Abstract

In the face of rapid environmental breakdown and increased social and political uncertainty, cultural institutions around the world have mobilised to imagine alternative ways of living on and with the planet. This talk will argue that such shifts indicate more than simply a change in policy or practice, and instead point towards a fundamental reorientation of culture in the web of life. By focusing on the historical formation and evolving place of museums in this web, the talk will explore how museums have contributed to the planetary crisis through specific symbolic and material practices, but also how emerging approaches in the field might help to unravel some of the more destructive aspects of this entanglement. What might be gained if we begin to consider all museums as always co-constituted through nature? How can new museum strategies contribute to planetary flourishing? 

Bio

Colin Sterling is Assistant Professor of Memory and Museums at the University of Amsterdam. He teaches across heritage and memory, museum studies and artistic research, and is a member of the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture. Colin’s research focuses on the intersections of heritage, ecology and artistic practice in and beyond the Anthropocene. He is the author of Heritage, Photography, and the Affective Past (Routledge, 2020) and co-editor of Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2020). He is co-editor of the journal Museums & Social Issues. From 2020-2021 he was project co-lead on Reimagining Museums for Climate Action, a design and ideas competition that led to an exhibition at COP26 in Glasgow.