Ron Ulrich, Executive Officer of the Canmore Museum, hosts a thoughtful roundtable discussion on how culture and community can dovetail with sustainability goals alongside guest co-host Nicole Fougère of artsPlace Canmore. They welcome guests Douglas Worts, a culture and sustainability specialist, and Caitlin Southwick, Executive Director of Ki Culture to the table.
Caitlin Southwick, who is a conservator with experience working with some of the most notable museums around the world, and Douglas Worts lend their expertise and knowledge to the subject of how environmental awareness can start to align with culture, especially where museums are concerned. The group address issues of unsustainable and even environmentally damaging processes embedded within museum culture and how those can be changed.
They discuss Indigeneous communities and the interpretation of Indigeneous collections not as artifacts but as living objects. They explore the involvement of community in culture and in museum futures, and how COVID has opened museums to new ideas of community focus. There is a new exploration of art and sustainability working hand-in-hand with community and building relationships that exist outside tourism dollars. It is an insightful conversation that will enlighten and entertain.
About the Guests:
Nicole Fougère is a mountain-trekking, truth-dancing, language-lover who believes that creativity transforms lives. At the Royal Conservatory of Music, Nicole innovated many successful arts education programs which she launched and managed nationally and internationally. She is passionate about community engagement in the arts. Nicole currently works as Programs Director for artsPlace in Canmore.
Douglas Worts is a ‘culture and sustainability specialist’, combining over 35 years of working within the museum world and over 20 years of grappling with the personal/local/global challenges of sustainability. He is associated with The Sustainability Accelerator Network (previously, the AtKisson Group) and in 2020 he connected with Climate Collage, which is a systems mapping methodology to help understand the systems dynamics of climate change.
Caitlin Southwick is the Founder and Executive Director of Ki Culture. She holds a Professional Doctorate in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage from the University of Amsterdam. Caitlin has worked in the conservation field and in museums around the world, including the Vatican Museums, The Getty Conservation Institute, and Easter Island. She was a professional member of the American Institute of Conservations Sustainability Committee and is the Secretary of the Working Group on Sustainability for the International Council of Museums (ICOM).
Resources discussed in this episode:
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The Canmore Museum: website | facebook | instagram | linkedin
Nicole Fougère | Programs Director at artsPlace: website | linkedin
Douglas Worts | Culture & Sustainability Specialist: website | linkedin
Caitlin Southwick | Executive Director at Ki Culture: website | linkedin
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