Museums in a Climate of Change - Part II

Climate Change Exhibits and Programs on Environmental Sustainability

Museums used to consider climate change discussions as advocacy – or at least far too close to it for comfort. Today, fewer feel that way and, as climate change discussions, TV programs and debate become ubiquitous, and green building and practices spread so rapidly, much of the public is hungry for green ideas no matter what kind of museum you are.

Each museum has to assess and make choices on interpreting green practices and telling green stories, but the climate change discussion is showing up in many ways all around museums.

If you’re thinking about an exhibit on climate change, check out Mark Walhimer’s blog http://climateexhibit.blogspot.com/, THE resource for exhibits on climate change. This is such a widespread museum theme that Mark was nearly overwhelmed with examples when he asked for recommendations on the Museum Design Group at LinkedIn. This blog entry collects those links exhibits around the world.

But what if you're not scheduled to do a big climate change exhibit? What if you haven't built (or don’t want to build) a state-of-the-art green building with bells and whistles to demonstrate - how do you talk about climate change?

If you’re a science or natural history museum in between climate change exhibits, you can create exhibit labels, branded with a “climate change facts” symbol, to install as a another layer of interpretation throughout current exhibits. Of course, if you’re into podcasts and audio tours, you can do it electronically. Or you can follow Museum of the Earth’s lead and create a Global Change Project Web Portal http://www.museumoftheearth.org/outreach.php?page=overview/globalchange.

If you're an historic site you can compare past sustainable practices - using a clothesline or convenient bushes to dry clothes; dumping wash water on the garden, not down a drain; sharing a bed for winter warmth - with nightcaps of course; a Victory Garden or an earlier kitchen garden with a little compost on the side and a lesson on saving seeds....you get the picture.

If you’re an army museum, you could interpret Army Green – the current science and practice of environmental sustainability in the US Army.

If you’re a general museum you could do an “I Spy” exhibit, or a matching objects exhibit showing energy-efficient collections items with object or images of today’s counterparts.

If you're an art museum you might post a mini exhibit in the entry-way or at the front desk that outlines the proceedings of the Plus/Minus Dilemma (my previous post). You might list your green choices in exhibit design. You might let the public know why you have motion-sensored gallery lights. It all shows that you care about your resources: those that are donated, those you preserve and interpret, and those of the community around you.

And don’t forget to offer the public some reading suggestions. I use some in my Green Museum class in the George Washington University Museums Studies Program:

Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, North Point Press, www.fsgbooks.com.

The Consumer’s Guide to Effective Environmental Choices: Practical Advice from the Union of Concerned Scientists by Michael Brower and Warren Leon at Three Rivers Press, www.randomhouse.com.

And this year I’m adding Paleontological Research Institution’s (Museum of the Earth at Cornell University) Climate Change, Past, Present & Future: A Very Short Guide, by Warren Allmon and his team, www.priweb.org.
Anyone have other reading suggestions?

Don’t be shy about discussing climate change in your museum. We all share the same climate: highlighting our relationship with it is okay to do in public.

Museums in a Climate of Change - Part I

Weather, Money, Collections and, oh yes, The Plus/Minus Dilemma

If you’re in the museum field, your world is being rocked – probably violently.

If you are responsible for collections stewardship, then you’re following the Plus/Minus Dilemma discussions.

If you are a zoo, garden, aquarium, then you’re examining Climate Change and its affect on your species’ futures.

If you’re a museum, then you are interpreting, or figuring out how or why to interpret, Climate Change for your audience.

If you are an historic site, then you are monitoring the future of Save America’s Treasures.

If you are in the Gulf, then you’re following Deepwater Horizon and are fearful for your budget.

What’s a professional to do when the basic tenets of practice are challenged repeatedly and intensely? We do what the museum field is good at: share what we know so that we can all learn from each other.

A number of talented, dedicated people are working together, nationally and internationally to address these really big problems and they are sharing their discussions with the rest of us. So do yourself, and your museum, a favor and take the time out of your daily museum practice to read from these links. It will inform your practice and remind you that we all can and will tackle these huge challenges – but that no one has to go it alone. The field is behind us all.

There’s so much excellent work going on, though, that smashing it all into one post is a waste. So I’ll post the first set of links here and in the coming days put on the rest in segments.

Let’s start with the Plus/Minus Dilemma:
Many others are going into this, so I shall pass on the information for you to make your own decision, but I clearly vote for more flexible parameters that provide acceptable ranges for types of materials so that we can save energy for the planet. It’s complicated, yes; but certainly more collections appropriate and energy efficient.

Rose Daly, who is doing her own good work on collections their climate management, has provided a recap http://www.iiconservation.org/news/?p=1026 of the most recent meeting on this issue of what to do with the age-old tradition of collections climate parameters widely assumed to be 70˚ Fahrenheit and 50% Relative Humidity plus or minus. The video at http://www.artbabble.org/video/plusminus-dilemma-way-forward-environmental-guidelines.

Her article also has a link to the transcript of the first of the International Institute of Conservators’ Dialogues for a New Century series. The IIC President, Jerry Podany, whom I had the great good pleasure to finally meet at AAM, is a champion’s champion. http://www.iiconservation.org/dialogues/IIC_climate_change_transcript.pdf..

Along with the important T/RH discussions there’s a great discussion of physical climate events affecting heritage resources. You’ve seen the maps of what New York City will look like with sea level rise, well the Noah’s Art Project presentation has images of how European regions’ heritage resources will be affected by humidity, heat and biomass changes.

James Reilly (who was a part of this first IIC discussion) and Richard Kerschner of The Shelburne Museum are on the agenda for Environmental Management: Stewardship and Sustainability at the Folger Library sponsored by the Conservation Center for Art and Historic Artifacts http://www.ccaha.org/education/program-calendar/2010/07/27/environmental-management-stewardship-and-sustainability in July. I would kill to go but, alas, will be on the road. PLEASE will someone take notes to me – or archive it on video?

In between those two Dialogues, there was a meeting at the MFA Boston (US) on climate control. And here’s a link from Rachel Madan’s newsletter (UK) http://www.greenermuseums.org to the American Institute of Conservators’ blog called Rethinking the Museum Climate with a recap of the Boston meeting called Rethinking the Museum Climate, plus useful links and a topical bibliography: http://blog.conservation-us.org/blogpost.cfm?threadid=2227&catid=175

This is really complex stuff, hence the various links, voices, meetings and recommendations. This is a big chunk of our core work, so there will be a lot of churning. We each must be responsible for keeping informed and contributing whatever we can to help with this incredibly important field-wide discussion.

Please, please, please take the time to pay attention.