhouse expertise to rely on this time.30

The decisive factor for the project’s realization was probably the fact that it
was initiated by the museum board chairman, the politician Anders Wijkman, a
Christian Democrat strongly engaged in environmental policy questions. The
solution to the potential credibility dilemma was to tie the exhibition message to
the authority of the Third Assessment Report from The United Nation’s
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in 2001, the year

before the exhibition plans were launched. Making the connection to the IPCC
report explicit was also a firm condition in order to gain the support of the
National Environmental Protection. Thus, the report was used as a fundamental
authority comparable to Rachel Carson’s book four decades earlier. A scientific
reference group was organized with members from the Swedish Meteorological
and Hydrological Institute, the Environmental Protection Agency, the World
Wildlife Foundation and Stockholm University.31 Still, in comparison to the
report, the exhibition went one step further. While the IPCC stated that, “most of
the observed warming is likely (greater than 66 percent probability, based on
expert judgment) due to human activities,” the exhibition presented human
impact on climate change as a given fact.32

The exhibition was inaugurated in September 2004.33 It was prominently
located in one of the halls opening from the museum entrance vestibule. Much of
the content was devoted to explaining what climate is and the mechanisms
affecting weather conditions. Meteorology was central to the narrative, but space
was also devoted to effects of climate change on human conditions, by, for
instance, comparing the ecological footprints of a teenage girl in Cambodia with
one in Sweden. The perspective of the exhibition was global, placing the future of
the local or national society in relation to that of the whole planet. In one of the
interactive stations, visitors were invited to “create their own clouds” by letting
off steam through a hand-operated device – a subtle argument for the
anthropogenic character of climate and weather conditions.

The exhibition team aimed to avoid “doomsday prophesies,” to remain on firm,
scientific ground and deliver the message that human action can make significant
change.34 This urge for action was a central theme, not least expressed in the
exhibition title, Mission: Climate Earth. On the other hand, the exhibition’s
central feature was a spectacular film display named “The eye of the storm”
(Stormens öga). The display, which showed dramatic weather sequences and
devastating scenarios using strong visual, audio effects, and even a wind-machine
to give the impression of storm, appealed more to the visitors’ feelings than their
intellect.

Figure 27.4 Create your own cloud interactive in the Mission: Climate Earth exhibition, Swedish Museum of

Natural History, 2004. Photo: Mikael Axelsson, SMNH. See Plate 32.

The ambivalence between keeping a moderate and trustworthy tone on the one
side and the need to communicate the urgency of the situation through
spectacular displays on the other was clearly noticeable. The newspaper
Aftonbladet commented the displays: “Through interactive computer stations and
dystopian texts (‘present day climate change may be the gentle beginnings of a
major change in a hundred years’) the exhibition tries to frighten visitors into
action, as it seems.”35

The ambitions of the marketing division of the museum to produce effective
and eye-catching promotion also came into conflict with the moderate ambitions
of the exhibition producers, resulting in an advertising campaign where well-

known Stockholm locations were flooded by high waters. Similarly, the
exhibition team were upset when one of the major sponsors, the local traffic
company SL, placed a fake bus shelter demolished by ice at the bus stop near the
museum entrance.36 Mission: Climate Earth has slowly been incorporated in the
permanent range of exhibitions and can still be visited in 2016.

Conclusions

Temporary exhibitions like the ones discussed in this chapter stand out in
contrast to the museum’s major permanent exhibitions, which were gradually
modernized both in design and content from the mid-1980s. The first one to open
was Polar Regions in 1989, followed by 4½ Billion Years – The History of Life and
Earth in 1996, and Life in Water in 1997. While the temporary exhibitions have
been clearly polemical about controversial topics, the permanent exhibitions,
striving for objective timelessness, have largely failed to articulate their debt to
contemporary issues. For instance, the 1989 polar exhibition emphasized the
problems of whaling and seal hunting, which was a hot political topic at the time
both in Sweden and internationally, but this theme was downplayed in later
versions.

All three temporary exhibitions are characterized by a direct address towards
the visitor by using the word “we” in the texts and including the visitor in the
story. A good example is Are We Poisoning Nature?, where even the title uses
this mode, in marked contrast to the permanent exhibitions, where such
formulations are avoided. In the temporary exhibitions, humans are very clearly
presented as actors and the interplay between man and nature is accentuated.
This, again, is in contrast to the permanent exhibitions, which are less articulate
about human agency and yet somehow still rest on the traditional notions of
human superiority over nature.

Additionally, even though the three exhibitions stress the importance and
sometimes harmful consequences of human actions, they do not dare to question
the current political system. They advocate improvements within the system but
not radical changes of it. The exhibitions identify important and current problems

without designating any villains or blaming anybody. Causes are described but
presented in a neutral way.

SMNH is the biggest museum and one of the largest research environments of
natural sciences in Sweden. However, the relationship between the exhibition
activities and the research has always been complicated. In the 1960s, the
museum had the precedence of interpretation by right of its research profile. In
the 1980s by contrast, environmental issues had become established in public
discussions and involved numerous actors and authorities, and this development
has constantly increased since then. A gradual change in this respect is notable in
the three exhibitions. The first one was almost entirely based on the results of the
museum’s research staff. It dealt with a limited number of pesticides and their
consequences and was more easily correlated to the current research at the
museum. A development where environmental issues have become more
complex and interdisciplinary-dependent made it impossible to cover the whole
problem, which was apparent in both of the later exhibitions.

Another gradual change can be noticed in the way in which the exhibitions
have been funded. There is a clear development from simple productions,
financed by the museum’s own means, to more elaborate and expensive projects,
funded by external sponsors. The attitude towards private sponsoring changed
radically during the 1980s and 1990s and opened new funding opportunities, but
it is also obvious in the two later exhibitions that the economic contributions
have affected the contents in various ways. This is evident, for example, in the
large space given to the sponsors, presenting their technical solutions and
products.

A clear shift in geographical perspective is noticeable, from a local view on
environ mental issues in Are We Poisoning Nature?, to a widening view with a
more national touch in Sweden Turning Sour and finally, in Mission: Climate
Earth, to a totally global perspective on the environment problem. These changes
correspond to the different contents of the exhibitions, from place-bound
pesticide deposits, to far-reaching air pollution, to the global effects of the climate
changes of today. But the change also reflects the transformation of the world
and how we understand it into a more global community where mankind has
been given the opportunities to grasp the whole globe and been exposed to the
complexity of the current existence.

Dealing with the Anthropocene period poses new challenges to the exhibition
media. A simplified evolutionary perspective is no longer sufficient, since
humans have changed the rules of existence. The continuity of evolution is no
longer the one and only model of explanation. Creating an exhibition today
about the climate changes in the world requires embracing discontinuity, as well
as bringing together a holistic and system-critical approach throughout, and
dealing with the role of humans as the earth’s totally predominant species.

Notes

1 Peter Davis, Museums and the Natural Environment: The Role of Natural History Museums in Biological

Conservation (University of Leicester Press, 1996), 41–43.

2 For the early history of SMNH see Gunnar Broberg, 1989; Gunnar Brusewitz, 1989; Naturhistoriska

riksmuseets historia, 1916.

3 Sverker Sörlin, Naturkontraktet. Om naturumgängets idéhistoria (Stockholm: Carlssons förlag, 1991), 174.

4 Ibid., 180.

5 Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), 13–32.

6 Andrew Jamison, “The Making of the New Environmentalism in Sweden,” in The Making Of The New

Environmental Consciousness: A Comparative Study of the Environmental Movements In Sweden,

Denmark, And the Netherlands, ed. by Andrew Jamison et al. (Edinburgh University Press, 1990), 13–65.

7 Lars J. Lundgren, “Miljöpolitiken,” in Vad staten vill: Mål och ambitioner i svensk politik, ed. Daniel

Tarschys and Marja Lemne (Hedemora: Gidlunds förlag, 2013), 285.

8 Helene Broms and Anders Göransson, Kultur i rörelse: En historia om riksutställningar och

kulturpolitiken (Stockholm: Bokförlaget Atlas, 2012), 18–20.

9 Wolfgang Clausewitz, “Natural History Museums and the Public – a Critical Situation in Europe,” in

Natural History Museums and the Community, ed. by Kjell Engström and Alf Johnels, (Oslo:

Universitetsförlaget, 1973), 43–47.

10 Jenny Beckman, Naturens Palats: Nybyggnad, vetenskap och utställning vid Naturhistoriska riksmuseet

1866–1925 (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1999), 214–219.

11 Engström, I väntan på något bättre, 31–40.

12 “Museum i skumrask,” Stockholms-Tidningen 1961-11-13.

13 Annual Museum Reports of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 1940–1959.

14 Bergdahl, Interview with Kjell Engström, October 23, 2012.

15 Tunlid, Riksmuseiutredningen, Naturhistoriska riksmuseets framtida ställning och organisation, 112.

16 Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (London: Routledge, 1995), 25–33.

17 Kjell Engström, “Aims of the Exhibition and Education Activities at the Museum of Natural History,” in

Natural History Museums and the Community, ed. by Kjell Enström and Alf Johnels (Oslo:

Universitetsförlaget, 1973), 104.

18 Bergdahl, Interview with Kjell Engström, September 12, 2012.

19 Bengt Hubendick, “Gammalt och nytt inom biologin,” Göteborgs Handels- och Sjöfartstidning, 1964–12–

14.

20 Alf Johnels, “Natural History Museum Collections: A Basis for Future Research,” in Natural History

Museums and the Community, ed. by Kjell Engström and Alf Johnels (Oslo: Universitetsförlaget, 1973),

48–58.

21 The travelling exhibition was attended by ca 160 000 visitors during nearly five years. Engström,

“Museum I skumrask… ” 22.

22 Dagens Nyheter, May 20, 1966, www.dn.se/.

23 “Expo på Naturhistoriska…,” Svenska Dagbladet, May 22, 1966, www.svd.se/.

24 Urban Emanuelsson, Ett sekel av svensk naturvård, Nationalencyklopedin, 2009. Visited May 26, 2013

www.ne.se/static

25 The Government Budget for 1986 designated 50 million kronor during five years for renewal of the

SMNH exhibitions; Ewa Bergdahl, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet utställningsverksamhet 1965–1933,

internal PM number 10, SMNH April 4, 2013 (unpublished), 27.

26 Ibid, 27.

27 Other exhibitions had dealt with environmental issues, but as one theme among several.

28 Bo Thunberg ed., Sverige Surnar Till: En fakta-och idétidning till vandringsutställningen (Stockholm,

1985) 1–31.

29 Bergdahl/Houltz, interview with Claes Enger, SNMH, November 25, 2013.

30 Interview with Stefan Claesson, SNMH, November 25, 2013.

http://www.dn.se/

http://www.svd.se/

31 Uppdrag: KLIMAT: En utställningskatalog i samarbete mellan Forskning & Framsteg och Naturhistoriska

riksmuseet, Stockholm, 2004, 4.

32 IPCC, Third Assessment Report (TAR), 2001. Later IPCC reports confirm the connection between human

agency and climate change more directly.

33 For an interesting analysis, see Anna Samuelsson, “I naturens teater: Kultur – och miljösociologiska

analyser av naturhistoriska utställningar och filmer” (diss., Uppsala University, 2008), 230–268.

34 Interview with Claes Enger, SMNH, November 25, 2013.

35 Peter Lindgren, “Vilka Minnen ger vi Barnen?” Aftonbladet, March 31, 2005.

www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/huvudartikel/article10569608.ab/

36 Bergdahl/Houltz, interview with Claes Enger, SMNH, November 25, 2013.

RESOURCES — L’INTERNATIONALE BOOKS

IMAGINING
A CULTURE BEYOND OIL

AT THE PARIS
CLIMATE TALKS

MEL EVANS AND KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE

http://www.internationaleonline.org

L’INTERNATIONALE ONLINE – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE – 103

IMAGINING A CULTURE BEYOND OIL AT THE PARIS CLIMATE TALKS – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE

Liberate Tate, Time Piece (2015). Photo: Martin LeSanto Smith.

L’INTERNATIONALE ONLINE – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE – 104

IMAGINING A CULTURE BEYOND OIL AT THE PARIS CLIMATE TALKS – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE

I’m standing in the gallery in front of the sculpture. She
looks back at me, and into the distance, at the same
time. In this space we all try to be timeless, me and the
artist and the artwork; we all glance at the past, imag-
ine the future, and reflect on both ad infinitum.

The artist imagined me standing here. Without
knowing who would come, she thought of someone
looking at her sculpture like this. The bust of a man’s
face, this object moulded by her hands, manifests
this dialogue between me – the audience – and the
artist who is now deceased.

It is impossible to know the future. But it is pos-
sible to predict, to assess, to gamble. Right now,
in preparation for the Paris COP 21 climate talks
in December 2015, papers are shared, meetings
arranged, journeys across the planet organised, and
shortly the negotiators’ casino will gather to dis-
cuss what steps might be taken by global govern-
ments to stem the rising carbon dioxide levels in the
Earth’s atmosphere.

Extreme weather events have made the climate
crisis more present and the need to act on the threat

more urgent, yet still societies around the world
struggle to find a suitable space, vehicle or mecha-
nism to join together and act. Museums occupy a
curious location in the hunt to crystallise concerns
around climate change into action to create climate
safety. Galleries and museums present visitors with
social questions on gender, racism, the environment,
economics, nationality and more. Cultural institutions
become centre-points of social discussion and sites
in which the seeds of social change can be sown.

As such, museums have a specific role to play in
opening up dialogue around our active response to
the prospect of climate change, which – for the sur-
vival of the homes, habitats and species of the planet

– would be to try and prevent the worst impacts from
unfolding. Museum directors hold the key to signifi-
cant decisions around buildings, curating, learning
programmes – and funding.

Right now, too many large cultural institutions
around the world allow oil sponsors to brand their
entranceways, their catalogues and their events.
For the oil companies this provides a valuable

L’INTERNATIONALE ONLINE – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE – 105

IMAGINING A CULTURE BEYOND OIL AT THE PARIS CLIMATE TALKS – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE

social licence to operate, a guise of social accept-
ability masking the harmful impacts of the fossil
fuel industry.

We are at a critical juncture in our societal evo-
lution where we urgently need to address the issue
of corporate power more broadly, and the power of
the oil industry most specifically. There is very little
precedent for the significant influence that oil com-
panies wield in the political, financial and cultural
spheres. A wide range of key figures involved in the
struggle to prevent climate change have identi-
fied the influence that oil companies exert as being
one of the single biggest obstacles to the urgent
changes that are needed to make the transition to
low carbon societies.

The power and influence oil companies have in
the cultural sector stands side by side with the indus-
try’s actions to undermine climate legislation: from
the United Nations climate talks, across the European
Union, and down to our national governments. The
trust companies like BP, Shell and Total garner from
galleries is spent ten-fold in the access to key politi-
cal figures and regulatory processes in parallel cor-
ridors of power.

And what of these companies in Paris? The origi-
nal proposal which the UN put on the table to deal
with climate change was a far more robust sculpture

than what forms the centrepiece in Paris. The onus
had been on those most responsible for carbon emis-
sions to take the most action to stem the thickening
clouds. Oil companies like BP and Shell, alongside
a rogue’s gallery of other corporates, were quick
to form a highly effective lobby named the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development. It
successfully managed to replace mandatory emis-
sions cuts with various flexible mechanisms and vol-
untary initiatives, effectively enabling the biggest
polluters not only to avoid making cuts but in many
cases actually make profits out of the fundamentally
flawed carbon markets they had proposed.

BP and its allies have been similarly successful
in obstructing effective climate policies in Brussels.
In a recent ranking of European companies accord-
ing to their records for lobbying and opposition
to climate policies, BP was identified as the worst
offender. According to Thomas Neil, the director of
Influence Map, “BP has been consistently opposed
to all the main forms of climate change regulation.
There is very little positivity coming out of them and
they are a board member of several obstructionist
trade associations, some of which give a very dubi-
ous account of climate science.”

This version of BP’s character is precisely what it
seeks to mask through its allegiance with Tate.

L’INTERNATIONALE ONLINE – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE – 106

IMAGINING A CULTURE BEYOND OIL AT THE PARIS CLIMATE TALKS – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE

Liberate Tate, The Reveal (2015). Photo: Martin LeSanto Smith.

L’INTERNATIONALE ONLINE – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE – 107

IMAGINING A CULTURE BEYOND OIL AT THE PARIS CLIMATE TALKS – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE

influence. There are so many reasons why we might
be critical of BP, the third largest emitter of carbon
dioxide in the world. Its presence at Tate, and other
oil companies similarly positioned in other galleries
elsewhere, obscures and undermines the poten-
tial – and indeed responsibility – of cultural institu-
tions to enable visitors to consider climate critically,
and imagine a pathway to a climate-safe future. Our
response is to create artworks in opposition to BP’s
presence, opening up a space of dissent and poten-
tial change within the gallery.

Earlier this year, we spilled the tiny amount of
money Tate receives from BP in fake ‘Bank of Tate’
notes adorned with the effigies of the Director
Nicholas Serota and the Chair of Trustees, ex-BP
boss Lord John Browne. The performance took place
after Tate was forced to reveal it receives merely half
a percentage of its annual spending from BP. It took
a three year legal battle for this figure to be revealed,
presumably because it is so embarrassingly small. In
June 2015, we performed Time Piece, a 25-hour per-
formance in which over 100 people transcribed texts
on oil, art and climate change in a rising tide, on the
slope up Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. This was a call to
gallery directors to drop BP ahead of the Paris climate
talks, against the wishes of the Head of Health and
Safety – a nice man named Dennis. Then in September

Oil companies’ influence in the corridors of
power is equally well displayed at national gov-
ernment level. BP and Shell had more ministerial
meetings with UK government officials than the
entire renewable energy sector combined between
2010-14.1

Tate and other cultural institutions are keen to
stress the idea that oil money does not involve any
influence over curatorial and programming decisions
or any part of their operations. But there is enough
evidence to suggest the contrary. In March 2015,
Freedom of Information requests revealed Shell
management questioned museum staff about the
company’s concern the climate change exhibit Shell
sponsors might “create an opportunity for NGOs
to talk about some of the issues that concern them
around Shell’s operations”.

Shell obviously has clear ideas about how it
desires the Science Museum to present and promote
the company, and has a notably casual assumption

that staff would indeed take strict
note of its directions.

Liberate Tate was born dur-
ing a workshop at Tate in which
staff requested participants not
criticise the sponsors, underlin-
ing the evidence of their insidious

1. Evans R., Bengtsson

H., Carrington D. and

Howard E. 2015, “Shell

and BP alone eclipse

renewable energy sector

on access to ministers”,

The Guardian, 28 April,

viewed 13 November 2015.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/28/fossil-fuel-lobby-given-far-more-access-to-uk-ministers-than-renewables-analysis

L’INTERNATIONALE ONLINE – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE – 108

IMAGINING A CULTURE BEYOND OIL AT THE PARIS CLIMATE TALKS – MEL EVANS & KEVIN SMITH OF LIBERATE TATE

and Eni sponsorship at the Louvre with a protest dur-
ing the climate talks. This sums up the challenge
to the UNFCCC and museum and gallery directors
worldwide: the people are leading the way to climate
safety, will you follow?

We make monuments and artworks to mark, cel-
ebrate and learn about the past as we look ahead.
While galleries carefully conserve artworks that hold
sacred our stories for future generations, the climate
movement is acting to protect the very landscapes
we see in all those beautiful paintings. The climate
talks and the mobilisations around them demand
that cultural institutions separate themselves from
the industry responsible for exacerbating climate
change. Galleries are, in part, spaces to imagine the
future, and what we need now is a culture beyond oil.

2015, Liberate Tate performed 5th Assessment, in
which thirty or so performers dressed in black and
wearing black veils, uttered the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s report in a speedy
monotone. We were not attempting to elucidate or
educate on the content of the dense, complicated
scientific report. We wanted to make the sounds an
object in the gallery space littered with the BP logo,
challenging Tate to either remove the IPCC’s weighty
words in our unsanctioned performance, or eject the
sponsor.

When politicians arrive at their meetings in Paris
in December, they will feel the presence of hun-
dreds of thousands of climate change and social
justice activists on the streets around them. The
role of social movements has been crucial in creat-
ing potential to halt climate change while the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC) process has fumbled. The global divest-
ment campaign and movement to end oil sponsor-
ships are part of this push from the wider civil society
to take the action on climate we truly need, and to
usurp the power of the fossil fuel industry within our
societies. Groups around the world who are cam-
paigning to end oil sponsorship deals in their respec-
tive countries have announced they will join French
artists, activists and gallery workers to oppose Total

31
Displaying the Anthropocene in and
Beyond Museums

Libby Robin, Dag Avango, Luke Keogh, Nina Möllers and
Helmuth Trischler

As global warming and climate change affect communities in different ways,
museums become places for personal reflection on the future of the planet. The
public is thirsty for clear information and nuanced discussions on environmental
change at both local and global scales, but there are few opportunities for serious
conversations about these issues that include diverse audiences. Museums focus
on the material world: objects, artworks and historical collections. Such
materiality can be helpful in environmental discussions, which are often abstract
and filled with modeling that is beyond the mathematical literacy of the general
public. Objects speak directly to people of all ages.1

This chapter explores some of the ways museums have engaged with the ideas
of the Anthropocene and how the display of objects and cultural heritage can
help foster conversations in times of rapid environmental change. The way the
planet works is often explained through complex science and technical language.
The “fast and furious” commercial media that Christensen and Wormbs explored
in the previous chapter, snatch simplistic sound bites and images from all over
the globe without context. Through museums of all sorts, it is possible to sponsor
a “third way,” something neither too technical nor too simplistic, which is
suitable for the interested general public. The exhibition is a form of slow media;
and the museum can be a secular cathedral or forum for thoughtful reflection.2

By analogy with the slow food movement, the slow medium of a museum gallery
offers room to explore the complexities of a rapidly changing world on a personal
scale. The very pace of a museum visit and the process of engaging with physical
objects and artwork is itself helpful in coping with the stress of accelerating
change in the twenty-first century, a “no analogue” time, when we have moved
beyond the conditions of the Holocene, the geological epoch of the last 10,000
years.3 Change has become so widespread that a new geological epoch, the
Anthropocene, has been proposed.4 Time spent with well-chosen displays,
perhaps enhanced by casual companionship with other visitors in that gallery
space, can give people room to respond to a spectacle where they can “reshape
media content as they personalize it for their own use.”5

The big narrative of the Anthropocene is that human activities are shaping the
way the planet works. The geological concept held immediate appeal for global
change scientists more broadly: oceanographers, glaciologists, environmental
physicists, soil scientists and earth scientists were all discovering patterns of
unprecedented change in their respective long-term data sets.6 The metaphor of
the Anthropocene has also proved attractive to artists and humanists, who
explore how people respond emotionally to our changing Earth.7

There are debates about when the Anthropocene began: was it the agricultural
revolution, the Industrial Revolution, the atomic bomb or even the Stone Age that
made humans a planetary force that can be read in the rocks in the deep future?8

Whichever origin story they prefer, most proponents agree that there has been an
acceleration of change from the 1950s onwards, the “Great Acceleration,” called
by some the “second stage” of the Anthropocene. The 1950s may even be
designated the “first stage” by the International Stratigraphic Commission, as
they need to identify material change in the lithosphere (rocks) to mark and
adopt formally a new stratigraphic epoch.9 Such change may be provided by the
nuclear signatures in soils and sediments from the Atomic Age around 1950.

Museums are also concerned with the material world: they have collections
and galleries that explore the meaning of objects. This chapter explores some
possibilities for using a museum context to help understand and critique the ideas
put forward as the Anthropocene. A museum gallery offers audiences concrete
ways to think about this concept, which is abstract in both space and time. In the
exhibitions and displays documented here, the Anthropocene idea has moved

beyond stratigraphy and natural science, and considers the moral and ethical
context for global dynamic change.

We first consider the 2014–2016 exhibition “Welcome to the Anthropocene: The
Earth in Our Hands” [Willkommen im Anthropozän: Unsere Verantwortung für
die Zukunft der Erde] hosted by the Deutsches Museum in Munich, a traditional
science and technology museum, the first major exhibition on this subject in the
world. Then we turn to the north and consider the Anthropocene as a whole
landscape spectacle of in situ industrial heritage in Svalbard. This is not so much
an exhibition but a place that has been transformed slowly over a century or
more and is now an attraction for climate-change science and heritage tourism.
Here the objects of a hybridized local landscape promote reflections on the
Anthropocene, a quasi-museum, but also a tourist site because of the changing
sensibilities of our times.

A museum for the Anthropocene?

Figure 31.1 Installing the Welcome to the Anthropocene exhibition. (top left) Placing the “robot” in the

Humans and Machines exhibit. (top right) Curating the crochet coral reef, Evolution. (bottom left) Lining up

the dogs, Evolution. (bottom right) Calligrapher creating the wall. Deutsches Museum, 2014. Photos: Axel

Griesch. See Plate 37.

How did the Deutsches Museum in Munich become the host for the first large-
scale special exhibition solely dedicated to the Anthropocene? Of primary
importance were the objects and collections of the world’s largest science and
technology museum, which provided suitable real display items for explaining
the technical and scientific dimensions of climate change and other biophysical
changes at the end of the Holocene. It harbours technical measuring devices that
can measure in nanoseconds and in eons, and at micro and macro-scales in air,
water and earth. But a good exhibition also needs stories and a human touch, and
here its important partnership with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment
and Society (RCC), an international research center of environment and society
came into play.10 The scholarly partnership between the RCC and the Deutsches
Museum proved a way to deliver research stories to diverse public audiences.

The Deutsches Museum was founded to promote the principles of science and
engineering in the early twentieth century. German engineers sought social
acknowledgment for their creativity and innovation, reinforcing their role in
steering and planning a new modern society.11 It opened permanent galleries on

“Museum Island” (by quirk, formerly “Coal Island’) in the Isar River in central
Munich in 1925. Its galleries presented progressive histories of scientific and
technological development, starting with older, simpler versions and ending with
the newest and most “advanced” technology. The successive lines of objects in
the exhibitions reinforced a message of linear advancement, the progressive view
typical of engineering at that time. The museum drew on traditional basic
sciences and industry support. Exhibitions ranged from large engineering
installations and stories of transportation to the innovative design in household
appliances. Neither the environment nor the social context of the new
technologies was included in such exhibits. Nature was not a subject of its
inquiry or display.

Over the century, the Deutsches Museum has “greened” and now includes a
range of exhibitions and collections including those that engage with
environmental issues and other aspects of technology in society. In 1992, the year
of the United Nations Conference on the Environment at Rio, the Deutsches
Museum opened a gallery Environment [Umwelt]. Following the museum’s
original mission to trace “development,” the new notion of sustainable
development inspired a gallery that took in very different ideas, including
population growth, fossil-fuel use, the hole in the ozone layer, recycling, and
water and air pollution. In general, this exhibition relied not so much on the
objects of the collections of the history of technology, but on models, texts and
images for its storylines. The environment was framed as a story of decline with
technical innovations offering alternative pathways towards a more sustainable
future.

Each of the themes in Environment was presented through objects, images, text
and media installations that conveyed a message that through harnessing
technology, humans have caused problems, but also that new and emerging
technologies might offer solutions. By making causation the focus, instruments
used to analyse and measure the environment became its objects. The exhibition
was otherwise carried by images and text, which was reworked in 1998 and
moved to a different place within the museum, but the basic storyline reflected
the museum’s approach to the environment. Environment still stands at the time
of writing (2015).

Triggered by scientific findings and public discussion on climate change

resulting particularly from the IPCC reports, the Deutsches Museum presented a
special exhibition on Climate: The Experiment with the Planet Earth in 2002. This
dealt mostly with the scientific background on climate change. Sub-themes
included worldwide networks for measuring and gathering data, meteorology,
historical technological ideas for influencing climate and natural catastrophes
resulting from climate change. The exhibition also included a historical review of
human reactions to climate variability in the past and present. The underlying
idea was that nature and technology could no longer be viewed separately, but
were inter-dependent:

Weather and climate, one might think, are not suitable topics for a museum of technology, as they
concern nature. … Nature and culture, however, may no longer to be neatly separated from each other,
which is why the prominent symbol of technological culture, the steam engine, is chosen as the opening

of this climate exhibition in the museum of technology.12

A new philosophy for Welcome to the Anthropocene

Climate change, more than any other issue before it, brought into sharp focus the
ability of the human species to influence planetary systems as a whole, but this is
only one of many anthropogenic changes affecting the Earth’s systems in the
twenty-first century. As well as the carbon cycle, humans have significantly
altered the nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur cycles, changing sediment
movement and water vapor flow from land to atmosphere (through land-cover
change). There has been a Great Acceleration of global changes, both physical
and social, since around 1950.13 For example, population, wealth and energy
usage have all risen exponentially in this period. Financial and business
institutions have become globalized, and so have people, who move faster and
more often around the world. Some say that humanity is driving the sixth major
extinction event in Earth’s history.14

Humanities scholars have cautioned that an overarching concept such as
Anthropocene, with its scientific basis, lacks cultural diversity and might even
reinforce regimes of power and capital that have brought us to this point. The
Deutsches Museum recognized that cultural diversity provides an important
creative friction in a globalized world and that a museum was well positioned to

display this.15 The museum exhibition constantly critiqued the “we”: might a
species-level understanding of humanity downplay the challenges of
environmental justice, where the fossil-fuel-prints of the few drive adverse
changes for the many?16 Finding material representation for unequal
consumption patterns and the distribution of resources and wealth was by no
means easy, but was a priority for the exhibition team.

Figure 31.2 Three dimensions of the Welcome to the Anthropocene exhibition. (top to bottom) Artistic

interpretation: Victor Sonna’s recycled art bike “Guernica,” Cities exhibit. Publications: Catalogue and

graphic novel, with curators Nina Möllers and Helmuth Trischler. Participation: Field of Daisies, 2014.

Deutsches Museum. Photos: Axel Griesch. See Plate 38.

Accepting that humans have fundamentally altered the way natural systems
work and have shaped global climate change closes the bifurcation between the
natural and the cultural: in the Anthropocene natural and cultural systems are
interdependent. As chemists Will Steffen and Paul Crutzen and historian John
McNeill noted: “Humanity is, in one way or another, becoming a self-conscious,
active agent in the operation of its own life support system.”17 This new period
also reshapes our understanding of humanity, as historian Dipesh Chakrabarty
notes: “To call human beings geological agents is to scale up our imagination of
the human.”18

Drawing on insights from a wide range of scholarly disciplines, the members
of the Deutsches Museum exhibition team decided to use the concept of an
“usworld” (translated from the German Unswelt) advocated by the geologist
Reinhold Leinfelder.19 Such a notion of “us” makes it difficult to separate nature
and culture, and forces thinking with a hybrid nature-culture world. An usworld
challenges how we know ourselves. Although as a species we have become a
geological force, as individuals we are pro-active actors on this stage. The

Anthropocene is not just about irreversible environmental changes, it is also a
historical phenomenon. Anthropocene changes have accelerated over a period
that showcases many of the great innovations and thinking about human
freedom. The usworld approach blends nature, culture, technology and society
into a single hybridized perspective, an Anthropocene imaginary, compatible
with the original mission of the Deutsches Museum and also with the
expectations of its twenty-first century visitors.

As literary theorist Sabine Wilke has argued, a critical Anthropocene approach
must engage with frameworks and insights from postcolonial theory and
environmental justice and continuously expose the ideological underpinnings of
the Anthropocene narrative as it develops.20 Just as surely as “data” are added
from the physical sciences, insights about meaning, value, responsibility and
purpose structure this new epoch.21 The geological time depth of the
Anthropocene can provoke new scales for imagining the material conditions of
human life: it brings Big History to this history museum.22 Elizabeth Ellsworth
and Jamie Kruse work with a group of artists and scholars to explore the geologic
in contemporary life, unpacking the “geological turn” and human responses to it.
Inspired by the work of Jane Bennett, they use materiality – the Earth’s surface
itself – to:

recalibrate infrastructures, communities, and imaginations to a new scale – the scale of deep time, force,
and materiality. …[W]e are not simply “surrounded” by the geologic. We do not simply observe it as a

landscape or panorama. We inhabit the geologic.23

Since we inhabit the geologic, then the gallery of the Anthropocene aspires to
place people in their own strata.

Practicalities

Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands,24 opened to the public on
5 December 2014. It displays the effects of humanity as a biological and
geological actor and the extent of planetary changes in the three-dimensional
space of a gallery, so that the visitor actually experiences the Anthropocene,
while learning about the current state of scientific knowledge and debate. The

Anthropocene here is a complex and often ambivalent story of destruction and
re-shaping, threaded through feedback loops; nature and culture is an integrated
and hybrid system. Practical examples include an installation about the spread of
invasive species and how they remake ecosystems, and an experiential section
that deliberately disrupts preconceived ideas about what constitutes “nature.”

The curators instigated an internal survey to find out what their audience
already knew about the Anthropocene, and to get a sense of how to “pitch” the
text-based panels. They drew on the views of over 100 patrons in a two-month
period in late 2012. While 80 percent of those interviewed supported the idea that
the museum should engage with “controversial topics,” an even greater number
(86 percent) had not previously heard of the Anthropocene. Many were interested
in the environment, and saw the impacts of industry as bad for the environment;
almost half of the patrons said that industry could not solve environmental
problems.25

Informed by the survey, the curators “pitched” the Anthropocene as a holistic,
systemic, and reflective concept, enabling the inclusion of a range of global-scale
environmental problems in an open-ended format that enabled visitors to engage
actively. The Anthropocene brands the exhibition and also frames the responses
of the visitors.

The exhibition covers 1,450 square meters (ca. 15,600 square feet) and is
structured in three parts. The first section provides a comprehensive introduction
into the Anthropocene both as a geological hypothesis and new conceptual
framework. The introduction includes a range of technological objects that
highlight the eras of industrialization (from the late 1800s, building on Paul
Crutzen’s narrative of the origins of the Anthropocene) and the Great
Acceleration from the 1950s. The second part of the exhibition consists of six
thematic areas, islands that are jig-saw fragments of a whole, which present
selected phenomena of the Anthropocene. They explore systemic connections,
global and local interdependencies, and temporal dimensions. The themes
covered are urbanization, mobility, nutrition, evolution, human-machine
interaction and “nature.” Connecting these themes is a geological layer of
materiality that embeds visitors in the strata of their creation. The third and final
part of the exhibition discusses the future in the Anthropocene. It looks at past
visions of the future, emphasizing their transformative potential while

simultaneously highlighting their fragility and ambivalence. It then discusses
possible scenarios of the future for people to consider in a more relaxing space;
the final installation invites people to listen to possible scenarios and to plant
their own possible scenario in an evolving field of paper daisies (Figure 31.2).
Thus, each individual visitor has the opportunity to offer a personal reflection on
their aspirations for the Anthropocene.

As an epoch, the Anthropocene encompasses the entire globe throughout Earth
history. As a new epoch and a philosophical framework, it weaves connections
between many disparate phenomena, often previously unconnected. The
challenge for a museum is to research, shape and represent the Anthropocene
epoch even as it unfolds. While exhibitions are always selective representations
of specific interpretations of our world, the uncertainty that surrounds the
Anthropocene challenges traditional perceptions of museums as authorities and
mediators of knowledge, and demands space for raising questions and reflecting
on uncertainty. Museums of science and technology, like the Deutsches Museum,
can no longer represent themselves as mere purveyors of authentic knowledge.
Welcome to the Anthropocene created a space – literally and figuratively – for
free thinking, discussion and imagining a new concept, drawing on abstract and
academic ideas and creating ways for the public to participate.

Traditional museum objects were not easy to incorporate in such an exhibition.
When it came to pinpointing the stories and finding an “Anthropocene moment”
(or even origin story), it became messy. In the end, the curators elected to live
with the complex messiness and concentrate rather on the networks, systems of
interconnections and chaos. Since the world in the Anthropocene is no longer
ordered, the exhibition explored the navigation of chaos. In translating the
Anthropocene into a three-dimensional gallery, the exhibition explored the
systems of the Anthropocene and their interrelationships and feedbacks. An
exhibition space affords visitors multi-perspective and nonlinear opportunities:
they make their own paths, touring where they want to, forming their own
experiences, and coming up with different interpretations. Part of the idea of the
landscape of paper flowers folded by individuals was to capture the diversity of
visitor experience.

The gallery was not only based on intense research provided by the curatorial
team and the Rachel Carson Center which resulted in various publications.26 It

also became a springboard for follow-up projects. One of these projects resulted
in a cabinet-like exhibition added to the gallery: the Cabinet of Curiosities for the
Anthropocene, which opened in July 2015. Based on a collaboration with the
Center for Culture, History and Environment at the University of Madison-
Wisconsin and the Environmental Humanities Lab at the KTH Royal Institute of
Technology in Stockholm, scholars and artists were invited to an Anthropocene
slam to suggest objects with the aim to create the cabinet of curiosities.27 The
outcome of the slam was then “translated” into the cabinet which combines
exhibits on wondrous and curious relics with films and sound bites to display the
different forces that shape relationships between environment and society.

Figure 31.3 Various elements of the Welcome to the Anthropocene exhibition. (top left) Engine block inside

object shelf. (top right) Brussels sprout growing in shopping trolley. (bottom left) The digital media cube.

(bottom right) Planting a tree. Deutsches Museum, 2014. Photos: Axel Griesch. See Plate 39.

Pyramiden, industrial heritage and the new tourism of
climate change

Moving beyond museum walls to the “spectacle,”28 we now consider the
Anthropocene in situ at Pyramiden, a coal-mining settlement within the Arctic
Circle, recently refashioned for climate-change science and polar tourism. This is

a museum without walls, a gallery on a landscape scale that provokes thought
about the Anthropocene at the extremes of the inhabited world.

Background

In the high latitudes of the Arctic, one degree of global warming makes for
greater and faster changes than at temperate latitudes. The “polar effect” has
fueled climate-change tourism, with people anxious to see glaciers “before they
melt” and extreme environments remote from people, yet disproportionately
affected by their activities. The Ilulissat Glacier in Greenland, for example, has
become an iconic place for visiting American politicians, a place that signifies
“climate change” as surely as an image of a polar bear on a sea-ice floe. The
United States and other members of the Arctic council wish to mitigate the
consequences of climate change in the Arctic, protect the environment and
support climate science. At the same time, however, they want to protect their
traditional interests in resources and sovereignty there.29 At Svalbard, Russian
and Norwegian actors combine these seemingly contradicting policy goals, by
transforming coal mines into industrial heritage sites. Could abandoned Arctic
resource extraction sites become resources for a more sustainable economy in the
Arctic, based on tourism?

Figure 31.4 Pyramiden: a coal-mining town within the Arctic Circle, 2012. Photo: Dag Avango. See Plate 40.

Norwegian and Russian companies started coal mining at Svalbard (also called
Spitsbergen) in the early twentieth century. At this time the energy extraction
boom drove an international debate about the legal status of Svalbard itself. The
archipelago had been recognized as an international space – an unoccupied “no-
man’s land” – until it emerged as potentially profitable. Promised wealth from
the primary energy source of the industrialized world at the time – coal –
increased interest (particularly among northern states) in staking a nationalist
claim for influence in this windy, cold and remote territory. Norway first
demanded sovereignty, but was opposed by Sweden and Russia because of their
respective economic and political interests. The coal mines became part of this
conflict, not just because of the resources, but also because these nations could
use their existing mines as “effective occupation,” a precursor to claiming
sovereignty.30

Pyramiden was established initially by a Swedish company that built a few
huts there in 1910, with a plan to supply coal to the Swedish steel industry, and
support nationalist interest in Spitsbergen, aiming to block Norway’s claim to
sovereignty. In the end, the mining town was not built and in 1920, Norway was
granted sovereignty over Svalbard (Spitsbergen) through a treaty. In the
following years, the world economy slumped, and most companies left Svalbard,

Pyramiden’s Swedish founders. The huts were abandoned.
In the years that followed, the extraction of energy resources became a project

of Norwegian and Soviet nationalist interest. The only remaining coal mines at
Svalbard were run by state-supported companies. The Norwegians wanted to
maintain their sovereignty by effective occupation, and the Norwegian economy
could use the energy. The Soviet Union was first and foremost interested in it
because the rapidly industrializing Murmansk region needed coal, which in turn
made this part of the Arctic of strategic importance for the Soviet Union.31 Each
operated several mining towns on Svalbard at this time, including Pyramiden,
which the Soviet Union had bought from its Swedish owners in 1927. The Soviet
company Trust Arktikugol developed an elaborate mining settlement, soon the
most splendid on Svalbard. The new owners brought their settlement housing
materials and elegant and ambitious architectural designs. There was nothing
comparable among Norwegian mining settlements in Svalbard until the 1980s.
The settlement at Pyramiden from the 1960s was more than an extraction site for
energy resources; it was a signal of strong Soviet intentions for Svalbard.32

When the Soviet Union fell, the new Russian government had little interest in
Pyramiden. Trust Arktikugol had closed down the town in 1998. Over the
following years, the settlement infrastructure slowly deteriorated, becoming a
victim of melt water and looters.

At the same time, an increasing number of Norwegians came to question the
Svalbard coal-mining industry, because the mines were unprofitable and hard to
rationalize with Norway’s own policy for protecting the environment at Svalbard
or its international status as a leader in environmental thinking. In 2001, the
Norwegian government passed a new environmental law, limiting the
possibilities for mining in Svalbard. Meanwhile the last Russian mine operating
in Svalbard, Barentsburg, was running out of coal. The Trust Arktikugol saw two
possibilities: either to open another town to mine coal, or instead to repurpose the
existing mining towns. Since any plan for a new coal venture would contravene
new Norwegian environmental regulations, new towns were out.33 Instead, the
Trust Arktikugol moved to re-develop their coal-mining settlements into hubs for
Arctic tourism, conservation and science.

Figure 31.5 Ukraine grass planted in Pyramiden, 2012. Photo: Dag Avango.

The Russian state restarted its activities at Pyramiden around 2010. In
cooperation with the governor of Svalbard, the Trust Arktikugol carefully
renovated parts of the settlement and in the spring of 2013, it reopened the hotel.
The company promoted Pyramiden as an industrial heritage site with a unique
Soviet character.

Pyramiden’s facelift also opened a window of opportunity to the Norwegian
authorities. During the Cold War years, the Norwegian governors of Svalbard
had held back from intervening in Russian activities on Svalbard, but now
Norway was free to demand that the Trust Arktikugol abide by Norwegian laws
in Svalbard.34 Norwegian regulations require companies to protect buildings and
material remains that are older than 1946 as “cultural heritage.”

The Norwegian governor responded to Russia’s new concept for Pyramiden by
calling on the Trust Arktikugol to make an area plan. The company contracted a
Norwegian firm to do this, whilst the governor enrolled heritage professionals
(including one of us DA) to identify structures that should be protected as
heritage. Based on the November 2013 report, parts of Pyramiden were declared
“cultural heritage.” This Soviet industrial town thus became a heritage site
protected under Norwegian law.35

The leading Norwegian mining company on the archipelago (SNSK) had for a

number of years developed plans to establish a museum and a “knowledge
center” in one of its abandoned mines near the Norwegian administrative capital
Longyearbyen, as a “Corporate Social Responsibility,” giving something back to
the mining community on which the company has been dependent.36 For the
company there were also other strategic values in re-using abandoned mines as
heritage and for museum exhibitions. At a time when public opinion and
politicians in mainland Norway question the value of SNKS’s mining operations,
the company turned to history to emphasize its role in maintaining Svalbard as a
part of Norway.

The abandoned coal mines at Svalbard are evocative remains of former and
contemporary boom and bust cycles of Arctic extraction, motivated by resource
needs, quick profits and geopolitical interests, a fossil-fuel landscape which is
refashioned to serve new futures in the Arctic, including tourism. Re-using the
settlement suits both Norwegian and Russian Arctic policy makers. The
interested parties can see how these places enable them to continue to control
resource use, to maintain influence or sovereignty and to protect the
environment. Supporting science, particularly climate science, in this far
northerly place is itself a sustainable development for both nations.

By defining abandoned mining sites such as Pyramiden as industrial heritage,
and bases for climate-change science and polar tourism, both Norway and Russia
can showcase their global environmental and cultural credentials, while keeping
a close eye on a region that is increasingly strategically important as the climate
warms and the Arctic sea ice melts. Visitors coming to this spectacle can see the
hybridity of the worlds of nature and culture, of energy landscapes and their
post-fossil-fuel uses. They stay in a comfortably refurbished Soviet hotel,
repurposed after the Cold War to meet the needs of new generation climate-
change scientists, measuring change in the Arctic.

Reflections: foregrounding the cultural in the
Anthropocene

The Anthropocene poses a challenge to humanity and to planet Earth. It is also a

challenge for the museum world to engage with this on a human scale and within
the space of a gallery, even one beyond a museum building. Yet objects,
collections and heritage landscapes offer a new perspective on the Anthropocene.
Traditional (and often cherished) museum frameworks that compartmentalize
knowledge into disciplines, cultures and periods of time are no longer useful.
Nonetheless, because they are collecting institutions, museums are in the position
to connect the deep past through the Anthropocene present to the deep future
through objects and collections.

The original idea of a museum was that it was a house for collections. The
nature of collections has changed over time, and so has the idea of the “house.” In
the rapidly changing times of the Anthropocene world, the museum gallery takes
on new forms. We see gardens that are set out like museum cabinets and
museums that include indoor forests.37 Communities demand spaces that work
for their traditional needs, leading to different sorts of museums, and sometimes
to significant new sorts of spaces within them, for example, the living marae
(meeting house) in Te Papa, the National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington,
is used for museum, community and religious purposes.

Museums that seek to explore big abstract ideas like the Anthropocene find
themselves pushing the edges of the classic museum form, which is a gallery or
room that places objects and visitors in conversation with each other. A science
and technology museum offers a unique place for discussions of the unintended
and far-reaching consequences of the Industrial Revolution.

Pyramiden takes the idea of the museum form itself to another level again. It is
a global museum of a local place, a place where ideas of change, where
international debates have focused on the local and specific circumstances, yet
they also resound with issues affecting other polar places and regions (including
in Antarctica). Pyramiden is only accidentally a “gallery of the Anthropocene,”
and its hybrid nature/culture is historical rather than artful. In Pyramiden, the
actors have all come from somewhere else and re-made the place according to
different nationalist and contemporary visions. Now it is a place where visitors
and scientists come to explore ideas about climate change at the far northern
edge of the inhabitable world.

For museum and heritage professionals the industrial museum and the
industrial heritage landscape taken together showcase very different ways for

exploring big ideas and grand timescales in stories of the Industrial Revolution.
For those already engaged with the Anthropocene concept, these examples
demonstrate how the cultural sector might further enliven public discussions
about the future of the planet.

Notes

1 Jane Bennett, The Enchantment of Modernity: Crossings, Energetics, and Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press 2001); Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things, (Durham, NC: Duke

University Press, 2010). Parts of this chapter appeared in Libby Robin et al. “Three Galleries of the

Anthropocene,” The Anthropocene Review 1(3) (2014): 207–224.

2 S. David, J. Blumtritt and B. Köhler, The Slow Media Manifesto. (2010) Online: http://en.slow-

media.net/manifesto

3 Will Steffen et al., “The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration,” The Anthropocene

Review 2(1) (2015): 1–18, note that the Holocene is the time when most present world civilizations

emerged.

4 Paul J. Crutzen, “Geology of Mankind,” Nature, no. 415(2002): 23; Paul J. Crutzen, and Eugene F. Stoermer

“The ‘Anthropocene’” Global Change Newsletter 41(2000): 17–18.

5 Anders Ekström et al., History of Participatory Media 1750–2000 (London: Routledge, 2011): 1.

6 Jan Zalasiewicz et al., “Are We Now Living in the Anthropocene?” GSA Today (Journal of the Geological

Society of America) 18, no. 2 (2008): 4–8; Jan Zalasiewicz et al., “The Anthropocene: A New Epoch of

Geological Time?” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369. (2011): 835–841; Jan

Zalasiewicz, and Mark Williams, “The Anthropocene: a comparison with the Ordovician–Silurian

boundary,” Rendiconti Lincei: Scienze Fisiche e Naturali, (2013); Jan Zalasiewicz, et al., “When did the

Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal,” Quaternary

International (online 12 January) (2015).

7 Brendon Larson, Metaphors for Environmental Sustainability: Redefining our Relationship with Nature

(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011); Whitney J. Autin and John M. Holbrook, “Is the

Anthropocene an Issue of Stratigraphy or Pop Culture?” GSA Today 22, no. 7 (2012): 60–61.

8 Libby Robin, “Histories for Changing Times: Entering the Anthropocene?,” Australian Historical Studies,

The Slow Media Manifesto

44(3) (2013): 329–340; Jed O. Kaplan, et al., “Holocene Carbon Emissions as a Result of Anthropogenic

Land Cover Change,” The Holocene 21, no. 5 (2011): 775–791; Crutzen, 2002; Joseph Masco, “Bad Weather:

On Planetary Crisis,” Social Studies of Science 40, no.1 (2010): 7–40; C.E. Doughty, “Preindustrial Human

Impacts on Global and Regional Environment,” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 38 (2013):

503–527.

9 Zalasiewicz and Williams, 2013; Zalasiewicz et al., 2015; Steffen et al., 2015; Will Steffen et al., “The

Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship,” Ambio, 40(7) (2011): 739–761.

10 Luke Keogh and Nina Möllers, “Pushing Boundaries – Curating the Anthropocene at the Deutsches

Museum,” in Fiona Cameron and Brett Neilson (eds), Climate Change and Museum Futures, Routledge

Research in Museum Studies (New York: Routledge, 2015), 78–89.

11 Wilhelm Füssl, The Deutsches Museum and Its History. In Wolfgang M. Heckl (ed.), Technology in a

Changing World: The Collections of the Deutsches Museum, tr. Hugh Casement and Jim O’Meara

(München: Deutsches Museum, 2010): xv.

12 Walter Hauser, ed. Klima – Das Experiment mit dem Planeten Erde (English translation NM) (München:

Deutsches Museum, 2002): 9.

13 Steffen et al., “Trajectory of the Anthropocene.”

14 A.D. Barnosky et al., “Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived?” Nature 471 (2011): 51–57.

15 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 2005); x. Andrea Witcomb, “Migration, Social Cohesion and Cultural Diversity: Can

Museums move beyond Pluralism?,” Humanities Research, XV(2) (2009): 49–66; Nigel Clark, Inhuman

Nature: Sociable Life on a Dynamic Planet (London: Sage, 2011); Sabine Wilke, “Anthropocene Poetics:

Ethics and Aesthetics in a New Geological,” Rachel Carson Center Perspectives 3 (2013): 67–74; Andreas

Malm and Alf Hornborg, “The Geology of Mankind? A Critique of the Anthropocene Narrative,” The

Anthropocene Review 1 (2014): 62–69.

16 Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 2011); Wade Davis, “The Naked Geography of Hope: Death and Life in the Ethnosphere,” Whole

Earth, Spring (2002): 57–61; Gaston Gordillo, “Ships Stranded in the Forest,” Current Anthropology 52

(2011): 141–167.

17 Will Steffen, Paul J. Crutzen and John R. McNeill, “The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming

the Great Forces of Nature,” Ambio 36, no. 8 (2007): 614–621; quote 619.

18 Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” Critical Inquiry 35 (2009): 197–222; quote:

206.

19 Reinhold Leinfelder, Christian Schwägerl, Nina Möllers, and Helmuth Trischler, “Die menschengemachte

Erde: Das Anthropozän sprengt die Grenzen von Natur, Kultur und Technik,” Kultur und Technik 2

(2012): 12–17.

20 Wilke, “Anthropocene Poetics.”

21 Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Jill Didur and Anthony Carrigan (eds), Global Ecologies and the Environmental

Humanities: Postcolonial Approaches (London: Routledge, 2015).

22 David Christian, “A Single Historical Continuum,” Cliodynamics 2 (2011): 6–26.

23 Elizabeth Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse, “Evidence: Making a Geological Turn in Cultural Awareness,”

Making the Geological Now: Responses to the Material Conditions of Contemporary Life, ed. Elizabeth

Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse (Brooklyn: Punctum, 2013), 25; see also Bronislaw Szerszynski, “The End of

the End of Nature: The Anthropocene and the Fate of the Human,” Oxford Literary Review 34, no. 2

(2012): 165–184.

24 German title, “Willkommen im Anthropozän: Unsere Verantwortung für die Zukunft der Erde.”

25 Henrike Bäuerlein and Sarah Förg, “Vorab-Evaluation zur Sonderausstellung, Anthropozän – Natur und

Technik im Menschenzeitalter,” August–September, Internal Report (Munich: Deutsches Museum, 2012).

26 Foremost the catalogue: Nina Möllers, Christian Schwägerl, and Helmuth Trischler (eds), Welcome to the

Anthropocene. The Earth in Our Hands (Munich: Deutsches Museum, 2015); see also e.g. the graphic

novel: Alexandra Hamann, Reinhold Leinfelder, Helmuth Trischler, and Henning Wagenbreth (eds),

Anthropozän. 30 Meilensteine auf dem Weg in ein neues Erdzeitalter (Munich: Deutsches Museum, 2014).

27 For documentation of the Slam see http://nelson.wisc.edu/che/anthroslam/, and Robert Emmett and

Gregg Mitman (eds.), Environmental Futures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

28 Anders Ekström, et al., History of Participatory Media 1750–2000. (London: Routledge, 2011).

29 See for example Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “The High North. Visions and Strategies. Meld,”

St. 7 (2011–2012) (Oslo: Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2011); Norwegian Ministry of Justice,

Stortingsmelding Nr. 22 (2008–2009) Svalbard. (Oslo: Norwegian Ministry of Justice, 2009); Vladimir

Putin (Approved 20 February 2013), “Development Strategy of the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation

and National Security until 2020” (Unofficial translation (2013) by the Embassy of the Russian Federation

at Stockholm).

30 Dag Avango, Sveagruvan: Svensk Gruvhantering mellan Industri, Diplomati och Geovetenskap

(Stockholm: Jernkontoret 2005); Dag Avango and Sander Solnes, Registrering av kulturminner i

http://nelson.wisc.edu/che/anthroslam/

Pyramiden. Registrering utfört på oppdrag fra Sysselmannen på Svalbard (Longyearbyen: Governor of

Svalbard, 2013); Roald Berg, Norsk utenrikspolitikks historie. Norge på egen hånd 1905–1920. Bd 2 (Oslo:

Universitetsforlaget 1995).

31 Dag Avango, Louwrens Hacquebord and Urban Wråkberg, “Industrial Extraction of Arctic Natural

Resources since the Sixteenth Century: Technoscience and Geo-Economics in the History of Northern

Whaling and Mining,” Journal of Historical Geography 44 (2014): 15–30.

32 Norwegian Commissioner of Mines, unpublished reports 1934–1966.

33 Åtland and Pedersen, 2008.

34 Jörgen Holten Jörgensen, Russisk svalbardpolitikk. Svalbard sett fra andre siden (Trondheim: Tapir

akademisk forlag 2010).

35 Irene Skauen Sandodden, [unpublished] Plan for arkeologiske registreringen i Pyramiden planområden

(June 28, 2013, Governor of Svalbard archive, Longyearbyen); Avango and Solnes, Registrering av

kulturminner.

36 Sture Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani (SNSK) www.snsk.no/corporate-social-responsibility.5550233.html,

(accessed May 13, 2015).

37 Libby Robin, “The Red Heart Beating in the South-eastern Suburbs: The Australian Garden, Cranbourne,”

reCollections 2 (2007).

http://www.snsk.no/corporate-social-responsibility.5550233.html

Turn in your highest-quality paper
Get a qualified writer to help you with

“ summary ”

Get high-quality paper

NEW! AI matching with writer

Hire a Writer

Client Reviews

4.9

Sitejabber

4.6

Trustpilot

4.8

Our Guarantees

100% Confidentiality

Information about customers is confidential and never disclosed to third parties.

Original Writing

We complete all papers from scratch. You can get a plagiarism report.

Timely Delivery

No missed deadlines – 97% of assignments are completed in time.

Money Back

If you're confident that a writer didn't follow your order details, ask for a refund.

New to Your Trusted Assignment Help Service? Sign up & Save

Calculate the price of your order

Type of paper needed:

Pages:

You will get a personal manager and a discount.

Academic level:

We'll send you the first draft for approval by at

Total price:

$0.00

Power up Your Academic Success with the
Team of Professionals. We’ve Got Your Back.

Power up Your Study Success with Experts We’ve Got Your Back.

Order Now Order Now