by Robert R. Janes
ROUTLEDGE
2024/$39.99/180 pp.
Robert R. Janes’s new book, Museums and Societal Collapse, asks us to consider the role of the museum in a world on the verge of catastrophe. A former president and CEO of the Glenbow Museum (1989–2000) and now an independent scholar–practitioner and author, Janes is critical of a sector he feels has averted its eyes from the oncoming climate disaster and is struggling to deviate from a capitalist–colonialist vision of museums. An ideology of growth—of collections, visitors and funding—leaves little room for the central purposes of the museum itself, he argues, asserting that if museums were to come to terms with the suffering and trauma around them, they could better serve their communities in meaningful and tangible ways.
Janes unflinchingly expresses the urgency of this task. “The purpose of this book,” he writes, “is to introduce the museum community to the threat of societal collapse by initiating a frank and constructive conversation about the perils of such a future, as well as the roles and responsibilities of museums.” While he seeks to be realistic about the role of museums, arguing that as agents of civil society they are unlikely to have a major political or technological impact, he suggests that by leaning on their strengths as highly trusted public institutions that hold memory, bridge nature and culture, and create and disseminate knowledge, museums “can be lifeboats to assist with the creation of a new narrative for a new future.” This new future will be local, says Janes, requiring local narratives and local solutions that museums are well suited to bring about.
“Museums are tool, technology, history and art banks,” he writes, “as valuable as seed banks.” In other words, museum collections are “knowledge banks” that hold answers to questions such as: “How will our civilization adapt to the unfolding consequences of global warming?” Towards this, Janes sees opportunities in “using collections as sources of past adaptive knowledge in advance of a low-energy future.” While it may be unsettling to imagine a future where obsolete technologies become necessary again, in the “collapse or post-collapse” scenarios that Janes sees as likely, he argues that museum collections have the potential to become practically relevant in ways they have never been before.
Ideas such as this are a compelling reason for museum practitioners to read this book. They will find it overflowing with ideas to enliven their collections and programs, and to make their work more relevant, timely and meaningful. As president of the Glenbow, Janes was instrumental in the repatriation of Indigenous belongings to the Blackfoot Confederacy, and the book draws on this and other experiences from his long career to provide practical guidance for embedding reconciliation into museum operations, along with innovative exhibition ideas and suggestions for flattening hierarchical leadership structures. Whether you believe societal collapse is imminent or take a more optimistic view of the future, Janes offers pertinent insights into how we might rethink the role of public institutions in the face of an uncertain future.
On that future, Janes says “hope has little to offer” in the face of rising temperatures and an economic system locked in to fossil fuel production. Still, he writes, “hopeless need not mean helpless. On the contrary, hopelessness is the springboard to helpfulness—supportive, effective and useful.” For those willing to stare the possibility of societal collapse in the eye, the book is a practical roadmap for “what museum practitioners and academics must relinquish and reform if museums are to unlock and steward their inherent force for good.”
Caroline Loewen is a museum curator and writer in Calgary.
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