Imagined Past and Future: Sustainability and Museums in the Anthropocene
Authors: Konsa Kurmo , Liplap Madis 
Published: January 2025

The purpose of this article is to analyse how the definition of a newgeological era affects museums. First, we will give an overviewof the development of the concept of the Anthropocene and itsconnections with museums. One of the most obvious responses ofmuseums to the Anthropocene is the concept of sustainable or green museums.
It is a very extensive topic, of which we chose only one part,specifically exhibitions, for analysis. As a case study, we took the IfBoxes Could Talk… exhibition in Tartu City History Museums, whichwas completed as part of the Sustainable and Sustaining Exhibitioncontinuing education course at the Pallas University of AppliedSciences. The exhibition explored, on the one hand, the application ofsustainability ideas in the preparation of a practical exhibition and,on the other hand, the mechanisms of creating cultural sustainabilityusing the model of artificial cultures.Anthropocene is a term that captures extremely important aspectsof the modern world. The central idea of the Anthropocene is theinseparability of man as a biological being, nature, technology, andculture. Man himself is both part of nature and a creator of culture,a changer of nature, and a victim of technology. In fact, there is nonatural environment that has not been transformed by mankind,either on Earth or even in near space. Sustainability and considerationof the environment are deemed to be areas that ensure the seriousnessof museums in the 21st century. If we line up the most pressingproblems of the present time, we get quite a long list: climate change,the price of energy, war in the middle of Europe, the recession, thepandemic, and the rise of militant nationalism. Apparently, thisalarming list can be extended even further. The cluster crisis affectsdifferent aspects of the environment and society and naturally alsoaffects museums, where sustainability is both a requirement and anecessity.Designing a sustainable world is, first of all, related to large-scalecultural change. It is not news that a whole series of norms andvalues characteristic of Western culture are such that they do notfit into a sustainable world and are obviously the main obstacle tothe development of such a society. The expectation of continuouseconomic growth, the desire for an increasingly better and moreabundant life, the expectation of continuous renewal, and theglorification of success and competition are still the basic values ofour culture. To ensure sustainable development, changing people’svalues and behaviours, i.e., culture, is considered one of the key issues.Changing culture is a difficult and confusing task, as culture tendsto be inert and rather difficult to change. People want to preserveexisting ideas, values, and traditions. Fortunately, the situation is notcompletely hopeless. The solution is a completely different approach
to the whole bundle of problems. Instead of changing culture, wehave to create artificial cultures that meet our wants and needs. It isa radically different solution to the task of culture change. Museumshave great potential to become leaders of cultural change. People trustmuseums and consider them authoritative institutions. However,how to start creating sustainable cultures is still open for the timebeing. We started by telling stories. We used the concept of artificialculture to describe purposeful cultural change. Artificial cultureoffers a new conceptual approach to dealing with and practicalimplementation of cultural change. Instead of changing the existingculture, the focus is on creating a new culture. Artificial cultureshave great potential to solve sustainability problems, as they workby changing people’s values and cultures, which are very often thecause of the problems.