The Museum of Climate Stories
The Museum of Climate Stories is project based at the University of Warwick which explores creative and imaginative ways of responding to the unfolding planetary emergency, by encouraging climate action at a local level.
The Museum of Climate Stories is unlike other museums. We don’t have a fixed site and we don’t we have any objects of our own.
Instead, we try to rethink what museum could be by using museum-type practices in a range of locations to tell stories about the places in which we live and work.
We draw attention to our relationships with living and non-living things that share our world. And we promote ways of seeing and thinking that aim to challenge established perspectives.
We do this because human actions are changing our environment. And we feel that attending to local issues is the first step to addressing global problems.
We are currently working on a number of initiatives:
Museum pop-up
In June 2024, we launched our first museum pop-up at the Resonate Festival at the University of Warwick. A team of student volunteers created a walking tour around the Faculty of Arts Building consisting of 6 stops to view our selected museum ‘objects’. These were a spider’s web, a refuse bin, an artwork by Veronica Ryan, a concrete paving slab, an oak tree, and the Delphic Garden. We asked participants to take time and look more closely at these ‘objects’, some of which they may pass every day without noticing them, and to think about the connections between the human and more-than-human world.
Collaborations with artists
In 2025, we have been working with Birmingham-based artist Caitlin Kiely on a commission for the Coventry Biennial. This work aims to use art, storytelling and social engagement to reimagine museums, their structures and functions, by applying a range of lenses to engage and connect with overlooked fragments of a place’s ecology and social history. Updates as the project unfolds can be found here.
Creative practice
As part of the University of Warwick 60th anniversary celebrations, we launched a call for students, staff, alumni and members of the public to submit their stories of encounters with the more-than-human world on our Coventry campus. These stories will be shared online and stored in the University archive, to create a collage of experiences of the space in which we live, work and study. Authors of selected submissions will have an opportunity to work with the Media Lab at the Centre for Culture and Media Policy Studies, to turn their stories into short videos which will be shown on campus.
Get in touch
If you would like to be part of the Museum of Climate Stories, or would like to discuss any project ideas with us, please contact Dr. Jamie Larkin jamie.larkin@warwick.ac.uk