Slowing Time in the Museum in a Period of Rapid Extinction

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v20i1.3804

Keywords:

extinction, natural history, taxidermy, time

Abstract

Extinction of nonhuman species, as well as human-induced environmental change in general, is happening at a frighteningly fast pace. A recent global joint scientific assessment suggests that around a million animal and plant species are currently threatened with extinction because of human activity. In this article, we propose that museums have an opportunity to slow time for their visitors in a period of rapid extinction. First, we discuss the role of museums as galleries for active reflection and encounter with the loss inherent in extinction by changing the time scales in which people think and move. Then we introduce the articles in this themed issue on Exhibiting Extinction as all grappling with the tension between fast environmental loss and taking the necessary time to reckon with extinction. Time functions on another scale when extinction is involved, with the jumbling of past, present, and future. We argue that offering ways for people to think about and with extinction by slowing down time may be museums’ greatest contribution to addressing the real and present danger of extinction.

Author Biographies

Dolly Jørgensen, University of Stavanger

Dolly Jørgensen is Professor of History, University of Stavanger, Norway specializing in environmental history. Her current research agenda focuses on cultural histories of animal extinction, and recently published Recovering Lost Species in the Modern Age: Histories of Longing and Belonging (MIT Press, 2019). She is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Environmental Humanities and co-directs The Greenhouse environmental humanities program area at UiS.

Libby Robin, Australian National University

Libby Robin is an historian of science and environmental ideas. She is Emeritus Professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University, independent writer and Curator-at-Large. She has published widely in the history of science, international and comparative environmental history, museum studies and the ecological humanities. Her most recent books are the co-authored The Environment: A History of the Idea (2018) and the co-edited collections Curating the Future: Museums, Communities and Climate Change (2017) and Natural Resources and Environmental Justice: Australian Perspectives (2017).

Marie-Theres Fojuth, University of Stavanger

Marie-Theres Fojuth is Associate Professor of Public Environmental History at the University of Stavanger. Her primary areas of interest are environmental history, public history, and the history of knowledge and technology. She has worked in the museum field for several years, first as department director of the Department of Cultural History, Museum Stavanger, then as curator at the Stavanger Maritime Museum.

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Published

27.06.2022

How to Cite

Jørgensen, D., Robin, L., & Fojuth, M.-T. (2022). Slowing Time in the Museum in a Period of Rapid Extinction. Museum & Society, 20(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v20i1.3804

Issue

Vol. 20 No. 1 (2022): Special Issue: Exhibiting Extinction

Section

Articles

License

Copyright remains with the author(s) of the article. This article can be re-used according to the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0  licence.