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Industrial museums face the climate crisis

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY NARRATIVES

Photo: Dextra photo

What narratives and visions have been included in exhibitions of energy and industry? Which narratives have dominated and which have been suppressed?

NTM 2012/5-1 The nuclear reactor JEEP I. Three physicists work with a reactor block. 1949 — 1951 (Assumed) Photographer: Unknown photographer/Institute for Atomic Energy

The project puts the museums' historical and contemporary mandate at the center and examines how this can be used critically to develop new narratives about energy and industry. 

The project's starting point is that the museums are not passive retellers of energy and industrial history, but are actively involved in creating it. The aim is to increase understanding of how energy and industry have been organised, communicated and made public knowledge through the museums' narratives. ​

DEX_KF_000326, PHOTOGRAPHER Knudsens Fotosenter

High-voltage power lines in masts in the midnight sun in Tromsø

The project manager for Sustainable  Energy Narratives is Collection Manager Thale Sørlie at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology in collaboration with Ingebjørg Eidhammer (NTM) who coordinates the Museum Network for Technological and Industrial History.

Partners

  • Oslo Museum – The Workers' Museum
  • Norwegian Oil Museum
  • The museum center in Hordaland, the Textile Industry Museum
  • The Aluminum Museum
  • NVE's museum scheme
  • The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology
  • Network for Technology and Industrial History
DEX_KF_000385: Welding of detail for oil platform Photographer: Knudsens Fotosenter/DEXTRA

How narratives about energy are created

Work package 1 analyzes a selection of exhibitions that convey energy and industry in a historical perspective. How are the stories structured? How do existing exhibitions of energy and industry relate to environmental challenges? And how can these exhibitions be read in the light of the general understanding of energy, industry and the climate issue from the time of opening to the present day?

Sub-projects:

  • Energy and industry through 30 years ( The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology )
  • Climate and oil (Norwegian Oil Museum)
The climate issue's place in today's museums

The project maps the place of climate change in the museums that are part of the industry network at an overall institutional level. A survey will be carried out on the extent to which the climate issue is included in the museums' strategies and plans and to what extent keywords related to climate change are used in the collection registers.  

The head of the industry network and the Textile Industry Museum design the survey in collaboration with the other partners, which is published in a digital report.

No 141 From Rörgaten, NTM 84/9-109, photographer: unknown

Co-creative processes and interventions provide new knowledge

In work package 3, the project intervenes in the museum's basic narrative itself. How can energy and industry be exhibited in the face of the climate crisis? What interventions are necessary to make in the museums' basic narratives?

The sub-projects investigate how new sustainable narratives about energy and industry can take shape with an eye both to the past and the future. The investigations are carried out through re-reading of sources and participation from various core groups such as children and young people, industry, academia and international museum partners.

Subprojects:

  • Oslo museum – The Workers' Museum and the Textile Industry Museum: My pants
  • The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology : New basic exhibition on Energy
  • The Aluminum Museum: Digital communication related to environmental and climate issues
  • Hydro and wind power online – www.kraftlandet.no (NVE's museum scheme)

Exhibition documentation Klima 2+

 Climate strike from the exhibition Climate 2+ Photo: The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology

Anthology

Work package* 1-3 will be disseminated in a peer-reviewed anthology. The anthology will contain both articles that produce new historical knowledge and museological reflections to bring out new narrative tools.

  • Introduction- the climate situation brings out new stories about industrial and energy. (Torhild Skåtun / Nina Bratland NTM)
  • Hope and climate at the museum (Trude Meland / Herdis A. Nergaard, Norwegian Oil Museum)
  • Power Country - Sustainability in Digital Dissemination (Liv Eirill Evensen, Kraftmuseet, Sidsel Hindal and Stig Storheil, NVE)
  • The Avindustrialization at Akerselva in the period 1955 to 1960. (Gro Red, Oslo Museum)
  • Sustainability at all stages. My pants! - Teaching program for secondary school. (Ingrid Haugrønning, Textile Industry Museum)
  • Ah, here I don't want to be! Dissemination of climate and environmental challenges in aluminum production. (Kristin Skjelbred / Urd Kalvik, Alluminum Museum)
  • Where do you get energy from? A school class creates content in the energy exhibition. (Torhild Skåtun / Catharina Hoff, NTM)
  • Photographed energy. Visual views on energy technology. (Nina Bratland, NTM) 

*See more about the work packages further down in the article.

From the exhibition klima2+: Skogen Photographer: Håkon Bergseth

Objectives of the project

"Sustainable energy narratives" develop new historical and museological knowledge, mediate reflections between Norwegian and international museums and improve the museums' collection and dissemination practices by:

  1. Develop new narratives about energy, industry and climate.
  2. Contribute to museological knowledge about technical and industrial museums and museum communication and management of the climate issue.
  3. Develop more relevant collection records.  

The project will make this visible without climate-labeling all objects, photographs and documents that have played a role in the rise of industrial society, by developing formulations that can be used by several museums, nationally and internationally.

  1. Connecting Norwegian museums to the international research project "Exhibiting energy in the time of climate crisis". 
  2. Develop co-creative spaces for mutual learning, where young people and children are involved in the development of learning schemes, digital exhibitions and/or installations. 
  3. Place the museums centrally in the public conversation about climate.

Objectives of the project

The climate issue is closely linked to the technical museums. They emerged as a new type of museum in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, when engineering and modern industrial society were celebrated.

They displayed the last step in the development path and constituted their actual exhibition object - technological progress. 

Today, the technical-industrial museums exhibit, manage and communicate precisely the societal formation that is behind climate change. 

Progress plan

Work package 1 Energy narratives - how narratives about energy emerged (2021-2023)
  • Start-up December 2021. 
  • Analysis of the Energy Exhibition (NTM): 2021-2022
  • Analysis of the Industrial Exhibition (NTM): 2022-2023
  • Analysis of (The Oil Museum): 2022
  • Work seminars for the participants in the project every six months 2021-2023
  • Network seminar autumn 2022
Work package 2: The place of the climate issue in today's museums (2021-2022)
  • Start-up December 2021.
  • Seminar in the network about mapping/questionnaire spring 2022.
  • Dispatch of questionnaire spring 2022.
  • Completed report December 2022.
Work package 3: Co-creative processes and interventions provide new knowledge (2021-2024)
  • Oslo museum – The Workers' Museum and the Textile Industry Museum. Start-up December 2021 Dissemination scheme - participation 2022 - website 2023
  • The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology : New basic exhibition on Energy. Connect establish contacts - participation (2021-2023)
  • Develop new narratives about energy 2022-2023
  • The Aluminum Museum (2021-2023): Digital communication related to environmental and climate issues. Knowledge acquisition, network building, establishing cooperation with external partners, analyzing the exhibition, defining the communication concept 2022. Developing and testing the communication concept 2023
  • Network seminar 2023
  • New content about water and wind power in www.kraftlandet.no (NVE's museum scheme): 2021-2023
Work package 4: Anthology (2023-2024)
  • Article draft August 2023
  • Text seminar autumn 2023
  • Revised draft December 2023
  • Submission for peer review June 2024
  • Finished article August 2024
  • Finished printed book December 2024

Norwegian power. Rødberg, Numedal Photographer PA Røstad

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Oil platform on the Frigg field. Photographer: Knudsens Fotosenter/DEXTRA Photo

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Höyanger Kraft Inter, DEX_W_00535, photographer: Wilse, Anders Beer

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Conservation workshop

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The nuclear reactor JEEP I. Three physicists work on a reactor block. 1949 — 1951 (Assumed) Photographer: Unknown photographer/Institute for Atomic Energy

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Model of nuclear reactor. Model of the Halden reactor, 1957. Photographer: Håkon Bergseth/ The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology

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The Machine Hall in the Jubilee Exhibition at Frogner in 1914. Photographer: O. Væring

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