Part of the University of Amsterdam Green Office Critical Sustainabilities Lecture Series
Thursday 19 Feb, 17.15, Roeterseiland Campus A1.02
The Bilbao Effect is a well-known concept in the museum world. Named after the Guggenheim Bilbao, it describes the idea that major cultural and architectural landmarks might drive regional economic growth and urban regeneration. Today, the same museum positions itself as a champion of sustainability in the arts, with major initiatives to reduce waste and carbon emissions by creating more sustainable exhibitions and caring for objects in new ways. At the same time, the museum is controversially planning to develop a new site in the protected nature reserve of Urdaibai. Where The Bilbao Effect suggests that cultural projects might have a positive impact on social and economic systems, what I am calling The Sustainability Effect names the broader occlusion of ecologically destructive practices under the banner of “sustainable museology.” As a paradigmatic example of the post-modern boom in museums globally, the Guggenheim’s recent turn to sustainability symbolises the sector’s search for a renewed moral-ethical purpose in the face of ecological breakdown. Museums in this framing promise much more than simply the regeneration of neglected urban environments: they now highlight their capacity to “regenerate” socio-ecological worlds at all scales, from local ecosystems to the planet as a whole. My critical reading of this rhetoric – tied to performative declarations of Climate Emergency and the aesthetics of “sustainable” exhibitions – underlines the need for radical new perspectives on art and museums to unsettle habitual patterns of cultural production and consumption.
Colin Sterling 