by Christoffer Winther Bjerregaard, Communications Manager at ART 2030

GCC’s Guest Blog series puts the spotlight on organisations across the world who are all working in creative ways to secure an environmentally responsible future. Views expressed are the author’s own.

Circular Museum, a collaboration between MoMA’s Ambasz Institute and ART 2030, is a virtual panel-discussion series inviting artists, museum directors, curators, exhibition designers, and other museum practitioners from around the world to talk about their efforts to address the climate crisis through their work.

Incorporating sustainability and circularity into various levels of museum practice is urgent, but how can it become embedded into the way we do art?

In six sessions, the first season of the series examined how museums and cultural workers have considered and implemented circular and sustainable museological practices in their work with artists.

Through detailed discussions about efforts to make exhibition design more environmentally friendly, Circular Museum brought museum practitioners and artists together with MoMA’s Carson Chan and ART 2030’s Luise Faurschou to elaborate on sustainability practices, challenges, and reflections.

Our guests were Frances Morris, Tino Sehgal, Jeppe Hein, Gitte Ørskou, Olafur Eliasson, Yuko Hasegawa, Josh Kline, Johanna Burton, Tabita Rezaire, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and MoMA's Lana Hum, Eliana Glicklich-Cohn, and Jason Smith, all of whom generously offered insights from their collaborations.

The aim of Circular Museum is to become a space of learning for arts professionals. By building literacy and sharing knowledge on sustainable and circular museum practices, Circular Museum wishes to inspire behavioural change and motivate leading stakeholders in the visual arts sector to engage in advocacy for climate action and adapt sustainable and circular practices into their work.

Our conversations on the first season of the series tackle themes from exhibition production, institutional structures, climate control and shipping to values, collaborations, dissemination and more. While we are preparing for the return of Circular Museum in 2024 with new and exciting discussions, we encourage arts professionals to dive into the episodes from the first season, and in general get familiar with more of the important actions that are already taking place in the visual arts sector.

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Christoffer Winther Bjerregaard is Communications Manager at ART 2030. ART 2030 is a non-profit organisation uniting art with the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Global Goals. Working with world renowned artists and partners, we facilitate exciting art projects connected to the UN Global Goals - including public events, art experiences, multi-platform communication, and educational activities - for all to engage with the plan for people, planet and prosperity.