CLIMATE CONVERSATIONS
CURATED BY GEORGIA MURPHY AT ROYAL CORNWALL MUSEUM
The Royal Cornwall Museum team have been busy collecting responses in the museum and online to collection items that relate to climate. This has included taking objects outside the museum around Truro in a ‘Guerilla Museum’. The Climate Conversations exhibition displays these community responses alongside objects from the museum’s collections with a focus on climate change and the impact humans are having on the project.
CURATORIAL TASK: REFLECTIVE WRITING
Climate Conversations Engagement Project and Exhibition
Climate Conversations contributes to the Royal Cornwall Museums 2021/22 climate change programme and sitting alongside Tony Foster’s ‘Fragile Planet’ exhibition. Climate change is one of the most pressing global issues we are facing and is something that demands discussion and a collective response. Through a multi-vocal exhibition featuring responses to RCM’s objects by community groups and members of the public, Climate Conversations brings new voices into the museum adds a climate-lens to historic objects from the collection.
Aims:
– Facilitate discussion and creative engagement with the topic of climate change
– Collect and display community responses to a selection of RCM’s object’s with a climate change lens
– Bring new groups, voices and perspectives into the museum
– Challenge ideas around ‘traditional’ interpretation methods through personal and creative labelling
– Prompt discussion and reflection around climate change from museum visitors
Workshops
A variety of objects selected from RCM’s collections, spanning social history, world cultures, biology and art and have been chosen due to their potential to inspire people to think about climate change and the climate emergency. The target audience for this project have been community groups local to the Truro area including adult and family visitors to the museum. Through a range of creative interpretation activities ion luggage labels, people had the opportunity to create their own responses, exploring how the objects make them think or feel about climate change.
Guerilla museum
Alongside gathering responses from museum visitors, specific objects were also taken out onto the streets in Truro and used to collect public responses and spark conversations. The Guerilla museum is an important way of reaching new audiences and engaging with people who may not otherwise come into the museum.
Digital engagement
In the lead up to the exhibition there was a #ClimateConversations social media campaign with images of the objects shared online and people were be invited to get involved and add to the conversation, from their homes to include a wider audience.
Exhibition
The community/public responses and their corresponding objects have been displayed in the Spotlight Gallery at the Royal Cornwall Museum. I produced one main interpretation panel which describes the exhibition and engagement process. Selected community responses were displayed alongside the objects as a form of ‘alternative interpretation.’ The rest of the responses were then displayed on a wall hanging installation, with additional space for more luggage labels to be added by visitors; making the exhibition an ever-changing space with new perspectives being added every day.
Conclusion and legacy
It is my hope that this project will play an important role in engaging local people with the topic of climate change and increasing the diversity of voices that are represented within RCM’s walls. In addition to the digital and physical responses created, a less tangible but equally as important legacy of the project will also be the conversations and discussions that it has sparked.