Cultural sustainability and cultural leadership: Miranda Massie (founding director, Climate Museum: in conversation)

Over the past two decades, cultural heritage experts have increasingly called on museums to mobilise their audiences and resources towards inspiring urgent climate action. One institution leading the turn to environmental museology is the Climate Museum, established in 2014 in New York City by founding director, Miranda Massie, who left a career in social justice litigation to launch the Museum. Massie has pioneered an approach to community engagement with climate that blends culture and activism, successfully empowering visitors who are worried about climate change but unsure what to do. With the Climate Museum recently announcing the opening of its first permanent home in 2029, how does Massie envision the organisation’s future cultural impact? And how has the museum field changed since the Climate Museum’s founding over a decade ago? In this conversation, Massie offers compelling insights into the role of cultural institutions in motivating public action around the climate crisis within our increasingly precarious political, economic, and natural environments.