June 26

I really had no idea what to expect or what exhibits would be at the Tropenmuseeum. As we walked in, the lobby of the museum was filled with school children excited to get their tickets and go explore. I was amazed when we walked up the stairs and entered this sprawling, multi-level space filled with different exhibits. It is unlike any museum I have ever been in. The building was a perfect mix of modern technology and exhibits with beautiful 90 year old architecture. The exhibits ranged from language, to the history of slavery in the Netherlands to and exhibit on Japan. Our guide explained to us that the Tropenmuseeum has made a progressive push to include language that directly addresses slavery and the curation of artifacts from areas like Papa New Guinea. While this had not sat well with all visitors, as a whole, the Dutch people had been very receptive to understanding their colonial history and the trauma they caused through slavery.

The exhibit that immediately caught my eye as soon as we walked in was the climate change exhibit. After working as a sustainability coordinator for a year at North Seattle College and taking a climate change focused Honors class during Winter quarter, I know it is something that is incredibly important to me. The first thing that really struck me is that in museums, we don’t typically see exhibits that are dedicated to modern and very pressing issues as a means to raise public awareness and interest. This exhibit in particular centered around rising sea levels in the Arctic and the impact that it has had on the globe. In the course I took, we learned about how the temperature warms at twice the rate of the equator at the poles, causing the ice to melt faster and creating a positive feedback that increases the warming speed of the planet. These rising sea levels will erode coastal cities where millions of people around the globe live and rising ocean acidification will begin to kill aquatic life as a result of the warming.

Climate change is an issue that we may only have a chance of solving if we are educated and work together as a globe. I think this education in the form of a museum exhibit is somewhat unexpected but in so many ways so much more effective than anything that can be written in a textbook or taught in a course. Hearing stories of people working to combat climate change coupled with undeniable facts laid out in a way that is visually intriguing and powerful is an incredible way to reach an audience with a powerful message. Even though I have spent a lot of time around the issue and receiving education around it, a museum exhibit is the perfect way to reach people of all levels of knowledge around climate change and help tell them why.