Space for Listening & to be Heard

Climate migration will dramatically alter the social landscapes of cities across the globe, with many people leaving their homes in order to build better lives for their families in unfamiliar and sometimes hostile places. As a culturally normative institution and a significant economic force, the museum can become a site of radical climate action through reimagined practices which are precise in nature yet broad in scope.

By addressing the institutional status of the museum at multiple scales, we imagine opportunities to open spaces for listening and to be heard. At the individual scale, an open-source, AR-based wiki for community curation introduces a layer of democratic participation onto traditional curatorial practices, fostering participation and a sense of shared experience across cultural backgrounds.

At the city scale, the museum can sew the seeds for an alternative cooperative economy. By divesting from multinational networks of resource extraction and investing in worker-owned coops for essential services like food, cleaning, security, and education, the museum can be at the forefront of a local, low-carbon economy. Reimagining these scales leads to their point of interaction—the museum lobby. Claiming this space for the betterment of the collective provides a site for storytelling or meeting for mutual aid.

Project Team

lumpenstudio

Project Name

Space for Listening & to be Heard

Team Location

United States, Seattle (WA)

Category

Community, activism and engagement