Sustainability matters for museums
The theme for this year’s International Museum Day, which was marked yesterday, was “Museums, Sustainability and wellbeing”.
The world has come out of a global pandemic that has seen more awareness of mental health and people tapping into different modalities to learn new ways of coping.
With Covid-19 protocols removed, cultural institutions have opened their doors, showing permanent collections and new offerings through altered lenses.
Much of the new content comes from the lived experience of the pandemic — showing emotion and responses to laws and protocols that were a part of the period.
Museums, galleries and archives hold collections to respond to the status quo, holding up a mirror to the past and a light to the future.
These practices play out in the theatre of museums: A collection of photographs showing people queuing to get vaccinated; masks made from materials finding new expression in sculptures; paintings made during hard lockdowns; videos recorded in kitchens and added to online platforms.
The theatre space for museums has increased through this changed world.
More online platforms have been created, engaging greater audiences and newer audiences.
Public programming and stakeholder engagements through schools, friends of the museum, universities, special interest groups and government cultural programmes were established years ago.
Though not new, they needed to be relooked to fit the purposes of both wellbeing and sustainability.
Both concepts have multiple dimensions — they allow museums the opportunity to consider this in the development of the design of the collection and the relevant interfaces.
When a collection is acquired, the intentional design must be through lenses of both sustainability and wellbeing.
At Nelson Mandela University, the Dr Brigalia Bam Archive Collection used some of these considerations and informed how we made it accessible online, and how we integrated it into primary school, high school and university curricula.
Museums today are charged with making collections available outside the white box, to stimulate and question, critique and interrogate towards greater meaning.
Museums further contribute to delight the mind, senses and imagination.
The senses are tickled in many ways, evoking emotion, a call to action or deeper thought.
The theatre of the museum allows people to get out of their heads and engage with content on display physically and digitally.
A multi-modal display allows more of the senses to be delighted.
Wellness offers many elements, some of which encompass mutually interdependent dimensions: the physical, which is designed and makes use of creative devices and forms with wall colours; lighting; design and layout; the flow of the exhibition; the size of the room; or how is it displayed online.
The intellectual dimension allows for questions and feedback on multiple levels for individual and groups viewing the exhibition.
Thought processes are engaged in the display, and the visitor leaves thinking in the moment and long after.
There is the emotional dimension: Images provoke; genres excite; the content brings up emotions.
Collections hold information and each viewer reads this from their own lens.
The social dimension is piqued through visiting physical museums and spaces.
Schools, groups and individuals are able to enjoy the time together through the interface of the collections.
The spiritual dimension forms parts of wellness and the content of an exhibition allows for the viewer to be engaged on different levels.
Sustainability is aimed at the preservation of a particular resource across different areas.
Museums have, as part of their DNA, the praxis to preserve artefacts, restore and conserve items.
In terms of sustainability, the core is the visitor and audience.
Consider also cost to enter, access to collections online, and if the collection materials are developed in multiple languages, including for differently abled individuals.
The social component is also part of sustainability.
How do we get a greater cohort of new people visiting museums while keeping current patrons engaged?
Money keeps the lights on and this is an important part of sustainability.
With smaller budgets for cultural programmes, business models need to be incorporated more fully to ensure money is created for programmes.
As custodians of heritage, museums must find a balance between access and charging for financial sustainability — does one charge a fee for people to enter?
How environmentally friendly are the decisions museums make for the planet; do they consider their carbon footprint, or the materials used in the production of the theatre space?
International Museum Day allows us to pause and consider these areas for planning with purpose, to foster positive change for our shared social fabric.
Museums are a two-way mirror, looking back and looking forward, providing hope for the future through what has been shown of the past and is now highlighted in new contexts.