Together Roxy and Kim troubleshoot the multifaceted nature of what “sustainability” means. To create holistic change, there should be consideration of more than one singular facet (carbon emissions, energy use, waste management, etc). Kim highlights the various published guides on how to go about making more socio-environmental beneficial choices and how various priorities can be balanced or have co-benefits based on institutions’ choices. Using these guides as starting frameworks, institutions can build off of each other’s work tailoring it to fit their own needs. Specifically considering exhibitions: choices about material purchasing, use, and reuse and policy decisions like prioritizing using internal collections instead of loans can have a significant impact both financially and socio-environmentally.
Using her experience working in contemporary artists’ studios, Kim directs the conversation towards including artists’ agency in the storage and display of their work and being flexible to their ideas which may be counter to our current expectations. Other topics in this episode include breaking down silos and establishing communication with artists, art handlers, and couriers throughout the exhibition installation and travel processes.
Kim mentions a guide from the Design museum as a specific case study. Later this year, we will be speaking with Elise Vander Elst from the Design museum about their research and the impact guide, which you can find in the show notes. Stay tuned!
Design Museum - Waste Age Exhibition and Guide
Reusable Crate Systems
https://rok-box.com
https://turtlebox.com/en/
GCC Carbon Calculator – GCC’s free (for members) online carbon calculator – recent update includes exhibition and fine art shipping materials
GCC Artist Toolkit - brings together practical ideas, actions, and resources to support all aspects of art production, display, and storage – includes a section on exhibition-making
GCC Artist Resource Index – a repository of online tools and resources for studio practice, materials, exhibition-making, impact measurement tools, material sharing and reuse platforms, fine art transport, and social sustainability
Objects as Temporal Entities – The Centre for Sustainable Curating and the Synthetic Collective set out to provide discussion points and riders that could be added to acquisition contracts, detailing the outcomes of conversation on sustainable options for the care of artworks and objects in collections.
Acquisitions riders and discussion points