Museums and Ocean Citizenship

Wednesday 11 September 2024 14:15-15:30,
Hulda Garborgs hus,
N-106.

By Marie-Theres Fojuth, Associate Professor of History at the University of Stavanger.

Published Updated on

The whale room. A gallery in a museum displaying remains of whales
Hvalsalen (2023), Universitetsmuseet i Bergen. Foto: Marie-Theres Fojuth.

Interested and informed people are vital if green transitions are to become a global movement that leads to more sustainable ways of being in the world. Museums worldwide attempt to become drivers of a sustainable climate transition. This Greenhouse research talk addresses how so-called ‘blue museums’ have a unique responsibility and opportunity in this context, and analyses different museum approaches that foster ‘ocean citizenship’. The ocean is where many human-driven ecological impacts and disasters can be observed, and a societal shift towards a sustainable future will thus also need to address human impacts on the ocean.

Marie-Theres Fojuth (she/her) is a modern historian of environment, technology and knowledge with a doctoral thesis from Humboldt University Berlin. She works as an Associate Professor of History at the University of Stavanger, Norway, and is part of The Greenhouse Center for Environmental Humanities.