Museums for Climate Justice Steering Group: members’ interests

In February 2024 we announced the appointment of the first members to our new Museums for Climate Justice Steering Group.

To get to know them a little better, read on to find out about the group members’ interests and the projects they’re passionate about.

It is no secret that I am passionate about advocating for the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14: Life Below Water. In terms of climate justice, I am particularly interested in how water challenges the nature/culture dichotomy. Currently, alongside my doctoral studies, I am involved in multiple collaborative projects aiming to help alleviate eco-anxiety, promote the SDGs, and implement ‘green’ sustainable practices at the University of Leicester.

More specifically, in my role as project student worker with the University of Leicester Students’ Union (LSU), I am responsible for developing and facilitating climate discussion circles, organising events for ‘Go Green Week’, creating an environmental action plan for SDG 14 and contributing to on-campus sustainability initiatives.

My museum studies research also explores the ‘materiality’ of water (spirit of the sea) via ‘eco-facts’ (marine mollusc shells) and ‘artefacts’ (wooden Scandinavian Viking ships) in an effort to highlight ocean exploitation.

It draws on my past-lived personal experience of co-initiating an Anishinaabe Water Walk Ceremony, with permission and cultural guidance from community members and traditional knowledge keepers of Wiikwemkoong First Nation, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada. In other words, I actively address climate justice with critical conversations on ethics surrounding environmental and social justice.

I have a particular interest in sustainable transport and its connection with climate justice. Transport is the biggest source of carbon emissions in the UK and the one we have done least to address. With 80% of the UK population living in urban areas and the average journey being under 5 miles, designing our towns and cities around walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport is achievable.

The benefits of making this shift include better air quality, better mental and physical health, improved road safety, stronger communities, and more opportunities for greening our public spaces. Importantly, walking, wheeling and cycling also reduces demand on minerals in African nations, and the associated damage from deforestation, mining and extraction.

Local planning has been slow to design our urban spaces for people, preferring to focus on traffic flow, and often residents have been left to campaign against losing buses, losing trees, and the loss of our streets as safe spaces to meet, connect and play. This has disproportionately affected and contributed to areas of multiple deprivation.

In partnership with Museum of Edinburgh, this year I worked alongside local groups to create an exhibition, Pedal Power, highlighting cycling activism in Edinburgh and the benefits of sustainable transport. I’m also chair of a community group looking at how we reimagine our streets to support community wellbeing, climate and nature.

I am the founder of South Asians for Sustainability and managing consultant in social sustainability at Energise. Being of Indian heritage and raised with the values of selfless service and deep respect for the planet and people, I’ve been instilled with an appreciation for the importance of inclusive representation.

My experiences navigating different cultures and languages heightened my sensitivity to issues of marginalisation and the need for equitable and anti-racist solutions, especially in the face of the climate crisis. Additionally, my role as a South Asian musician highlighted the transformative power of creativity in bridging communities and inspiring systemic change, reinforcing my belief in using the creative arts, dialogue and education as catalysts for social and climate justice, in the Global South and beyond.

With an academic background in psychology, I continue to champion consideration of behavioural change and eco-anxiety in sustainability initiatives, particularly among the South Asian diaspora. In addition to the MA’s Climate Justice Steering Group, I sit on the advisory board for Catalyse Change CIC, London Flood Community Advisory Group, and am co-founding partner of the RACE Report (Racial Action for the Climate Emergency), SOS UK.

I started working in museums in 2019, just two months before attending my first Extinction Rebellion meeting, and since then my growth as both a learning and engagement professional and climate justice activist has paralleled and intertwined.

My key interest is connecting people emotionally to the realities of the climate and nature crises through storytelling. I have done this as a filmmaker and social media livestreamer – including capturing testimonies of Global South and Indigenous activists at the Cop26 climate conference – and in my museum practice, designing and delivering activities for young people, families and community groups.

As a member of the Fossil Free Science Museum coalition, I’m also committed to divesting museums and heritage from fossil fuel sponsorship. After three years chairing Amberley Museum’s Environmental Committee, covering everything from bins to biodiversity, I’m now working part-time in the environmental sector while exploring how to reconnect people to nature and living landscapes in my home region of the South Downs National Park, south-east England.

My work explores climate and ecological justice through museum collection engagement and research. I am interested in intersectional, participatory and creative practice as bridges to learning. My current project Extinction Silences (2022-24) draws on colonial legacies in Bristol’s global wildlife collections, museum displays and processes – to deconstruct and openly learn from potentially harmful narratives and develop future reparative approaches.

This is being delivered with Rising Arts Agency, which includes young artists from backgrounds under-represented in the sector, and colleagues, including those from world cultures and colonial archive collections. It builds on learning from an intervention called Extinction Voices (2019), which collaborated with local schoolchildren to highlight the global ecological crisis.

I am also interested in the scientific research value of natural science collections in a climate and ecological context, and how benefits can be accessed and shared. This includes recent pilot Setting Natural Sciences Data Free (2022-23), with Museum Development South West and the Natural History Museum, which supports regional participation and impact in emerging national digitisation infrastructure DiSSCo UK.

I am lucky to be involved in supporting sector collaboration in justice-focused work as co-chair for the Subject Specialist Network the Natural Sciences Collections Association (NatSCA), and through contributing to steering groups, including Bristol’s Natural History Consortium and the Museums Association’s Climate Justice Steering Group.

I am particularly interested in how museums can improve their energy efficiency and reduce material use. Many of our museums are based in older, often listed, buildings which require substantial amounts of energy for heating alone.

Changing the fabric of the building or bringing in new energy systems such as solar panels may be difficult, and I am keen to see what sympathetic changes museums can make to their buildings to reduce their energy requirements and what common issues we face.

With a background in curatorial and collections work, I also have a keen interest in what practical changes museums of all sizes can implement in the areas of collections care and exhibitions to ensure their practice is more sustainable.