Winter News from NHM
We recently launched our newest exhibition, Whale People: Protectors of the Sea. Co-created with leaders from Lummi Nation, it tells the story of today’s environmental emergency through the figure of the orca.
Check out the documentation below, along with a roster of our upcoming talks, workshops, and trainings. From New Orleans to New York to Melbourne, Australia, we’re bringing the movement to transform museums to a city near you.
For the future,
Not An Alternative / The Natural History Museum
New exhibition
Whale People: Protectors of the Sea
@ Florida Museum of Natural History
Developed with Lummi Nation, this new traveling exhibition narrates the plight of the critically endangered killer whales of the Salish Sea from an Indigenous perspective.
At the center of the exhibition is a 3,000 pound killer whale totem the House of Tears Carvers has transported to communities across the country to raise awareness about the plight of killer whale, or orca–one of the Lummi’s most revered relations. Alongside the totem is a selection from the Florida museum’s collection of historical northwest coast totem poles depicting the killer whale, and a seven-channel 90-foot-wide immersive floor-to-ceiling film that features underwater footage of the orca and the voices of Indigenous elders communicating a message that was at the heart of the totem’s journey: what we do to the waters we do to ourselves.
Developed by a team of Indigenous leaders, artists, marine scientists, and filmmakers, the exhibition will be on display at The Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, FL through May 5th, 2019, then it travels to venues in the Pacific Northwest.
What We’re Reading (and Writing)
Museum Activism, published by Routledge
Hot off the presses: the newly published Routledge book Museum Activism, edited by NHM board member Robert Janes, and Richard Sandell of the University of Leicester Museum Studies Program. NHM’s own Steve Lyons and Kai Bosworth authored a chapter titled “Museums in the Climate Emergency”, and here’s our review on the back of the book:
“’Are museums shrines to the past, hubs of engagement for the present, or shapers of the future? Assembling dozens of contributions by leading and new voices in museum studies, Museum Activism targets the core values and principles guiding museum practice today with the aim of transforming the way we think about the social role of museums. This book offers a deep reflection on the limits and potential for museum activism at a time of deepening economic inequality and environmental collapse, a bold call for action for the international museum community, and a field guide to museum activism in practice. Slaying the zombie myth of institutional neutrality that excuses institutional complacency and inaction, it argues for a vision of the museum as an ally and agent of change. Activists around the world are calling on museums to leverage their cultural power to help shape the future for the common good. This book is an insider’s guide to making it happen.’”
Museum Resolution: Dismantle the Myth of Neutrality
Also worth reading is this important essay in the Walker Art Center magazine, authored by Laura Raicovich, NHM board member and former Director of the Queens Museum. An excerpt: “As public spaces become increasingly privatized and surveilled, could museums become spaces we truly hold in common? Could they be spaces within which we struggle together to make change? Could we not use the museum as a place of embodied experience and interaction to seek greater justice and equity? And if we succeed in doing so, could the emerging methodologies provide an invaluable map to move the needle on our most challenging social and economic issues?”
We’re Hiring!
Senior Native Organizer with The Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is seeking a Senior Native Organizer to join us in our mission to transform museums of science and natural history. The successful candidate will work with our team to guide sympathetic museums toward becoming more effective allies of Native-led struggles to protect land, water, cultural heritage and our collective future. Apply by February 20th —more information here.
VIDEO: The Museum has an Opportunity and an Obligation, featuring Winona LaDuke (Anishinaabe), Rueben George (Tsleil-Waututh), and Patricia Gualinga (Kichwa). Credit: The NHM.
Where to find us…
We have a busy Spring with upcoming talks, workshops and presentations, perhaps near you?
Panel: Ecology as Intrasectionality: Radicalizing Arts of Climate Justice
Feb 14 @ New York University
A roundtable discussion with artists Not An Alternative / The Natural History Museum (represented by Steve Lyons), Elaine Gan, Terike Haapoja, Sarah Kanouse, MTL Collective. Organized by TJ Demos and Emily Eliza Scott, hosted by Contemporary Art Research Collaborative, Department of Art & Art Professions at NYU Steinhardt, and Experimental Humanities + Social Engagement at NYU GSAS.
Lecture: Ecology’s Other
Feb 20 @ University of Pittsburgh, Department of Art & Architecture
Contemporary concepts of ecology map human and nonhuman, local and planetary forces into complex systems of inter- or intra-action, effectively subsuming or eliminating the theoretical concept of the outside. In the Anthropocene, there is no nature beyond the human. The whole world has been dominated by the forces of capitalism. There is no alternative. Challenging the assimilative tendency at the core of much contemporary ecological thought, we argue that every ecosystem is constructed around an exclusion–a hole within the whole, a repressed space of conflict that, if embraced, can serve as the political ground from which to undermine the system itself. By pointing to the repressed exterior pressing against the edges of the social-economic-ecological system, this lecture will elaborate the theoretical basis for an environmental politics capable of assembling the unassimilable. Lecture by Steve Lyons with The Natural History Museum.
Lecture & Discussion: Speculative Machine: Exhibitions of Earthly Truth and Metaphor
April 4 @ Miami Museum of Art & Design
Beka Economopoulos and Jason Jones of The Natural History Museum will present a talk at the Miami Museum of Art and Design (MOAD), followed by a conversation with Dr. Angela Colbert, Senior Director of Learning at the Frost Science Museum. They will discuss strategies for presenting scientific fact in an exhibition context, the responsibility of cultural institutions to respond to climate change, and the politics that shape visual representations of nature. This event coincides with the exhibition SUPERFLEX: We Are All in the Same Boat, on view through April 21, 2019. The critically acclaimed Danish collective, founded in 1993, tackle the economy, financial crisis, corruption, migration, and the possible consequences of global warming.
Workshop: Speculative Machine: A Workshop for the Museum of the Future
April 6 @ Miami Museum of Art & Design
The Natural History Museum’s co-founders will lead a workshop at the Miami Museum of Art and Design that will generate methodologies for how the cultural sector and citizens of Miami can contribute to the climate justice movement.
Keynote, Climarte Festival: Slaying the Zombie Myth of Museum Neutrality
April 30 @ Deakin Edge Theatre, Melbourne, Australia
In a post-truth era, the role of trusted institutions of science is more important than ever. Drawing on recent initiatives organized by The Natural History Museum, a traveling pop-up museum founded by the activist art collective Not An Alternative, this keynote talk by NHM’s co-founders will explore how The Natural History Museum leverages the symbolic and infrastructural power of science museums to transform them into vital infrastructures for environmental progress, champions of science for the common good, and advocates for a just and sustainable future.
Bus Tour: The Legacy of Extractive Industries in Southern Louisiana
May 19 @ American Alliance of Museums Convention, New Orleans
This bus tour will take participants upriver to witness the impact of industry on the environment of our region, as well as the historical transitions from plantations to refineries along the “Cancer Alley” corridor in the River Parishes. Led by Leon Waters, founder of the Louisiana Museum of African American History and organizer of Hidden Histories tours; Anne Rolfes, founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade–a citizen science organization; and Monique Verdin, tribal council person for the United Houma Nation. Organized by Antenna with The Natural History Museum and the AAM Environment and Climate Professional Network as part of the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) annual convention’s official programming.
Panel: Fake News, Flat Planets, and Hot Winters: Museums, Climate Change, and Public Discourse
May 20 @ American Alliance of Museums Convention, New Orleans
Museums are being recognized as important catalysts for social and political engagement. Embedded in a political landscape that is increasingly being called into question by the public and fueled by an era of “fake news” and distorted facts, museums are being challenged to move away from assuming neutral positions on controversial topics toward advocacy positions to become trusted forums for communicating on public discourse. This panel at the American Alliance of Museums annual convention explores the emerging interface between public discourse and the changing roles of museums through the topic of climate change. Moderated by Beka Economopoulos, Executive Director, The Natural History Museum. Panelists: Rose Jones, Director of Evaluation, Perot Museum of Nature and Science; Shiralee Hudson Hill, Lead Interpretive Planner, Art Gallery of Ontario; and Jacqueline Genovesi, Vice President Learning, The Academy of Natural Sciences.
Panel: The Right Side of History: How Museums Can Support Climate and Environmental Justice
May 22 @ American Alliance of Museums Convention, New Orleans
What does it mean to be relevant in this time of environmental crisis, and how can museums address and support the needs of frontline and fence-line communities that are struggling for a more just and sustainable world for all? This panel brings together museum professionals and community organizers to answer these questions, offering new models for exhibitions, public programming, and advocacy that affirm environmental stewardship within the current context means aligning our institutional practices with the global climate and environmental justice movement. Panelists: Nicole Heller, Curator of the Anthropocene, Carnegie Museum of Natural History; Monique Verdin, Filmmaker, Co-Founder of Another Gulf is Possible, and Tribal Council Member of United Houma Nation; Gia Hamilton, Curator, Executive Director of the New Orleans African American History Museum; Beka Economopoulos, Executive Director of The Natural History Museum.
Artist Talk: With The Natural History Museum and Lummi Tribal Council Member Freddie Lane
May 30 @ University of Oregon, Departments of Art/Architecture and Environmental Studies
New alliances and expanded support are vital for Indigenous-led and community-based efforts to respond to climate change and environmental emergencies. The Lummi Nation of the Pacific Northwest is addressing marine biodiversity conservation, carbon industrial expansion, and energy transition with their strategies to protect the Salish Sea. These strategies include exhibits at major museums that engage scientists, activists, and mass audiences. Representatives from the Lummi and their partner The Natural History Museum will share videos, visuals, and stories of how this work came together, and how it is part of a larger effort to transform museums—which are highly trusted, widely visited, and a $50 billion industry—into champions for environmental progress and science for the public good.
Workshop: Study Day on Critical Museum Visitorship–How to Activate, Teach, Support, Assess
June 18-19 @ Curating and Public Scholarship Lab, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec
Three decades after feminist performance artist Andrea Fraser’s 1989 “Museum Highlights,” a mock-tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a crop of new “uncomfortable art tours” and “hacks” has sprouted. They represent a mix of unauthorized interventions that turn the traditional museum tour “against” the institution’s own logic, and more commercially-oriented attempts to make the museum attractive to a new generation. Based on the projects of cutting edge practitioners, this study day seeks to explore how we might create critical visitorship tools and technologies that animate the museum’s “shadow archive” (Dolmage 2013/Sekula). The problem is rarely that “there’s nothing about X topic” – but rather how the museum frames its collections, what the visitor’s gaze is directed to, and what is thus seeable. How can we activate, teach, support, and assess critical visitor-ship that reveals hidden stories present in museums?
Thanks for your support!
The Natural History Museum began as an artistic intervention to challenge museums on their role in a time of climate emergency. We are now a national program working with activists, scientists, Indigenous communities, and museum leaders to create new forms of public science and education and support community-led efforts for change.
We couldn’t do this work without you–thank you!
Please consider making a donation to support our work: http://thenaturalhistorymuseum.org/donate.
Advisory Board
Betsy Theobald Richards (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma), Director of Creative Strategies and Public Programs, The Opportunity Agenda
Crystal Echo Hawk (Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma), President and CEO of Echo Hawk Consulting and Founding Director of Reclaiming Native Truth
Eric Chivian, Founder and Former Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, co-founder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985
Faith Spotted Eagle (Yankton Sioux), Founding Member, Braveheart Society
James Powell, Geochemist; Former President and Director of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum and former President of the Franklin Museum of Science
Judith LeBlanc (Caddo Tribe of Oklahoma), Founding Director, Native Organizers Alliance
Kert Davies, Director, Climate Investigations Center
Kii’iljus / Barbara J. Wilson (Haida Nation), Fellow at the Pacific Institute for Climate Change (PICS)
Lise Van Susteran, Psychiatrist, Co-Founder, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate
Mark Dion, artist
Michael Johnson (Arikara/Hidatsa/Ojibwe), Assistant Director of Development, Native American Rights Fund
Michael Mann, Distinguished Professor of Meteorology; Director, Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University
Naomi Klein, Award-winning journalist and author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate
Robert R. Janes, Ph.D. , Archaeologist, Museologist, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Museum Management and Curatorship
Rosalyn LaPier (Blackfeet), Author, Ethnobotanist, Scholar, Member of the EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, and Research Associate at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
No Comments