As climate catastrophe looms, institutions around the world have come to realize that it is not enough to proclaim good intentions. To make a real difference, a designated member of staff must be hired. The Serpentine Gallery led the pack in 2018 when, inspired by the 2014 exhibition Extinction Marathon organized for space by the radical artist Gustav Metzger, it launched its program of research and exhibitions “Back to Earth” and appointed Lucia Pietroiusti curator of general ecology. Pietroiusti – who later served as curator of the amazing Opera-spectacle rewarded with the Golden Lion Sun and sand (Marina) at the 58th Venice Biennale—continues to lead all environmental and ecological issues at the Serpentine.
Tate was another pioneer. It has employed a full-time Environmental Sustainability Officer since 2016 and shortly after declaring a climate emergency in 2019, they also formed a Climate Emergency Task Force made up of representatives from Tates Modern, Great Britain Brittany, Liverpool and St Ives. In addition, a Tate-wide green team reaches and impacts all departments including conservation, estates, trade and collection care. As of this writing, Tate is now further signaling its environmental commitment by hiring an Associate Curator for Art and Ecology to further engage with climate and social justice in programs and collections. from the gallery. The successful candidate will be announced approximately next month.
Other museums and galleries also devote specifically curatorial posts to the climate and ecological crisis. Among these, the Royal Ontario Museum in 2021 appointed environmental scientist Dr Soren Brothers as Curator of Climate Change, a job he successfully combines with his research as a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. “Climate change can be difficult to emotionally bond with and art can help us deal with the immensity of the problem,” he says. Brothers is particularly keen to work with local and indigenous Canadian artists, stating that “I want to listen to people’s experiences. I want to build community resources and work with the city on climate change adaptation and mitigation. I want the museum to help people understand what we are already doing as a society so that they too can feel a little hope.
Those sentiments are echoed by John Kenneth Paranada, who earlier this year was appointed Art and Climate Change Curator at the Sainsbury Center in Norfolk, UK. A former curator of the Zabludowicz Collection in London, Paranada describes his tenure as “attempting to offer warnings and hope to people and to articulate the complexity of climate change, both historical and more human.
The Sainsbury Center is part of the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Paranda aims to work closely with UEA’s Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research “to look at their research and try to translate it into an experience that falls under the field of art and to make scientific language more digestible and visual. He also forges ties with Norwich University of the Arts (NUA). “We work closely with NUA, particularly at the intersections of design, visual arts and contemporary art,” he says.
These partnerships and concerns will be reflected in the Sainsbury Centre’s autumn season, under the umbrella title of ‘Planetary adaptations: How do we adapt to an ever-changing world?’ “. The Adaptations program is currently being developed but will include a plastics-themed show as well as an exhibition curated by Paranda titled The sedimentary spirit: towards the activation of art in the Anthropocene. Pranda is still preparing for the exhibition, but reveals that its ‘proactive and interactive artworks’ will include a specially commissioned intervention in the Sainsbury Centre’s collection of ancient Peruvian artefacts by Claudia Martinez Garay, as well as works by Joseph Beuys on loan from the Tate and…hopefully the permanent planting of seven of Ackroyd & Harvey’s Beuys acorns oak trees in the sculpture park.
“Sediment Spirit takes place in the Sainsbury Center space and there will also be new commissions in our sculpture park as well as specially installed works in the city center – this is an experimental new format to activate and enhance the idea of ecological consciousness,” he says. . According to Paranada, the exhibit will also be “an urgent and timely reminder that our home is not just our house, the building or the country we live in, but the Earth itself. By choosing more sustainable lifestyles, we can all play a part in prolonging its survival.
Ah yes, the building. The largely glazed Sainsbury Center, similar to a Norman Foster shed, may have been a groundbreaking art gallery when it opened to house the Sainsbury’s collection in 1978, but Paranada agrees it’s fiendishly difficult to heat and insulate. “It’s not energy efficient,” he admits. “We are talking with Foster & Partners and trying to make the center more sustainable as we aim to be net zero by 2045.” Although the Sainsbury Centre’s standard policy “for the past decade” has been to recycle all of their display builds, prioritize local loans and use sea freight wherever possible, Paranda says he and the executive director of the Sainsbury Centre, Jago Cooper, are now galvanizing efforts for their construction and practices to reflect what their programs preach, stating that “it is already part of our program and we will also be collaborating with the Tyndall Center on more activities and exhibitions sustainable”.
Because the bottom line is that while an institution’s programs can educate and inspire, they must also go hand in hand with taking responsible action to reduce their environmental impact. And that comes down to having specific staff members – curators or otherwise – to make sure that happens. To this end, the Victoria & Albert Museum now has a full-time Director of Sustainability in place; the Horniman Museum in south London has appointed a climate and ecology coordinator and for the past year the Environmental Council at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Moca) in Los Angeles has been supported by a full-time strategist in terms of environmental sustainability.
Just a few months ago, New York’s Guggenheim also nailed its environmental colors to the flagpole when it created the new full-time position of associate director of sustainability to work with its existing “green team.” Hopefully, institutions around the world will follow up on all these leads. As Ken Paranada of the Sainsbury Center puts it, “the next decade is crucial and we are all in this together”.
