Paper Short Abstract:

In a world of global ecological crises, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, museums should increasingly be focusing on the future rather than concentrating on the past. As experts in cultural processes and change, museums can play a role in ecological reconstruction and start working with their stakeholders, individuals and communities towards cultural transformation for a more sustainable future.

Paper Abstract:

In a world of global ecological crises, such as climate change and biodiversity loss, museums should increasingly be focusing on the future rather than concentrating on the past. As experts in cultural processes and change, museums can play a role in ecological reconstruction and start working with their stakeholders, individuals and communities towards cultural transformation for a more sustainable future.

Museums have great potential to do this and the development in museums is already going on. For example, museums are investing in promoting sustainable development in close cooperation with museum visitors and various communities. However, new activities combining different temporal levels and novel ideas for futures work are still needed. As well, futures thinking must be taken in museum strategies to become impactful. In Finland, the concept of a "dynamic museum" has been introduced, which actively focuses on the present, looks to the future(s) and keeps the past firmly in mind. Dynamic museum invites people to engage in futures processes together and intentionally explore their ideas about the futures. The basis of the model is laid for the concepts of cultural heritage, living heritage and heritage futures. Strengthening futures thinking provides museums with the understanding of societal impact, temporal relevance and inclusive heritage work needed for strategic planning and day-to-day museum work.

The presentation will introduce museums’ superpowers and potential in advancing and pushing cultural transformation and ecological reconstruction for sustainable futures. It gives examples of Finnish museums and discuss the benefits of futures thinking.