The Covid-19 Pandemic and the Inescapable Challenge of the Anthropocene for Museums

Abstract

Several indicators suggest that the Covid-19 pandemic has raised public awareness around climate and environmental emergencies, and expanded global consciousness around the interdependencies of natural systems and their individual components. These trends add up to a growing awareness of both environmental damage and social injustices, brought to wide global attention by the 2019 Climate Strikes and the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests of 2020. How can museums take advantage of this new social and activist climate, as we resurface form the severe limitations imposed by pandemic-related health and safety measures? The concept of the Anthropocene stands out as the most powerful, all-inclusive topic that museums can leverage to reshape their relationship with a new form of citizenship during and following the Covid-19 crisis. In this article, and drawing on my work and experiences at the MUSE – Science Museum in Italy, I will offer some discussion around the urgent need, for the entire museum community, to review museum polices and activities in light of the Anthropocene paradigm, a process that museums must undertake thorough a complex process of internal strategic change. One key issue with pervasive consequences over several museum activities is the need to shift our storytelling from the humanity-against-nature narrative (a 20th-century environmentalist view) to a humanities-against-(other)-humanities narrative, which more properly describes the current Anthropocene-era conflict between different values and ethical principles with regard to the ontological status of our planet. Moreover and above all, museums need to become increasingly aware of their political role in society, and be prepared to assert it more than is customary in our practices. If the commitment to the United Nations 2030 Agenda honours the institutional task of museums, the proposal for critical debate on Anthropocene issues stands out as the main challenge for museums who wish to fulfil their social and political roles in a post-Covid-19 world.

Keywords:

• museum strategy
• post-pandemic citizenship
• Anthropocene
• sustainability
• relevance

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Michele Lanzinger, Antonia Caola and Dino Mazzei at MUSE – Science Museum and Michele Menegon at PAMS Foundation for enlightening discussions on some of the topics addressed in this contribution. I am grateful to three anonymous reviewers for their thoughts and suggestions, and to the Editorial Coordinator Courtney Traub for her kind and timely management. My deepest acknowledgement also goes to the Editors for their invaluable comments and suggestions on the last version of this manuscript.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Massimo Bernardi

Massimo Bernardi is the Deputy Director of the Research and Collections office at MUSE - Science Museum, Trento, Italy. He earned his PhD in Palaeobiology from the University of Bristol in 2017. He has curated a dozen temporary exhibitions, permanent displays and museum concepts and is the author of some 100 scientific and popular publications, with a primary focus on mass extinctions and natural heritage. In recent years his interests have shifted towards a multidisciplinary approach to the concept of Anthropocene, heritage studies and museology. He is (or has been) Lecturer at the Italian Universities of Padua (Macroevolution), Milan (Paleontological Heritage), Modena and Reggio Emilia (Science Communication).