Trendswatch | Art and environment

Bristol Museum and Art Gallery recently shrouded its natural history collections of extinct or endangered species in mourning veils to highlight the environmental crisis we are living in. This is part of a move among many museums to do so. 

The Museum of Cardiff has recently become home to objects from Extinction Rebellion’s (XR) July protest in the city. Reflecting the activist group’s call for urgent action on climate change, the museum has acquired a range of items, from stickers to leaflets and placards, including XR-branded material and homemade signs created by locals. And in order to create a better context around the movement, the museum has also collected oral histories and personal stories from the people donating objects.

“It’s important that our collections are representative of what is going on in the city in a contemporary sense as well as in a past sense,” says Victoria Rogers, the museum manager. “The issues around the climate crisis are one of the many things we’re looking to represent because they are pertinent to those who live in Cardiff now and in the future.”

It’s not the first time the museum, which opened in 2011, has collected objects associated with environmental concerns. The XR items join an existing collection of banners, placards, T-shirts and badges – memories of previous occasions when Cardiffians have united to protest environmental and other issues. 

“There’s an element of pride that Cardiff is a city that stands with people in their hour of need or in the issues they feel strongly about,” Rogers says. “People want the museum to be talking about issues relevant in Cardiff, but also that Cardiffians have a role to play in big global issues.”

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, has also acquired XR material, with the aim of exploring the design identity of the group. Part of the museum’s Rapid Response Collecting programme, which looks at the design of objects that articulate important moments in social history, items on display include XR’s declaration, its flags and a woodblock with the Extinction symbol. 

“What was so striking was how visually cohesive these acts of protest were across London and other parts of the UK, and now also internationally,” says Corinna Gardner, the senior curator of design and digital at the V&A. 

Visitors to the V&A recognise the symbol, the strong colours and slogans that have been seen throughout the country and in the media. According to Gardner, such contemporary acquisitions also have the potential to tap into current issues and facilitate discussion. 

“One of the opportunities of Rapid Response Collecting is to be able to bring the object into the museum while it’s the subject of popular, critical conversation,” she says. “The acquisition of contemporary objects asks one to reflect on the here and now, but also enables us to think about what we have learned from the past and how our actions today shape our tomorrows.”

Taking a slightly different approach is the Climate Museum UK, a mobile venue that will be at this year’s Museums Association Conference in Brighton as part of the Festival of Change. Each pop-up is tailored to its host and features objects, games, creative activities and a library. 

“As an emerging organisation it’s not so much a museum as a space for activism,” says Bridget McKenzie, the founder of the Climate Museum UK. “We are people who are using museum approaches to be activists. So much of activism is about education and raising consciousness.”

Workshops for groups are also on offer and McKenzie hopes to establish a physical base to allow more collecting to run in parallel with these programmes. 

Museums are important places in which to consider the issues and challenges of our time with the hope that what we learn can enable us to mould a more positive vision for the future.