Researchers from People's Palace Projects at Queen Mary University of London are set to exhibit their work at the Glasgow Science Centre ahead of COP26.
Natural Future Museums, a video installation, part of the exhibition Reimagining Museums for Climate Action, opened to the public at the Glasgow Science Centre on 25 June 2021. It will also be on display in the official green zone of the United Nations Climate Summit COP26 in November.
The immersive audio-visual installation questions what actually constitutes a museum in today’s society and provokes the cultural sector to give museum status to indigenous territories that play a key role in protecting the forests and rivers from the threat of climate emergency.
Indigenous filmmaker Takumã Kuikuro and Thiago Jesus, from Queen Mary's People's Palace Projects are behind the installation. The 13 minute film, Natural Future Museums, is drawn from Takumã’s intimate archive of over 10 years of filmmaking in the Xingu Indigenous Territory, in the Brazilian Amazon region, and includes quotes from Brazilian indigenous leaders, and an animation of O Sopro do Maliri, by indigenous artist Denilson Baniwa.
Thiago Jesus, Senior Project Manager at People's Palace Projects said: "The current Brazilian government is responsible for unprecedented environmental damage in the Amazon and persecution of indigenous peoples. Where indigenous people have full property rights to their lands, the forest is preserved and biodiversity flourishes.
"Natural Future Museums is a provocation: do we need to create new museums for climate action? Or can should we recognise these communities’ essential contribution to the integrity of the places they inhabit – and the planet – and rethink the role of cultural sector as the best allies in their fight for survival?"
People’s Palace Projects was set up in Queen Mary’s School of English and Drama in 1996. For the past 20 years, its research, cultural exchange programmes and creative projects have sought to make a measurable impact on people’s lives in the UK, Latin America and further afield.
PPP's investigations on how people turn to the arts in times of adversity include researching the role of the arts in mental health and wellbeing as well as tackling the climate emergency and environmental disasters. PPP also promotes exchange between artists and indigenous people in the Amazon region as well as co-creating broader ways to measure the value of culture in society.
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