Steve Lyons, Barricading the Ice Sheets

Conference Camera Austria, Graz, 29-02-2020

In his presentation, STEVE LYONS will discuss the MUSEUM AS MOVEMENT INFRASTRUCTURE.

This talk will survey recent initiatives organized by The Natural History Museum (2014), a pop-up museum that highlights the socio-political forces that shape nature, yet are excluded from traditional natural history museums. As a “Trojan horse” strategy, The Natural History Museum aims not only to critique the museum sector as it exists but also to transform it into a vital infrastructure for environmental struggle. The museum connects movements to museums and museums to movements, leveraging institutional power to support a growing coalition of museum workers, activist scientists, and frontline communities.

Launched by the activist art collective Not An Alternative in 2014, The Natural History Museum is an ongoing performative art intervention taking the form of a pop-up museum. Founded on the belief that museums offer resources, infrastructure, and symbolic and narrative power that can be marshalled in this time of profound and uneven social and environmental change, The Natural History Museum aims to unleash the power of museums, motivating them to act not as shrines to a civilization in decline, but as defenders of the common and hubs of engagement for the future. Representing the group is Steve Lyons, core member of Not An Alternative and Director of Research for The Natural History Museum.

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“Barricading the Ice Sheets” is a research endeavor by Oliver Ressler and supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF: AR 526). In autumn 2021 it will materialize as an exhibition at Camera Austria.