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Getting real about climate change & the cultural sector: it’s time to act

Opinion
boy-looks-at-image-of-melting-iceberg-in-musuem Climate change

Annie Lundsten from The Experience Alchemists invites the cultural community to think more deeply and broadly about their role in the fight against climate change

Climate change is a big topic. And judging from how many people attend events like greenloop 2023, that interest is growing. There is so much to take in, and many of us can and do get lost in the vast, complex landscape of what is actually many different topics; migration, heat pumps, floods, endangered animals, recycling, deforestation, carbon footprints, electric cars, heat, water shortages, solar, etc.

Silvia López Chavez working on “Game On”, 2022 Climate change
Silvia López Chavez working on “Game On”, 2022

The list goes on and on. The busy topic field means that cultural institutions have also engaged in the climate conversation in a variety of ways. This includes conservation messaging, paper straws (or none at all), weather exhibits and recycling programs, as well as community clean-ups, art installations, reuse, and film screenings.

We know from Susie Wilkening’s fantastic 2022 Museum Goer Climate Change in Museums Data Story series that audiences believe all types of museums should be talking and/or educating about climate change. Visitors want museums to be working to reduce their carbon footprint and to find more sustainable ways of working. But what exactly does this mean? And are cultural institutions doing the right things?

To cut through the noise and focus energies, I would like to invite the cultural community to think more deeply and also more broadly about their role in the fight for a cleaner, more resilient planet for all. I’m going to do so by looking at some of the work and thinking we’ve done with the Boston Green Ribbon Commission. This is a nonprofit that helps the city to advance its climate action goals.   

Think bigger: intersection between climate change & other issues

One of the many things our work with the Green Ribbon Commission helped bring into stark focus for me is the inexorable intersections between climate change, systemic racism, and public health. I have come to believe that these three massive issues are inherently linked. We cannot address one without the others. Therefore, when cultural institutions consider their place in the climate conversation they must, in fact, take into account their role in and their responsibility for all three of these things.

We can see one clue to how this larger accountability might play out in the Kresge Foundation’s 2019 report titled The Overlooked Anchors: Advancing a New Standard of Practice for Arts and Culture Organizations to Create Equitable Opportunities in America’s Cities.

This report unpacks how cultural institutions can and sometimes do lift their heads up to look beyond their missions and into the needs of their communities as an employer, service provider, community or real estate developer, etc. This includes things like equitable housing as well as workforce development.

Felipe Ortiz artwork at the Franklin Park Zoo
Artist Felipe Ortiz with “Transient”, 2022

The Green Ribbon Commission has used frameworks like this in guiding Boston’s cultural institutions toward a practice of community care in the face of climate change by helping the city understand the linkages outlined above through an important April 2023 report produced in collaboration with Embrace Boston titled Our Shared History: Using Boston’s Climate Opportunities to Address Systemic Racism.

The commission has also encouraged participation in programs like the Citywide Cooling Network. This offers free or reduced-price access to air-conditioned spaces during heat emergencies. Another program is Collaborative Climate Action Planning, which supports the development of institution-specific plans to reduce carbon output and promote resilience for the benefit of both the organization and the surrounding community.

Get creative

One of the sector’s most exciting superpowers is its capacity for creativity. In the process, it can also help to connect the dots for the general public.

Detail of wood used in Ethan Murrow’s sculpture “Restoration” Climate change
Detail of wood used in Ethan Murrow’s sculpture “Restoration”, 2022. Photo by Bob Packert

As we think bigger about the role of cultural institutions in the climate change conversation, one of the most interesting ways we found to reach a broad swath of audience via equitable access, provide a message of possibility and positivity, and employ diverse local artists was the design and implementation of the Green Ribbon Commission’s Action Pact 2022: Ready, Resilient, Reinvented public art project.

Silvia López Chavez’s “Game On”, on the wall of Fenway Park called “The Green Monster'',  2022 Climate change
Silvia López Chavez’s “Game On”, on the wall of Fenway Park called “The Green Monster”,  2022

We commissioned six artists to create ephemeral, site-specific climate-related artworks at cultural institutions all around Boston. They included Felipe Ortiz at the Franklin Park Zoo, Yuko Okabe at the Boston Medical Center, Emily Larsen at the Boston Children’s Museum, Ethan Murrow at The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Silvia Lopez Chavez at Fenway Park, and Erin Genia at the Rose Kennedy Greenway.

Each of the pieces came at the topic of climate change from a different angle. They were showcased at very different types of organizations. But all were free, locally inspired, and deeply rooted in care for the community.

Just as finding the intersections between climate, equity and health is critical to advancing our collective work, so too is finding the harmonies between creative expression, science, and humanity. It isn’t enough to stick to our proverbial lane any longer. The sooner we embrace the extraordinary opportunities of interdisciplinary work and partnerships, the faster and more robustly the entire sector will be able to implement sustained change on all three of the most pressing issues of our time.

Annie Lundsten also recently explored how the public perception of museums is shaped by popular culture in Popping the pop culture museum bubble

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Annie Lundsten The Experience Alchemists

Annie Lundsten

Annie Lundsten is co-founder and principal at The Experience Alchemists, an experience design firm based in Boston, MA. She has worked in, out, and with museums for close to 25 years. Annie is an experience designer, film junkie, museum enthusiast, and recovering culture snob.

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