Carbon Dioxide Theater at Västmanland County Museum

Purpose and goal

Climate change is a one of the defining crises of our current times, and the overall goal of the project is to take urgent action to combat climate change by engaging with young citizens in Västmanland County. The project will develop participatory methods for museums to support them to work with changing social norms in society based on climate research.

Challenge

For the individual and society to relate to and understand what the climate goals mean and what changes are necessary is complex. More innovative methods are needed to communicate abstract questions about climate change and climate research. Only informing and raising awareness has been proven to be insufficient to change behavior to become more sustainable.

Solution

In this project we define important environmental issues and the norms around them as relational and socially emerging phenomenon. Therefore, the project focuses on exploring and reflecting on the collective social practice and norm-making among young citizens aged 15-20. This is done through a series of workshops at Västmanland County Museum, where young citizens together with museum staff, designers, actors and researcher focus on various climate issues. The young citizens are also offered summer jobs within the project with the goal to co-create a pop-up exhibition in a digital or physical form.

Effect

Concrete outcomes of the project include developed methodology of participatory theatre to support museums to address and fight climate change, and two pop-up exhibitions co-produced with the young citizens.

The project came shared second place in Årets Pedagogiska Pris 2019 of museums in Sweden, and book was written about the processes, methods and personal stories of participants to explore how museums can develop new ways of working with visitors to address contemporary global challenges. Read more about the project in the digital version of the book here:
https://issuu.com/vastmanlandslansmuseum/docs/carbon_dioxide_theatre_at…

Team: Lizette Reitsma, Hayley Ho, Sofie Nyström, Wasim Brikham, Birgit Brunklaus