The Bartlett’s Peg Rawes Joins Exhibition Jury at COP26

The exhibition launched in June and is hosted by Glasgow Science Centre, as project partners and COP26’s official ‘Green Zone’. Launched by Museums for Climate Action, it was developed from a design and ideas competition, ‘Reimagining Museums for Climate Action’, launched on International Museum Day 2020. Peg joined the project in May 2020, after being invited to join the International Jury. Built around the principles of mitigation and adaptation, it invited proposals for how museums could help society to transform in the urgent and drastic ways needed to achieve a net-zero or zero-carbon world.

The jury scrutinised 264 submissions from 48 countries, and chose eight teams to develop their ideas for the Glasgow-based exhibition, with each team having an area within the exhibition centre. The exhibition is accompanied by a full programme of companion content, including a website, book, toolkit, presentations and public events.

Peg is also a contributor to the accompanying book 'A Conversation on Architecture, Design and the Climate Emergency with Rania Ghosn, El Hadi Jazairy and Peg Rawes’ in which she speaks with architecture practice Design Earth about their winning entry, ‘Elephant in the Room’, a film-animation narrated by Donna Haraway. 

The exhibition is open to the public, with events for the public on heritage, and a practical toolbox for museums launching on 8 November.

Museums for Climate Action

The Museums for Climate Action project was developed as the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Priority Area for Heritage contribution to the UK’s time as host of COP26. The project seeks to accelerate ambition and imagination on what the role(s) of museums could be to address climate change more effectively, and aims to support radical climate action in and with museums around and following the COP26 conference.

The project is led by Professor Rodney Harrison, Professor of Heritage Studies at UCL Institute of Archaeology, and Heritage Priority Area Leadership Fellow for AHRC, as well as Dr Colin Sterling (AHRC-funded leadership fellow & University of Amsterdam), and Henry McGhie, founder of Curating Tomorrow.

More information

• Find out more about the exhibition
• Find out about all of the jury members
• Explore the exhibition exhibits
• Watch the film ‘The Elephant in the Room’
• Buy the book 'A Conversation on Architecture, Design and the Climate Emergency with Rania Ghosn, El Hadi Jazairy and Peg Rawes'
• Find out about the public toolkit

Image: "Glasgow Science Centre" by Wojtek Gurak (Creative Commons)