ABSTRACT

What role do museums play in elevating the Sixth Mass Extinction Event within public consciousness? How is an increasing awareness of human-made extinctions and global biodiversity loss transforming the representational techniques employed by natural history curators? And what are the prevailing ideologies and emotional registers of contemporary exhibitions about anthropogenic extinctions? This essay answers these questions by analysing how recent natural history exhibitions communicate the Sixth Extinction through the affects of grief, loss and sadness. By unfolding a tripartite analysis, one which brings together natural history curatorial practices, theoretical critique from critical heritage studies and environmental humanities, and anti-institutional activism from groups such as Extinction Rebellion, I make the argument that while these exhibitions have the potential to develop posthumanist practices of curation that disrupt the dominant anthroponormativity of natural history, there remain unresolved questions surrounding their representational reliance on mourning.

摘要

博物馆在提高公众意识范围内的第六次大规模灭绝事件中起什么作用？对人为灭绝和全球生物多样性丧失的日益了解如何改变自然历史策展人所采用的代表性技术？关于人为灭绝的当代展览的主要意识形态和情感记录是什么？本文通过分析最近的自然历史展览如何通过悲伤，失落和悲伤的影响传达第六次灭绝，来回答这些问题。通过展开三方分析，将自然历史策展实践，重要遗产研究和环境人文学科的理论评论，以及 来自灭绝叛乱等团体的反机构行动主义，我提出以下观点：尽管这些展览有可能发展后人文主义的管理实践，从而破坏自然历史的主要人类行为学，但围绕其代表对哀悼的依赖仍存在悬而未决的问题。