Museums for Climate Justice Steering Group

The purpose of our Museums for Climate Justice steering group is to:

1. Share insight on climate action and advocacy and provide advice to MA staff on how to achieve campaign aims
2. Promote the campaign’s aims and work
3. Attend quarterly meetings to oversee the progress of the campaign and provide updates

On the appointment of the working group, Sharon Heal, director of the MA, said: “We are delighted to appoint new members to the Museums for Climate Justice Steering Group to help progress our campaigning work to support museums to be bold and brave in raising awareness, championing change and embedding climate action. The members bring with them a variety of experience and expertise on climate justice and we look forward to working with them.”

Find out more about the steering group members below.

Kinvara is a communications expert specialising in youth, education and climate action. In her role as education director at Project Everyone, she collaborates with global businesses, governments and UN agencies to inspire youth action for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Her previous campaigns have engaged people across 135 countries. Currently, she leads one of the world’s largest youth voice programmes exploring the impact of climate education on students.

Clémence is an art historian, curator, researcher and consultant based in Glasgow. She has worked in multiple museum roles, including front of house (Glasgow Museums) and curator of arts (Paisley Museum).

Passionate about the pivotal role of museums in the planetary emergency, she strongly believes in the power of collections to change the world and specialises in bringing an environmental lens to collection interpretation, storytelling and public engagement. She also has a particular interest in eco-emotions and their role in driving environmental engagement. She is a member of Climate Museum UK, and a board member of Icom Sustain.

Vibhati is founder of South Asians for Sustainability and managing consultant in social sustainability at Energise. Coming from British-Indian heritage, she has always felt passionately about diversity, inclusion and equitable representation, particularly highlighting environmental and social injustices caused by systemic and geo-political issues.

Vibhati studied psychology at the University of Southampton and continues to champion consideration of behavioural change and eco-anxiety in sustainability initiatives, particularly among the South Asian diaspora.  

She is driven to help make the sector inclusive and representative for the greatest impact and immediate action. Vibhati also sits on the advisory board for Catalyse Change CIC, London Flood Community Advisory Group and is co-founding partner of the RACE Report, SOS UK. Whenever possible, Vibhati is open to supporting and mentoring those pursuing careers in sustainability.

Aligned in her creative passions and spiritual practice, Vibhati additionally pursues music as lead chorus in the Orchestral Qawwali Project and individual fusion music commissions; expressing both South Asian language and Indian culture alongside her upbringing in the UK.

Alice is currently programme manager for Tir Canol, a landscape partnership in mid Wales delivering artist residency programmes and working on projects supporting climate action, coastal adaptation initiatives and nature recovery. The work uses a blueprint co-designed by the community and funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

She freelances as a curator and producer, and is a mentor for the Creative Steps Arts Council of Wales scheme. She was previously head of art at Amgueddfa Cymru, and assistant curator at Ceredigion Museum. She has 25 years of experience working in museums, heritage and the arts as a curator, but also as a socially engaged practice artist with a focus on ecology, landscape, memory and community.

Ali has spent the last decade growing climate awareness and action across arts, culture, and heritage in the north of England and beyond. She is museum development advisor for environmental responsibility at Museum Development North and leads on programming, connectivity and support to embed environmental commitments into organisational culture and practice.

She works alongside Museum Development England area providers, collaborators and funders to foster partnerships, align ambitions and advocate for equitable pathways to respond and adapt to current and future climate impacts. She’s delivered the Carbon Literacy for Museums Toolkit and continues its roll-out through award-winning peer-to-peer training programme Roots & Branches.

Internationally recognised as a keystone in enabling widening access to foundational learning to support climate action for people, planet and collections, the toolkit has inspired and been adapted by sector bodies creating additional courses including archives (The National Archives), heritage (Historic England) and libraries (National Libraries Scotland).

Isla is senior curator for natural sciences at Bristol Museums. She delivers engagement and research at the intersection of climate and ecological crisis and social justice, including current project Extinction Silences. Isla has worked in natural science curatorial roles in UK-wide regional museums and is co-chair of UK Subject Specialist Network the Natural Sciences Collections Association.

Victoria is part of the museum development team at Museums Galleries Scotland (MGS) and has over 15 years’ experience working with the Accreditation scheme. She is passionate about the intersection between climate and diversity, and the potential for museums to support solutions that benefit both the planet and the global majority. She is a member of the Scottish Museums Climate Network and is active in her local community climate groups.

Annika (she/her) is a Canadian-European youth ocean activist currently undertaking her PhD in museum studies at the University of Leicester. She is a storyteller, a creative thinker and an educator.

Forming and fostering connections is how she inspires others to explore their cultural identity and find a sense of belonging through water. Driven to make an impact, Annika incorporates ocean activism into museum ethics through academic research and scholarship.

It is Annika’s dream to eliminate the display of living marine life in museums. Intergenerational healing and traditional knowledge sharing motivates her passion for climate justice.

Bridget is a researcher, trainer and artist working to engage people with the Earth crisis. Her career includes being Tate’s education manager and the British Library’s head of learning. In 2006, she founded Flow Associates, a research consultancy in cultural learning. In the past decade, she has focused on the intersection of culture and environment, and has developed resources, training, collectives and campaigns that push at the radical edges of this field.

This includes founding Climate Museum UK, a creative collective helping people make sense of environmental issues, and she hosts the community of practice Earth Talk. She also co-founded Culture Declares, an international movement of cultural workers declaring a climate and ecological emergency. She experiments with creative activism in her city of Norwich.

Ollie is head of public programming and experience at Bristol Dockyards. He has over 15 years’ experience in the heritage sector and has held senior roles at Bath Abbey and Winchester Cathedral. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an accredited member and trustee of the Association for Heritage Interpretation, leading AHI’s Best Practice Guides.

Ollie brings significant expertise and experience in programming, partnership working and exhibition making on themes of climate change, especially concerning the ocean. He won the Association for Heritage Interpretation’s Engaging People Award 2025 for Calling Out Climate Change for his curation of the exhibition “Whales”. The exhibition also won the Association for Cultural Enterprises Award for Best Event 2026 and was shortlisted for an M+H Award 2026 for Temporary or Touring Exhibition of the Year.

Eris is a values-led researcher working across the museum, library and university sectors. At Wellcome Collection, she embedded Participatory Action Research as a practice of co-creating knowledge in coalition with communities to confront injustices within collections and to enact alternative futures.

Climate justice is a common thread in her academic research, which encompasses environmental history, eco-orientalism and eco-emotions in the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa. An experienced trade unionist, she is passionate about workforce health and safety, including its intersections with transformation programmes to decarbonise museums, libraries and heritage sites.