Elise Foster Vander Elst is head of exhibitions & environmental impact lead at the Design Museum, which exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design in Kensington, London.
Previously, as a freelance exhibition producer, she produced the Illuminating India: 5000 Years of Science & Innovation exhibition in South Kensington for the Science Museum Group, working with the Indian Ministry of Culture, the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Council of Science Museums India to bring artefacts and antiquities from Indian lenders to the UK.
In 2011, while based in Mumbai, she established Asia Art Projects (AAP), an international arts agency that produced major exhibitions, art festivals and contemporary art events in the UK and India. She was also the director and co-founder of FOCUS Photography Festival Mumbai (2013, 2015, 2017).
A different perspective
Overseeing the delivery and production of around ten exhibitions and shows per year, Vander Elst is acutely aware of the potential environmental costs. As environmental impact lead, she is working to drive change by developing strategies to measure impact, and, armed with data, develop more environmentally responsible exhibitions and systems.
“I’m fortunate to have worked in different countries,” she tells blooloop:
“I have quite flexible thinking in terms of what I perceive as normal, and what systems exist. I was born in France and I grew up in the UK. Then I spent 10 years living and working in Paris, before moving to India. Now I’m in the UK. It’s funny, wherever we live, in terms of the systems around us, we assume this is the way things are done. But, for instance, the way you do things in Mumbai is completely different from the way you do things in London.
“I think that has enabled me to see possibilities and opportunities for systems change. Whereas others might be more accepting of the status quo.”
That has informed her thinking over the last two decades.
“Living somewhere like India for a long time opens up different channels in your brain. It’s a very interesting and very different place from Europe. That has been a real gift in understanding (as much as you can as an outsider) different cultures, different ways of thinking, and different ways of getting things done.”
Creating exhibitions at the Design Museum
Concerning the production of exhibitions:
“In India, there’s a very different way of catalysing activity. It was exciting to learn about how to do that and to develop new skills. I now bring those into my role at the Design Museum in London.”
At the Design Museum, her primary focus is as head of exhibitions:
“I lead quite a large team focusing on the production of exhibitions. We do a lot of temporary exhibitions. We do massive environments and immersive exhibitions. Because they’re temporary, we often have a vast amount of set works, plinths, walls, and things like that. Unfortunately, because of the way the arts and museum sector is structured, those things tend to get wasted at the end of the exhibition.
“That inspired me to explore how we can look at more circular economy solutions.”
The Design Museum’s Waste Age exhibition in 2021 was, she explains, a gear-changer in terms of how the museum thinks about decarbonisation more generally.
Waste Age: What Can Design Do?
Waste Age: What Can Design Do? opened in October 2021, calling for an end to our era of peak waste by confronting the impact of disposable culture and showcasing the designers who are reimagining our relationship to materials.
“It was a line in the sand for us as an institution, saying, ‘We’re going to take this very seriously.’ It was an opportunity internally to upskill. I think a lot of people want to commit to climate action, but it’s difficult and confusing.”
“There’s so much anecdotal evidence. You go to the shop with your cotton tote bag thinking you’re doing a good thing. But then someone tells you it uses much more water than the biodegradable one you can get in the Co-op. So should I only shop at the Co-op? These uncertainties can lead to paralysis. I could see that in the sector we’re all confused. No one wants to get it wrong, and sometimes that stopped change.”
The Waste Age Exhibition was an opportunity to deep-dive into the topics around waste and the circular economy:
“It was also a chance to learn about different designers who have researched the topic thoroughly and have a commitment to changing how we put stuff out into the world. It was an opportunity for me and the project team to learn more about how to do a lifecycle analysis of an exhibition, how to measure carbon, how – more importantly – to reduce carbon, and to put a bit of structure around trying to do better.
“That opened in Autumn 2021 to coincide with Cop 26, which was in Glasgow. Establishing a before and after was a good cultural moment in the UK.”
Data informs decisions
Two years on, she says:
“I have learned so much. The Design Museum team has learned so much. We’ve published an exhibition guide because we wanted to share those learnings with the sector. We developed our carbon impact measurement tool, which we have also shared with the sector.
“We have been using data to inform our decisions. Going back to the carrier bag example. Now that we’ve got data, in those situations, we can confidently say, this is okay, this is better, this is best. I think we have a responsibility to educate ourselves. And as the Design Museum, we have an opportunity to share those learnings with the sector.”
To an extent, we could argue that design is a huge part of the sustainability crisis we face.
Conversely:
“Most of the designers I know are committed to being part of the solution,” she says. “But I think we need to ask better questions of our designers. We need a cultural shift to be able to do that. I have had an interest in the climate movement for the last 10 years.”
10 years ago, such an interest was challenging in a cultural context that still needed to be convinced of the relevance and urgency of the climate crisis.
“I spent a lot of time just trying to persuade people it was true. That left very little time to do anything about it. 10 years on, it has grown so acute that we cannot ignore it.”
The Design Museum’s mission
The mission now, she says, is not to convince, but to move to swift collective action:
“That is something that we are trying to catalyse at the Design Museum through our exhibition programmes, which talk to the public. We’ve got a beautiful display at the moment called How to Build a Low Carbon Home.”
An accessible and compelling guide to rethinking home-building during the climate crisis, How to Build a Low-Carbon Home explores how architects are reimagining the use of wood, stone and straw to design homes fit for a greener future.
“I was walking around it the other day and overheard a parent or carer explaining embodied carbon to her child who must have been about seven or eight years old because she had read it on a label. I thought, ‘Gosh, I wish I’d known what embodied carbon was, at seven.’ It was such a nice moment. It highlighted the role museums have as trusted public spaces to communicate to visitors of all ages, all demographics, all backgrounds.”
This is what The Design Museum has been doing not only through its programme but also back-of-house, in engaging actively with the sector to help decarbonise exhibitions and change how institutions function in the wider arts and culture/ business sector.
Embedding more sustainable thinking in the museum sector
Exploring a strategy that the sector can use to embed more sustainable thinking, Vander Elst says:
“One area of focus for me for 2024 is to investigate ways in which we can have more commitment to circular economy. I mentioned our big temporary exhibitions, and the fact it’s typically hard to reuse plinths or frames, because storage is so expensive, especially in Central London. Many London institutions have the same problem.”
It’s a deceptively basic problem, but the infrastructure to address it currently doesn’t exist:
“With several different partners, including colleagues at the V&A and other institutions, we’re looking at ways we might be able to establish a circular economy hub; a library of things where we could deposit things we don’t need, borrow others, lend them to each other. It solves such a simple problem, but it’s a complex thing to get right. It’s something that I think we could look to as a museum sector that builds things a lot.
“More subtly, we have a responsibility to train our staff, make sure people are carbon literate, and help people feel empowered to have a voice in conversations where something doesn’t sound right. It’s important to be given the confidence to be able to say to a contractor, ‘Sorry, I’m not having that. I want an alternative.’
“If you don’t have the confidence, you haven’t had the training, imposter syndrome creeps in. By training up our staff and our workforce and ensuring those skills are embedded from when they first enter the institution, and by continuing to train those learning muscles we can all be advocates and help support each other – and, as people move around, ensure they take those learnings with them, to the British Museum or the British Library, or wherever it may be.”
Detailed carbon analysis
Since the Design Museum builds environments, Vander Elst has made it a priority to do a detailed carbon analysis of all 2023’s exhibitions and displays. She explains:
“We’ve gathered very detailed data on every single project to understand the CO2 of each. I now have a magic number that I’d like to reduce.”
Her team differentiated by different areas of a project: build, shipping, development, research, and so forth:
“We have been working so hard to reduce the numbers in build and shipping that those numbers as a percentage of the whole are not as high as you’d expect. What I can see is that the biggest culprit is the flights. The impact of flying is just so great.”
Future Observatory at the Design Museum
Launched in November 2021, Future Observatory is the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition. She adds:
“One of the things that we are doing with our Future Observatory programme, in really looking into design research, is that rather than seeking solutions to briefs, we’re looking at changing the questions that we’re asking in thinking about possible futures: what are the systems changes that need to happen? How do the structures within which we operate need to shift to allow a new way?”
“I feel quite strongly that alongside our individual responsibility, there’s also a structural shift that needs to happen to allow people to do better because generally people want to.”
Such a structural shift is necessary to overcome the sense of powerlessness in the face of the magnitude of the problem. Or, as she puts it:
“…the feeling that washing out one’s yoghurt pot and putting it in the recycling can hardly be worth it.”
The ripple effect
However, she says:
“Something I’ve learned over the last couple of years is the power of the ripple effect. In my team, we are super committed to doing things better, and we try to take that thinking into every decision we make, every contract, every conversation.”
“We don’t always manage; we don’t have all the answers. Sometimes we have great intentions, and work with designers to do amazing things so an element of an exhibition can be reusable – and then it’s not, because the contractor didn’t listen to the brief. That happened twice last year. It was so disappointing. We made a point of it, and afterwards, when we said, ‘How do we take it apart so we can flat-pack it, and put it in cases for next time?’ they said, ‘Oh, no, sorry: we forgot, we glued it.’
“We are not perfect and the process isn’t perfect. But by asking questions every single time, I see the ripple effect around us in other departments in the museum. I see it with people we tour exhibitions with, both internationally and in the UK. It makes me optimistic that consistent commitment on a personal level, even on the micro level, can lead to a change in thinking, and that ripple effect. We don’t have to do the big things all the time – it’s about that consistency of effort.”
The Design Museum’s carbon impact measurement tool
In the wake of the Waste Age exhibition, Vander Elst’s team came up with their carbon impact measurement tool. She comments:
“It’s essentially a carbon calculator, specifically for exhibitions. There are a lot of tools out there, but none were bespoke to what we needed.”
The impact tool is used to make decisions:
“It’s an Excel infrastructure. If we’re deciding between X versus Y material, we can put it into the tool and understand the carbon impact of that material. We work closely with designers, of course; they would often suggest different materials, and we’d have a look together. It has been really helpful in creating built environments which are much lower carbon impact.
“Through that process, we learn about different materials.”
It’s very different from the days when MDF walls would be erected, used for a few shows, then discarded:
“We are trying to move away from that kind of take, make waste system. Once we have made all these decisions, we also have a guide, which shares our learnings from Waste Age. In that guide, we have decision trees.”
Making more sustainable decisions
There are ‘object decision trees’ and ‘material decision trees’. Describing the ‘object’ tree, she says:
“When we’re working with the curatorial team and they’re interested in including an object, it’s a nice way to do a sense check. The decision tree will ask questions. The crux of the matter is, is it worth the carbon to bring it to the museum for the message being imparted?”
It may be that it is:
“I’m not attempting to diminish our exhibitions or the importance of communicating things to the public; the importance of sharing objects to tell stories. We are, after all, in the business of museums and exhibitions – but it has to be done intentionally. A decision tree helps bring these carbon questions front of mind.”
There are also Red/Amber/Green material lists:
“There are different questions to ask according to whether it is a temporary, a touring or a permanent show. That leads to a list of materials which are good, bad, or somewhere in between. It helps set a standard with designers on our expectations for a new design when we’re designing a show.”
Conservation at the Design Museum
As a museum, conservation is always a priority:
“We would never use a material that means an object isn’t going to be safe or looked after. That is, of course, in our blood. There are times, however, when we might be focusing on an object from contemporary culture, which doesn’t necessarily need these very high spec requirements. So, it enables us to be flexible, giving us information which we can then share with the designers. It might be something they may not have heard of. Some of the materials on the green list are quite new.”
In short:
“The tools we’ve developed have helped us with practical guidance on how to reduce the carbon of exhibitions.
“We’re working with Art Jameel, an independent collaborative organisation supporting artists and creative communities, headquartered in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. They have produced a version of the Guide for the MENA region in English and Arabic that is coming out soon. It has case studies of the region. It builds on quite a lot of the principles and learnings that we had in our original guide but is enriching it for that particular audience and sector.
“We’re also working with a wonderful company called Culture Connect, a consultancy specialising in unlocking the collaborative and international potential of the cultural sector. With them, we are translating the guide into four other languages. That will be made available internationally, so we should have all six languages of the UN covered.
“The guide has helped us reduce carbon drastically, get data, be informed, and not feel like we are relying on experience alone – because we don’t have a great deal of experience. Now we can rely on data, and feel increasingly that we are doing things as responsibly as possible.”
Free resources
The Design Museum website offers many of these resources for free:
“We want there to be no barriers to accessing that information, and our learnings. We’re also starting to dip our toe into consultancy, developing bespoke packages for other museums or consortiums of museums who want to understand more about our journey case studies, and how they can also have a decarbonisation plan.”
Accordingly, her team will be the environmental responsibility consultant for Art Fund’s new Going Places UK-wide programme. This will engage underrepresented audiences with museum collections through collaborative touring exhibitions:
“Several museums are developing a touring project with the Going Places programme. Our role – albeit a small one – is to help them consider environmental responsibility throughout that project. For me, it’s fantastic that Art Fund did a call out for this brief from the start. It wasn’t an afterthought at the end, which is when people often say, ‘Oh gosh: we forgot sustainability.’ Here, from the outset, they saw it as something really important.”
The Design Museum supports museums on their sustainability journey
As environmental responsibility consultant for the Art Fund Going Places Programme, the Design Museum’s remit will be to support 20+ museum partners to reflect on their current environmental approach, including the creation or updating of strategies focused on achievable practical reductions in environmental impact and the embedding of new practices across their organisations:
“We will also support the networks to ensure environmental impact is considered from the outset of planning and designing their projects, alongside the provision of a framework and tools to enable project participants to measure and report on the environmental impact of the programme as a whole.
“I’m so delighted to be delivering that package for them. I’m delighted that they realise this is a need, and that we can work together. I hope we’ll make the learnings and outcomes from that package widely available to the sector. We are all on this journey. We don’t have all the answers, but we do have a lot of drive and passion to research and support other colleagues who may be where we were a couple of years ago.”
