Activism in museums an emerging trend

Climate change exhibit inspired by Shelburne County historians

It was her time as director of Shelburne’s Museums by the Sea that inspired PhD student Shauna Allen to develop an exhibition related to climate change and its impacts on Nova Scotia’s south shore.

“It was something that Lewis Jackson and I spoke about frequently when I was the director there,” says Allen.

“When I reached out to my former colleagues and contacts in the area to bring this project to fruition, Sam (Brannen) was quite keen to have me do it at the Barrington Museum Complex. Lewis and Cady (Berardi) were both helpful and supportive of the project,” Allen says. “It was great to reconnect with them and others on the south shore.”

The climate change exhibit, completed this summer, was a practical case study as part of Allen’s PhD.

“I’m doing a transatlantic study of activism in museums, looking at examples of museums that are using their collections, their programming, their exhibits to help engage with communities in relation to current events and issues of the day,” explains Allen.

Activism in museums has been an emerging trend over the last decade, says Allen.

“More towards indigenizing, de-colonizing, acknowledging that museums aren’t neutral bases and always have been presenting what they present. Whether it’s history or culture, they are representing it from a certain perspective so acknowledging to include new different additional perspectives and then challenging what we thought we’ve always known of history and culture,” says Allen.

“I think it’s a big part of

21st museum practice so this type of working I only see becoming a more important part of museum work moving forward.”

The tabletop exhibit has two components. The first was information, science and facts about climate change, with a bit of local focus on the changing shorelines and rising sea levels in the Municipality of Barrington.

The second component is arts’ activism. Working with Scotian Shores, a beach cleanup was conducted and art

– ‘the equivalent of campaign posters’ – was created by children and other community

members from some of the garbage collected.

In order to include an indigenous perspective on the subject Mi’kmaki artist Madisyn Snow was commissioned to do an art installation for the exhibit.

Snow created two digital art pieces. One depicts a sea turtle caught in a plastic bag and garbage in the sea and the other is an eagle with oil dripping from its feathers in flight

over a fire and oil derricks.

“Our skies are thick with pollution, the land scorched by fire and the sea suffocated with oil, chemicals, and plastic. Look closely and notice there are no humans, and very little wildlife left,” writes Snow of the artwork. “With our climate changing, this is what the end result of irreversible damage could look like. This could be the dark future for all life as we know it if we don’t change soon. So do what you can now, and be the change.”

For now, the exhibit is on display at the Old Court House Museum in Barrington but has the potential to be a traveling exhibit that schools could utilize, add to the art activism component and explore the impact of climate change in their area.

Executive director of the Barrington Museum Complex, Sam Brannen, says being part of the climate change project and the exhibit was

“an opportunity for us to be able to feature relevant climate change impact for our the area.”

“That has never happened before,” Brannen says. “We never had a climate change exhibit specifically in our general area that can show examples of the drastic changes to the coastline.”

Brannen says the exhibit focuses on “climate change impacts to the areas that we could demonstrate with photographs” such as the Cape, the haul-over area of Blanche, Baccaro, the Cape Sable Island causeway area, the mouth of the Barrington River and Duck Island off Shag Harbour, which in less than a century “has gone from an island large enough for people to disembark, and build small structures to barely more than a ridge of rock peaking out of the water,” according to the exhibit.

Ariel photographs from 1950s, old provincial aerial maps and recent drone images are used in the exhibit to demonstrate the climate change impact in the Municipality of Barrington.

“Sea levels in Nova Scotia are rising higher than the global average and are anticipated to increase another 70-140 cm by the end of the century,” states the exhibit.

“Shorelines along the south shore are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of sea level rise. In the Municipality of Barrington coastal wetlands are being altered by rising tides and numerous beaches are experiencing migration,” it states.

“If global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees C, sea levels will continue to rise but the worst impacts will be limited. If warming continues on its current course the global sea level could rise by 1.8 metres by the end of the 21st century. The Municipality of Barrington risks being severely impacted if this continues at the present rate. Beaches, estuaries and wetlands face being submerged, cultural and historical sites lost or damaged and valuable infrastructure and natural resources threatened.”