No Going Back

Session 1 - Museums places to connect the local and the global

Society has changed dramatically. Lockdown and Black Lives Matter protests have blown open any sense of ‘normal’. Now, as museums, galleries and heritage organisations struggle with planning for reopening, the Happy Museum Project invites you to think about how you and your organisation might play its part in making lasting changes. As you emerge from lockdown, what will you do, and what will you stand for, to contribute positively to society and the environment?

Museums, galleries and heritage sites are much more than visitor attractions. For decades people working in and with the sector have been unhappy that their main measures of success, and often their main sources of income, have been how many people come through the doors. Pre-Covid ‘normal’ was wrecking the planet and stressing-out organisations and their staff. Much of society’s Pre-Covid ‘normal’ papered over profound issues of inequality and social justice.

How might you enact changes which increase the benefit you bring to people, to communities, to the local area and to the planet?

Join these Happy Museum events to rethink what your organisations could be, what they could do and how much better they – and you - could be.

Session 1 - Museums places to connect the Local and the Global will explore the potential of museums to build collective resilience through a bioregional approach – one that reframes the way we see the places where we live and work and helps us reconnect to and restore the ecological systems of which we are a part and on which we all depend.

The session will comprise brief provocations followed by a facilitated discussion to explore in the context of your own museum practice.

Presenters

Isabel Carlisle – Director - Bioregional Learning Centre

The Bioregional Learning Centre (BLC) came into being in early 2017, co-founded by experts in collaborative design, learning for sustainability, community empowerment and ecology. With a focus on building region-wide climate resilience in South Devon, working at systems scale and across sectors, the goal is to set up a community-facing learning lab to support, grow and connect all the innovation already going on. BLC says: We work to bring out the vitality in people and places so that we can all thrive amidst the profound changes that climate change is already confronting us with.

Isabel heads up the Bioregional Learning Centre and facilitates the UK Bioregional Network. She had a long career in the London art world (art critic for The Times, exhibitions curator at the Royal Academy, founder and director of the UK Festival of Muslim Cultures, 2006). She uses her curating experience in her current work, naming it as the art of curating social change.

Clare Cooper – Founding Director - Cateran Ecomuseum

The Cateran Ecomuseum is part of the UK Bioregional Network and is leading an initiative to promote bio-regioning in Tayside. Called ‘Bio-regioning Tayside the inception group for the initiative involves individuals and organisations from the wider cultural sector in Tayside, Tourism and the Food and Drink community. The objective is to tell a new ‘story of place’, one which re-connects us with living systems, and each other, through the places where we live, acknowledging that we live among watersheds, foodsheds, fibersheds, and food systems—not just in cities, towns, or the countryside. Clare Cooper, co-founder of the Cateran Ecomuseum will talk about why she thinks Ecomuseums are well placed to take a leading role in helping local people ‘see with new eyes’ and how the bioregional frame can open up new opportunities to build resilience and possibility in the face of global crises.

Alice Briggs – Assistant Curator – Ceredigion Museum

Alice will reflect on the relevance of this approach to place-based practice at Ceredigion Museum. This includes a cross-disciplinary symposium Future Landscape, posing questions around the future of farming, which accompanied their exhibition ‘Sheep’ on the history, culture and ecology of the uplands of Wales as well as the resulting People’s Practice which brings community members together from a range of backgrounds to discuss local responses to the environmental crisis.

This event is part of Season for Change, a nationwide campaign and festival of artistic work celebrating the environment and inspiring urgent action on climate change. Led by Julie’s Bicycle and Artsadmin and supported by Arts Council England and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Season is co-curated with partners like Happy Museum across the cultural sector. Find out more and join us: www.seasonforchange.org.uk | @JointheSeason_

No Going Back - Museums as Places to Connect the Local and the Global