Climate Control
11 May – 18 September 2016
Climate Control was the Museum’s contribution to Manchester’s time as European City of Science. Opened by Vivienne Westwood and designed by MET Studio, the exhibition looked at the environment, transformation and climate change. The exhibition focussed on interactivity and creativity to explore climate change and personalised climate change action. The exhibition and accompanying programme were developed in partnership with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Manchester Climate Change Agency, and coincided with the development of Manchester’s climate change strategy.
The main exhibition gave visitors two entrances to chose from: explore the past, or explore the future. This aimed to emphasise that museum visits can be more than simple passive or browsing experiences: people have agency. In the exhibition, visitors added stickers to a white wall to represent our collective climate impacts. Visitors also shared their ideas on how we can take climate action. Questions were posed asking visitors what they thought was possible or not possible, to encourage people to form their ideas, express them to others, and to find out what other people thought, to build collective intelligence.
This exhibition was presented at the United Nations Action for Climate Empowerment Dialogue (2017) as an example of a city and museum working together to promote civic action around climate change.
The exhibition won a Leading Culture Destinations Award, the Climate Smart Award. It was also featured in Design Week and Leading Culture Destinations Awards