Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery
‘Once Upon A Planet’ (OUAP) was inspired by two things. In 2018 our natural science collection achieved Arts Council England Designated status, highlighting its national significance. Then, in spring 2021 our major National Lottery Heritage Fund-funded engagement project ‘Whale Tales’ (inspired by ‘Driggsby’, the fin whale specimen in Tullie’s collection) finished with a fantastic family friendly exhibition telling Driggsby’s story as imagined by the 150+ early years pupils we’d been working with for the past two years.
The exhibition was extremely well received by families and inspired us to develop a new project that took engagement with natural science connections to a deeper level, focusing in particular on young people and Gen Z’s spirit of protest and positive change.
Over the past three years, we’ve taken significant steps to reduce our carbon footprint, from switching to automatic taps to buying green energy. We wanted to combine this operational approach with a public focus on using the museum’s collections to inspire and advocate for climate awareness with our audiences and communities.
One of OUAP’s goals is to use the collection to provoke conversation, inspire deeper engagement and encourage reflection on one of the most important issues of our generation.
In year one we will deliver an exhibition taking visitors on a journey through the biodiverse habitats of Cumbria, exploring how climate change has impacted them and, crucially, how we can all help. We’ve co-curated the exhibition with a specially recruited group of ten young advisors, along with our project partners Sustainable Carlisle and Natural England.
Our advice for those starting out in this area would be: talk! Link up with local experts, organisations and interested communities and have conversations about what the picture looks like locally to ensure your activity both supports and raises the profile of what’s already happening in your area.
For more information, please contact Anna Smalley, Head of Collections & Engagement, via anna.smalley@tulliehouse.org.