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Contribution short abstract:

My submission focuses on the exhibition of futurity in so-called ‘Museums of the Future’, considering how they reify hegemonic understanding of risk and crisis. I argue that they centre risk as a mode of navigating the world, only beginning to engage with uncertainty as pedagogical tool.

Contribution long abstract:

My submission to this roundtable draws from my PhD research on the exhibition of uncertainty and risk in so-called ‘Museums of the Future’. In the past years, governments across the world from Brazil, Dubai, Germany and beyond have invested in million-dollar museums that focus on the ‘Future of Humanity’. Visits to these museums are filled with robots, virtual reality headsets, and laser-light shows depicting a world grappling with climate change, fueled by technological developed and struggling to adapt to both. The museums pose ontological questions to their visitors, like 'what makes us human' and 'what are we willing to sacrifice to stay safe'? With minimal text panels and audio guides explaining how artificial intelligence, blockchain, and autonomous vehicles are designed, interactive art pieces prompt visitors to reflect on visual narratives of crises and catastrophes that may arise from new technologies and climate change. Central to these stories of risk and it’s management, with curators making calculated decisions around narrating the effect of crisis. I consider how these choices reify hegemonic understanding of who causes and suffers crises, options to diffuse crises, and how risk is framed in relation to choice. Visitors are largely composed of school-aged children and foreign dignitaries, making these museum unique spaces to investigate relations between state-citizen, and between states. I argue that these museums centre risk as a mode of knowing and navigating the world, only beginning to engage with uncertainty and the potential of uncertainty as pedagogical tool.