Museums in an Earth crisis – and how digital can help Bridget McKenzie, Climate Museum

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Museums+Tech 2020: Museums in a crisis Museums in an Earth crisis – and how digital can help Bridget McKenzie, Climate Museum The multiple crises facing museums and society are all part of the Earth crisis, caused by an extractive and exploitative system. COVID-19 is an outcome of the ecological emergency, and climate breakdown threatens further blows to the relative stability of past decades in which museums have flourished. The Activist Museum Award has allowed us in Climate Museum UK to enquire into the possibilities of non-extractive digital collecting. As part of this, we are exploring extractivism, taking an environmental approach to the challenge of decolonising museums. A new mobile museum, we are reimagining museums for an age of crisis. This lightning talk will summarise our findings of how digital collections might power activism to tackle the big challenges of social and environmental justice. What are the possibilities for museums to collaborate to create an accessible UK-wide digital collection that gives a climate and ecology lens to cultural artefacts? What is the appetite for a commons-based resource that opens up to democratic interpretation, and that enables its users to learn about the Earth crisis, to express views, to design solutions and to take action?

Museums in an Earth
Crisis & how digital helps
Bridget McKenzie
climatemuseumuk.org climatemuseumuk@gmail.com follow us on social

I’ll talk about...
● Climate Museum UK
● The Earth Crisis
● Commons collecting on
climate
● Our Activist Museum
Award project

Who are we?
A mobile and digital museum
stirring & collecting responses to the the
Earth crisis.
A team of creative people based in the
UK, passionate about the planet, we
produce & gather art, objects, ideas,
games and books
We use these in activations to help
people to play, make, think & talk about
the Earth crisis and to open their
imaginations to possible futures.

Why the Earth crisis,
not just the Covid-19
crisis?

Some of our digital commons collecting
● #EverydayEcocide - collecting incidents of
eco-blindness in media & culture
● #ExtremeWeatherStories - collecting
experiences of people in frontline
● #ActsOfTreeKindness - for the Urban Tree
Festival
● #MyClimateMuseum – make & share
climate museums wherever you are
● Pinterest boards - 1000s of links

Activist Museum Award
● £1000 grant
● scoped idea for distributed digital collection on climate
● aim to encourage commons-based approach to digital
museum practices
● issued survey & held Zoom discussion
● tested theme of Extractivism as possible starting point
● inviting people to share ideas

Extractivism?
Globally dominant mindset that
colonises, exploits &
accumulates. Fails to replace or
regenerate what is taken or
harmed.
History: colonialism is an
environmental issue.
Now: Earth crisis is systemic
justice issue.
Applies to all in this pyramid.

Outcomes
● 12 blogposts, 2 open Zoom events, and learning towards
several projects
● Contributed to bids for Towards a National Collection
● Defined an ideal vision of a digital commons on climate
https://climatemuseumuk.org/2020/08/28/digital-vision-for-
climate-engagement/
● A kind of ‘wikihow’ for activists to tell stories and make
change using joined up cultural collections

#EcoLensOnThings
Simple Twitter-based experiment.
Exploring ways to interpret objects with
an eco lens.
Collection description of this bird feather
hat: ‘Round disk-like hat with crown only
slightly elevated, foundation of linen
completely covered with polychrome
feathers; lined with pale pink taffeta, one
pale pink silk ribbon.’
Did thread on how feather fashion has
been interpreted in different ways.

climatemuseumuk.org
climatemuseumuk@gmail.com
follow us on social
@climatemuseumuk

Bridget McKenzie, Director, Flow Associates Bridget will draw on her background as consultant and manager in cultural learning, including as Head of Learning at the British Library, and on lessons from her current project developing Climate Museum UK. She will introduce some guiding principles for being ‘possitopian’ about the future and having an ecocentric worldview in the context of the Earth crisis. This will lead to some proposals about how eco-capacities could inform the public services and leadership of libraries. #CILIPConf20 #LibrariesforSustainability

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