We are on nature's side? : experimental work in rewriting narratives of climate change for museum exhibitions

“We are on Nature’s side,” “Nature with a big N,” and “Nature’s Treasure house” are respectively a quote and an image on a paper bag from the gift shop at London’s Natural History Museum, and the title of a book on the history of the institution. While this branding gestures toward benevolent and honourable intentions toward Nature on the part of the Museum, it is an occasion to pause and reflect on what these messages communicate about this museum, museums in general and their relation with the nonhuman world. I contend that these words and images suggest that humans are there to protect Nature; are custodians of nature in a way that displays hubris and claims to patriarchal continuity; that museums as modernist institutions give themselves the authority to speak for the nonhuman; and that museums act as storehouses for all the kingdoms of Nature. The image of the Big N on the bag gestures toward the proposition that nature exists as Big Nature, a metaphor used to categorise and describe all nonhuman others and earthly processes. The nonhuman, animals, insects, rocks and earthly processes are therefore relegated to the position of a passive object to be documented, described, named, protected, controlled and used for human ends. These museum examples clearly exemplify modernity’s relations with nature.