Commons collection on climate

Climate Museum UK is happy to be a recipient of the first Activist Museum Award, enabling us to explore a distributed commons-based collection about climate. This collection could include documents, multimedia, museum artefacts, contemporary artworks, photos of places or events, heritage sites and more. The vision is that Climate Museum UK is distributed across the country, findable in 100s of organisations to meet public interests in this vital issue, and that there is a single digital space where 'donated' objects on a climate theme can be explored and interpreted.

This survey is to invite views of UK-based museums, archives and heritage organisations on what would meet your needs and what is possible.

As an incentive for completion, there is a prize draw to receive up to 3 hours of free consultation or (if feasible) a workshop for public audiences from our team. The survey will close on May 20th. It should take no more than 10 minutes to complete.

Find out more about this project here.

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* 1. What kind of organisation(s) or heritage practice do you mainly work in?

Natural history museum

Cultural history or place-based museum

Natural heritage

Arts organisation

Science or technology museums

Built environment or architecture

Art museums and galleries

Campaigning or socially-engaged practice

Archive (including corporate archive)

Library

Industrial heritage

Traditional or intangible heritage

Other (please specify)

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* 2. What is the name of the organisation you mostly work in, if any?

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* 3. What comes closest to describing this organisation in terms of its status?

National institution

Local authority organisation

Small to medium independent trust/charity

Independent commercial attraction

Small/emerging/voluntary project

Large independent trust/charity

Social enterprise or community interest company

Other (please specify)

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* 4. If you have anything to add about your work, for example if you don't work in a single institution or easily definable practice, use this space.

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* 5. We would like to invite 'donations' to a shared collection, whereby donors keep the donated asset while contributing and inviting interpretations with a climate and environmental lens. This might mean placing a digital label by the object, and allowing images and information to be shared online elsewhere. Based on this description, would you be interested on principle to take part? Please speak from your personal motivation, rather than the organisation's ability to agree to participate.

Extremely interested

Very interested

Somewhat interested

Not so interested

Not at all interested

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* 6. And, based on this description, to what extent do you think your organisation would be willing and able to participate?

Extremely willing / able

Very willing / able

Somewhat willing / able

Not so willing / able

Not at all willing / able

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* 7. Donating could mean that your audiences are invited to add interpretations of their object/site. These might be provocative or might differ from 'official versions'. How much would that affect your organisation's willingness to participate?

It would rule it out

It would pose some challenges

It would be manageable

It would be a positive factor

Other (please specify)

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* 8. If there are four steps to possible participation, how far do you think your organisation could go? Tick only one that represents whether you would stop at step 1, 2, 3 or extend to step 4.

Step 1: Identify something to highlight, adding a digital label with an in-house interpretation

Step 2: As above, plus allow audiences to add their own provocations or knowledge

Step 3: As above, plus holding live activities to generate visitor provocations and knowledge to add to the content

Step 4: As above, plus contributing to and promoting the shared collection more widely

Other (please specify)

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* 9. It could be that at first your collections (or stories or sites) do not seem relevant to climate and environmental themes. Here are some dimensions that we think can be helpful ways in to these themes. Tick any that you think are relevant to your assets.

Food and farming

Colonialism

Energy generation and innovation

Biodiversity

Imagination and empathy for others

Indigenous cultures

Landscape

Water

Materials, product design and consumerism

Movements of protest and change

Values and belief systems

System thinking and problem solving

Transport and travel

Stories and communication for change

Other (please specify)

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* 10. Of these topics, which one or two do you think would be most inspiring for a theme that we could focus on (e.g. with articles, debates, or providing resources)

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* 11. If there is one thing (artefact, archive, site etc.) that you might interpret through a lens of climate and environment, what would you choose? Please briefly describe it and perhaps share a link about it. This doesn’t have to be the thing you would 'donate' if asked.

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* 12. Part of this project is to identify the best digital tools for a shared commons collection. If you have any knowledge of tools for digital labels, sharing content, and enabling visitor interaction, we would love to know what you think would work. If you can share examples of similar effective projects, we would be grateful. (You can contact us on climatemuseumuk@gmail.com if you would like to arrange a chat.)

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* 13. Use this space for any other comments on this project. Can you foresee any challenges? Do you have any suggestions for us?

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* 14. If you would like to be entered for the prize draw to receive 3 hours of our time, please share your email address and a contact name.

Many thanks for your time, and also with gratitude to the University of Leicester and Robert Janes for the Activist Museum award that is making this enquiry possible.