Reimagining Museums for Climate Action (2020-21)
Reimagining Museums for Climate Action
(2020-21)
Crowd-sourcing ideas to transform global museums for climate action
Reimagining Museums for Climate Action was developed as the UK AHRC Heritage Priority Area contribution to the UK’s time as host of the climate summit COP26, in Glasgow. The project was headed up by Prof. Rodney Harrison (UCL) and Dr. Colin Stirling (University of Amsterdam), working with me and in partnership with Glasgow Science Centre.
Building on Action for Climate Empowerment, an aspect of the Paris Agreement, the project launched an international competition asking people and organisations everywhere a simple question: how can museums be transformed to help you take the climate action you want to take? We got over 260 submissions from nearly 50 countries, giving a wide range of possible museums, some practical, some stupendous. The point is a serious one: answers do not just have to come from museums, but museums can help generate ideas that give us a wider range of possibilities that may help us meet the needs of present and future climate action.
…answers do not just have to come from museums…
A physical exhibition of eight winning entries was exhibited during COP26, and a further 70+ ideas are features in the project website. As well as the exhibition, the project produced a book, toolkit, and organised training and development sessions with a wide range of museum organisations.
The project was featured by Google Arts and Culture as one of ‘five incredible ideas’ from the Green Zone (the publicly accessible part) of COP26.