The 2020s Activist Museum. The Cooling Solution as a possible answer to the new wave of climate change activist protest

Abstract

During the past year an international network of environmental activists, known as A22, has been formed and its participants has systematically targeted museums as well as other heritage sites in order to gather wider media attention and awake the sleeping cultural sector which, according to them, cannot stay neutral and passive in front of the climate crisis anymore. Preserving and promoting heritage from the past for future generation is not sufficient anymore. Indeed, according to Robert Janes, posterity has already arrived and a new museum is necessary (Janes and Sandell, 2019). Instead of looking for spectacular but empty exhibitions to please visitors and not upset investors, museums should challenge public opinion and bring to the table those taboo topics that have been ignored for too long. This is not the first time museums and atworks have been targeted by activists, but today it is a systematic and global phenomenon. The Cooling Solution is considered as an example of best practice to answer activists' call to action, pushing museums out their pretended neutrality.